Um. Hi?

Yeahhh, it's been a while, and all I have for you is this meager offering. But what can I say? Real life fights dirty, and it just struck me pretty hard. I did what I could with the limited time and motivation I was left with.

Anyhow…

Chapter start!

Submersion

By: The Half-Blood Guardian

Chapter 5: After

When Yuugi awoke, he was in his own bed with no memory of how he'd gotten there. Nor, he realized when he felt the discomfort of aching joints and a plethora of cuts and bruises, could he remember how he had come to be so injured.

He opened his eyes a crack and grimaced; the dim light of the early morning was much harsher on his sight than it normally was, and the headache that had already manifested itself with the blaring of the alarm clock grew even worse, pounding in his temples. Mindlessly, he reached out and hit the snooze button, silencing the shrill noise and helping the slightest bit to relieve his headache. He lay still for a long moment as he gathered up the will to move. Finally he stirred.

He winced as he sat up in bed, the movement causing his ribs to ache even more than they already had been. The wince was immediately followed by a shiver. A cold, tingly sensation saturated his ribs and wrist, wrapping around his bones and seeping down into the marrow. It almost felt like there was something shifting slightly under his skin.

He suppressed another shudder and tried his best to ignore the prominent discomforts; he still had school to go to, whether he was feeling one hundred percent or not. He'd endured worse pain in the past without missing school. A slight niggling in the back of his mind said that his injuries should have been more serious than they were. That he should hardly even be able to move. He absently brushed the wisp of thought aside, barely taking note of its existence.

Reaching to pull back the covers, he noticed something else he had no recollection of receiving: various applied medical products, which were now adorning his arm. He stared down for a few moments, uncomprehending, at the bandage on his wrist and the multitude of cheap plastic band aids that dotted his skin like trash in an alley.

For some reason – besides the fact that he, like most people, wasn't of the opinion that alley trash was all that pleasant – the comparison made him a little uncomfortable.

He deliberately pushed down the questions and confusion and worry that were building inside him at all the blanks he was drawing and all the uncertainties that were piling up, knowing that he would start to panic if he allowed himself to dwell on them.

First things first: go get some aspirin.

Yuugi rose from his bed stiffly, barely holding back a wince; his head gave a particularly fierce throb, and he could almost swear he'd heard his joints creak. For a brief moment, he started to reconsider his decision to go to school, then chastised himself for the thought. Bracing himself better this time for the discomfort, he finished standing and shuffled across the carpet, out his bedroom door, down the short hall, and into the bathroom.

Yuugi flipped on the light, squinting when he was abruptly reminded that the old incandescent light bulbs in the bathroom had recently been swapped for those new energy saving ones that were way too bright. His eyes watered, and he briefly squeezed them shut before blinking rapidly to try getting rid of the moisture. After a few more moments of attempting to blink back the tears, he gave up and swiped them away with his palm. Ugh. Stupid fluorescent bulbs.

When he was finally able to keep his eyes open without being blinded, he had to do a double take. Sitting on top of the toilet lid was the well-stocked, bright red plastic first aid kit that he normally had stashed in the cabinet underneath the sink, tucked away behind the rolls of extra toilet paper so that his grandpa wouldn't have to see it very often. He used to just store it in a little open-front cupboard on the wall above the toilet, but as he'd gotten older, the beatings he received became more brutal and came more frequently, and thus seeing the first aid kit sitting in plain sight was a constant reminder to his grandpa of what his grandson was going through.

Yuugi hated the sad glances he would sometimes catch the man sending him when he thought the boy wasn't looking, and so, to keep those glances to a minimum, he had hidden the first aid kit. Now, though, it was left wide open for public viewing – or at least, as public as it got in the little residence above the shop that was usually only home to two people.

But that wasn't all. Yuugi's jaw nearly dropped when he saw that a roll of gauze and the pair of medical scissors were sitting out on the counter. Barely a second later, his gaze landed on the trash bin, which had been pulled out a bit from where it normally sat in the space between the toilet and the cabinet. He had dumped that trash can two days ago, and now it was filled to the brim with band aid wrappers and squares of blood-stained toilet paper. At least a dozen of the wrappers had spilled out and were scattered across the cheap linoleum floor.

He was lucky he was usually up about ten minutes before his grandpa on weekdays. If today hadn't been a weekday, the man would have walked into the bathroom and seen the mess he'd left behind.

What was I thinking? Yuugi asked himself incredulously, then immediately answered his own question. Obviously, he hadn't been thinking.

Irrationally, he glanced around as if his grandfather had for some reason gotten up early and somehow been hidden in the room the whole time. Once assured that he was alone, he swiftly got to work removing the evidence.

He packed the scattered supplies back into their container and stowed it away back behind the toilet paper under the sink. He scooped up every band aid wrapper and square of toilet paper on the floor and stuffed them into the trash. And finally, he took a look around the room to assess its cleanliness before picking up the trash bin.

He quickly and quietly tiptoed down the stairs and out the back door to avoid the bell on the front door of the shop. He carried the trash can around the side of the building and hastily emptied its contents into the dumpster, placing the lid back on before heading back inside.

Not thirty seconds after he'd set the trash can back down, he heard his grandpa stirring in his bedroom. He heaved a sigh of relief, hurriedly opening the bottle of aspirin and downing two pills before stashing the first aid kit away and getting ready for school.

Upon reentering his bedroom, yet another surprise awaited him. This one was enough to bury all thoughts about the first aid kit and his injuries.

There, sitting innocently on his desk, was the Millennium Puzzle. Completed. Finished. Whole.

He walked towards it slowly, feeling almost as if he were in a dream. After all this time, the artifact was fully assembled. He couldn't even bring himself to care that he couldn't remember solving it. Nearly trembling, he reached out and grasped the Puzzle. The gold was heavy in his hands, semi-cold against his skin. It was solid. It was tangible. For the first time, it all really registered in his mind. This was actually happening. It wasn't just a dream. It was real.

"Yuugi, are you almost ready yet? You'll need to leave soon if you want to make it to school on time!"

Yuugi jolted as his grandpa's voice drifted up from the kitchen. He looked at the clock and realized he had been staring at the Puzzle for over fifteen minutes. Stealing one more glance at it, he quickly began to change into his school uniform, noting that there was only one left in his closet and wondering briefly where the one from yesterday had gone. Once dressed, Yuugi looked back over at the Puzzle yet again.

For some reason, he felt extremely compelled to bring it with him, almost shuddering at the thought of leaving it behind. Looking at the gold hoop on one side of the artifact and the cord strung through it, he realized the Puzzle was actually a pendant. Which meant it was supposed to be worn. If that was the case, it had to be sturdy enough to handle being worn. Still, when he lifted it up by the cord and placed it around his neck, he couldn't help but be gentle with it.

The weight of a gold item at large as the Millennium Puzzle should have been an uncomfortable burden, but it felt strangely light. Grabbing his backpack and shoving his feet into his shoes, he dashed through the house and out the front door of the shop, barely acknowledging his grandfather and forgetting all about breakfast in his rush. Somehow, the Puzzle only seemed to tap gently against his chest even as he bounded for school.

When he arrived at the front gates of the school, it was to the third shocking scene of the day. Barring his way were flashing lights, multiple police cars and officers, and a noisy crowd of students and other civilians who had gathered for the purpose of either gawking or, like Yuugi, trying to get to class.

There were no flashes of light that Yuugi could see (which wasn't saying much, considering he could barely see anything past the people directly in front of him), so it seemed that the presence of the police was enough of a deterrent that nobody was snapping pictures. There was no guarantee that it would continue to hold everyone off for long, though.

"Yuugi!"

Yuugi jumped and turned, startled by the sound of his name being called. The crowd was thinner behind him, so he could see a certain blond haired classmate running towards him with a rather frazzled look on his face. Yuugi frowned slightly.

"Jounouchi-kun?" He murmured quietly. Concern for the other boy went through him as he took in his rattled appearance.

Jounouchi skidded to a halt in front of him and burst out, "You have no idea how happy I am to see you! Are you alright?" Yuugi stared at him for a moment with his jaw lax and his lips parted in surprise.

"Y-yes, I'm fine, Jounouchi-kun," he stuttered, brows furrowing a bit. "But I don't understand; you… um, you were worried about me?" He backtracked quickly. "It-it's not that I'm not grateful, it's just, I don't really understand… why. I mean, nothing all that eventful has happened to me recently. Or at least, nothing that would give you a reason to worry about me."

Jounouchi stared back at him incredulously, his own mouth falling open. "What d'ya mean, 'nothing that'd give me a reason to worry about you'? Did you forget what happened last night?" He asked sarcastically. "Y'know, the whole thing with Ushio? Me and Honda've been worried sick!

"We found you lyin' face down, not moving, with that jerk standing over you. So we tried fighting him but he managed to get the drop on us. He knocked both of us out-" (and it was a testament to just how shaken Jounouchi still was that he didn't hesitate even briefly in admitting he'd lost a two-on-one fight) "-and the next thing we knew we were waking up on the school roof. The door was locked, but luckily Honda's been frickin' nuts about cleaning for a while now, and apparently he's got his janitor keys on him all the time.

"When we got back to the alley, the security light was out, but we saw someone was still laying on the ground. At first we thought it was you, but when we got closer we realized it was too big. So by then we were getting nervous, you know? But we went over there anyway and it-" Jounouchi's voice hitched. He swallowed and shut his eyes before continuing.

"I-It was Ushio. It was dark, so we couldn't see very well, but he looked like he'd just… burst open, and there were dark spots all over the wall. Honda tripped when we were trying to get outta there and we both fell and the ground was all wet and sticky and-" he cut himself off, shuddering. Yuugi listened in horror to the scene Jounouchi was describing. The blond's eyes opened again and stared right into Yuugi's own.

"And you were missing! We went to that one payphone a few blocks from here, and the first thing we did was look up your number and call you, 'cause lots of the cops around here suck at everything they do and would'a held us up and been all suspicious and made us talk to them and stuff before we could go look for you. But the phone kept saying it couldn't reach your number, so then we had to call 'em and report what we saw.

"After we showed them the alley, they were idiots just like always and brought us in for questioning. And they held us overnight 'cause they thought we were 'suspicious' just 'cause we were out there at night, and they just brushed us off when we told 'em you were missing!"

His frown deepened and his eyebrows drew together even more than they already had been. He looked at Yuugi with an expression of imploring desperation.

"I get that you couldn't'a known about all the stuff with me and Honda after we woke up, but how can you not remember what happened before that? And where were you, anyways? How'd you get away?" Jounouchi asked. It was Yuugi's turn once again to stare silently at the other, rendered momentarily speechless.

"I-I don't… I don't know what happened… I can't remember any of that… I just woke up this morning and my whole body hurt, and I didn't know why." His gaze flickered to the pavement and he furrowed his brows, distressed at his inability to recall anything about the major events Jounouchi had described. "I just, I can't…"

His breath caught in his throat as bits and pieces of scattered recollection first trickled into his mind before starting to flood it.

He remembered sitting at the desk chair in his room, fiddling with the Puzzle as he tried (unsuccessfully) to distract himself from the fact that he would never be able to pay Ushio the money he'd demanded.

He remembered the surprise he had felt at finding that he was making so much progress towards completing it, despite the terrible mood he was in.

He remembered the shock as he clicked the second to last section into place and realized that this was it, he was finally going to do it, he was finally going to put all of the pieces together in their proper place.

He remembered staring in wonder at the small golden pyramid, he had reached blindly for the last piece, only to realize that it wasn't there.

He remembered panicking and rushing out of the game shop's front door to go back to the school and look for the missing piece of gold that was all that stood between him and obtaining his desire, not offering his grandfather an explanation for his abrupt departure.

He remembered bumping into Ushio just outside the school, the terror and the urge to flee he had felt as the enormous "bodyguard" led him to a more secluded area to punish him for his supposed disobedience.

He remembered the pain of Ushio's shoes and fists slamming into his body like battering rams until he could barely tell up from down.

Then there was the foggy recollection of two figures – Jounouchi-kun and Honda-kun, as he had soon realized – stepping in to defend him. And another foggy memory, this one of wishing he could do something to help them when they too were beaten down by Ushio.

He remembered noticing that the last piece of the Puzzle had somehow gotten into his hand without him noticing.

He remembered seeing the rest of it lying close enough for him to touch it.

He remembered reaching out in a daze to fit the final piece into place.

And then… nothing.

Nothing except waking up this morning with a bruised body and a killer headache, which for some reason seemed to be building back up really quickly all of a sudden.

Yuugi jolted when the sound of shouting abruptly reached his ears, and realized he was on his knees on the sidewalk with Jounouchi crouched in front of him and calling his name. He blinked his eyes into focus and locked his gaze with Jounouchi's, giving a dazed "huh?" in response.

The blond sighed in relief, and someone else shifted a just enough to catch Yuugi's attention. He looked up and noticed Honda hovering just behind Jounouchi, having apparently arrived some time while Yuugi had been lost in his memories.

The smaller teen released a shaky breath and attempted to shake off the vestiges of flashing images that were still swirling through his mind. Finally, he managed to focus on his two classmates again, looking between the two pairs of eyes fixed on him.

Then it dawned on Yuugi. It was true that he couldn't remember everything that had happened, and there were still so many questions left to be answered. Now, though, as he looked up at the concerned and protective expressions that Jounouchi-kun and Honda-kun were giving him, he realized that, for the time being at least, none of that really mattered. Yes, everything would have to be sorted out eventually – sooner rather than later if he had to guess. But right now, at this moment, all that mattered was that his wish had come true. He had finally, finally been granted the true friends he had been yearning for for so long.

"Don't worry, Jounouchi-kun, Honda-kun," Yuugi said with a small but genuine smile. "I'll be okay. Everything is going to be okay."

(The spirit, while exhausted from the burst of power he had expended the previous night, had regained enough energy by now to once again use the boy's ears to listen in and to gaze out through his large, amethyst eyes. A twin surge of happiness rushed through his own immaterial heart. Yes. Now that he had been liberated and was free to step in and help his little Friend whenever he wanted, everything would be okay. He would make it okay, for Yuugi's sake, and there was nothing that could stop him.)