Chapter Three (Trouble in Paradise)

I felt as though the world had come to a sudden, bone-jarring stop. This can't be real, I thought as I stared at that cursed piece of metal swaying against Amane's chest. I'm not seeing this. I'm not seeing this!

One of the students who had left the choir room before her stumbled and knocked their shoulder against mine. I barely registered their mumbled apology. I didn't even notice whether it had been a guy or a girl. I couldn't have noticed—I felt as though I couldn't even breathe. All I could do was stare at the Millennium Ring feeling ill.

"What are you doing here, big brother?" she asked.

Her voice was exactly as I remembered it. It was so familiar it hurt. I half-expected her to start singing the national anthem. Just like in my dream, I thought.

"You don't look well," she said. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Amane," I said. My voice sounded tinny, like an old recording playing through an ancient radio. "Mother asked me to pick you up after school today."

"Oh," she sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" I queried as we started off down the hall together. "Why are you sorry?"

"I told her not to worry about not being able to come and get me today so she made you come all the way out here instead."

"It's really no trouble at all," I assured her.

"Yes, but I'm not a little kid anymore—I'm fifteen years old!" she scowled. "I could make it home on my own."

"Oh…." I didn't know what to say beyond that. Amane had never gotten on well with our mother. It seemed that had not changed.

Her eyes went wide. "I'm sorry; that didn't come out the way I meant it to! It's not like I'm not happy to see you!"

"That's all right. Er…how was your choir rehearsal?"

If my sweet sister had one fatal flaw, it was that she absolutely loved to talk about her accomplishments as a singer. I was sure that if anything could take her mind off whatever argument she had had with our mother, it was that. Sure enough; her face seemed to light up at the question and she happily began to tell me all about the program for their next concert.

I wanted to listen and savor every word, but my attention kept drifting back to the Millennium Ring. Now that the initial shock of seeing it around her neck had passed, I was angry. Even though I knew the spirit inside couldn't read my thoughts, I found myself thinking, How dare you follow me here? Why must you ruin everything?

The whispering—had Amane already started to hear it? Had she already started having the blackouts? If she had already come into contact with Yugi (and the Puzzle, I thought. Let's not forget about that), she must have.

It wasn't fair. It was so very, very unfair. How had the spirit seduced its way into her mind? What had it promised her? How many lies had it had to tell before she started listening? How much misery had she already endured?

I no longer cared about pretending I was a part of this new reality. I wanted—needed—answers, no matter how strange my questions might sound.

"Amane, where did you get that necklace?" My mouth tripped over the word 'necklace.' It felt wrong to talk about the horrible thing as though it was a harmless bauble.

She trailed off in the middle of her monologue and the skin between her eyebrows puckered into a crease. "Don't you remember?"

I smiled. "Refresh my memory."

The crease between her eyebrows deepened. "I got it from you."

My heart slammed to a halt. "From me? I—I gave you…?"

"Father sent it all the way from Egypt for your birthday, but it ended up arriving so late it was closer to my birthday. I thought it was interesting so you gave it to me as an early birthday present."

"And you've worn it every day since," I faintly said.

"That's right."

I felt a scream well up in the back of my throat. Seeing the Ring around her neck had been bad enough but knowing that I was responsible for its being there was one of the most painful things I had ever experienced.

We had reached a bridge. I wobbled over to the railing and leaned against it for support, staring down at the murky, fast-flowing creek below.

Amane's voice seemed to come from far away: "Big brother? Are you all right?"

I couldn't answer. My throat was tight and my nose and eyes were burning. I was sure that if I opened my mouth I would be sick. I'm sorry, Amane, I thought. I'm so very, very sorry!

I felt a hand on my shoulder. One of her hands. "You've been acting strange all day. What's wrong? You can tell me."

I didn't want to look away from the rippling, brown water below. I didn't deserve to look at her. I managed to swallow down the lump in my throat to croak, "Amane…can I see that necklace?"

A sudden gust of wind swept my hair into my face. Some of it got into my eyes and stung, but I didn't brush it away. Amane was quiet until the wind died down. Then: "Why?"

It was only one word, spoken so softly she might not have said it at all, but there was a harshness that had crept into her voice that was enough to make ice creep down my spine. I turned around to face her—and had to strangle back a scream.

The differences were so subtle even I wouldn't have noticed them if I hadn't known what to look for. Anybody else would have attributed the slightly disheveled hair to the wind. It would have been easy to pretend that the reason her eyes were suddenly so sharp and cold was that she was irritated with me for acting so strangely. I knew better.

I acted without thought. It felt as though my hand belonged to somebody else as it shot out, snatched the Ring and gave it a yank strong enough to snap the old leather thong it hung on. The spirit seemed just as shocked by my actions as I was—all it did before I severed its connection to Amane was widen its hate-filled eyes.

The Ring was warm in my hands. I didn't know whether this was because it had been resting against Amane's chest or whether it was because it was that way all on its own. The dangling spikes clinked against each other with a sound that was closer to a hiss than the sound of metal against metal. I did the only thing I could think of: I tossed it into the stream and watched as it floated away; a pale speck of gold that seemed to glow in the brown water.

Amane stirred beside me as though coming out of a dream. "Big brother? Were you saying something?" A pause, then: "Oh no; what happened to my necklace?"

"It fell into the creek," I immediately replied. Even if she already had some inkling of the truth, I couldn't bear to explain what I had done and why I had done it. "You were leaning out over the railing. I was showing you something—a…a carp. The string broke and it fell."

"Oh," she whispered. And then, to my surprise, she burst into tears.

"Amane, are you—"
"I'm sorry!" she sobbed. "Y-you gave it to me, even though I could tell it m-meant a lot to you, coming from father, and I lost it so c-carelessly!"

I shook my head. "You look much better without it."

"B-but—"

"I'm serious. It didn't suit you at all."

"Really?"

"Yes; really. Now let's get home before mother worries."

We started across the bridge, but then she grabbed my arm and sniffled, "Wait; shouldn't we at least try to look for it?"

"No!" I winced. The word had come out much more forcefully than I'd intended it to. I amended my tone and added, "I saw it get washed downstream—we would never find it."

She looked down at the ground. "I…I guess you're right. I'm sorry."

"Please don't be sorry. You were saying earlier that you wanted to try out for a solo….?"

"Y-yes," she sighed.

"Tell me more about that."

She nodded and resumed her narrative, but all of the energy had gone out of her words and she didn't take her eyes off the ground. By the time we reached the station, she'd gone quiet and we passed the train ride home in silence. I felt terrible for upsetting her, but I knew beyond any sliver of doubt that this situation was preferable to the alternative.

When we got home, she went to help mother prepare dinner without a single complaint—something I could not remember her ever doing before. My mother seemed just as surprised as I was ("Are you feeling all right, honey?") but didn't hesitate to put her to work chopping potatoes. I offered to help, but they only laughed as though I had told a hilarious joke.

"Go to your room and start on your homework if you want to do something productive," my mother gasped through her laughter. "We have everything under control here."

I left the kitchen and started down the hall to my room feeling slightly miffed. I just wanted to help, I thought as I opened the door to my room and stepped inside. They didn't need to laugh at me for—"Oh…oops."

Instead of my room, I was standing in a room that was decorated in shades of lavender. In one corner, there was a small computer with a Winnie the Pooh screensaver and posters of pop singers were hanging on the walls. There was a bookshelf crammed with books, most of which were probably romance novels judging by their pastel bindings.

This must be Amane's room, I realized. How on earth did I end up in here?

I noticed a bulletin board that was plastered with pictures of people who must have been Amane's friends. I didn't know most of them, but I saw a few pictures of Yugi, Jounouchi, Anzu, and Honda there. I also saw a Polaroid picture of her and me playing together in a sandbox. It was so old the colors looked bleached.

My lips crooked up into a smile, but I couldn't help feeling a bit guilty. These are her private things, I thought. I shouldn't be in here prying around.

I started back towards the door, but then I noticed something that stopped me in my tracks. I scanned the room once more just to be sure that I had not overlooked anything. There was not a single Monster World figurine to be seen.

What does that mean? I wondered as I backed out of the room and shut the door behind me. Has the spirit been inactive all the while she was wearing the Ring?

I frowned. Somehow, I found it difficult to believe that the spirit would allow two years to pass without stirring up some sort of trouble.

Did she somehow manage to resist him? But I was so sure of what I saw on the bridge—and why would she have transferred to Domino High? The spirit must have done something…but if he didn't trap people's souls in Monster World figurines…. "What did he do?" I whispered.

My mother's suggestion to "do something productive" in lieu of helping to prepare dinner no longer seemed quite so irksome. I hurried to my room and turned on my laptop, pacing the room as it worked through its startup sequence. The moment my Change of Heart desktop blinked to life, I connected to the Internet and went to the homepage for the Asahi Newspaper.

I clicked on the "Search Archives" button and considered a moment before entering in "Bakura." I silently thanked God that my family name was an uncommon one when thirty-four results popped up on the screen. Most of the results were articles about my father's museum, although there were a few about the accident which my mother and sister had apparently survived. There was only one article that had nothing to do with neither the museum nor the accident, and the headline was "Amane Bakura Takes Top Honors at Prefecture Music Contest."

I was tempted to click on that last headline and read more about my younger sister's achievement. I clicked the back button instead. I'll read it later; after I find what I'm looking for, I promised myself.

I wasn't sure what keywords to use after the search page reloaded. I should have known it wouldn't be as simple as looking up our name, I thought. There were always articles in the paper when one of my friends fell into a coma, but they never included my name in any of them. I finally settled on the words "student" and "tragic." After a moment's thought, I limited the results to show articles between the current date and two years prior.

There were so many articles that came up in response to those words I was left wondering if there was a single student in Japan who had not suffered through a newsworthy tragedy. With a sigh, I began to wade through the pages of headlines.

I spent all afternoon sifting through morbid headlines like "Shocked Kanagawa Prefecture! 3 Students Dead; 19 Injured" and "Student Drowns on School Trip." By the time I was ready for bed, I had created a list of about fifty articles that reported on incidents that had happened in our prefecture. Unfortunately, the most I was able to read of them beyond the headline was the first line of text. Beyond that, an oil-slick polite message encouraged me to "Read the rest with a monthly membership fee—starting as low as 2500 yen a month!"

I suppose I'll have to go to the library tomorrow and check their archives, I thought as I crawled into bed. Good thing I wrote down all the publish dates.

I closed my eyes and I must not have been asleep long enough to dream because the next thing I remember is a voice saying, "Wake up, big brother."

With my mouth full of sleepy fuzz, I mumbled, "Amane?"

Before I was able to clear the sleep from my eyes, I was jerked out of bed and shoved up against the wall with a pair of slim hands wrapped tightly around my neck. I tried to cry out, but the sound stuck in my throat and came out as a dry gag. Even in the dark room, I could see the glint of gold well enough to recognize the Millennium Ring hanging from my sister's neck.

"Did you really think you could get rid of me that easily, boy?"

I grunted as those hands, those smooth, dainty hands shook me hard enough to snap my head back against the wall. Then two thumbs were pressing into the middle of my throat. I could feel my throat constrict under the pressure. My mouth gaped open and sucked for the air, but nothing could get past the pinch in my throat.

She—no; the spirit. I refuse to connect my sister to that beast. The spirit loomed so close I could feel its breath on my face. "I am only going to say this once, so listen very carefully, mortal. You cannot protect this girl. You cannot get rid of me. I have waited thousands of years for this chance, and I have no intention of allowing anybody to stand in my way. If you attempt another stunt like that, I will kill you."

Its face curled into a cruel smirk. "Or perhaps I should say your beloved sister will kill you. And she will live the rest of her life knowing that her dear brother died a horrible death at her own hands."

It released me from its chokehold and I tumbled to the ground, smashing my face against the headboard of my bed on the way down. I couldn't stop coughing and it hurt against my raw throat and I was dizzy and oh, God a foot on my chest told me that the spirit was still there, hovering over me, watching.

"My, my. It appears as though I've forgotten how fragile you mortals are. But no matter. You'll live. For now."

That twisted parody of my sister's face hovered into view again. "Consider this your first and only warning, boy," said the voice that was hers and not hers and dear God it was his. And then it was gone.

Author's Notes: Only one more chapter to go! Look for it in a couple of days. Reviews and constructive criticism are always greatly appreciated.

Thanks to pride1289, horseygurl, Ryou VeRua, and Doodle Sketch for all of your encouraging reviews!