The Others: The First Year

Disclaimer: Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Systems, TV Tokyo and 4Kids Entertainment. All names were changed to the characters of this fandom in order to protect the real people involved in the following incidents.


Chapter 8: The Girl Of My Dreams

Friday, November 11th, 2016

The two weeks between my visits to Atlantis were agonisingly slow. The days seemed to be stretched extra long and the nights lasted forever. The only bright patches I had occurred when I got home and locked myself in my room. There I practiced my magic, bouncing illusionary balls of light off my walls and talking to Sangan in my head. I'd started running back to my house, powering my legs with Combat magic. I could even beat my sister back and she got a ride with some of her friends.

But as my final day at Domino High came to a close, it seemed as if time had decided to give me a break. The day was over before I knew it and I was racing home, practically flying past the people along the sidewalks. I zoomed up the stairs and into my room.

Throwing my bag to the ground, I immediately conjured up my illusionary stars. They twinkled around my room, changing colour from red to blue, from green to yellow, to all the shades of the rainbow. I opened up my laptop and began to read ahead on the material that I would be learning in the next few weeks. I tried to hold the spell for as long as I could, but was interrupted by the obnoxious ding-dong of the doorbell.

The little lights went out one by one and the doorbell rang again. Who the hell was at the door? My family all definitely had keys.

I stocked downstairs, determined to find out the identity of the person who dared disturb me when I was practicing my magic. The bastard was going to –

"Amane?"

My sister was at the door. Her arm was slung over Duke Devlin's shoulder as he supported her weight. Joey Wheeler and Tea Gardner were behind them with what looked like her rucksack.

"Move out of the way, loser," Gardner cried as she pushed me out of her way. Her high-healed boots clicked on the hardwood floor. She turned to my sister and spoke in a sweet tone, "I'm going to go put your back up in your room, okay?"

Amane nodded as Devlin helped her limp into the living room. Wheeler bumped into me as he passed, an arrogant sneer on his face. He wasn't so full of himself before when I scared the pants off of him in the graveyard.

I rushed into the room to see Amane carefully lowering herself onto one of the chairs. Wheeler hovered over her protectively.

"Are you okay?" He asked, "What happened?"

"I don't know," she responded. "We were playing soccer during gym class and I tripped. I was fine for a while, just now…" she trailed off and tried to rotate her ankle. She winced and hissed in pain.

Gardner reappeared from upstairs, completely ignoring my presence as she entered the living room, "Do you think we should, like, go the hospital or something? You look really hurt."

"I want to wait until my parents come home," Amane answered.

"You've probably got a sprained ankle," I said, leaning against the door frame as I made myself known. The four of them turned to me.

"Who the hell asked you, freak?" Wheeler growled.

"Does it matter?" I answered calmly. "Amane's sprained her ankle; she probably did it when she fell. Tore her ligaments, or something like that." I remembered learning this in Health class a few years ago.

Amane looked from me to the people surrounding her, "Do any of you know how to treat something like that?"

I blinked, surprised. She believed me?

Gardner eyes widened, "I remember that class. I skipped it to go make-out with what's-his-face. You know, the guy with the red hair."

I rolled my eyes. How typical off her, not even being able to recall the guy's name.

Devlin and Wheeler were shaking their heads. Amane cringed again, and I bit my lip. I could probably do something. At the very least, I could stop the bruising and help with the 'ouch' factor. But these people were Normals; they had made my life a living hell for the past four years. These were the people that lied and swore at me. They put notes in my locker, picked fights with me, and made me honestly hate my self.

"A life is a life, and Normals are clearly the dominate population on this earth. The chances of you not having to treat one in your lifetime are slim to none." That was what Ishizu told me during our first lesson. And it was in that class that I realized my magic could help people. Maybe…maybe if I did this, they wouldn't be so afraid.

"I..." I started to speak, but the words caught in my throat. I tried again, "I know how to treat a sprained ankle."

Wheeler's jaw dropped, "Did you just say what I think you said, limey? You think we're just going to let you whip out one of your freaky satanic rituals disguised as a cure?"

He really amazed me with his stupidity sometimes, "Well since I'm the only one here that actually paid attention during that First Aid class we had, yeah I think you will."

Wheeler looked ready to punch me, but I looked him dead in the eye. Whatever he saw in those demonic red irises of mine made him back off. I glanced over at Devlin. He swallowed hard, and gave me a nod. I terrified him, like I terrified them all, but even so he trusted me to do this. And that was enough for me.

"Gardner," I growled in my deep voice, leaving no room for argument. "Go upstairs and get a tenser-bandage. They're in the cabinet under the sink in the bathroom."

The girl hesitated for a second before rushing upstairs. Whether it was my tone that made her go or her concern for my sister, I really didn't care.

"Wheeler," this time I addressed the jock. "Go into the kitchen and make up an ice pack. Bring over a dish cloth as well."

As Wheeler ran off, I turned to Devlin, "We're going to have to move her over to the couch. Grab an arm, will you?"

I reached out to Amane, intent on helping her up. She slapped my hand away, "Don't touch me!"

"I'm trying to help you, dumbass," I yelled. "Stop being such an idiot; you're not getting anywhere without my help."

Apparently, Amane had other ideas. She tried to push herself up and hobble across the room. She got about three feet before she fell forward, yelping in pain. I grabbed her before she hit the ground.

"Moron," I told her. "Would it kill you to trust me for once?"

She punched me in the chest, though it was a half-hearted attempt at violence.

With Devlin's help, we moved my sister over to the couch. I propped up her foot on the arm rest. "Remember RICE," the voice of our gym teacher filtered into my mind, "Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevate."

"I'm going to have to take off your shoe," I told Amane. "So it's gonna hurt."

I was as careful as I could, but I still hurt her. "Sorry…sorry," I apologized. "But I did warn you."

Gardner returned with the bandage and I wrapped it around Amane's foot. I applied some Medicine magic to the bruises. They disappeared as I ran my fingers over them.

As Wheeler came back with the ice pack, Devlin snatched it from him and wrapped the towel around it. I laid it on Amane's foot.

"Twenty minutes on. Twenty minutes off. Any more, and it will do more bad then good," I explained. "When mom and dad get back, they'll probably take you to the hospital." I touched her foot one more time, sinking my Medicine magic into her injures to take care of the pain.

I turned to leave, but Amane stopped me, "How the hell did you do that?"

"I told you, I paid attention in that class we had," I answered.

"Not that," she replied. "My foot doesn't hurt at all anymore. All that stuff you did – the ice and the bandages and crap – it doesn't make the pain go away that fast."

My eyes narrowed. What the hell was she playing at?

"I just did what I was taught to do," I said. "Nothing more, nothing less."

And I wasn't lying, really. It was just telling the selective truth. Yeah, that was it.

"What did you do, Ryou? What did you do to my foot?"

My heart stopped. Ryou. Amane called me Ryou. My name…she called me by my name. Ryou – not freak or loser – but Ryou.

For one horrifying moment, I considered telling her everything. That I was an Other; that every month I went off to a school where I learned how to perform magic. That had healed the bruises on her ankle using that power and that I was anything but Normal.

But Wheeler, Devlin, and Gardner were still here. They were staring at me, probably with terror in their eyes and fright in their souls. I couldn't say anything to them. I couldn't tell them who I was.

Even after healing my sister, I was still alone.

"Don't call me Ryou," I said, repeating words that by now had become habit. But there was no feeling behind it. Ryou…she called me Ryou.

I ran up the stairs, leaving my sister and her friends behind. I slammed my door behind me and threw myself upon my bed.

Ryou.

Damn it, of all the horrible and cruel things that Amane had done to me before, this was top of the list. She had acknowledged me, called me by my name, and given me what I had wanted all along. And now that I had it, all I wanted to do was give it back.

Ryou.

She called me Ryou.

Damn it all to hell.


Sunday, November 13th, 2016

I spent the rest of my weekend trying to avoid my sister and her constant questioning. Our parents had taken her to the doctor when they got home on Friday and got her a pair of crutches to walk on. Apparently, the doctor hadn't seen anything like her ankle before. It should have been swollen and purple when he got to it. If it wasn't for the fact that Amane couldn't put her weight on it, he never would have guessed that it was sprained.

Sadly, this only increased the amount of inquiry that I had to face. I hung out in the park mostly, since it was far enough from home and mom wasn't going to let Amane out of her sight until school started. They didn't care about what I did anyways. I could probably die in my sleep and my parents would only notice when the smell of rotten corpse got too much.

However, today was different because today I was going back to Atlantis. Today I was going to return to the world of Others and, hopefully this time, learn some Necromancy. Today I was going to see Marik, Mai, and Mana. Today…I had to get passed my sister who was currently blocking the front door with her body.

"Get out of my way, bitch," I snapped, trying to get around her. "I've got to go. Move!"

"Not until you answer my question!" Amane yelled.

I snarled, "What question? What the fuck do you want with me?"

"What did you do to my foot?" She jabbed me in the knee with one of her crutches, "The doctor said –"

"The doctor said what? What did he say, Amane?" I just wanted to leave, couldn't she ask me this later, "That you're foot is going to be fine in a few days. That you're healing ahead of schedule. That you can go back to making my life miserable for your own shits and giggles!"

She looked like I had slapped her. It made me feel queasy. "Moron, would it kill you to trust me for once?" I repeated the words I had said to her a few days ago, "I didn't do anything bad."

At that moment, Noah decided to turn the alarm on my phone on, alerting me to the fact that I was running late. Amane stared at me, "Since when did you have a cell phone?"

I ducked around her and through the door. Jumping into the fire within me, I bolted up the street as fast as I could. I heard Amane howl in frustration behind me, but I didn't turn back. By the time that I returned here in two weeks, she will have moved on to giving me the silent treatment.

Ducking in between the two strip malls, I opened the PORT application and punched in the KaibaCorp location. Nothing happened for that single instant in time, and then –

Everything's gone black. It's dark, so maybe I've closed my eyes or maybe I haven't. I don't know. And I'm falling. Why am I falling? I just –

I managed to catch myself before I fell on the concrete this time. Landing in a crouch, I picked my self up and headed towards Atlantis.

I met up with Mako in the lift: he had arrived moments before and held the doors open for me.

He gripped my shoulder, "How are you, man? I haven't seen you in ages!"

"As well as can be expected," I answered.

"Is your family giving you a rough time?" He asked.

I grimaced, "I've been trying to be nicer, now that I know that it's the Ward making them act the way they do. It's just…I seem to be making things worse."

Mako nodded, "I know what you mean."

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, not really knowing how to phrase what I wanted to say. He continued on, answering my unspoken question in the process.

"I never knew my mom, and dad and I weren't close at all. During my first year here, I tried to get him to warm up to me."

"Did it work?" I asked, trying to get him to give me some ideas to work on my own family.

"Dunno," Mako replied. "He went out on his fishing boat last year and got caught in a storm. His body washed up on shore a few days later."

"Oh," I didn't know what to say. "I'm sorry."

The lift pinged and the doors opened up. Mako smiled humourlessly, "Don't worry. Like I said, we weren't close."

That didn't mean that he didn't feel anything, I wanted to shout at him as he walked towards his dorm. That didn't mean that he didn't miss his father.

I walked through the hallway towards my room, waving hello to people I knew as I passed. Strings, who was mute, a talented Enchanter, and friend of Mako's, found me at my door. He spoke in my mind and told me that he had seen Marik in the cafeteria with a brown-haired girl. I thanked him and entered the room.

All I did was drop my rucksack on my bed and grab a Pepsi from the mini-fridge, before heading to the cafeteria down the hall. Noise filtered from the open doors and I rushed in.

Mana spotted me first, jumping up and waving at me. Surrounding her was Mai and Marik, who smiled upon seeing me. I spotted Kaiba and Kisara in the corner, Rafeal and his friends in the back, and even Rex and Weevil at the table beside me.

I grinned wildly. I had finally come home.


Monday, November 14th, 2016

"You're choice in weapon," Seto Kaiba paced in front of a desk that had appeared in the middle of our Combat class, "is tailored specifically to your magical needs. If you are naturally a short range fighter, you will be led towards a sword or a knife or a club. Long range fighters might choose a gun or a bow. It doesn't matter how ancient your weapon is, it is how well you master it. Choose carefully and trust your gut. Trust your magic to lead you to the right weapon for you."

The first years moved forward with me towards the tables. On them lay a variety lethal looking instruments. Knives and daggers where on one end, which shifted into swords, whips, staffs, and bows. At the very end were the more modern weapons: pistols, shotguns, and sniper rifles.

I dove into my mind and leapt into the fire. "Take me to it," I asked, "Take me to the weapon that I can use."

My feet started moving.

It was hard to describe what it felt when magic possessed you. You felt like you still had control over your actions, but there was something in the back of your mind telling you to do this, or do that. It wasn't a voice; it was more of a feeling then anything else. And it urged me forward, towards the left end of the tables.

A row of knives were in front of me, shining blades gleaming in the artificial light. I had always liked knives; they were effortless to hide and light to wield. Quick, easy, and simple; my kind of weapon.

I picked a few up to test their weights. Some of them looked like they were from a military excess store. They were wicked sharp and dangerous. Others were switchblades, hiding the deadly metal within the handles. Some looked like they were out of American Civil War museums, more decorative then dangerous.

But only one really caught my eye. Now that I had a closer look at it, the red hilted knife that had been hanging on the wall in my first Combat class was positively ancient. The blade itself was not made of metal, but sharpened stone, the handle wooden and wrapped in red cloth. It was well loved and used, its previous owner had cared for it enough to charm it never to dull or break.

Now, how did I know that?

But there was something else wrong with the knife. It was familiar; I knew that I had seen it before, somewhere. But where…?

My stomach flip-flopped. I had seen this knife in my dreams.

The Mayan girl: when she told me – no, not me…the slave boy who wasn't me, but was at the same time – about the bandit attacks had pulled out this very knife. She had held it to my neck in a fit of rage, threatening me with death. But how was that knife in my hands right now? What was going on?

"If you're done, Bakura," Kaiba's sarcastic voice came from behind me. "I have a lesson to teach."

I hurried back to where the rest of the first years were. Mana appeared to have chosen a police baton, or something like that. In her hands, it looked almost like a black magic wand.

"Your weapon will become an extension of you," Kaiba continued. "I don't ever want to see you without it. Go see what you can do with it; leap into the flame and let it guide you as you learn, until the movements you make become instinctive."

I found a spot on a mat, closer to Marik then I was to Rafael and his giant double-bladed axe of death. Marik was at the firing range, shooting something (I didn't know what they were, but they were definitely not bullets) out of a pair of handguns. I held out my stone knife and summoned my Combat magic.

The first thing that I noticed was the hollow feeling at the end of my hand. I pushed the fire that was running through my body towards that feeling, enveloping it with my presence. "Show me," I asked. "Show me what to do."

My body moved again, a quick jab forward with my knife hand. And then…nothing. I waited for a minute before realizing that I was supposed to repeat the action consciously. I quickly extended my hand, but the speed was wrong and the angle of the blade too low. My body repeated the correct move, and I followed it, making the proper adjustments.

Then it was a slash, from the bottom right to top left. Stabs and cuts and slices followed afterwards. Soon it felt like I was dancing, the red hilted knife was my partner and we duelled against our invisible opponent. I added in the kicks and punches we learned during the previous weeks; leg sweeps and arm locks found their way in as well.

It was the end of class before I knew it. I was red faced and dripping with sweat, but happy with what I had accomplished. I needed practice, but that could come later.

I stared down at the stone knife. Whether or not it was from my dreams, I had a feeling that we would get along famously.

"Keep your weapon on you at all times," barked Kaiba as we walked out of the classroom. "If you don't want to store it in your backpack, find a way to strap it to your person."

The next time I was in Morphing, I vowed, I was making a holster for this.

So I managed to Summon Sangan today.

He looked like a fuzzy pumpkin, all orange and hairy with three yellow eyes that blinked at different times. His stubby green limbs sported wicked claws and his mouth had three rows of sharp teeth. I found him adorable. Mai thought I was insane. I told her the feeling was mutual.

The four of us sat in the cafeteria together, discussing Mai's time with her training master (who spent more time learning from her then actually teaching), when Noah appeared on the screen in the centre of the room. Conversation came to a halt; it was very rare for Noah to actually appear anywhere other then our tablets and mobiles.

"Seto," the program said. "You're…uh…guest is here. She's in the stairwell now."

Kaiba rose to his feet and nodded to Noah. The screen flickered back to ZTV News as the green haired boy left it. The CEO strutted across the floor and out the door.

I blinked, "…the hell was that?"

Marik shrugged before turning back to picking out bits of meat from his stir fry dinner, "Probably something to do with KaibaCorp. He has to keep the business running somehow, right?" He offered me the strips of beef on the side of his plate, "You want any?"

His answer satisfied my curiosity, and we returned to our previous conversation. Gulping down the offered meat, I busied my self by stuffing my face with the food that I had been craving ever since I got here.

And the Kaiba returned, but he wasn't alone. And…oh my god…

It took Mana's slap to my back for me to realize that I was choking. I couldn't believe it. This couldn't be true.

It was her.

She was a few years older then how she appeared in my dreams, landing somewhere around seventeen or eighteen. Her multi-coloured hair was longer, tied up high in an explosively wild ponytail. She wore a black t-shirt and pair of camouflaged-pattern pants. She was short for her age, but her maroon eyes still carried a weight of someone who was older than they looked.

But the resemblance was undeniable: walking next to Seto Kaiba was the girl of my dreams. Literally, of course. Not in some cheesy romantic way.

"Holy shit," cursed Marik. "It's her. It's actually her."

It wasn't until much later that night that I had the courage to enquire about what he meant.

"How do you know her, Marik?" I asked from my bed. The bunk above me creaked as Marik rolled over.

"I don't actually know her," he explained. "But I know of her. Almost every Other does. Or at least, the one's I've talked to do."

"But who is she? Why is she here?" I wanted to know why things from my dreams were walking out into my life.

Marik paused, before answering, "I know her name is Atem. I don't know her last name, or if she even has one. Remember that we learn our history through dreams? Well, every two hundred years or so, she pops up looking the same as she does now. And whenever she does, something big always happens."

"I…I don't understand," I really wish he'd stop being so vague with his explanations. "How can she exist throughout history and not age a day?"

"Because she's cursed, Bakura," Marik looked down from his bunk and stared me in the eye. "Atem committed a terrible crime and was cursed with immortality because of it. I haven't got a clue what the hell she did, but it would have to be pretty bad with that kind of punishment."

He took a deep breath and continued, "Mai told you once that there was only one person that knew the events before the Cut Off: Atem is that person. The only reason why she knows that stuff is because she was born before it occurred."

I mind was racing trying to process the information that Marik had just told me, "But that was," I did some mental math, "twelve hundred years ago."

"Yeah," he said. "Her crime was so great that for twelve hundred years, magic hasn't let up on her sentence. And on top of that, she's had a whole lot of time to practice her powers. Bakura, she's one of the most powerful Others in the history of the world."

"But why is she here, then?" This was way too much, "What is she doing here?"

"I don't know," Marik muttered, his face disappearing as he righted himself on his bed. "But I have the feeling that everything is going to change now."

I tried not to sleep that night, afraid of what would happen if I fell entered my dreams. Because Marik was wrong: there was one other person who knew of events before the Cut Off: me.

Because I dreamed of a young Atem; I dreamed of an Atem before she stopped aging. Somehow, I took the place of a person that she knew when I went to sleep. Apparently I shared some sort of connection with her – a criminal cursed never to age – and that scared me half to death.

Who the hell was she? And for that matter, who the hell was I?


Atem is the last Mayan from the Classical Age on the face of the earth.

Born in the year 882 (according to the Gregorian calendar) to King Acalan and Queen Yaretzi of Tikal, she was a miracle child and a curse all rolled up into one. King Acalan was all but barren and had been unable to father a child for the first twenty years of his reign. When he was notified that his wife was pregnant, it seemed as if the gods had answered his prayers. But Atem was supposed to be a boy and become the crown prince. Imagine the shock when the Healer Shaman announced, "It's a girl!"

And then her hair started to grow out. The originally black 'peach-fuzz' that she had been born with started to turn red at the ends. Gold streaked from her forehead, framing her face and zipping down the back and sides of her head. Queen Yaretzi screamed that Atem was a demon-child and refused to go near her. Eventually, the Queen took her own life to get away from her daughter. Atem was five years old at the time.

Her hair is the colour it is because of how she was born. She has incredible magical abilities; I bet that if someone were to look into her Soul Room, they wouldn't find a camp fire sized flame, but a raging inferno. People have described Seto Kaiba and Solomon Moto as geniuses, but Atem is the one who taught them everything they know. She is potential incarnate.

Unfortunately, her father didn't see it that way. He blamed her for his wife's death and inadvertently started the rumour that Atem was cursed.

Convinced that she was wrong, Atem disguised herself and ran away into the Lower City of Tikal. She lasted three days before a market stall fell on top of her. She was rescued by a ghost-boy with pale skin and white hair.

"You stupid crazy girl," the ghost-boy told her, demonic red eyes blazing. "Watch where you're going. I wouldn't be around to save you next time."

As palace guards dragged her back home afterwards, Atem promised one day to pay that boy back for saving her life. She followed all the news from the city, hoping to hear something about white hair and pale skin.

And so Atem learned about the child-thief that she discovered was named Bakura.


Happy New Year!

I know I'm a little late, but better late than never, eh?

I'd like to thank all the people who reviewed: Blue September, Coolaloo, xxdewdropsxx, EgyptianSoul.88, Akikee, and melvin the magician. You guys are awesome!

So I've finally introduced Atem. She is, of course, the leading lady of this story, but don't expect any romance soon. I want to take their relationship slowly, not rush into it head first. It'll take a while for anything to happen and an even longer time than that for them to get together.

In other news, I've drawn some pictures of Atem. If you want to check them out, the link is on my profile.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment. I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Thanks and enjoy the muffins!

AlcatrazOutpatient