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Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Title: Red To Black: Chapter 14: His Place To Belong
Characters: Juudai
Word Count: chapter: 1,206||story: 15,442
Genre: Drama, Angst||Rated: PG-13
Challenge: Yu-Gi-Oh GX Non-Flash Bingo; Diversity Challenge, section I, #19, chapters between 1000-2000 words
Notes: This begins in episode 136, just after Jim and O'Brien leave to follow Shou. Juudai's mind did not fracture into Juudai & Haou and this will be a retelling of how he came to power.
Summary: Juudai's always won before and it always fixed everything. But now that he's won and it's fixed nothing, what can he do?
Hane Kuriboh wanted to help Juudai. He always wanted to help Juudai, from the first moment that he'd realized that this was Juudai and pestered Yuugi to hand his card over. Sure, it had taken time for Juudai to be able to see him, and he'd always kind of wondered why, given the absolutely enormous amount of spiritual power that dripped from every part of the brunet. But he hadn't really fussed himself about it back then. Some people just took longer than others to wake up to the reality of the world around them.
But now he could guess on the actual reason. He still didn't know, but his guesses ran along the lines of 'something to do with Yubel'. He wasn't certain what he thought about the demonic being as of yet, but there was something about Yubel that rang strongly of the same spiritual power as Juudai, and that was unusual.
To say the least.
He'd never met anyone who rang of that power before. Just Juudai. And Yubel. The Neo-Spacians had it to a different degree, but it didn't emanate from them the way it did from Juudai. Something was going on there that he didn't understand, and he wasn't going to go anywhere until he did understand it.
Of course, he didn't even know if there was somewhere that he could go. He had many abilities, far more than what Juudai actually knew, and far more than what was written on his card text. But none of them included crossing dimensions on his own, not without a lot more help than he had at the moment. If he could find a door or a weak spot between worlds, then he could do it. But without that? It wouldn't work at all.
His powers also didn't include breaking through the strange barrier that kept Juudai from hearing or seeing or in any way speaking to the Neo-Spacians or them to him. And he tried. Oh, how he tried, battering himself to exhaustion against the barrier for long, untold hours.
He couldn't even bring himself to tell Juudai about the barrier, not until he could break it. That was for one simple reason: Juudai was the cause of the barrier. And right now, Hane Kuriboh knew one thing very well and that was that Juudai would not accept that he as the cause or that the way to break it would involve on some level accepting that what he was doing right now was very, very wrong.
Juudai didn't want to accept anything at the moment that didn't involve spinning Super Fusion into ever stronger life.
Hane Kuriboh didn't get to duel with him a whole lot now. Sure, Juudai hadn't taken his card out of his deck, and Hane Kuriboh made sure of that, mostly by appearing to Juudai and supporting him whenever he could. Juudai had to know that he hadn't been abandoned at all. But his card just never seemed to come up in duels anymore.
Or if it did, Juudai would likely not play it in favor of the Evil Heroes who formed the new backbone of his new, powerful, unrelenting, dangerous, and evil strategies.
Hane Kuriboh on occasion wanted to batter Juudai upside the head with his wings. He'd done it before. But the last thing Juudai needed now was someone scolding him as if he were a petulant child, especially when that someone couldn't even properly explain what was going on. Doubly so when Juudai would not listen. At all. Trying to convince him of anything he didn't want to hear would not only be a waste of time, but it might even risk his life. If Hane Kuriboh knew for a fact that it would help, he would've taken the chance. But he didn't know. All he could do was hope, and that hope guttered and faded a little more with every passing moment.
It wasn't easy to kill spirits outside of dueling in this world, but Hane Kuriboh also knew that if Juudai were pushed too far, he could do it. And he would do it in that case. So no matter how much he wanted to do otherwise, he couldn't. Juudai might regret what he did afterward, but it wouldn't change the fact that it had happened in the first place.
Other considerations kept him from battering at Juudai too much about what he was doing as well. If Juudai didn't need him in his deck, then Hane Kuriboh had something else that he could do, and he made certain to do it. So he spent a certain portion of his time searching for either Johan or the Gem Beasts.
He didn't believe they were dead. He didn't believe Johan was dead. For one thing, it was Brron who'd said that, and while Juudai wasn't and hadn't been in any condition to question that fact too deeply, not with all the guilt hanging over him already, Hane Kuriboh thought differently. He wasn't going to take the word of someone like Brron.
So when he wasn't assuring Juudai by his presence that he still cared for him, Hane Kuriboh explored every inch of Brron's now-empty fortress, looking for any sign of Johan's presence, no matter how slim. A hint of his scent, the dust from his dis-belt, anything at all, anything that would at least give a hint of evidence that Johan had been there at all.
And no matter how much he searched, no matter how closely he questioned those few who would admit to have been in the fortress at the proper time, he came up with absolutely nothing. No one had seen Johan at all. No one had dueled him. And in the end, that meant one and only one thing to Hane Kuriboh.
He didn't know where. He didn't know how. But Johan Andersen wasn't dead.
That he wanted to tell Juudai as well. But once again he still himself. With no more evidence to back it up than the lack of evidence, it ran far too much of a risk of tripping Juudai's temper these days. Cold fury could kill as much as hot rage, if not more so. And if what Juudai did now wasn't an epic expression of overreaction, Hane Kuriboh didn't know what was.
So he waited. And watched. And saw things that he knew Juudai would want to know, but he didn't tell his partner of. He wanted to help Juudai in every way that he could and he knew by now the only real way to help him was to get him to see sense. He might not be able to do that himself, but perhaps there were others who could.
Perhaps Shou, donning a cloak and preparing to follow his big brother no matter what.
Perhaps Edo and Ryou, slowly gathering information about what was going on in this world.
Perhaps Jim and O'Brien, who had begun to search for Juudai and for Shou as well.
Perhaps they could do what he could not, and bring Juudai to his senses.
But regardless, he would stay by his partner, even if Juudai never drew his card or played it. Because that was where he belonged.
To Be Continued
Note: The next chapter is the last one.