Chapter 9: Tension

Day by day, week by week, Atem went through the routine. Get up at dawn, drag himself out to the clearing, train with Yusei for an hour, train some more, screw up a lot, get yelled at a lot, go to bed.

It hadn't all been horrific really, Atem had been improving and he wasn't at so much of a threat for being kicked out, but there was always that niggling thought at the back of his mind that kept him from slacking off, for he knew he wasn't out of the clear just yet. It seemed odd to him, how previously his blood would boil if Yusei had even been in his sight, but now he spent pretty much his entire day with the guy, not that it was his choice. He could tolerate the cadet and his friends on a day to day basis. Sharing a cabin with the three teens sure made his days a bit more interesting though, it seemed that Jack and Crow's antics would never cease to amaze him.

Another new event that had happened recently was that after weeks of being adamant that he wanted to sit alone, Atem had finally joined the group at their table in the eating hall. Jack and Crow had warmed up to him considerably, and though he didn't really say anything during their meal, Yusei was just happy that he was there, for it was more progress. Atem had been having some very good progress actually, from what Yusei saw. He had more balance and was getting better at using his gear, though he still held his swords too tight, almost like a lifeline. No matter how many times Yusei had hammered that into him, Atem hadn't quite picked up on it yet. Perhaps it was a little more than simply remembering though.

Despite the progress he had been making though, Atem felt like the last week had just been two giant steps back. He could list all the things that had gone wrong in his head, and he would go over it all while in his bed trying to go to sleep. Well, that was the first problem. Although he hadn't had a decent sleep at all in a very long time, it seemed that his nightmares and restless thoughts had been receding over the last few weeks, and he had been content. That is, until it came back to bite him out of his somewhat decent sleeping schedule. He could still see the images flash behind his eyelids every time they closed, and he dreaded the thought that they would haunt him forever.

"Atem! Atem where are you?!"

Fear was coursing through his chest as the familiar, distraught voice called out to him, and Atem jerked his head in every direction, searching for its owner. All he could hear was people screaming, his eyes only catching terrified faces running in every direction.

"Mother!" He called out frantically, "Anzu! I'm here! Where are you?!" The ground was shaking with the pounding footsteps of titans as Atem began to run, desperately trying to find his family. Then, another voice.

"Atem!" It was Duke, his face pale with fear as he ran from a titan, its feet thumping along the ground behind him. Atem called out to his friend, but then a sound from behind him. Anzu.

They were all calling his name, all screaming for help. His family, his friend, strangers. There was so much screaming he couldn't hear his own thoughts. He desperately tried to run over to Anzu, but he was too slow, a titan had picked her up and was bringing the screaming girl towards its mouth, as she dropped a familiar stuffed doll onto the ground. The same was happening to Duke, and his parents, but he couldn't do anything to stop it. All he could do was stand and watch as everyone he knew was devoured.

He cried out to them, but silence cut through the air as the titans receded, off to find more humans to devour. That's when Atem saw the doll. With shaking hands, he lifted it up off of the ground, as silent tear drops stained its pale pink dress.

Then, blood. So much blood. The town was gone and he was suddenly drowning in it. Where was Anzu's doll?! He didn't have time to think as the blood began to rise, and he struggled to stay afloat. He cried out for help, but nothing came. Everyone he knew was gone, there was no refuge, and he soon felt his lungs giving out as he drowned.

"Atem!"

The teen flew up into a sitting position, his eyes wide and sweat dripping from his forehead. Wild eyes stared up at blue ones, as he realised that Yusei was grappling his shoulders, his eyebrows creased in worry. Atem's hand was pressed against his chest as he tried to regain breath, the last of his nightmare flooding to the back of his mind to haunt him later. He could feel his heart hammering through his shirt as he gripped the material like a lifeline.

"It was just a dream," Yusei murmured, staring at Atem intently as the teen finally began to calm down.

"Just..." Atem breathed, closing his eyes for a moment. "A dream. A dream." He repeated it to himself as he tried to force away his fear, willing the terrible thoughts to leave him. As soon as he was able to think coherently again though, he suddenly jerked back from Yusei, who had still been holding his shoulders. The other teen looked quite confused, as he raised an eyebrow but took the hint, moving back from where he knelt beside the bed. Atem then proceeded to pull his blanket back up over himself-despite the sweat covering his brow- as he rolled over to face the wall. "Go back to sleep," he finally murmured, though he could still feel his heart thumping hard and fast in his chest.

Yusei was dumbfounded. One minute he had been woken by Atem thrashing around and calling out for someone named Anzu, and then after waking him and seeing how distraught he really was, the teen had just seemed to...snap out of it. Or force it down more like. "But, are-"

"I'm fine," came the sharp reply, only slightly muffled. "Forget about it." Yusei had hesitated for a moment, before complying and moving to climb back up to his bunk, but he stopped half way up the ladder when Atem spoke again. "I would rather that you didn't mention this to anyone," the teen murmured.

Yusei had simply sighed and nodded, though Atem couldn't see him, and he climbed back up to his bed, confused and still worried for his bunk make.

That seemed to have been the start of a chain reaction that lead Atem to feeling like he was back at square one. Even if he pushed aside the images that had been haunting him, it seemed that the whole week he just couldn't keep up, and there was always something in his way. In some cases though, it was someone. Whenever they had run the obstacle course, the squads were paired together to make it even harder. The more cadets there are, the more things there are to dodge, and it just so happened that squads C and D were paired together this week.

The obstacle run was an easily altered course that sat next to the titan forest, where the cadets started high in the trees up on a platform. The course stretched for 500m into the forest, where the cadets had to dodge make shift buildings, trees, titan figures and any other unexpected obstacles, and there was a strict time limit to complete the course, too.

The squads were split into groups and each small group began the course at staggered times, the objective being to not let the group behind you catch up. Atem had been in the middle group as he jumped off of the platform, swinging between the two walls above and below them. At first he had felt that his training with Yusei was finally paying off, but that all soon changed. He had just managed to dodge a wall and another cadet who had unexpectedly swung in front of him, and through his elation he had become so distracted that he had forgotten about the new addition to course.

Moving obstacles.

There was now a contraption not unlike a very large windmill set up not far into the course, where each cadet had to time their movements in order to avoid slamming into the spinning wings. As soon as Atem had refocused on what was in front of him, he barely had enough time to change his course to avoid making a complete fool out of himself. Instead of slamming into the obstacle, he had shot a line out to his left, aggressively jerking himself sideways in the process as he fumbled to grab hold of a tree to stop his momentum forwards. There were large nets slung on either side of the course-which was about 30 meters wide-to stop the cadets from cheating, and Atem found himself right on the edge of the course, the net sitting right next to the tree he was currently grappling onto.

Desperate to pick up his game once more before certain cadets caught up to him and saw his mistake, he moved to launch off the tree once more, but he hadn't realised that his foot had been hooked in the net. His fierce jolt forwards was instantly cut short as he let out an uncharacteristic yelp and fell forwards, flapping his arms like a baby bird that had fell out of its nest. Of course that did nothing but made him feel like more of an idiot as he smacked into the tree once more, only now the world was on a completely different angle. With a groan, the cadet unhooked his foot and held onto the tree for dear life as he tried to shoot his wires in the right direction while upside down. After a moment of some very uncoordinated movements, he was launching back off the tree once more and darting through the windmill.

Atem had just let out a sigh of relief, thinking that he had made it through the ordeal without anyone from the group behind him noticing, but it seemed they were closer than he originally thought, as he heard a menacing laugh from behind. Atem momentarily closed his eyes as the familiar voice echoed around him, and he tried not to visibly flinch.

Fan-fucking-tastic, Allister was behind him.

"Nice moves Sennen," the teen sneered, "Think you could teach me that?"

Atem growled under his breath as he continued to move forwards at a decent pace, not sparing a glance behind him as he dodged obstacles. "Fuck off," was his sharp retort.

Allister darted forwards so that he was basiclly beside Atem, "Hey, whoa, don't get your panties in a knot," he joked, a light and sinister air to his voice. "I just wanted to tell you how I thought you couldn't get any worse at this, and yet you still surprise me, bravo."

Atem had been biting his tongue; though he was never really good at keeping his mouth shut, he had been getting a lot of practice lately. It was then that the course narrowed to a small gap between walls, and Allister was still quite close to Atem as they approached it. "Get out of my way," he grunted impatiently, trying to get in front of the teen. It seemed however, that Allister would not have it, and after fighting neck and neck for the small gap, at the last minute, a hand shot out and shoved Atem to the side, causing him to slam straight into the wall.

Just as he cursed loudly and tried to shake the pain out of his head, Atem noticed another figure dart through the wall, and a very familiar one at that. He quickly launched himself through the gap, just in time to see Yusei catch up to Allister with blinding speed and-

Atem's mouth hung open as he darted forwards, trying to get a closer look of the figure falling down to the forest floor. Did he just-

There was a loud and colourful bark of words as Allister hit the ground. Yusei had just cut his wires, and now the man was grinning triumphantly as he paused by a tree, turning to glance back at the teen who still had his mouth hanging open.

"That sly little shit," Atem muttered to himself. He couldn't help but chuckle as he approached Yusei, grateful for the retaliation on his part, though he wasn't planning on voicing those thoughts any time soon.

It wasn't until the end of the course that Atem saw Allister again, and that encounter hadn't been any better than the last. The squads had just been dismissed and the cadet had snuck up beside Atem, idly admiring his sword.

"So," Allister both caught Atem's attention and threw him off guard all at once with a single word. "You have a friend to be your body guard I see." The teen casually slid his sword back into place as he sent an accusing stare across to Atem.

After recovering from the surprise, Atem had grunted and crossed his arms, "He's not my friend." The teen tried to pick up his pace in an attempt to lose the other cadet, but Allister had easily matched his stride.

"Friend, boyfriend, whatever," the teen waved a hand at Atem, and the other simply scrunched his nose in disapproval. "It doesn't matter what sort of connections you make, because you're gonna be out of here soon enough anyway."

That made Atem stop in his tracks. Despite the nagging thought in the back of his mind warning him that this could be true, he was determined to deny it. He turned and sent a sharp glare toward the teen beside him. "If you think for one second that I'm just going to give up and get kicked out, you're more pathetic than I thought." Atem could feel his facade slipping as he uttered the words, though he tried to sound as strong willed as possible.

Allister shrugged his shoulders, a devious smirk sitting on his face, "Hey, keep trying, by all means, I'm just saying that your discontinuation is inevitable. You aren't fast, you aren't skilled with your blades, and I'm pretty sure you proved today that you aren't at all coordinated. Some people just aren't talented." When Atem's glare hardened, Allister threw his hands up in defense, "Hey, I'm just trying to soften the blow. You've just got to face it: you aren't cut out to be a soldier like your boyfriend over there," he nodded his head over Atem's shoulder, and the teen didn't need to look to know who it was. With one last aggravating shrug, Allister turned and sauntered back over in the direction of their camp, leaving Atem standing in the dirt, fuming.

The teen had been vaguely aware of footsteps approaching him from behind, but he had been too angry to care. Then, there was a voice at his shoulder, an annoyingly familiar one, and he found it only boiled his blood even more.

"You alright?" Yusei asked as he moved to stand beside the teen. Atem didn't spare him a glance as he began to stalk off back to camp.

"Don't ask," he spat over his shoulder. Yusei had been left standing there dumbfounded, and it only made him think of how Atem had been acting over the week, which was very odd indeed. Despite the fact that he now sat with the group, he never really uttered a word and stayed in his own little bubble. The only time Atem seemed to open up a little seemed to be those rare occasions when it was just the two of them, and Yusei had somehow hit a soft spot. This week though, Atem had just been moody, short tempered and confusing, just like when they had first met. Yusei only hoped that this would all pass soon and he'd be back on track.

It seemed though that Yusei's hopes weren't quite granted. It was now a Saturday morning, one of their usual days off, and after some very harsh complaints from the shorter cadet upon waking, the two of them were in the clearing once more. Yusei held back the urge to put his hands to his temples, he'd be lying if he said Atem was doing well. They had decided upon a time trial activity to determine if Atem really was getting better with his training, and up until this week, he had. This morning however, Atem's time had been rivaling that of a month ago.

"God damn it!"

Yusei had jumped ever so slightly as a sword was harshly shoved into the ground only a couple of meters away from him. He didn't need to tell Atem his time for the teen to know he hadn't done well. The cadet had one of the worst scowl's on his face that Yusei had ever seen. It looked much like the way he glared at Mahaad that first night in the eating hall, only it wasn't directed at anyone else this time. Yusei could see it, Atem was furious with himself.

The dark haired teen sighed, "Hey, why don't you take a break and we can-"

Atem suddenly whirled on him, finding a person to fix his glare on, "And that's going to magically change everything?! You think I'm going to just come back and suddenly be a good soldier?"

Yusei had been caught off guard by Atem's outburst, and it took him a moment to regain his composure. "No, but if you keep practicing-"

Atem harshly pulled his sword out of the ground, "That's what I've been doing for months! And look at the shit I just pulled." He gestured with his sword to where he'd just done his time trial, "I bet Allister could do this with his eyes closed faster than I can."

Yusei pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, "You're just having a bad day, you'll-"

Atem was adamant on interrupting him again, "A bad day? Have you been paying any attention this whole week?"

Yusei had to repress an eye roll, and moved to try and reason with him. "Atem-"

"You heard what Allister said the other day, didn't you?" Atem moved forwards to point a finger in the other teen's face, and Yusei took a step back. He'd had to deal with Atem's anger before, but it had never been quite like this. In other training sessions, he'd complained about his performance, but Yusei had been able to convince him that he would get better. This almost felt like the same hostility that Atem had given him a couple of months ago.

Yusei turned his gaze to the side, "Well, I caught a bit of it," he answered. "But Allister is an idiot, Atem, he doesn't know what he's talking about."

The other teen shoved his swords back in their place, "Yeah well he's damn smarter than me, so I may as well face it." It was then that Atem began to un buckle his gear, and Yusei took a step forwards.

"Wait, what are you doing?" he suddenly asked. "You can't tell me you're just going to give up."

Atem threw his hands into the air, "The what else can I do? I'm not cut out to be a soldier, Yusei. I don't even know why I haven't been kicked out yet. I'm not fast, I'm not skilled, I'm apparently not coordinated. In fact, I don't even know why you agreed to help me, because I'm a damn lost cause."

The two teens stared at each other in silence for a moment, Atem having paused from taking his gear off, and Yusei trying to think of a way to reason with him. After a moment, Atem seemed to think of something.

"Ah, of course," he clicked his fingers, the annoyed set of his expression deepening. "Because you felt sorry for me. Because you saw the little boy step off of the boat who had no family." Atem's hands balled into fists at his sides, "I hate that!"

Yusei could feel his blood start to boil, despite his usual level head, and he took another step forward, "Atem, I didn't pity you, I told you that!"

The other teen flung his arms wide, "Then why are you even here?! What possible reason could you have for trying to help a lost cause?" Atem's stare was sharp on Yusei as he waited for a reply, and the taller cadet clenched his teeth as he looked skyward.

His only response was, "God you infuriate me."

Atem gave up on his question, feeling the defeat settle in his bones as he began to unbuckle his gear once more. "You know, you can just go and be the perfect cadet that you are. You never had any problems with anything, and you don't have to deal with me anymore." His sentence seemed to be finalised with the sound of his gear dropping to the ground with a clank, and Yusei was staring at him with his mouth open.

"Atem this is ridiculous, come on. Put your gear back on." Yusei almost didn't believe the words that had come out of the other man's mouth, but Atem just shook his head.

"You belong here, with the training corps, but I don't. I'll just go to the fields, where I belong..." He turned on his heel, and murmured, "I'll be gone in a few days," as he began to walk away.

Yusei's eyes flew wide as he moved to follow, "Atem, wait!" When the other man didn't answer, Yusei clenched his teeth and ran after him. It didn't take too long to catch up, and soon the taller cadet had grabbed Atem's shoulder and flung him around. "Can you just-"

Atem never found out the sentence that Yusei had planned to speak, because in a flare of anger, the cadet had swung his fist into the other man's nose. Yusei's eyes flew wide as he stumbled backward, a hand flying to his face where he had been assaulted. This time, Atem was giving him the hardest glare he had seen. "You can't fucking stop can you?!" he bellowed. "Just leave me the fuck alone."

This time Yusei just watched as Atem walked away, much fiercer than a few moments ago, and he slumped against a tree as blood ran down to his chin, breathing a little heavier than usual.

"Shit."