He wasn't in the kitchen.
I panicked a little.
He was always up earlier than me in the morning and had breakfast ready for the both of us before heading out. Today he had let me sleep in for some reason. It was 9 AM and I groggily walked into the kitchen to find it untouched since last night.
Did he leave without me?
I checked Ryou's bedroom and I found him lying on his side in bed, staring at pictures, still dressed in the street clothes from last night. He probably hadn't slept at all yet again. He looked like he was analyzing them, lost in thought. Pictures we took together at the park yesterday, then ones of Ryou and me. Where did he find those?
"What are you doing?" I broke the silence, not even getting a reaction from him.
Instead he turned around on his other side and kept staring at them.
"I'm talking to you! I told you not to rummage through Ryou's things!"
It felt so unclean to have him touch my brother's belongings.
He leaned his head towards me just a little, as if he wanted to compare my face with the stills he had, then back to them. He looked really distant and maybe a tinge melancholic. I frowned. He hadn't been himself since he lost that duel, but now it was starting to worry me.
I climbed up in bed next to him and peeked at the pictures over his shoulder.
I sighed deeply, looking at the photos of Ryou he had sprawled all over the bed. My little brother was always so cute and pleasant, regardless of context. Those large, kind, doe eyes of his always made him appear so serene, regardless of context. He always improved my mood when I looked at him.
I swallowed hard. I really missed him.
"…I look better than that loser, don't I?" the thief told me absently, as if he didn't know my true opinion of him already.
He chuckled at his own statement, feeling proud of himself.
"I disagree" I told him, prying the photo from his hand with little resistance. Even his nicest smile had a tinge of falseness to him, like he was trying to befriend you just to stab you in the back later on. Which was exactly the kind of person he really was.
"Come on, get up. We have to go search for those items again" I told him, pulling on his shirt to try to get him out of bed. He was far too heavy for me to drag him more than a few paces. All I truly managed was to get stretch marks on dad's sweater.
"What for?" he asked me, his voice still low, as if he didn't care at all.
"What do you mean 'what for'? You said you were going to get my brother back once you have all of them!" I reprimanded him, exasperated at his attempt to play the fool. I pulled on him with all my might, but he barely budged.
"Who cares about that anymore…" he responded, lifting himself into a sitting position with his back to me, making me lose my balance and fall on the bed next to him.
"I care!" I raised my voice into a yell, tears welling into my eyes. After almost 2 weeks of this he wasn't going to just quit on me. "You promised you'd get him back!"
"Well, I changed my mind. You're better off without him"
What? How dare you!
I started punching him in the back, though he probably didn't even feel it.
"No, I'm not! I want him back! I want my baby brother back!" I wailed like a toddler, but I didn't care. I was completely fed up with him.
"To do what?!" It was his turn to raise his voice at me as he turned around and grabbed my arms forcefully, holding me still as I looked him in the eyes as defiantly as I could. "Cry while his friends are getting hurt? Cry while you're getting stabbed? Cry while his mother is getting crushed by a truck?"
How…how did he know all this?
"What are you even going to do once he gets back and things settle down? Complain that he's a pansy and tell him to pull himself together? Let him rot away in his room again because he's too afraid to be a burden on others? What is even the point of going back to the status quo?"
He sounded emotional, like he was actually being sincere to me. His grip tightened more and more as he spoke until it started hurting. It felt so unnerving, as if he was speaking for someone else. He let out a sigh and his shoulders slumped.
"…you deserve better" he ended, letting go of my wrists as I rubbed them sorely.
I scooted back a few paces, never letting him out of my sight. He was scaring me again, acting like a psycho for no good reason. Still...
"I don't care about that. I still want him back." I insisted.
"And if he doesn't want to come back?" he shot back at me.
"Why wouldn't he?"
"…because he already got his wish"
And with that, he got out of bed and left the room, forcing me to try to understand the meaning behind his words.
He wandered around town aimlessly, going wherever his legs took him.
He had lost all sense of purpose.
Gathering the items had been his goal for years and it had resurfaced now that he thought he had to get the boy back. And then…
"Aren't you going to come out and talk to her?" he told the Ring around his neck, as if it would respond.
"You want me to take over forever?" he continued monologing. "I'm not going to live your life for you, you know. I'm just going to do what pleases me and nothing else."
Still nothing.
The ring was completely unresponsive. Not that it ever talked to him, anyway.
He was used to talking to things that couldn't talk back, like the ghosts that haunted him ever since the fall of Kul'Elna.
The first time he saw them, it was quite a shock.
He had taken shelter in the town's remains for almost a year, but he eventually ran out of resources and couldn't grow his own. Thus, he had to depart. He wandered from place to place for about 5 years, trying his best to survive.
Eventually, though, his path led him back to Kul'Elna. Whether by chance or by fate, he had made it back.
The remains of the town had long collapsed onto themselves, leaving nothing but ruins, desert dust and a stench of decay that permeated the air. It had become completely unlivable, yet nobody bothered to come clean up and erase this dilapidated place off the face of the map. It felt as if they wanted to leave it there as a reminder that it could happen to anyone.
He felt disgusted coming back to see this, but at the same time the familiarity of it all made it feel cozy. He was finally home again.
He went to his old house, the front wall caved in as the guards had destroyed the wooden pillars to break in that night 6 years ago. He squeezed through the crevices, walking up the stairs to the small bedroom. There was some furniture left, however little of it there was to begin with, but it was severely eroded, nails having rusted off and blankets having been eaten away by moths.
He picked one off the ground and shook the dust off, covering himself with it and trying to sleep. The night was chilly and the blanket did little to stave off the cold, but it wasn't physical warmth that he had been seeking.
He wanted to remind himself of how it felt like to live here. He wanted to remember the happiness he experienced with his parents and why he couldn't forgive what happened to them.
As if on cue, he heard a low whisper call out to him. It sounded like a voice, though too faint to make out.
He got up and walked towards the source of it, towards the collapsed temple.
He froze as he looked at the remains of the building, feeling the fear of that day once again grind his body to a halt. The sound was louder here and more insistent, several other voices joining in, begging him to come in.
He shook himself to steady his mind and walked down the stairs.
Despite the temple having collapsed in on itself, the entrance and passageway to the ritual chamber had stayed intact, as if supported by supernatural powers. His mind screamed for him to back off, but he had already committed to this. He had to see what was calling him down here, even if it was dangerous.
He wasn't a defenseless child anymore. If needed be, he could take out his sword and slice the throat of an assailant in an instant. He had long passed the point of hesitation when it came to killing people.
No, it wasn't humans that he feared down here. It was something far beyond that.
He reached the base of the stairs and peeked, as he did 6 years ago, into the atrium.
The wreckage was minimal and the stone sculpture of the lying pharaoh with the item indents was still in pristine condition, as if it was protected by a magic barrier.
He carefully eased closer, staring at it properly for the first time. The remains of people were completely gone, all the blood was wiped clean and there was no smell of blood or corpses at all, as if nothing had ever happened.
The items that were molded in the dents were gone too. He counted 7 of them in his mind, each comprising of a different item a Pharaoh would need to judge the afterlife.
Even though he never got an education, he had still listened in on what his elders discussed.
He had learned thus what the items would signify: the All-seeing Eye to see inside the soul of the sinner, the Scales to weigh the sinner's deeds, the Headband to protect his mind and the Ring to protect his body from the forces of evil that would dare fight back, the Ankh to grant eternal life and the Scepter to rule over it, while using the Pyramid to house his own soul past human years.
The ritual was in order to imbue these items with magical powers to achieve their goals.
Where did they disappear to? Had someone survived to leave with them in tow?
The wailing grew louder, now discernable as inhuman crying.
He realized it came from the molds.
He ran his hand gently over the indents on the sculpture and he felt a prick, like a needle had pushed against his skin.
He peeled back right as a mouth with fused teeth jumped out of the stone, a ghastly, eyeless face staring at him. More and more spirits jumped out, their low screams chilling him to the bone. They began circling him, preventing him from leaving the place.
He was frightened at first, thinking they might attack him, but when they didn't, he realized something. There were 99 of them total.
These were his people.
He reached forth to touch one, but the ghosts were incorporeal. At least, unless they really wanted something. Over time, he had come to realize that they would occasionally take nourishment from human bodies, replenishing their magical power by devouring their bodies and souls. This was not a problem since death followed him wherever he went, though at times he'd amuse himself by providing them with easy victims like the 2 boys in the alleyway.
He couldn't tell who was who. They were all reddish spectral creatures of the same shape and size, though their voices tended to differ, some higher than others though still inhuman in pitch and tone.
Regardless, he was reunited with his family again. He felt happy in a deranged sort of way.
They stayed behind for him. Did they want to take him with them?
No, they stayed because they didn't, or couldn't, leave this world.
They had something they still wanted from this world.
The ghosts guided him to the tablet, scraping their clawed hands through the indents as if trying to communicate with him.
They wanted him to get the items back?
How could he even do that? The Pharaoh was protected by the biggest army in the Nile, and if he had all the magical items he could surely dispose of him in an instant.
As if reading his mind, the ghosts started floating away towards a crack in the wall. They wailed to get him to walk towards it and break a hole to fit through.
Without hesitation, he pulled out his sword from his belt and wedged it in the crack, pulling at it to enlargen the hole. He prodded at it for a while but the walls were weak enough to break enough for a whole person to fit through.
He coughed, the room behind the wall feeling dusty and unused in years. It might have been a priests' private chambers, accessible through a path that had been cut off a long time ago.
Inside, he found the most curious of sights.
A giant tablet lined the far wall, on it a depiction of a chimera beast with a human upper torso and a snake lower half. He had never seen this creature before, but it felt like a formidable spirit beast, a Ka unlike any he'd seen before.
Most people were unaware of their Ka's. He had only recently learned how it works as well. Willpower and emotion drives and evolves these creatures, though their owner needs to be in full control of them in order to work.
Everyone had a Ka of their own, a reflection of their soul, with some being stronger than others. Calling upon them was the difficult part, as was controlling them. He had seen a person summon their Ka to try to kill him, only to end up devoured by it as the beast was too much for him to handle.
The boy had never managed to call upon his own Ka, though he had never truly tried. He had never felt like it'd make a difference for him.
This though, was something else. It looked majestic and powerful, as if it was waiting for someone important to claim it. The ghosts urged him to go near it.
Was it meant for him? The spirit of Kul'Elna wanted him to represent it?
He felt honored. He promised the spirits he would use the Ka sealed inside the tablet to get their revenge.
He looked up at the building in front of him.
His legs had instinctually taken him to a school.
Domino High, he remembered.
He checked around himself, students walking about the yard, giving him dirty looks as they passed. He looked off and gave off weird vibes.
It was a school day, it seemed.
A creepy grin snaked its way across his face.
Maybe he should pay his old friend a visit and settle things once and for all.