Last chapter, yo. It's been over a year, and it's been great fun to hang around with you all, but sadly, this is the end of the tale. I know it probably could have been better, with changes more drastic – actually, loads better – but this is the way I imagined it way back when. So this is the way it stays.
Again, thank you all.
...11…
It was cold outside that night.
Yugi was wet, too. His entire body soaked through with wet, sopping rain. And he was lying on something cold and hard. It made his body tingle with numbness.
At first, the only sounds he heard was the rain, hitting the surface around him. It was a soft sound, bouncing around as it fell. Almost like hail. He wondered if his world was still upside-down and backwards. Still as if nothing had happened.
Slowly, voices added to the looming darkness and the rain. Sounds appeared, too; cars going by, people walking and talking, planes overhead, the wind blowing around him.
Soon, the voices formed words. They made sounds. Yugi listened for any clues that told him where he was…
"…stopped by traffic – huge accident on a main highway, I'm afraid. Completely blocking the fastest route here—"
"How did it become raining so quickly? Wasn't it sunny just moments ago?"
"—Why isn't he waking up?"
"—It didn't seem like he was too badly injured when he fell—"
"—I-I warned him not to walk on that wall, didn't I? Didn't I!"
"What an idiot."
"Kaiba-sama, we need you to sign this form—"
Bang. Yugi's eyes shot open. At first, his vision was blurred. He saw dark colors, and his face was getting soaked. He heard gasps of surprise, and a blurred mass of colors appeared in his vision.
It was Jonouchi.
"Yugi! Yugi! He's awake!" Jonouchi cried happily as he came into focus. He was leaning over his friend, his black school uniform sopping wet, his hair dripping with water—
Wait.
Black uniform? Yugi blinked and attempted to move. Jonouchi placed a hand on the boy's chest to stop him.
"Don't move, Yugi, an ambulance is coming. Just lay still, okay?" Yugi laid his head back down, and realized someone was standing at his head. He nearly laid down on their feet. He glanced up.
Trench coat, sour expression, and concerned eyes greeted him.
It was Seto Kaiba. He was staring down at him, rolling his eyes.
"Will someone move this thing?" a tall woman said, kicking something. It jingled as she kicked it. Yugi turned his head to the side to see the object she kicked.
It was the Sennen Puzzle. Fully together, too. Yugi closed his eyes in bliss. He wanted to reach out and touch it. To make sure it was really real. He stretched his arm (it felt like it was ten thousand pounds) and laid a hand on the glinting object. It was cool and slick to his touch, his fingers running over it. It chilled him, all the way down to the bone. He sighed and closed his eyes.
Everything was the same. It was back again. Back the way he wanted it to be.
He felt so tired…
-Yugi's thoughts
It was back. Somehow, solving the Puzzle did restore things as they should be. Even though I'm lying here, bleeding, in the cold, wet rain, I was at ease. But I was so tired still… I just wanted to sleep.
"Yugi, don't fall asleep!" Anzu begged with me. Jonouchi propped me up in his arms to support my body. His arms were warm and comfortable, unlike the hard, cold ground. I closed my eyes. I couldn't help it. I was content, for the first time in a long time.
"He could have a concussion; falling asleep with a concussion could mean death," someone said above me. Jonouchi shook my tired body a little to wake me.
"Yugi, please, whatever you do… Don't fall asleep!" Jonouchi said. He put a hand on my forehead to take my temperature, I suppose.
"He doesn't feel well at all—" Suddenly, Jonouchi lost his voice. His mouth continued to move in frantic motions, his eyes bright and afraid. He was pointing at someone, holding my body tightly. I could see people running around me. Anzu fell to her knees next to me, wincing as her knees were scraped and blood ran into the cold puddle she had knelt in. She looked frantic; her hands were clasped together, and she had a pleading face on.
But all sounds had been lost. What is this? Is this is what it's like to die?
As soon as my world becomes perfect, I have to leave again. Why can't I just stay in one place?
It was then I noticed how frantically Jonouchi was talking to me. He was saying my name, I could tell. I could read his lips. I could barely feel at this point. And it was as if it was the darkest of night. The streetlights, and the revolving lights of oncoming ambulances didn't reach me where I was.
I allowed sound one last time.
"…Yugi! Yugi! He's not answering!" Jonouchi cried frantically. "Yugi, please don't fall asleep! I'm begging you!" by now, Jonouchi had been forced to the verge of tears. He wiped his face and had to retrain himself from strangling his fallen friend. How could falling from a ledge do this to him!
"Yugi! Please, answer me! Can you hear me?" Jonouchi cried. Yugi closed his eyes.
"I hear you… Jou-kun…"
I went to sleep.
Whenever people approached the subject of that day, years from now, it was always hushed over. Always pushed aside. Always changed subjects. It was a strange phenomena that could not be explained. What had happened that afternoon.
Anzu, Jonouchi, Honda… they were barely aware of it. Ryou sensed it; Kaiba felt it. But it was a strange sensation, as if they had dreamt the whole thing. A dream that you were in the middle of when you were so rudely shaken awake. That you barely remember.
The first time it had been spoken of in – well, nearly ten, eleven years – was when Jonouchi relayed the story to Mai on the tenth-year anniversary.
At first, Mai was baffled by the story. Yugi had fallen from a ledge and hit his head. The Puzzle was smashed into bits – and they were suddenly tossed into a different… dimension, of sorts. As if the Puzzle had never been solved. Almost as if the gods were showing them what would have happened, had fate never intervened with them.
Jonouchi attempted to explain it to Mai. But she just couldn't comprehend the thought. Several weeks – maybe even months – that showed their lives as a twisted heap of ridiculousness, all shown within a ten-minute period? What kind of time warp was that?
Jonouchi was semi-conscious through it all. As if watching it through a faded television screen. So were Anzu and Honda, although their two different mindsets – the ones in real life and the ones in this "life" – became melded into one as time went on.
Jonouchi was nearly in tears by the time he reached the end, when Yugi finally solved the Puzzle.
"He… he solved it, finally," Jonouchi said, his hands shaking. He put his hands over his face. Mai reached out and put her hand on his shoulder.
"What is it? Tell me, Jonouchi," she whispered. Jonouchi took a deep, shuddering breath, and relayed the afterstory.
The story of how Yugi, the soaking, injured Yugi, the Yugi with a concussion, fell asleep. Right in his arms. Moments away from salvation. It took a lot of persuasion and threats for the grief-struck teen to release him from his arms, but it wouldn't have mattered.
Yugi died instantly that cold, rainy night.
Jonouchi, by now, had been reduced to a mass of wet, soppy tears. Mai comforted him, but the shock and realization that his very best friend had died right in his arms had taken him a long time to heal. It was a shock that stayed with him, years after. The shock that they couldn't do anything to help him left them weak.
"…The only good thing that came out of it, that stupid, retched idea," Jonouchi said, wiping his eyes, "was that we were able to see more of our lives. But it didn't matter. It wasn't the fall that killed Yugi. He was convinced near the end that he really was sick, or insane or s-something… s-s-so… he died." All was silent.
"…whose idea was it?" Mai asked gently. "Whose idea was it to ask the Puzzle for such a gift? As to see your lives outside of this nonsense?" Jonouchi sighed and closed his eyes, leaning against the headboard of the bed. He stayed for a moment, and then shook his head.
"He never… forgave me," he whispered. Mai blinked.
There's nothing ever wrong but nothing's ever right
Such a cruel contradiction
I know I cross the lines its not easy to define
"What?"
"He never forgave my selfishness. He scolded me, told me I was Yugi's protector. He never forgave me, you know, the Pharaoh; Atemu never forgave me for that wish."
"…Wha—" But Jonouchi put a hand over her mouth. He took a long, shuddering breath.
I'm born to indecision
There's always something new some path I'm supposed to choose
With no particular rhyme or reason
"I wished that we would wake up and find it all a dream when he fell," Jonouchi whispered, his lip quivering. "I wished that. And it granted my wish, Mai." Mai was silent, shaking her head.
"I killed him, Mai. I killed Yugi Mutou."
The more the light shines through me… I pretend to close my eyes. The more the dark consumes me… I pretend I'm burning, burning briiiiight…
"I wished. The Puzzle came apart. And our lives changed."
The more the light shines through me… I pretend to close my eyes. The more the dark consumes me… I pretend I'm burning, burning briiiiight…
Years later, long after this telling of the story, people still wondered what happened. But Jonouchi was the only one who knew; he thought about taking his story to the grave, since Mai had died and she was the only other who knew. But instead, he left a note under a statue on Yugi's grave, people not finding it until months after his own death, nearly eighty years after the death of Yugi Mutou.
The more the light shines through me… I pretend to close my eyes. The more the dark consumes me… I pretend I'm burning, burning briiiiight…
Yeah. Hmm. Completely different from the ending I wrote about a year ago (and lost), but I like this one better. Oh yeah, don't own the song "Burning Bright" by Shinedown. Last minute addition, I was listening to the song while writing it.
Well, since this was the last chapter, I'd like to add extra notes. I never thought that this story would take so long to do, or that I would get so into it. I'm sorry the detail was kind of lame in the changes, but I honestly started this with a vague idea. I actually used to have the first version of this story, but it was completely different. Very confusing. And this was started because someone said that at the end of YGO, Yugi would wake up and find out it all never happened. I thought that'd be cool and elaborated… a lot. Heh. We all know that's not what happened, but wouldn't it have been a cool twist? I thought it would be. This was also started when I was bored and had writer's block, so, I'm glad I actually finished it. I guess I'll respond to reviews, since it's the last chapter.
Double0Agent23: Yugi was slowly forgetting because… it made the story more interesting. And the thing that was going on in the photo clicked with Ryou, and he was all "I gotta get this to Yugi before he dies!" and stuff. I guess. Hehe. Yami Adritha: Thanks for the compliment! And it's finished now. Are you satisfied? If you're not, too bad. I'm not chagin' it. Heh. Ryou's obsessed fan: Heh, I used to do cliffhangers all the time on my old account. And most of the fics/stories/books I read have a lot of cliffhangers, so I've gotten good practice and good examples. Thanks for the compliment, and it's updated! Daine3: Yeah, they kinda got it. o-o Thanks? Umm… you're welcome? Heh. Game Lover: Ah. Thanks for the interpretation of the little symbol, I didn't know what it was. Yugi woke up, but then fell asleep. And DIED. :3 YumeTakato: Yeah, updates. Heh. I updated again really soon this time. Sorceress-fox125: Well… before I finished the story, I kinda had to write this chapter first. It's not like I can magically poof it onto the screen. But thanks for the enthusiasm in the story. It's encouraging. Silently Broken: Heh, thanks. I never knew what an AU was until people kept telling me this was one. It finally clicked in my brain. Oooh, thank you so much! It's nice to know people really enjoy this fic. Chika of the high mts: Oooh, long review! Most reviews are about a sentence long. I like long reviews. I could only think of the obvious things to answer, sorry. If you have other questions… make a guess. Or come up with something. The adrenaline rush looked like fun, heh. Marina-Kashu: I updated for you! And all the others who said their sanity was nearly gone. I know how it feels when an author/authoress takes forever in updating. Makes me wanna kill something. o.o; Shawna: I've also read fics that are worse than this one, much worse. Try seven-ten months. But then she updates with like, 30-age chapters, so it's all good.
Again, thanks for hanging in with me for this fic. It's really encouraging. n.n
Shibby-One