First off, I want to thank everyone who's faved/followed this story, and give a special shout out to those who've taken the time to review. Seriously, you guys rock!

Second, I'd just like to put this out there now so that no one gets the wrong idea: I have absolutely nothing against Anzu. In fact, I rather like her Season 0 personality. Yes, she has her flaws, and she makes some mistakes that seem kinda mean before she fully understands what's going on, but for the most part, she is a very good friend. **Spoiler** She puts off getting a job that would help her earn the money she needs to achieve her dreams so that she can spend more time with Yuugi, and that's before she suspects that he's more than he seems. **End spoiler**

I did what I did in this chapter for the purpose of plot, not because I dislike her.

Anyhow, I do believe I've rambled enough. Chapter start!

Submersion

By: The Half-Blood Guardian

Previously:

Not many days after the first time the woman dropped the little boy off at Sugoroku's house-shop, she and the boy – who was named Yuugi, as the spirit had discovered – returned with armfuls of boxes and bags. The spirit learned that "moving in" was the term for what they were doing.

As the woman and the boy continued bringing in their belongings, Sugoroku's home started getting cramped, and the old man had to move some of his own possessions into storage. It was because of this that the boy finally came across the spirit's artifacts.

Chapter 2: The Beginning Part 2

The door to the storage closet creaked open, and the feeling of a human soul entering its abode roused the spirit from the restful state it was in. Expecting the human to be Sugoroku, it was taken aback when it realized that the soul it sensed was not the soul of the old man, but that of the Light boy! Never before had the child been so close to it. Excitement raced through its immaterial chest, and it was unable to stop a bit of its power from escaping and trying to reach out for the little one's light.

Maybe it was the extra gleam that briefly illuminated the puzzle's box which drew the child's attention, or maybe it was the feeling of foreign power that came from it (though the former was more likely), but either way, the boy looked up towards the seemingly ordinary top shelf in interest. Setting down the box in his arms, Yuugi glanced around until he spotted the footstool Sugoroku used to reach the higher shelves.

After setting it up, the boy was met with a dilemma: he was still quite a bit shorter than his grandfather, and no matter how far he stretched, he couldn't even touch the top shelf, let alone take something sitting on top of it.

Yuugi bit his lip. Normally he heeded the warnings he was given against doing dangerous things, but for some reason he couldn't resist the urge to reach whatever it was he had seen glinting at him from the top shelf. Carefully, he stepped off the ladder and onto the nearest higher shelf. He waited a few seconds, but nothing happened, and he released a shaky, relieved breath and looked for something he could use to climb higher.

When he was inches away from reaching his goal, the shelf wobbled and tilted, and the boy lost his grip, thankfully landing on his feet before stumbling back and falling on his bottom. A few smaller cases slid off, the spirit's box among them, but for once it couldn't care less about what happened to its artifacts, as long as it could get closer to the boy with the most amazingly bright soul it had ever felt.

Then the spirit felt terror from the boy, and realized that the shelf was still tipping forward. It knew from experience that humans were fragile creatures, and this one was particularly delicate and tiny. If the shelf were to fall on the boy, he would be–!

NO! The spirit roared, and despite their long period of inactivity, its Shadows immediately responded. Thankfully the shelf had only just started its descent, and so was relatively easy to push back upright.

In the dark, the child didn't see the Shadows. He was too relieved, though, to wonder exactly why he wasn't a smear on the floor. His fingers clutched the golden box tightly, and with the panic now gone from its mind, the spirit realized for the first time that it was in the child's hands. Or rather, that its puzzle box was in his hands. Any thoughts of such insignificant technicalities were chased away before they could properly form, though, as the little boy's warm, wonderful, and delightfully pure light overwhelmed its senses.

The Light shining in the center of the little one's heart was so brilliant that it reached every corner, and pulsed happily before the spirit or its Shadows even got close. Not even the encounter with Sugoroku's light could have prepared it for the sheer amount of energy that this soul provided it with. Through their link, the spirit could hear its Shadows croon, and its own chest rumbled with a sound of contentment.

Although the human was unaware of anything that was truly going on, he stared at the gold case in his hands with such intensity that the spirit knew he must have at least subconsciously felt the effects to some degree. Carefully, he lifted the lid.

Several minutes later, Sugoroku noticed his grandson was still absent and went to investigate. He found the door to the storage closet wide open, but heard nothing that would indicate Yuugi was in there. Then a faint clink came from within the room. He closed the short distance between himself and the open doorway and, peering into the dimly lit space, spotted a head of wild hair near the back shelf.

Wide lilac eyes stared transfixed down at his hands, and Sugoroku noted with alarm the too-bright gleam of a familiar gold box sitting beside the boy. He realized with something between dread and apprehension that one piece of the ancient puzzle was being held in tiny hands. Sugoroku cleared his throat lightly to announce his presence.

"Yuugi?"

It was several seconds before Yuugi acknowledged that he'd heard the man.

"Jii-chan…" the child whispered, slowly lifting his gaze to his grandfather. "Jii-chan, look." Almost reverently, he held out the gleaming puzzle piece for the man to see. "Isn't it beautiful?"

There were so many things Sugoroku wanted to say to that. He wanted to tell Yuugi that it was the puzzle making him see it as even more desirable than it should have been. A small, treacherous part of him wanted to agree with the boy. But mostly, he wanted to tell Yuugi to put the puzzle piece back and never touch the potentially dangerous artifact again.

Just as he was opening his mouth to respond with the latter option, he really noticed for the first time the look in his grandson's eyes. They were positively sparkling with wonder and adoration, and almost seemed to glow with a happiness that brightened the little storage closet. Yuugi hadn't looked so happy since before his father Kendama had been admitted to the hospital in a coma, and with one look at those wide eyes and that joyous smile, Sugoroku knew he could never be the one to take away the child's happiness.

And anyway, all the stories about the Millennium Puzzle warned against those with corrupted hearts touching it. Sugoroku was well aware of the fact that he was nowhere close to perfect, but the puzzle seemed to have accepted his heart as a worthy one. Yuugi had the least corrupted heart of any person he knew, and therefore would be at no risk from the puzzle, according to its rules.

His mind made up, Sugoroku said, "I'm glad you like it. It is for you, after all."

"Really?" Yuugi gasped. Sugoroku nodded, and the little boy squealed in excitement. "Thank you thank you thankyouthankyouthankyou!"

Sugoroku chuckled. "Of course, it was going to be a birthday present, but it seems that a certain someone found it early." Yuugi giggled nervously.

"Oh… oops?"

Sugoroku just grinned. "That's quite alright. It's not like you were trying to find your present early, right?"

"Right." Yuugi said, nodding vigorously.

"See? No harm done."

Yuugi smiled, then looked back down at the piece of gold in his hand. Sugoroku noticed the shift in his grandson's attention.

"You know, Yuugi, there's quite a history behind that puzzle you've got."

"A history?" The boy questioned curiously.

"That's right, and I'm going to tell you all about it. But what do you say we go somewhere a little more comfortable first, hm?"

"Okay!" Yuugi agreed, quickly grabbing the puzzle box before leaping from the floor and bounding up the stairs. Sugoroku followed at a more sedate pace. When they were both seated on the living room couch, the man cleared his throat and began.

"What you hold in your hands is in fact a powerful artifact called the Millennium Puzzle." He said in his storytelling voice, and noted with satisfaction that Yuugi's eyes were fixed on him. He continued. "Years ago, an excavation team found the Millennium Puzzle in Egypt, deep within the tomb of a pharaoh in the Valley of the Kings…"

Ever since Yuugi had found the artifact (which was called the "Millennium Puzzle", the spirit remembered) the boy had been captivated by it. He didn't often bring it with him to school, knowing that it was safest for it to remain in his room, but he made time to be with the Puzzle every day.

The spirit often felt the child's soft, warm little fingers grasping the pieces of its puzzle, and sensed the intent of the one those fingers belonged to as he tried over and over again to fit the pieces together. The attempts were met with failure every time, and Yuugi sometimes went days between sessions of working on the puzzle while he gathered back up his will to try again, but no matter what, he never truly gave up hope that he would someday succeed in finishing the puzzle that no one else had ever been able to solve.

The spirit adored these sessions it had with the boy. The hands holding the pieces of his puzzle were the closest thing it had ever known to physical contact. This contact and the emotions it felt through the contact were what it looked forward to every day.

Sometimes Yuugi was in a positive mood. Other times the spirit could sense loneliness in the boy and wished with all its might that it could provide some form of comfort. But no matter what mood Yuugi was in, the spirit always felt a sense of determination not its own, whether it was strong or nearly beaten down. It liked to imagine that the boy knew it was trapped in the puzzle, and that the reason he was determined to finish it was because he wanted to free the spirit.

But just as it had always been, what made the contact even more special was the boy's purity. He still had the purest soul the spirit had ever felt, even purer than Sugoroku's.

The spirit wasn't sure exactly when it realized that it also wanted a gender. The spirit did know, however, that it was at some point after it became familiar with the small family that lived above the game shop. Sugoroku was male, and Yuugi was, too. The woman, Yuugi's mother Akako, was female. The spirit knew this without needing to be told (not that anyone would tell such things to what was apparently only a bunch of scattered pieces of gold, anyway).

However, knowing who was male and who was female wasn't something that immediately cultivated any desire to fit into a category. The urge came after it started to learn more about the mortal family, and grew even more fond of them.

For a while, it frustrated the spirit to no end that it differed from the human family in this way. It tried to come up with a solution, but the best idea ended up being to give itself a gender, like humans gave each other names.

Can that even be done? It wondered. And that was what it always came back to for the spirit: if it was something that could be done.

One day, it decided that it didn't matter whether or not it was "possible." It was going to assign itself a gender regardless.

Its two favorite people were Yuugi and Sugoroku (Yuugi's mother was a good person, but the spirit hadn't formed much more than a vague fondness for her). Both the boy and the man were male. It decided it wanted to be male also.

The Shadows watched, pleasantly surprised and confused, as the spirit broke into a rare "smile," not sure what had made their master so happy all of a sudden. The spirit didn't notice their confusion. He was too preoccupied with the joy and the pride he felt at the new form of identification he had obtained for himself.

It was about half a year after he "met" the boy that he realized a connection had begun to form between the two of them, similar to what he shared with the Shadows. The new bond was faint and thin, though, like a thread tying them together rather than his thick, sturdy, rope-like bond with the darkness. The spirit was certain the boy had no idea that there was any connection at all, seeing as how humans seemed to be unable to sense such things until they were about as obvious to the spirit himself as a singing, dancing crocodile would be.

(The spirit barely spared a moment to wonder what a crocodile was. By now he was used to strangely familiar words he was sure he'd never heard before coming to his mind.)

Over the course of a one week period between the ninth and tenth months since the puzzle had been gifted to him, Yuugi's nameless and apparently incurable ailment was suddenly and inexplicably cured. The near-constant weakness left his limbs, and the random attacks, which had plagued him at least twice a week for as long as he could remember, just… stopped coming.

There was a period of time after his miraculous recovery where Yuugi was still mostly kept at home and monitored, just in case there was a relapse. When it became apparent that his illness wasn't coming back though, a whole new world of opportunities opened up to him. Among them was that Yuugi would now be able to go to public school.

Of course, the staff were all made aware of his now former condition, and his soon-to-be teacher was instructed on what to do if the boy ever did experience an attack. He would also have to be watched even more carefully than the other students. But none of that could quench the jittery excitement the boy felt when he learned he would be attending school with others his age.

Around the same time, the spirit began to experience split second flashes of fuzzy images of the outside world, which overlapped his vision. Each time, the flashes lasted longer, and the images became clearer, until it was almost as though he were looking around at his stone surroundings. But in these images, everything was so much more colorful, so much brighter, and unlike when he'd first experienced the light of the sun, this time it was like he could actually see it.

You are seeing it, whispered the voice. Ever since he'd begun to form his tenuous connection with Yuugi, the voice had been telling him things less and less often, but as always, he didn't question how it knew the words that it did. He just accepted the fact that somehow or other, he had gained an ability equivalent to sight outside of his own realm.

It wasn't long before he learned to control when and how long he used the ability, and realized just how useful this newfound sight was. For the first time ever, he could truly see Sugoroku, Akako, and most importantly, Yuugi. To look upon his Light boy's large violet eyes and young, innocent face was the greatest gift he could imagine.

Yuugi came home from his first day of public school with a gleam in his eyes and a bounce in his step, and could barely wait for his grandpa to finish helping the woman at the counter with her purchase before jumping into his tale of teachers and classrooms and huge blackboards and the biggest group of kids he'd ever seen.

Later on, when his mother returned from her job, Yuugi was only too happy to repeat the entire story again.

At the end of the fourth day, he walked through the front door of the shop with a slight frown on his face. Right away he noticed the number of customers. Excluding his grandpa, there were already eight people in the shop before he arrived. In a larger store, eight people (or ten, counting Yuugi and Sugoroku) would have seemed a pitiful amount, but in the Kame Game Shop, it was quite a crowd.

"One moment, I'll be right with you!" Sugoroku called, his tone still polite despite the fact that he was carrying a box big enough that it covered his view of the door.

Seeing this, Yuugi almost went over to ask the man what he could do to help, but two things stopped him. The first was that there were already so many people packed inside the little shop that even he, with his small size, would have been more of a hindrance than a help. The second was that his grandpa had always said that a customer was three times more likely to buy something if the employees were pleasant, and Yuugi didn't think he could put on a convincing smile right now if his life depended on it.

And so, after weaving his way carefully through the shop to avoid being trampled by accident, he squeezed through the door to upstairs. For once, he ignored the getabako and headed to his room without putting his shoes in their proper place.

Once he reached his room, he carelessly dropped his backpack on the floor and flopped on his bed, spread-eagle, pulling in shaky breaths as he stared at the ceiling. Alone for the first time all day, he allowed his tears to flow and his breath to hitch with quiet sobs.

Then he caught a glimpse of light at the edge of tear-blurred eyes, and let his head fall to the left. Sitting on top of his desk was the puzzle box, glinting brightly and invitingly.

Yuugi wiped the tears from his eyes and, almost without thought, sat up and reached for the glittering artifact.

Two floors below, Sugoroku was finally able to set down his heavy load. He turned to address whichever customer had walked in earlier.

"I apologize for the delay. How can I…" he trailed off, seeing no new customers.

Must have left when they saw how crowded it is, he concluded with a bit of disappointment, then mentally shrugged it off. After all, it was just a fact that the people who entered the shop didn't always buy anything, and there was nothing he could do about it.

It wasn't long before it became a regular occurrence for Yuugi to come home from school with barely suppressed tears, letting them out the moment he was alone in his room. The spirit would wait until the boy had fallen asleep at night before sending a Shadow or two to croon wordless mental encouragements. His subconscious picked up on them, and he usually awoke in the morning refreshed and ready for the day. He also began to take comfort in the dark, a feeling of inexplicable safety wrapping him in its cool, relaxing arms.

Then, for seemingly no reason, it started getting harder for the Shadows to materialize outside their box. It baffled the spirit, who eventually came to the conclusion that its loss was part of some sort of exchange.

It seemed that in return for his heightened awareness of the outside world, he'd lost most of his ability to interact with it. Though the spirit relished being able to see the little one, he would have gladly traded his sight for his former dulled sense of what was going on around him if it meant he could better protect his boy of Light.

The Shadows completely lost their ability to leave the spirit's labyrinth at exactly the worst time. Yuugi's father, who had been in the hospital ever since the hit and run, finally lost the fight against death. The whole family (or what was left of it) was devastated. Without the spirit's Shadows to offer him solace, Yuugi no longer just found the dark calming. He acted as though he needed time in the dark. It was one of the only things that could bring him comfort anymore.

One day, after his grandfather had taken down a large black poster board to make room for a new advertisement, Yuugi brought it to his room, measured the edges of the skylight, cut the old poster board until it fit the window just right, and used half a roll of tape to keep it in place.

That evening, Sugoroku noticed that rather than seeing the light from the sunset streaming into the hallway through Yuugi's open door, the top floor was almost completely dark. Feeling along the wall, he flipped the light switch and saw the improvised blackout curtain. He frowned in slight confusion, but decided to let it be. Yuugi's room had become one of the only places of refuge in his world. If this was how Yuugi liked his room, he'd let him keep the poster board. The poor boy needed all the comfort he could get.

Kendama's funeral was held a few days after he had passed on. The sky was bright blue with a faint scattering of fluffy white clouds, and the temperature was just right. It had rained the day before. The ground had dried out since then, but the storm had left the air clear and clean. Birds chirped and fluttered between the branches of healthy, leafy trees.

It may as well have still been raining for all the gloom that shrouded the three remaining members of the Mutou family.

The man's death deeply affected each of them, and each reacted differently. Yuugi became quieter and more distant. Sugoroku, for more than one reason, took a more active role in raising his grandson: both to comfort and help fill the gaping hole in the boy's heart, and to distract himself. And Akako started to spend more and more time at work, at friends' houses, at various bars; anywhere except at home or around her remaining family members.

Eventually, she was gone so often that Sugoroku only saw her for maybe five hours a week, and Yuugi saw her even less.

The spirit saw the sadness and pain in his Light boy's eyes every time he went to bed without having seen his mother for days. The spirit began to resent her for it (not enough to punish her; the woman was Yuugi's mother after all, and Yuugi would only become further saddened if she were punished. It was for this reason and this reason only that the spirit continued to tolerate her).

It was a few months after Yuugi started public school that, through his handling of the puzzle pieces, the spirit noticed slowing in the boy's growth. It was the slightest thing, and no one else, including the boy himself, had noticed it, but it was there.

Even before he'd been able to see it, the spirit had felt the subtle change in the size of Yuugi's hands over time for nearly as long as the child had been trying to solve his puzzle, and it had not been completely uniform. In fact, at times they would grow almost as much in one month as they had grown in two months during other times. But the changes had always just seemed to come at the correct pace before now.

With each year that passed, the boy's growth continued to slow, until everyone noticed. And the more his growth slowed, the more his peers picked on him. His wild, spiky, and multicolored hair didn't help, nor did the fact that he wasn't interested in any of the things that the "cool kids" considered to be fun. Between the beginning and the end of his third year in public school, his status had gone from "shy-recluse-with-whom-one-may-sit-if-all-other-seats-are-either-taken-or-exceedingly-uncomfortable" to "social-pariah-with-whom-one-may-never-willingly-sit-under-any-circumstances-and-with-whom-one-should-only-interact-if-the-purpose-is-to-scorn."

The spirit had lost count of how many times he had been forced to only watch with his not-sight and listen with his not-hearing when, in the dead of night, the boy sniffled and sometimes even sobbed (always softly, never loud enough to be heard by anyone outside of his room; he didn't want to worry or inconvenience even one person, especially not his grandfather or his mother, on the rare occasions she was around).

As far as the lonely child knew, he was without company in his sorrow, but always the spirit was right there along with him, wishing he were able to cry as well as he listened to the young one whisper into the dark room for the umpteenth time his wish – his plea – for true "Friends."

The word, like many that had a great deal of emotional context, wasn't one that the spirit got a clear definition of, but he did receive the vague idea that these "Friends" were people that gave comfort. Comfort that his little one so desperately needed, and had been denied for so long. The spirit wanted to know the full meaning of the word "Friend," if only so he would know exactly what it was that Yuugi was missing.

Then one day, a spunky, brown-haired girl, new to their school and to the area but quickly becoming well-liked by many, noticed Yuugi being bullied outside the school building just after class let out. She stomped her way over to his current tormentors and promptly told them off. The boy watched in awe as her no-nonsense attitude and the sharp, uncompromising expression she wore caused the larger, older students to seemingly shrink beneath her gaze before obeying her and scrambling away.

Both boy and spirit were elated beyond words when she turned back to him and offered him her hand. When he shyly took it, she pulled him to his feet, introducing herself as Anzu Mazaki and stating that she was going to be his Friend from then on. Her voice left no room for argument. Not that Yuugi would've ever dreamed of turning down her "request" for friendship.

It was at that point that the spirit came to the conclusion that a "Friend" was someone who cared for and protected another; someone who would defend them no matter what the cost.

Three months later, the slightest bit of Anzu's personality had rubbed off on the boy; he'd become a little less reclusive, he stood a little straighter, and every once in a while, he could even make and hold eye contact with his peers. The spirit watched with contentment the slow but steady progress Yuugi had been making with the girl's help.

Then tragedy struck: the Mazaki family moved away, and as a member of the family, Anzu was of course brought – unwillingly, with much shouting, and while being all but literally dragged along – with the rest of the Mazaki household. And the bullies, who had been kept at bay by the fiery girl, descended immediately, like ravenous vultures who'd been deprived of a meal for far too long.

Helpless to stop them, the spirit uselessly thought of his understanding of what a "Friend" was: someone who cared for and protected another; someone who defended them no matter what the cost. Never before had he wished so hard that it was possible for him to be Yuugi's Friend.

The spirit raged and mourned as, slowly but surely, the light that was Yuugi's heart began to flicker and dim. It was still brighter than even Sugoroku's light, and it was still by far the purest he had ever felt, but he lamented the fact that it had even dimmed at all. The boy became more withdrawn, more easily frightened, more skittish than he had ever been. He became less trusting of others and even lost a bit of his formerly boundless enthusiasm for the new shipments that arrived at the shop.

Most distressingly of all, at least for the spirit, Yuugi's self confidence and self esteem took a nosedive until they were basically nonexistent. Until the boy was one step away from really and truly despising himself. And the spirit hated it.

It was a profound contradiction to all that was right for his precious Light to dislike himself! It was utterly wrong that his little one's bright heart had been dimmed in even the slightest degree! This was not how it should be!

At times, the spirit's dark thoughts and emotions built to such frightening levels that they burst from him in flares of indignation that spread throughout his prison, provoking his Shadows to anger as well. They beat against the walls of the endless maze, raging and shrieking in frustration at being imprisoned so soon after having gained access to a world outside of the maddeningly dull underground tomb. And so soon after finding the mortal with such a deliciously bright, warm heart, too! They echoed the spirit's desire for freedom, as well as his reasoning for that desire.

Let us out! They demanded in their primitive pseudo-language. Let us stop the Light from fading! The Puzzle was always unresponsive and oblivious to the demands, and the Shadows always hissed their outrage and pounded even harder against the walls.

It was never long before the labyrinth was reverberating with crests of cacophonous wrath. The spirit would have long since gone deaf if he'd had physical ears. As it was, he was always forced to drag his thoughts quickly to less upsetting matters in order to avoid the mental pain he knew would develop as a result of prolonged exposure to such intense negative emotions.

It took the Shadows a while to calm down as well. They never gave up. No matter how many times this happened, they always, unfailingly responded in the same way. The spirit wasn't sure if he felt more impressed at their persistence or astounded at their utter stupidity. Probably the latter, as he often found himself feeling offended when he watched them mindlessly pound against the walls, make demands to the inanimate prison that it release them, shriek when nothing worked, and ultimately make complete fools of themselves.

It was at these times that he questioned whether he'd been correct when he had come to the conclusion that he was also a Shadow, albeit a smarter, stronger and overall superior one to those under his command. Considering their behavior, it was beginning to seem less and less likely that he and they were of the same kind.

(He shoved away the memories, the earliest he had, of him doing the exact same thing as they were now, back when the Shadows had tormented him and every moment of his existence had been comprised of terror and agony.)

The aggravating cycle continued:

The spirit was forced to watch uselessly while Yuugi's bright heart gradually dimmed.

His frustration built until it surged out into the rest of his prison.

The Shadows were reminded once again that they wanted the freedom to protect their master's Light, and raged when they remained trapped and unable to to so.

The spirit tugged his thoughts toward more positive or mundane topics.

The distraction only worked for a short amount of time before his mind was dragged back to the hopeless situation.

And so on and so forth, over and over again, until the spirit started to wonder if his chances of retaining his sanity would have been better if he'd just been left buried in the earth.

Yuugi turned fifteen, and the spirit realized that it had been just a little under eight years since his Light had first received the golden box and the puzzle inside. The boy was now in the first year of something called "high school," which both he and the spirit had determined almost immediately to be the worst place on earth when Yuugi had entered it a month prior.

Neither Yuugi nor the spirit could've predict the events that were about to be set into motion.

A/N: I've been out of a job for a while, which means I had a lot of time to write. Yesterday I made it through the second step of a process that may get me hired for a well-paying, long-term job by next month, and there are still things I need to do to increase my chances of getting the job, so chapter 3 will most likely take me about twice as long to post as this one did.