September

Day 4 – Early morning

Yuugi eased the door of the game shop closed, cringing at the soft jingle of the attached bell. It was nearly sunrise and he had been out all night. With a weary sigh, he snuck up the stairs and into his bedroom. The pharaoh appeared beside him as he went to the bed and sat down heavily.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Yuugi looked up, slightly confused. "Yeah, of course," he answered, keeping his voice low. "Although… Do you think Ishtar-san is still at the museum?"

The pharaoh paused, caught off guard by Yuugi's question. With everything that had happened in the last few hours, he had not expected his partner to still be thinking about something like that.

"It's late," he said. "There's no need to rush. The god cards aren't going anywhere and neither is the tablet. It would be better if you rested now. You've been through a lot."

"I'm fine," Yuugi insisted again, but he was caught by a yawn a moment later and he laughed sheepishly at the pharaoh's raised eyebrow. "But I guess I am a little tired," he admitted. Without further argument, Yuugi changed his clothes and crawled into bed, sighing quietly at the comfort of his pillows. His eyes slipped closed…

Chilling, silent blackness rose up around him. The floor vanished beneath him. He was falling. He was flying downward. So fast the air might crush him before the bottom but there was no bottom and he was falling and he couldn't stop–

Yuugi jerked awake, gasping for breath and clinging to the mattress like it was a life raft on tossing waves. The spirit of the Puzzle was startled to awareness and appeared beside Yuugi with a tightly controlled sense of panic tugging at his own nerves. "Aibou!" he called, grabbing Yuugi's shoulder. He could feel him shaking. "Aibou, what's wrong?" he tried again, but Yuugi could not seem to respond. Worry bordering on fear began to build within the pharaoh and he retreated to his soul room, hoping his suspicions were not about to be confirmed.

Yuugi was there in the pharaoh's room, sitting with his back against the door and his knees pulled in, holding his head and trembling. The pharaoh hurried to his side and touched his shoulder carefully. "Aibou…"

"W-What do I do?" Yuugi stammered. He threw a nervous look behind him at the door and Atem did not need to open it to know that the void was still there between their rooms. He could feel the grasping emptiness even through his door.

…But he needs to return to his own room, the pharaoh thought. Or he'll slowly start to lose himself. Especially in a place like this. He cast a bitter glance over his shoulder at the maze-tomb that was his room. Inhospitable didn't really begin to cover it. He turned back to Yuugi.

"Aibou… listen," he said, concern making his voice more firm and commanding. "You have the ability to rebuild what was torn down. What was lost. You built that corridor when you accepted me into yourself, even if you didn't realize it at the time. You can do it again. You need to be connected to your soul room… Do you understand?"

Still shaking, Yuugi nodded and closed his eyes. His hand flinched as though he wanted to reach out, and the pharaoh immediately clasped it in his own, holding tightly in support, and he felt Yuugi return the grip just as strongly. The pharaoh's eyes slipped closed and silence stretched for what might have been hours or no time at all, but when it ended they let go and looked up. Without a word, the pharaoh stood and helped Yuugi to his feet. After a quick glance for confirmation, he opened his door out into the corridor.

A fine, glass bridge stretched out between the pharaoh's door and Yuugi's. It seemed to be supported by stone veins that reached out underneath it from the pharaoh's side.

Yuugi looked out across the fragile bridge set in the midst of the gaping black void to his door, standing closed between the crumbling brick of the walls of his room. For a long time, he didn't move.

"You cannot rebuild from here," the pharaoh said softly, his eyes moving again to the hole broken through beside Yuugi's door. "And if you do not rebuild, you will go insane." He turned his back on the destruction and emptiness and offered his hand to Yuugi. "Don't worry," he said. "I'll come with you."

Yuugi reached out for the pharaoh's hand without conscious thought and he was suddenly being led out onto the delicate glass. His grip tightened as they walked, the void stretching out endlessly on either side of them, but the pharaoh only looked ahead, guiding Yuugi forward with confidence until they reached the door to his room. He paused there and waited and Yuugi slowly raised his free hand to touch the handle with the tips of his fingers. A soft flash illuminated the door for just a moment, reflecting off of the bridge before fading away, and Yuugi remembered the light that had flared from the pharaoh's door just before the floor had given way. Swallowing hard, he grasped the handle and pushed open the door.

The room inside had not changed. Piles of brick filled every inch except for the small area around the door that he had dug out earlier, revealing deep, far-reaching cracks in the floor as well. Yuugi stopped, afraid to step inside, and the pharaoh did not push him. He too had frozen at the doorway, overwhelmed by the extent of the damage he'd only just glimpsed until now.

Then a quick, shrill crack sounded in the silence and the pharaoh pushed Yuugi roughly forward, falling with him onto the broken bricks as the glass bridge shattered and fell, gently tinkling into the void below. In only seconds, all that remained were the stone veins, too few and too thin to be used as a bridge on their own. The pharaoh stared back through the door in mute shock until he felt Yuugi start to tremble beneath him. The spirit quickly got up and closed Yuugi's door, then returned to his partner's side. "Aibou–"

"I didn't mean to do that!" Yuugi gasped out shakily, panic rising like the swell of a wave in his chest. "Now you're stuck here… You can't get to your room… I-I don't–" He grabbed his head, his eyes squeezed shut, and for a moment the pharaoh went cold with the thought that he had acted too late – that the damage had already claimed his partner's mind and could not be repaired – but he shook the thought away, dismissing it with strength taken from everything he knew of Yuugi's soul. He could not be overtaken like this.

Unsure of what else to do, the pharaoh dragged Yuugi to his feet and pulled the boy along, up into the mounds of rubble and away from the crumbling floor around the door. Yuugi moved without thought, following the spirit even as he stumbled and slipped on the broken bricks. They worked their way back into a corner of the room and the pharaoh sat down against the wall, insistently pulling the unresisting Yuugi down beside him. He was shaking again, and the spirit quietly gathered him to his chest and looped a comforting arm around his shoulders. After a while, Yuugi's shaking seemed to quiet somewhat, and the pharaoh began to talk.

"We've spent time in each other's rooms before," he said softly. "And my room is undamaged. I'll be all right for a while. There's plenty of time."

"…T-Time?" Yuugi asked though he made no attempt to sit up or move from on top of the pharaoh.

The spirit nodded. "Time to rebuild, and set everything right."

"I don't know how," Yuugi muttered, but he no longer sounded frightened, and his trembling had finally faded away.

"Just sleep," the pharaoh said. "Your dreams will not be pleasant, but they will be your own, and they will help heal your mind." And I will be right here.

Yuugi closed his eyes as he felt the warmth of the pharaoh's thought wrap around him, and darkness rose up to claim him like a panther finally presented with the right moment to spring.