Challenge Name and Number: Duelist, #004
Drabble Title: Still Waiting
Word Count: 496
Warnings (if applicable): Short of a few swear words, nothing. Also, spoilers for Battle City.
Pairings (if applicable):None.
Summary: Seeing Jonouchi lying in the hospital bed, Anzu couldn't help but wonder how long she would be forced to sit, useless, and wait, and how many more people were going to have to be sacrificed just because of a damn card game.
Note: For the Livejournal community, "ygodrabble".
It seemed to be the begin-all, end-all. Pieces of paper-thin cardboard sitting in your hand, falling down against some machine strapped to your arm as monsters appeared out of nowhere and battled in falsified conflicts of supremacy.
A 'game', he had called it. It was just something from America, recently imported to Japan, bearing a resemblance to the many other Collectible Card Games that seemed to plague card stores and hobby shops all over town. The only real difference, it had seemed, was that it was more popular.
Nothing else. Nothing harmful about it at all.
Anzu Mazaki glanced down at the hospital bed, trying to tune the soft sounds of Shizuka's sobbing from her ears, the image of a determined Yuugi (no—the Other Yuugi; though these days it was hard to tell who was who anymore) stalking out the door from her mind, and stared at Jonouchi's slack features.
Nothing harmful. Just a game. Right.
A game where cards were weapons, lives and souls hung in the balance, and everything felt like something straight out of a Shounen Manga, complete with the Big Damn Hero (well, more the shy kid who became the Big Damn Hero via a Magical Puzzle) and his best friend turned Sidekick, with his friends standing on the sidelines and hoping that everything would be okay. Without a deck, you couldn't fight back, and when you couldn't fight back, you had no choice but to watch passively, and cheer on those who could.
Anzu was never very good at being passive.
If there was anything she could do, she'd do it. Cheering, investigating, even listening to the problems of a 3,000 year old Dead Pharaoh and helping him through a midlife crisis. So long as she was able to help her friends, be there for them-
So long as she could do something.
Something other than sitting and waiting, while her friend was on the brink of death.
...Just a card game.
She could feel her hands shaking, fists balling as she tore her gaze away from the bed, forcing herself to stare out the window at the Duel Tower beyond.
Just a card game, but how many people were going to have to suffer for it? Jonouchi, Mai, Yuugi's Grandfather—they'd already received the brunt of the blow. How many more? How many more had to suffer before it was enough—did someone have to die before it all stopped? Or would it keep going, on and on, until there was absolutely nothing left?
...And yet she was forced to do nothing. All she could do was wait, and watch for the inevitable conclusion through the window, feet upon feet upon a few miles away.
All over a card game.
A stupid card game.
Anzu swore, if those idiots she called her friends ever tried to enter a gathering that had anything to do with this stupid game, she'd knock them out and drag their unconscious bodies away from the prospect herself.