Interruption:
He tries to add his own carvings to the wall, but he has nothing to carve with. He cannot leave a mark on this tomb he inhabits. He wonders where the marks came from if not from him. And if they are ancient, is he ancient too? But he cannot be ancient, not when he feels like a child stepping into the world, not when everything is new and growing, not when he has left no mark.
But the boy's world is different from his tomb.
There is a new opponent. A child. The child wears a face covering, but he is outlined in white. White like dragons. He has seen it before.
The child calls for revenge, but he hears justice. The child calls for a battle, but he hears help. The child blames him for a brother's fall, but he can see the blame dragging heavy from the child's shoulders.
He accepts the child's challenge. He feels the unease that is not his and pushes it gently aside. He is calm. He is certain.
In this world, perhaps he can make a mark. In this world, perhaps he has something to carve with.
At first, the child does not hear him. But he is patient. He places cards, defeats monsters in puffs of air that mean nothing. There is no heart on the field in this game, no heart in the attacks and barricades. Instead, there is a heart struggling and a heart soothing.
And he wasn't sure until now that he had a heart, but there it is, surging strongly behind the pyramid around his neck. It carries light through his structure in a way he has never felt before, in a way that makes him a little more certain that the solid ground beneath his feet is real. That more in this world is his than just a game.
To this moment, he has always used the boy's words, the boy's appearance, the boy's knowledge. Now he tests out his own. His tongue is abuzz with newness; the awareness is sharper than ever.
And now the child hears him. The cloaking blame begins to fade, raising the child's shoulders, raising his eyes, raising his head. The white carves an upturned mark of hope on the child's face.
The first evidence in the world that is his.
Each experience was a little different for me, but as time passed from that first experience with Kaiba, I noticed a pattern I couldn't deny; the haze was getting clearer, crisper. What was at first a fog I could barely pull impressions from, soon became a light mist I could easily see through if I peered hard enough. And most of the time, I didn't want to. But sometimes I took a peek.
When I did, I would see myself dueling. Only it wasn't me. What had once been a blurred feeling of incompleteness had now become a distinct impression of separateness. Two versions of me, and one that was getting farther and farther away each time it reappeared.
The gaze from the puzzle had become almost constant. Sometimes I wondered if it might suddenly speak to me. I didn't know what I would do if it did, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Maybe I should have taken it as a warning; maybe I should have been more alarmed. But the more the feeling of distinctness grew, the more the haze cleared, the more the fear shrank back. The more I felt like myself.