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Chapter Three

Scarlet Rings: Limitations

Limitation: 1) Something that limits; restriction. 2) The act of limiting or the state of being limited.

Limit: 1) A point or line beyond which something ends or cannot go. 2) The boundary surrounding a certain area. 3) The greatest amount of something allowed. 4) To place a limit on; confine.

Silence echoed loudly throughout the auditorium in which the students of all classes occupied. From the spotlessly white floor to the high dome-shaped ceiling, nothing other than the breathing of the students could be heard. Inhale and exhale. The semi-automatic function seemed as though it were an impossible task; as though breathing were like truing to fill a lake using a bucket full of holes. In the silence students trembled, all eyes opened wide with anticipation and fear. Fear had the strength to cripple even the loudest of voices and cut even the longest of tongues to shreds, and at the moment fear was at the peak of its strength.

Students at Duel Academy waited anxiously for their row to be called towards the center of the circle platform covering most of the floor span. Many sat with dread, others with confidence, and others -Jaden for instance- sat completely worry free. Jaden sat in the seat second to Chazz's left, in between Chazz and himself sat Jaden's boyfriend Syrus Truesdale. Unlike Jaden's seated calm, Syrus shook just like the other students, if not then more. Chazz sat cross-legged in his seat while lazily watching as more than half of the school's population seemed no different than that of a victim in a horror movie.

"How come people are so wound up?" Jaden asked as his brown eyes surveyed a pale student shaking as they held their hand out towards a man whom sat at a small glass table in the middle of the circle platform. "Isn't this just some sort of check up or something?"

Chazz rolled his eyes at the other's naivety while scoffing. He crossed his arms over his chest, the fabric of his attire rustling slightly with the action.

"How stupid are you?" The black-haired teen asked Jaden with a frown.

"It's the ceremony of limitations," Jaden's sky color haired boyfriend quickly spoke; hopping that Jaden would just ignore Chazz's less than necessary comment.

"'Ceremony of Limitations'?" Jaden repeated the words with confusion, looking into Syrus's gray orbs as it to silently ask the other to further explain his words.

"Don't you pay any attention in class?" Chazz intervened.

"I pay about as much attention in class as you do during math lessons," Jaden smiled at Chazz, satisfied when Chazz glared at him. He'd obviously won that battle of words. It didn't take a genius to see that Chazz wasn't doing as well as he could in math. Chazz claimed that the class bored him to death, but Jaden held his suspicions..."So Sy, what were you saying?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah! The ceremony is a requirement for everyone who lives in Neo-Domino. Limitations are given to those who have the potential to become...a threat," Syrus answered Jaden's question, his voice dripping to a near whisper as he finished the last two words. To him, the idea of even saying more than a vague expression of what the "treat" actually meant sent a shiver of fear prickling up his spine and back down again.

"Well that hardly seems like any fair!" Jaden expressed his opinion with raised arms and furrowed eyebrows, a scowl of disapproval on his face. "Just because someone has more power than someone else does not mean that the powerful one should be held down! I mean, I'm all for equality and all, but without anyone stronger than you, how can anyone expect to get any stronger?"

"What are you talking about?" A student the three had never seen before interfered, resting on his knees in order to look into the faces of the three talking teens. With a smile twitching slightly as it was trying to hide the confusion and curiosity the boy felt, he sat in eager anticipation of the next words to flee any one of the three boy's lips.

Jaden, Chazz, and Syrus were surprised, their surprise evident in their wide eyes and their rigid bodies. A slight grunt from Chazz showed his anger towards the nosy teen seated in the row of chairs. What was the matter with society now? Didn't people know how to mind their own damn business?

Chazz rolled his dark colored eyes as he exhaled loudly. He sat in a lazy posture while holding the uncerimonial note, showing the other boy his irritation. The boy, in turn, smiled wider, and the annoying twitch at the side of his lips increased from the strain. Obviously no, not all people minded their own business. Great.

"Why are you in our conversation anyway?" Chazz snapped more so at the annoying twitch in the boy's smile than at the boy himself. The nervous twitch agitated him greatly. To Chazz it seemed as though for every one twitch of the nosy boy's upper lip there was two twitches of annoyance from his own right eye. "Turn around!" Or stop that annoying twitching!

"Aw, come on Chazz!" Jaden smiled, "He just wants to know what's up!"

"Fine," Chazz found himself replying, "I'll personally tell him."

Chazz felt fear. Immense fear. It was the type of fear of being lost in a crowd as a child, or even the fear of losing someone close to you. No, this can't be right! What am I saying? Chazz thought rapidly. He wanted to ask for someone to help him because at this moment he couldn't help himself. It felt as though he were out of his body; as though he were only seeing through his own eyes, and not acting through his own body. Chazz watched as his body leaned forward, so close to the boy seated in front of him, and placed his lips not far from the other boy's ear.

"I hate that twitch." Chazz heard himself whisper to the other, "It bothers me." Chazz felt his arms rise from the back of the chair he used to support his leaned position. Slowly, with a calm that was only given to a severely injured person, Chazz felt the warm skin of the other's cheeks with the palm of his hands. As if he were whispering calm words instead of the haunting tone he had as he spoke, Chazz heard himself continue to speak.

"The twitching should stop; it doesn't go well with your smile. I like your smile, really I do, but he...him...he thinks that twitch of yours is annoying. Perhaps we should stop that. Yes, we should. I know the perfect way to stop it. I'll just rip the muscles out of your face! Yes, that's what I'll do! I'll sew the corners of your mouth up into the pretty smile that you have. Won't that be adorable? I think so. The beautiful smile held up by the pain of wire. That is truly beautiful. After all, beauty and pain are practically hand in hand. Don't you agree?"

Chazz could feel the boy's fear in the palm of his hands. Chazz could feel the boy tremble as the words took their effect. He boy's hot breath puffed on his cheek at a slowly increasing rate, and his skin started to become sweaty. With disgust Chazz acknowledged that he could actually taste the salty liquid of fear that soaked the boy's skin, and the fact that his body seemed to enjoy that taste disgusted him even further. Whatever this force was that was making him do these things seemed to really enjoy the sweat of panic, the trembles from horror, and the breathing and heart rate of pure heart-stopping fear.

"I want this fear..."

Chazz winced as he heard the foreign voice whisper in his mind. It wreaked malice and evil intentions. Whomsoever it was, he didn't know. What was actually happening to him?

What are you?

"Take this fear…"

Who are you?

"Take his life!" The voice boomed in Chazz's head, causing pain to throb within every inch of his mind.

His mouth opened in a mute scream, his eyes clenched tightly as his hands clutched desperately at the sides of his head. Chazz bent forward as he shook, his breath coming in slowly and heavily.

What…what was that?

"Chazz?" the whisper of a worried Syrus reached his ears, the soft patting of Syrus's hand on his back slowly bringing Chazz back down to earth from his painful mental attack.

As if he were being drenched under a cool flow of crystal clear ice water. The burning sensation of the yelling voice dissipated into next to nothing. The horrifying sensation Chazz burned with to attack the trembling, pale boy seated before him was nothing more than a dull throb echoing through his skin. The small circle of soft pats began to cool Chazz into a soft, almost dream-like state. It felt as though Chazz were slipping away from reality, and it was this calm was a contrast between what the feeling did to his mind and what it did to his body.

Stop it! Chazz yelled mentally, afraid of the sickly sweet feeling of the cool relaxation. The burning was something he had grown close to. As long as the scarlet red ring around his wrist was there, Chazz was given pain. He lived with the pain and, as twisted as it may have come off towards anyone who heard him, Chazz actually began to like the pain. But Syrus, the way he illuminated the darkness of pain with nothing more than a few pats of his hand upon his back, it was…it was… I'm afr…

"Get off!" Chazz shrugged Syrus's hand off of his back and sat into an upright position.

"Are you feeling okay?" Syrus asked Chazz, his gray eyes glittering with obvious concern.

"I'm fine," Chazz replied, shaking his head from side to side to clear his mind.

"Chazz? What color are your eyes?" Jaden asked Chazz, staring into the taller teens eyes with scrunched eyes that held a look of confusion and wondering.

"They're pink!" Chazz snapped sarcastically, rolling his eyes at the stupid question he was just asked.

"No…No, they're not. Your eyes, they look darker than that."

"Really?" Chazz asked with a tone heavy with sarcasm.

"Yeah," Jaden replied in a tone of utter seriousness, "They look kinda like bl—"

"Excuse me!" Jaden was interrupted by a person at the end of their row of seats who held a clipboard in his hand, "But it's your turn to go up to the platform."

Chazz stood from his seat and walked down the stairs towards the pure white platform that decided whether of not he would receive a limiter.

A limiter wasn't what Jaden thought it was. A limiter did not restrain someone, but rather it restrained something. No, wait. That was a wrong assumption. The limiter did restrain the powers of some of the people who had received them, Chazz had known two who currently had the golden devices donned upon them, but it was really for their own protection. Yes, this is true, because those two, especially tie elder, was a threat to himself and the people around him. But no, Chazz was not his own threat. Really, he wasn't. He was just going forward to have his future looked into, to see if he were the forbidden child.

The forbidden child or "the one whom should be forgotten" was the unlucky child who harbored the soul of the most feared person to ever have stepped upon the plain of humankind. The unfortunate child was given a special limiter heavy with divine magic and stained with the blood of the Queen of Alezeia. It was said that the heavily enchanted limiter was the only thing that could hold back the demon.

"But, you know Chazz, there are more ways to hold back the demon."

The addressed boy was snatched out of his thoughts by the new voice. The one to snap Chazz back into reality smiled, his dark purple eyes crinkled in a sort of given yet forced affection.

"How do you know my name?" Chazz questioned, his voice high and loud with suspicion.

"Chazz, I know a lot of things about you," the strange man spoke to Chazz, his voice deep and rich with secrets. The man was very pale and skinny, almost as if he had never seen daylight or any hint of the outside world in a very ling time. His hair was two different colors, a bold streak of silver-white was in the front of his hair, and the rest of his hair was a rich blue. The stranger dressed in white sat at the clear glass table, his slender fingers shuffling the long rectangular tarot cards. "I know your past, and we'll soon know your future."

Chazz's dark eyes squinted at the man as his hands shuffled the face down cards on the table.

"You don't believe in my abilities," The man stated as fact.

"Who would?" Chazz replied, glaring at the man across the table from him.

"If you do not believe in me," the seated man began, his hands rising from the tarot cards, "then I won't force it, at least, not yet."

"What--?"

"Just know, Chazz, that you and all that surround you…well, you'll soon find out."

The pale man stood from his glass seat, his earrings chiming from the movement, with a smile on his face. He made a quick grab for Chazz, grabbing his wrist. Chazz gasped from the tight grip.

"If you won't let me, then you'll bring you and all those around you into an early grave," the purple eyed man whispered to the teen, his words spoken in a tone of almost casual conversation less than a warning. "But when you're ready to admit to the truth, just come to me."

"Fat chance!" Chazz replied in a harsh whisper, the tingling, burning sensation that once eluded him now renewing.

The pale man released Chazz and walked away, a smirk on his face. He knew Chazz would react the way he did, for Chazz was a difficult one. But in due time, he will come…

Chazz watched as the man walked away from him, a glare fixed on the back of the unknown man's head. He didn't agree with the other man, but for some unknown reason, Chazz felt as though he should have listened to the other man. With each step the adult male took away from him, Chazz sank deeper and deeper into a feeling of fear and regret. Maybe, just maybe, he should not have let the other man walk away.