A/N: Written for the GX Bingo, the Non-Flash Version at the Duel Monsters Writing Academy, prompt #122 – Camula.
A Ghost of a Vampire in the Dark World
The Dark World had a lot of ghosts, Juudai realised. Lots of reminders. Lots of things that had died – and yet refused to die.
He wandered, seeing one reminder after another. The duel disks that looked like Academia-issued ones were the first, and the harshest of them. But there were other things as well. Four ducks drinking quietly in a stream. He knew without a doubt it was those four his friends had been riding before their capture. And the graveyards. All patterns of disks, tied crudely to posts. People who'd gone down fighting. People who'd just wanted a little light in this dark world.
And then there were the monsters.
He'd never wished he hadn't played a duel as much as he did now, seeing all those monsters. A Jetroid that wasn't Shou's. A Cyber Tutu that wasn't Asuka's. A Masked Dragon that wasn't Manjyoume's. Or maybe they were. They looked at him disinterestedly and passed him. He was no friend to them. Or no longer.
If they'd swooped from the sky and attacked him, he would have deserved it.
And then there were the other monsters. Monsters in his memories. In his nightmares. Different memories. Different nightmares. Different wounds.
Old wounds he thought he'd closed long ago, but had somehow opened up.
Like how he remembers a black dragon falling into the lava, screaming as it burned. Like how he remembered hands reaching out of white shadows to grasp an equally white form, her soul –
Vampire Lady smirked at him and he stiffened. She did not ignore him like the rest.
He stopped walking. Her smirk widened. He saw the glint of white teeth in her mouth. Her red nails slowly unfolding.
Would she be the one to strike him, he wondered? The one who would draw blood in penitence – or whatever the reason behind her interest in him was.
It could be perfectly innocent. They had, before, passed many a spirit who would strike any human with a duel disk…or any human at all.
It could be something else.
Then Vampire Lady dropped her cloak and came closer, and he was reminded of the vampire mistress even more strongly. They weren't the same…he thought. They might have been. He wasn't the best and judging appearances, judging character. He'd mixed up that boy for Johan after all. And that boy had paid the price for his mistake.
His friends had almost paid the price for that mistake as well. And they'd paid a very heavy one the next –
Her nails caressed his cheek and cut the thought off. He was grateful. Guiltily grateful. He didn't want to remember. He'd put all their lives at risk in that duel too. Put his faith in a trinket he hadn't known would work.
A small voice at the back of his mind reminded him it was Fubuki's words that made him trust that – Fubuki, Asuka's brother and whom she'd shed so many tears for. But the rest of him had forgotten that: forgotten it all in a haze of loss and betrayal.
Vampire Lady's lips curled even further. 'You would make a good soldier,' she said.
He laughed. He wasn't even sure why he laughed. 'I assure you I would make a poor one.'
'No.' She drew even closer, both hands now on his face, staring deeply into his eyes. He did not pull back, nor did he return the favour. His eyes felt large and empty to him right then – and, perhaps, they looked the same to her. 'A vampire's bite will make any living shell an immortal servant. And it is far simpler when the shell doesn't have a burning soul to occupy it.'
That seemed like an important point. Then it clicked for him: the dolls. Why Camulla had removed their souls: Chronos', and Kaiser's. She'd needed the bodies, emptied of will, at her beck and call.
It sounded frightening. But a dull sort. And hollow. Too hollow.
But when she opened her mouth, to reveal the glimmering white teeth within, something flickered.
His head suddenly spun. He blinked. Everything seemed brighter. Too bright. And she, Vampire Lady, had drawn away. 'You…' she hissed, then her expression of shock became sullenness. 'Pass me by, then. I'll look upon others to have my revenge.'
He thought he still saw fear in her eyes when he passed her. Fear…and something else.
He tried to remember. Who's eyes, recently, had he seen look like that? Bronn's? Asuka's? Fubuki's? Kenzan's? Manjyoume's?
Thoughts of more ghosts that followed him as he continued wandering.