Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! GX

Chapter 12

I'm back in my private chambers, all alone with whatever passes for daylight - certainly not the bright, warm sun that I've known for the four years of my life which I remember - visible through the window. My right hand man asked to stay with me, probably for an interrogation on what Jesse said to me, but I refused. I don't want to speak to anyone, I want to be alone. I've heard too much and my last conversation with Jesse has given me more questions and no answers.

I am the King; or at least I was the king once. These people need me to be that person, that ruler, but I'm simply not him. Whoever he was could turn a rebel army away in fear; whoever he was had a personal relationship of some sort with Jesse and ordered him not to speak to me about it. Why would I ever tell someone I was close to not to speak to me about our relationship? Did I do it out of fear or love, for him or for me? If our relationship was 'unsuitable' or 'inappropriate', then how?

My life makes no sense and all of a sudden I desperately want to go home. Back to that silly little place in Scotland where life had little meaning but it was safe, and I was familiar with the place and I understood my own life.

But I know that I can't go. Whatever has caused me to forget obviously did it so that it could destroy or take over this world - that thing called Darkness, what the hell is it? - and I can stop it. I'm supposed to be able to stop it, at least, and I have to try. If I don't, all these people are going to get hurt. People have died in an attack in the short time that I've been here and that can't go on.

Thoughts swirl around my head and my head is still aching; it feels like each individual thought is whacking itself off my skull at a hundred miles per hour. There's too much going on in there - I'm not typically a strong thinker! - and as I fall asleep, I wonder if I'm going into a natural sleep or if this is technically passing out from exhaustion.

/

Those eyes. Those gleaming green eyes, right above my face, so close and so beautiful; emerald pools that I could just get lost in. Anybody could. I just stare up at them and suddenly nothing else exists. But when I look properly into those eyes, I can tell that something is wrong. He doesn't look tranquil, as I think I do; he looks sad, so sad, and blinks - don't do that! - and the green shatters. Suddenly they are no longer above me and everything is black and I am falling, falling...

I sit straight up, panting slightly and looking around worriedly as I get my bearings. Still in my personal chambers, still alone and feeling slightly flushed and sweaty; this is a familiar enough feeling, though. It was just a nightmare.

Why? Why is it a nightmare? It could have been a dream but it was in fact a nightmare and this has to mean something. Those green eyes above me, looking so sad and almost afraid; this scares me and I realise with a start that it was not a nightmare at all, but a memory. I didn't just remember those eyes above me, I actually remembered what I felt at that time when I was looking up into those eyes! It's a very small memory - just a feeling, really - but it is something.

I calm down, wondering why the angle is like that. I mean, it could mean anything. Perhaps I'd passed out and woken up from unconciousness and he was awaiting my awakening; perhaps I'd needed the kiss of life and he'd performed it; perhaps he was my lover and he was actually on top of me. I blush at the mere thought of the last one, thinking it ridiculous - and yet, it would explain why Jesse said that we once meant everything to each other. Though it doesn't explain why he was ordered by me not to talk about it, why it ended, or why those eyes in my dream looked so very sad.

I am left alone for a while and I fall into another, dreamless sleep. When I wake up I feel slightly refreshed and so I know that I've been left alone for a while. I'm pretty hungry, and there is still the tray of food that was left by Blair. It's stone cold now, of course, but I wolf it down regardless. There's meat of some sort - tastes like spicy beef or something near to it - and what I assume is a vegetable; it's bright blue but tastes pleasantly sweet. There's also something which has the shape and texture of a rice-cake but tastes like strong coffee; I don't take more than one bite of that, it's bitter and somehow congealed.

I'm about to go off in search of someone - anyone - but the door opens and I'm on my feet, ready. My right hand man enters the room. There is a small box in his hands, flat and expensive looking.

"Your Highness, there's something you've got to see." His voice is laced with bitterness and annoyance, and I wonder why I ever appointed this man to be my right hand when it seems obvious to me now that he doesn't like me. Or maybe it's just this me - this me that isn't really the king - that he doesn't like.

I beckon him forward warily and he thrusts the box towards me; I hold it in my hands, just feeling the light weight of it and running one finger over the surface to feel the texture. It looks like wood and is smooth like wood, but it is distinctly cold like metal, and definitely not something which I recognise.

Chazz clears his throat purposefully beside me and I take the hint and open the box. Inside is a deck of cards - but not any cards like the ones I know from back home, in the other world. In the world where I've been living for the last four years, cards come with spades and diamonds, clubs and hearts, and have numbers or royals on them. These cards are completely different. In fact, I've only ever seen one single card in my life which looks like these ones - the Yubel card which I can always remember having. I glance at Chazz for confirmation - after all, I still know very little about this world and nothing about who I am - and when he nods, I lift them out and give him the box; from the grudgingly accepting way that he takes if from me, I can tell that he's used to me handing him things to hold but that he really dislikes it.

I hold the cards in my hand, flicking from one to the next; there's maybe fifty of them. Each one has a different picture and a symbol and a name and writing at the bottom. They feel light in my hands and ... I can't explain it but somehow they feel so familiar. I look up at Chazz once I've skimmed through about half of the deck.

"What are these?" I whisper, awed by them.

"Your duelling deck."

"My..." I remember what Jesse said earlier, about me being the best duellist and how others were scared to duel me. "I duelled, didn't I? With these cards?" Chazz starts to look enlightened and I hastily tell him that Jesse told me. He looks disappointed but nods. "All these cards that I could use..."

"Actually, not quite all."

"Huh?"

"Your Highness, just before you disappeared, you instructed us that one of your cards be locked away and that you never be allowed to touch it unless it was the only way. You told us that it was a last resort."

"What card was that?"

"Super Polymerisation, Your Highness."

Super Polymeris... Super Polymerisation!

I gasp as images flood my mind, memories rushing back to me.
My voice, or at least a voice very similar to mine, calls out the name of that card and holds it high, though I can't see the image. I can only see the face of my opponent - obstructed by some sort of helmet - and the feelings rush into me; I feel powerful.

"Your Highness? Your Highness!?" Chazz is shaking me, the cards are scattered on the floor and I am shaking. He grabs my shoulders. "Did you remember something?"

I nod weakly and gasp. "I was shouting out the name of that card. Super Polymerisation. I ... I don't know what I was doing."

"Duelling." Chazz sighs, turning away with a frown. "I have to go talk to the advisors. If that's all you can remember then we're all in trouble."

"Trouble? Trouble how?"

"Don't worry about it. Just look at your cards, they might trigger some memories for you."

"I remembered a feeling earlier. In a dream!" I tell him before he can turn away. "I remember seeing green eyes. Jesse's eyes, above me, and what I felt right then. And just now! I could feel like I did then. I felt ... powerful. Holding that card."

Chazz looks grim. "Get some rest, Your Highness." And with those words, he is gone.

I sigh and bend down to start picking up the cards; there is a sudden gasp in the doorway and suddenly Blair is by my side, hastily saying, "please, Your Highness, allow me to do that!"

She picks up all the cards and arranges them in a neat pile while I perch on the edge of the bed uncomfortably. I want to help but I get the feeling that I'm not supposed to. She hands them to me and I thank her; Blair appears dimly surprised before she gives me a cheerful smile and scurries out of the room.

Alone once again, I look at the cards. The names are unfamiliar to me and yet each one stirs up a little twinge of ... well, something, in my chest. It's not happiness and it's not pride but it's something close to each of them simultaneously.

Flare Scarab, Sparkman, Air Hummingbird, Clayman. The names are not familiar. So why do I feel like they should be? I must have known their names off by heart once, back when I was the King they want me to be.

I skim through the entire deck, feeling strange emotionally all the while, until at last I hold the final card in my hand. And here I pause.

Because even though I know that I have never, not once in the four years that I can recall, seen this card or heard it's name, it is so familiar. I instantly feel like I have found an old friend. I can't remember how, or why, this card means so much to me, but already I know that it is familiar.

I allow a small smile to grace my face, wondering why I have an instant to this card and reading the name printed at the top aloud. "Winged Kuriboh."

Please R&R