Chapter 25

It started as a blinding pain on the top of his skull. A pain which forced its way down through the centre of his brain, his face, his neck, his torso, his whole body, splitting it in two. Not literally, but that's what it felt like. He stumbled forward and eventually fell to the ground with the sudden and very real total loss of coordination. The two halves of his body might still have been stuck together, but somehow they'd lost their cohesive whole.

'What's happening to me?' He forced the words out of his mouth as he struggled to push himself up from the ground.

His vision swerved and swirled as he stared down at his hands trying to work out why they were communicating with him but not with each other. Or were they communicating with him? His mind had been divided in the same way his body had. His thoughts were split between the two halves of himself and he could no longer figure out what belonged where.

'What... what's going on? What's happening to me?'

'You have to learn to adapt,' her voice breathed from somewhere close by.

'Wh-what?' He glanced about as he tried to work out where the voice had come from.

'You have to learn to adapt. I'm a balance; that means you must be one too. Learn to adapt. Quickly.'

'I... I don't understand. What... what have you done to me?'

'We don't have time for questions,' she sighed, 'not right now. There's something we need to do... somewhere we need to be. All you have to do right now is adapt. You need to adapt first and then I'll take it from there.'

'Adapt...?' Somehow he managed to shake his head. 'How...?'

'Get to your feet and walk. You don't have time to learn everything again, but if you can get to your feet and walk it'll be a start.'

'Get to my feet and walk,' he stared down at his hands again.

'I'm not asking you to do the impossible.'

'Then why does it feel like it?'

'Because everything is different now,' he felt his heart racing as he realised the female voice had been coming out of his mouth the whole time. 'I'm sorry; I never wanted it to come to this.'

'Well done little sibling,' she placed a hand on his shoulder, 'it's not often I get to feel proud of you.'

'There's another dolly out there,' he grinned at her, 'can I play with that one too?'

'Now, now idiot child, you know that one's not yours to play with,' she tutted. 'But you can watch if you like.'

'Aw, but that's not fun,' he pouted for a moment before wincing. 'We don't have time for fun; we need to concentrate on the next part of the plan.'

'Not until we've levelled the playing field.'

'Feels to me more like you're just stalling for time,' he folded his arms. 'She'll have known what we've done by now.'

'Exactly,' she laughed, 'so we have plenty of time.'

'Or none at all. We've changed the rules of the game and they're not going to like that.'

'I don't know if I prefer you like this or not,' she took hold of the back of his neck and studied him for a few moments. 'The flipping back and forth might get a little annoying.'

'I'm an unstable balance in a divided host,' he winced again, 'if you're finding it annoying imagine what it's like for me. Although, I do prefer this side of things.'

'Same,' she pulled away from him. 'But I don't care how big and bad you talk, you are and always will be my insane little idiot child. If you want to play, then feel free; just make sure you save the First for me.'

'The what?' The look on Tristan's face was somewhere halfway between confusion and recognition.

'The Reganna,' the First kept her gaze trained on him.

'I... I don't understand,' Tristan half shook his head.

'Who or what are the Reganna?' SK's tongue skated across his lips.

The First had to stop herself from answering his question. Any answer she gave would just lead to more questions and they didn't have time for that.

'Tristan you will come with me,' she turned, 'we have to prepare for them, that's all that matters right now.'

'What about the rest of us?' SK licked his lips again.

'I want you to stay here and protect the others, right now the only person I need is Tristan.'

'Because I'm special, right?' Tristan folded his arms. 'Do you even know what I am?'

'Do you?' She met his gaze.

Almost instantly he turned his head away from her. There was something unreadable about his expression; something which made her wish she had the Face of Friendship's empathic abilities.

'Right now it doesn't matter why you're special,' she began making her way out of the Sacred Huntay and back into the forest, 'all that matters is that you are. I need you.'

'I know you do,' Tristan remained where he was until she'd passed by him, 'but I'm not so sure I need you.'

The First stopped and glanced back towards him. In her entire existence there had only ever been two other beings brave enough to say those words to her. She was the First, the Original, she was the beginning of everything, she was everything so why...?

'You will come with me,' she kept her tone as flat and level as its multi-tonal state would allow.

'Ask me nicely.'

'Tristan...?' SK gawked at him.

'No,' Tristan shot him a look, before turning back to the First. 'No, I'm tired of people telling me I'm important... special... different... and then treating me like I don't matter. If you want my help then you will ask me nicely for it.'

'Who do you think you are?' The First glared at him.

'I don't know and neither do you, isn't that the point?'

'Insolent child,' she continued to hold him in her gaze, 'if you keep this up I'll...'

'Force me to help you, like you did with Kaiba?' Tristan shook his head. 'I'm not refusing to help you First. I want to help you. I just want a little respect for doing it.'

'Will you please come with me Tristan,' she gritted her teeth and wished her multi-tonal voice could deadpan the words, 'I would be ever so grateful if you did.'

'Was that really so hard?' Tristan made his way forward.

The First found herself rolling her eyes and moving after him. Once they'd reached the forest area the First pulled herself ahead of him.

'You have no idea what's coming,' she folded her arms.

'Maybe,' he gripped the material above his stomach, 'but I don't need you to explain it to me.'

'Really? After all these months of complaining about something big, bad and ugly coming you're not the least bit curious now that it's here?'

'I don't need to be curious; I just need to make it right. So tell me what I have to do already.'

'Well for starters I need you to touch that,' the First came to a stop and pointed towards a small cherry tree in the path just ahead of them.

'But… I thought it was forbidden to touch the trees in this place,' Tristan frowned.

'Exceptional circumstances require exceptions to be made,' she gave an annoyed sigh, 'now, if you don't mind.'

'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' Tristan moved towards the tree.

The First watched as Tristan hesitated for a moment; his hand hovering just above the bark of the tree's trunk. A small smile twitched at her lips, he really was something extraordinary; it was just a shame his attitude left a lot to be desired. Still, there was something about him...

Tristan's palm made contact with the trunk and she heard him gasp with the shock of the energy she knew had just entered into him.

'This is just the start.' She told him as he made his way back towards her. 'Come, we have much to do.'

SK felt his tongue skate across his lips several times as he paced back and forth across the Huntay. Yugi, Mai and Mokuba were all now stood by the podium, either studying the scroll none of them could read or the staring at some random point on the Huntay. There'd been this mutual kind of silence since Tristan and Joey had left. It wasn't uncomfortable exactly, but it was starting to feel more than a little suffocating.

'Is it wrong for me to hate Tristan right now?' SK forced himself to break the silence.

'Depend on why I guess,' Mokuba smirked at him.

'Where do I start,' he rolled his eyes as his tongue skated across his lips again. 'I mean, you all saw how he was just now. He's the one the First picked to help her. He's the one she needs and despite the fact this is the opportunity he's been waiting for, he makes her beg for it. What kind of person does that?'

'The kind of person who needs a reason to stay,' Yugi sighed.

'What's that supposed to mean?' Mai frowned at him.

'We all know he's only playing lip service to our group right now,' Yugi averted his gaze. 'I know he's been pretty hard work lately, but none of us have really made the effort to understand what he's going through. He probably acts out because he's feeling isolated and then isolates himself because he can't stop acting out.'

'I never thought about it that way,' Mokuba frowned.

'I have,' SK forced himself to admit. 'I was having this conversation with him earlier, I think... No, I'm pretty certain he's pretty severely depressed. Great, now I've made myself feel bad for saying I hate him.'

'I think we all keep doing that,' Yugi tilted his head to one side. 'It's why we continue to put up with his mood swings. Well that and we're not ready to let him go yet.'

'Let him go,' SK felt there was something unnervingly double edged about those words. 'Don't ever let him go.'

'What?' Yugi frowned.

'He might hate you for it, but if he needs a reason to stay then give him one,' SK licked his lips, 'there's no reason for him to... leave yet.'

'You... you don't think he would... do you?'

'He would what?' Mokuba shot a look back and forth between Yugi and SK.

'No,' Mai laughed before anyone else could say anything, 'you two aren't thinking... I mean I know Tristan's... you know, at the moment, but even he wouldn't...'

'Wouldn't what?' Mokuba was clearly frustrated at being the only one left out of the loop.

'I don't know,' SK focused his gaze on Mai and ignored Mokuba's question. 'From the way he was talking today if things don't seriously change soon... And now I've really made myself feel bad for how I started this conversation.'

'I wish we knew how to help him,' Yugi lowered his gaze.

'I know,' SK licked his lips again, 'but for what it's worth I think there's a lot he's not telling you guys about what's going on with him anyway.'

'What do you mean?'

'I don't know exactly, but he was saying something earlier about other feelings. He told me it wasn't just the big bad he was worried about, but he wouldn't go into any detail about it.'

'Did he give you any indication as to what those feelings might be?' Yugi studied him for a moment.

'Not really,' he shook his head, 'but he doesn't think the rest of you will understand, that much he made pretty clear. I think his exact words were that you'd hate him for it or something. I'm not sure; I was more focused on him talking about death as though it would be a welcome option.'

'You mean he actually told you...?'

'No, not exactly, but I did feel like I had to convince him death wasn't all it's cracked up to be.'

The silence returned. SK wasn't sure if it was welcomed or not, but he did know he didn't want the conversation they were having to continue. A part of him felt a little like he'd betrayed Tristan's confidence by saying as much as he had, but he felt as though they had the right to know. After all, they would be the ones to help him through whatever it was he was going through.

'So does anyone know anything about this Reganna the First mentioned?' Mai broke the silence with a welcome change in conversation.

'Not a clue,' SK's tongue skated across his lips, 'but it's got to be pretty bad to get the First all worked up like this.'

'I bet the screaming was pretty bad too,' a familiar voice from behind them made them jump. 'I know mine was; grief is its own kind of pain.'

'Téa?' Yugi's jaw half dropped open as they turned to face her.

'No,' Téa shook her head, 'but she's a friend of yours. A friend of all of yours.'

'You... you're the Face of Friendship,' SK found himself swallowing hard.

'Yes, I am.'

'I don't…'

'My sister, the First, she is here, isn't she?' Téa cut him off.

'Yeah she…'

'I don't need to know where,' she shook her head. 'Did she scream?' She lowered her gaze. 'Was it awful?'

'I...' SK licked his lips once more. 'Yes... yes she screamed, that's how she took control of Joey's body. What happened? What's going on?'

'The Pure... she...' her head cocked strangely to one side and she half turned away from them. 'She... she told me to run and hide, but I... I just hid. I... I didn't want her... I didn't want... I didn't want another sister to... So... so I watched... I... watched...'

'What happened?' SK's mouth felt dry. 'Where's the Pure?'

'She is like the First now,' her voice trembled as her gaze shifted towards Yugi. 'I do not want to share her fate, please...' her eyes flicked towards SK, then round at the rest of the group. 'Please protect me; I do not want to share her fate.'