(I have next to no knowledge of how high schools in Japan operate, so if there's anything wrong with how I've portrayed Domino High in this chapter or any others, that's why. Please excuse my ignorance!)

*Chuckles nervously and throws this extremely late chapter at you, then hides to avoid the angry mob*

Content warning(s): disturbing imagery

Chapter start!

Submersion

By: The Half-Blood Guardian

Previously:

Sugoroku sighed. He and Yuugi had agreed a few years ago that the boy deserved to know about these things when they happened, so no matter how much the man wished he could stay quiet, he owed it to his grandson to tell him what had happened while he was at school.

"Your mother visited today. She lost her job last month and came here to ask me for money for… well, to ask for money." Yuugi shifted minutely in his seat.

"And she wasn't all that happy when I refused." Sugoroku was quiet while he struggled to think of what to say next. "I know she does things that we don't approve of, but… she still loves you, Yuugi. You know that, right?"

Yuugi nodded, but the way he glanced away and bit his lip lightly told Sugoroku the truth. The man furrowed his brow, then wrapped his arms around the boy. He took in a deep breath through his nose. "And I love you too, Yuugi. Never forget that, you got it?"

Yuugi looked back up at him, eyes glistening, and this time his nod was firm. "Got it."

Chapter 8: Façade

"No!"

The shout of a familiar voice drifted to Yuugi over the sound of the rest of the hall, and he looked around, trying to spot the speaker, Honda, in the sea of taller students that surrounded him.

"I'm not gonna tell him! It's bad enough you know, I don't want anyone else knowing about it too!" The still unseen brunet was shouting.

"Oh, come on, you know neither of us is any good at this kinda thing! We could use all the help we can get!" The equally hidden Jounouchi countered.

"What do you mean 'we'? This hasn't got anything to do with you!"

"Sure it does! Now that I know about it, I'm a part of it!" Jounouchi said before the owners of the two familiar, arguing voices came into view.

"No you're not!"

"Yeah I am!"

"Are not!"

"Are too- oh, Yuugi!"

Yuugi blinked at Jounouchi's sudden change in tone as he noticed his friend, but the small teen couldn't help the little grin that graced his lips.

"Hi Jounouchi-kun, Honda-kun," he greeted.

"Hey bud. Listen, Honda here is-"

"Jounouchi, don't you dare!" Honda snapped.

"Oh, right! I can't tell ya out in the hall. C'mon!" The blond grabbed Yuugi's arm and tugged him into an empty classroom, Honda following closely and protesting the whole time.

"So, like I was sayin'," Jounouchi said, dancing away from Honda as he tried to stop him, "Honda's in love!"

"JOUNOUCHI!" The brunet managed to grab him, tackling him to the floor.

"That's great, Honda-kun! " Yuugi congratulated him.

Honda looked up from the struggling Jounouchi and glared. "You'd better not tell anyone!"

"Don't worry, I wouldn't do that to you," Yuugi said while Jounouchi simultaneously assured the same thing. The blond used Honda's distraction to free himself and grinned.

"Anyway, he really likes this girl, like a lot. He's even given up on his janitor obsession 'cause, he said, 'a job that focuses on the beautification of objects would distract me from the beauty of Miho'. That's her name, by the way. She's that quiet girl who always wears that yellow ribbon in her hair." He said while Honda glowered, no longer trying to stop him but obviously not happy about it either.

"But anyway," Jounouchi continued, "the problem is he doesn't know how ta tell her he likes her. So far, all we've come up with is that he's gotta get her a present. Y'know, to get her attention. Not sure what it should be, though."

"Oh. Do you want me to help you, Honda-kun?" Yuugi asked, looking at said teen.

Honda grumbled for a bit, but when he saw that the shorter boy was still watching him and waiting for an answer, he grunted and said, "Yeah, whatever…"

Jounouchi's eyes lit up as he got an idea.

"Hey, Yuugi, your grandpa's shop has a lotta weird stuff, right?"

"Um, well, we sell games," Yuugi said, not sure what to make of the 'weird stuff' comment.

"Wait, wait, wait," Honda cut in. "A game store? That'll never work! I can't just get her a game! This present's gotta be something cool and unique."

"Like I said, there's a ton of stuff there," countered Jounouchi. "I'm sure we could find something 'unique' enough for Miho."

After much verbal and physical foot-dragging on Honda's part, the three finally stood in front of Kame Game Shop.

"I still think this is a waste of time," Honda grumbled as they stepped through the front door. Sugoroku looked up from the shelf he was stocking when the bell on the door chimed, and smiled when he saw the three.

"Ah, welcome home, Yuugi!" He smiled at his grandson, setting down the box he'd been holding and dusting off his hands. Then he turned to the other teens. "And you must be Honda and Jounouchi. Yuugi's told me about you two." He said seriously.

Honda and Jounouchi glanced at each other with uncertainty, and the somber expression quickly slid off of Sugoroku's face as he chuckled.

"Oh, all good things, I swear! No need for you to worry your little heads over it." The two relaxed.

Yuugi smiled at his grandpa's light teasing. Still, he felt obligated to say, "Aw, Jii-chan! Leave them alone." Sugoroku chuckled again but nodded his assent, and Yuugi got to what they'd come to the shop for.

"Um, so Honda-kun likes this girl, and he wants to get her a present. But we're not sure what would be best. Do you have any ideas?" He asked while Honda shifted uncomfortably behind him.

Sugoroku hummed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Then a smile crossed his face and he snapped his fingers. "You know, I think I might have just what you're looking for."

"Really, Jii-chan?" Yuugi asked, he and his friends all perking up.

"Yes, and I can't believe I've never thought to tell you the story, Yuugi, but this is how I got your grandmother!" He smiled, then looked up at the cluttered shelves that lined the wall behind the register. He stepped closer to them, scanning their contents, and began shifting things around and peeking inside each of the little cubbyholes. His brow furrowed and he muttered, "Now where did I put the thing…?"

"Are you sure about this, Jounouchi?" Honda murmured skeptically as Yuugi's grandfather apparently found what he was looking for, grabbing what seemed to be a very, very old box, judging by the avalanche of dust that rained down on his head the second he pulled it from the shelf.

"Um, I… dunno," Jounouchi muttered back, his confidence wavering as the old man sputtered and sneezed in the dusty cloud.

When the cloud dissipated, Sugoroku grinned and brushed some of the impressive layer of dust from the plain cardboard box. "This is it," he said proudly, opening it. Inside was a completed jigsaw puzzle, though not the kind any of the teens were familiar with. Even Yuugi looked confused.

"It's… blank." He stated. And it was. Every piece was a blank white with nothing to distinguish it from the others.

"Yes, it is." Sugoroku nodded, seemingly not thinking anything strange about it. "You write your feelings on it, then take it apart and send it to the one you love. As it's put together, your message will be revealed piece by piece. Quite romantic, wouldn't you say?"

There was a beat of silence. Then Jounouchi burst out laughing.

"I, I can't- haha!- c-can't imagine you w-with this, Honda!" He giggled uncontrollably.

"Yes…"

Jounouchi's snickers petered out. "Honda?" He asked, confused.

"This is it," the brunet murmured, staring intently at the contents of the box. "This is perfect. I can be romantic…" His gaze snapped back up to Sugoroku. "I'll take it!"

He dug a crumpled bill from his pocket and slapped it down on the counter in front of Sugoroku, who grinned and slipped it into the register when he saw the amount. It was about fifty percent more than the price he was going to ask for, but if the kid was giving this to him, he wasn't about to complain.

Honda put the lid back on and snapped up the old box, ready to head back out the door. He stopped short. The determined look slid from his face and the edges of his mouth curved downward in a troubled frown.

"B-but… hold on… what should I write? I've never written a love letter before. What should I do?" He glanced anxiously around the shop, as though it could provide him with an answer. Then his eyes landed on Yuugi and zeroed in on him. The smaller teen shuffled awkwardly at the intense stare.

"Yuugi. You write it."

Yuugi gawked and stuttered. "But, I-I haven't written a love letter either; it would probably turn out awful!"

"Please! You have to at least be better at it than me!" Honda begged. Yuugi paused. Honda-kun was putting aside all of his pride to ask for help. Jounouchi-kun was right; he was really into this girl.

"…Alright. I'll do it, Honda-kun." He said, already dreading the outcome even as Honda began to thank him profusely.

Yuugi pushed back his room's desk chair, standing with a stretch and a wide yawn.

The three had hung out for a while (though it had been Yuugi and Jounouchi who were doing most of the actual socializing, since every time either one tried to engage Honda in conversation, the brunet always got distracted by his anxiousness and quickly stopped listening) before Jounouchi and Honda left for their own homes. Yuugi had eaten dinner and finished up his thankfully small amount of homework. Since then he had been working on the message. Which he'd just finished, after about – he glanced at the clock – four and a half hours. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, but nothing changed. The clock still read 1:53.

Well. It was going to be fun staying awake at school tomorrow. Or rather, today. Biting back a groan, he read over the message a final time.

My beloved Miho, you look

perfect in your beautiful

ribbon. I love you more than

anything in the universe.

- From Hiroto Honda

He hoped it was something Honda would approve of, but he really hadn't been given much to go off of. Or much time to work on it. He yawned again. Nodding to himself and knowing he'd done his best, he reached down, broke the jigsaw puzzle apart, and put the lid back on the box. Then he pulled the short chain on his lamp, and the light went out.

On the short trek to bed in the dark, he accidentally kicked a few of the dozen or so pieces of crumpled-up paper that had fallen on the floor after his trashcan had been filled to the brim with them. He ignored the litany of discarded drafts in favor of flopping down face-first onto his soft blue comforter. He'd clean up in the morning.

Yuugi, Jounouchi and Honda arrived at school fifteen minutes before the time they normally would. Honda asked why they had to get there so early, and Yuugi wondered why the brunet was only asking this now when he could have said something about it the night before. The answer was probably linked to the way Honda had been quietly freaking out the whole time he was at Yuugi's place, including the time they'd spent discussing The Plan. Yuugi was tactful enough not to give voice to his theory.

Jounouchi just stared at Honda like he was stupid.

"Chono's been cracking down hard lately, man," he said. "I heard she expelled fifteen students just this school year." Yuugi furrowed his brow and looked up at Honda, concerned.

"Honda-kun, are you sure you want to give it to Miho this way?" He asked. "You could just give it to her after school lets out instead."

"Yeah, I'm sure. I think it's better if she figures out who it's from on her own." Honda said. Yuugi suspected his decision also had something to do with him feeling too scared to give the present to her directly, but he may have come to the wrong conclusion. Even if his suspicions were correct, though, he couldn't say that he blamed Honda.

"Alright, alright, let's just hide it before anyone comes in!" Jounouchi said, snatching the box and slipping it inside Miho's desk. The teens quickly went to their own seats, and a few seconds later another student entered the room. The three let out simultaneous mental sighs of relief.

"She still hasn't found it," Yuugi quietly voiced his observation a few minutes later. Honda was deaf to him as he shifted and twitched in his chair, stealing not-so-subtle glances at Miho every other second.

Jounouchi smothered his snickers behind a hand, making eye contact with Yuugi. "Oh my gosh, he's so red!" He grinned, voice wavering with mirth. "Look at his face!" The blond's shoulders shook and he could barely keep himself from busting out laughing. Even Yuugi couldn't help his wide smile.

Honda's fidgeting drew Miho's attention, and he immediately stilled, looking anywhere but in her direction. She apparently lost interest in whatever was happening on the other side of the room, and Honda's head snapped around to look at the other teens with wide eyes.

"Did you guys see that?! Sh-she looked this way!" He whispered, his tone half-excitement, half-panic, and all pent-up energy. Yuugi gave him a thumbs up and Jounouchi turned away to hide his quiet giggling.

Then the sharp clacking of high heels signalled the arrival of Chono-sensei, and the atmosphere of light humor was gone.

The woman's lips were upturned in a serene smile, but there was something cruel and sharp in her eyes that only the most oblivious could miss. All noise and social interaction in the room ceased, the air becoming tense.

"Good morning, class. I have an announcement to make!" She said cheerfully. No one relaxed. "Before we begin, I want you all to empty your desks and bags. I'm going to be doing an inspection!"

A spike of panic went around the room, but the students all did as ordered. Honda, Yuugi and Jounouchi watched in horror as Miho pulled out the present. A small, surprised gasp left her lips, and Chono seemed to hone in on the sound. As she came over to Miho's desk, the girl shrunk in on herself.

"Oh dear," Chono said as she spotted the box in Miho's hands. "What do we have here?"

"I-I, um, I don't know…" she murmured, shoulders hunched inward. "I just… found it in my desk."

"Did you, now?" The woman asked sweetly, picking up the present. Without warning, she tore off the wrapping, the sharp sound of ripping paper causing Miho to flinch. Honda was almost hyperventilating, Yuugi's hands were clenched in fear on his lap, and Jounouchi was quivering with rage. The blond growled out a curse under his breath.

Chono gazed at the now plain cardboard box and gave it a slight shake. Puzzle pieces rattled around inside. "Now what could this be?" She took off the lid.

"Oh my, a puzzle!" Chono tsked, then spotted the broken up message. "And what's this? Writing? Some kind of secret message? Oh dear, what a distraction this could have been! Let's see if we can't find out who the culprit is." She smiled smugly as she dumped the puzzle onto her desk and began searching for matching pieces.

Yuugi, Honda and Jounouchi held their collective breath, shoulders stiff with an awful tension that only got worse with each bit Chono-sensei put together. Then Yuugi noticed that the teacher was, thankfully, solving the puzzle line by line, going through the pile to find the one piece that fit next in the sequence, instead of putting together whichever pieces happened to fit as she went along. It was a very inefficient and time-consuming method. Hopefully she would get bored and give up before she finished it, and Honda's secret would be safe.

But the pile of incomplete pieces was rapidly shrinking, and it soon became obvious that she was making a lot more progress than he had hoped. He cursed himself for not realizing the flaw in his reasoning. He had failed to take into account that, unlike him, not many people liked to solve extremely difficult puzzles, so the one he'd written Honda's message on only had forty pieces.

As the woman went along, she read each word aloud, laughing in amusement. Poor Miho looked as though she wanted to disappear, her bottom lip quivering and her eyes becoming shiny with unshed tears.

Honda gritted his teeth at the way Chono was treating the girl. Yuugi watched him suck in a deep breath, bow his head in resignation, and shift in his seat, ready to get up.

Before he even realized what he was doing, Yuugi had shot out of his chair and shouted, "It was me! I wrote it!" Technically, it wasn't a lie. Several students snickered and someone wolf called. Chono ignored them in favor of looking smugly at Yuugi. The teacher was just opening her mouth when another chair squeaked, and Jounouchi stood up and spoke.

"Nah, I did it. I'm the one that put it in her desk." He said with a smirk. Yuugi looked at him gratefully. Again, it was technically true. The blond had been the one to hide the present.

Honda finally got over his shock and stood as well. "Thanks, guys, but I need to take responsibility." He breathed in and looked directly at Chono. "Those are my feelings on there, Chono-sensei." Once again, not a lie.

The woman frowned. "Normally I would commend you for having such loyalty to your fellow students. But not in this case. Only one of you is telling the truth. Which means two of you are lying to me. And I do not like being lied to."

"I'm not lying!" All three said in unison, then glanced at each other in surprise.

"Well, we'll see which of you is telling the truth. Either way, one of you put this in her desk, and the other two lied to me. For that, you will all be receiving punishment."

When the spirit felt a jolt of anxiety in his Light's heart, he stirred, surfacing enough to peek through Yuugi's eyes and listen in.

Yuugi's teacher stood at the front of the room, her gaze fixed on her desk as she… put together a jigsaw puzzle? The spirit shuffled through Yuugi's recent memories to make sense of the situation. He was all but overcome with rage by the time he finished.

How dare that woman! She has no right! He thought, seething. His Shadows snarled in agreement. This slight against Yuugi and his Friends could not go unpunished. But they were still in class, and while he would have loved to go all out, he knew that carrying out this punishment before she left the room (by which time she would have finished the jigsaw puzzle and revealed Honda's name) would require more than a little discretion.

And so he kept his Shadows near-invisible and carefully sent a few to seep into her mind, where they took root. He connected with the Shadows to guide them in twisting her perception.

Chono got closer and closer to revealing the name of the sender, thinking up what punishments she would give to him and the two liars. Of course, she would have to expel them all, but that didn't mean she couldn't make their lives miserable first. She could say she was giving them a chance to correct their behavior while they suffered through their punishment, and when she eventually got bored, she would make up something about them rebelling and breaking more rules before she finally expelled them. She grinned.

"Look at-"

"-disgusting!"

"-gonna be sick."

Her head snapped up at the whispers that seemed to be coming from the class, but when she looked, not one mouth was open. The sound of disgusted whispers continued despite none of the students speaking, and the oddity only brought another unexplainable fact to her attention: every single person she looked at was frozen, every eye unblinking and every chest completely devoid of any movement that would suggest they were even breathing.

Something else was different, too; the atmosphere was darker. The windows that lined one wall of the room usually let in enough light that the overhead lights were only ever switched on when it was cloudy and semi-dark outside. Today the sun had been shining, not a cloud in sight. Confused, she looked over to when sunlight should have been pouring into the room. The view outside the windows was a void of black and deep violet mist, lazily swirling and throwing the entire room into shadow.

A golden light slowly began to manifest from somewhere near the back of the room, drawing her gaze. Her eyes landed on Mutou, who she realized upon inspection was left unaffected by whatever had frozen the rest of the class, and now that he had her attention she noticed the change in his appearance.

A psychotic grin split his face, his hair had spiked up even further than usual, and some sort of glowing eye had grown on his forehead, which was the source of the golden light she had seen. A light that only seemed to deepen the surrounding shadows. He pointed at her, and a butchered version of the teen's voice echoed in her head.

Look at yourself.

Afraid to disobey, she reached a shaky hand for her purse and took out a pocket mirror. She flipped it open and nearly gagged at what stared back.

Strips of rotting skin dangled from her face, which sagged and bulged grotesquely in a state of putrefaction. Maggots wriggled out of holes in her sunken eyes and burrowed into the decaying flesh that covered her cheekbones.

The mirror slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor. She screamed.

Yuugi blinked, and a moment later a wave of sound crashed over him, causing him to jerk and nearly fall from his seat. Looking around, he saw that his classmates were speaking loudly, some of them wildly gesticulating, and he quickly glanced toward the front of the room, wondering why Chono-sensei would allow her class to act this way.

Chono-sensei wasn't there. The jigsaw sat nearly complete on top of her desk, with Honda-kun's name thankfully still scattered in the small pile of unfinished pieces that remained. But the teacher herself was nowhere to be seen.

What was going on? Yuugi opened his mouth to ask, then paused. He closed it a second later. Everyone else seemed to know what had happened. But he'd just "woken up" to a classroom full of panicked students. He had blacked out again. Anxiety about the occurrence flooded through him, but he knew he couldn't voice his concern. He didn't want to worry his friends.

As it turned out, he didn't even need to ask what had happened; all around him, his peers were still whispering or straight up shouting about it. Some began rising from their seats and heading for the classroom door, though whether it was to curiously go after Chono-sensei or to use her absence as an excuse to cut class Yuugi didn't know.

Across from him, Honda-kun rose from his seat, catching Yuugi's attention. The brunet was apparently ignoring the rest of the class and taking advantage of the chaos to walk towards Miho's desk. The girl had stood up as well, and was taking her book bag from its hook with tears still in her eyes. At this point, about half of the class was either already out the door or on their way there. Not one was paying attention to Honda or Miho, so the boy took his chance and spoke up.

"Uh, um, M-Miho? I was wondering if you would… consider going out with me," Honda said, shuffling anxiously.

The confusion and lingering humiliation left Miho's face, and her expression changed to one of pity. She replied, "Oh, I… Honda, I'm already seeing someone. We're in a pretty serious relationship, and I'm just not willing to risk straining it, not even just with one date. I'm sorry, Honda." She turned away, and it took everything Honda had not to reach after her retreating form. His shoulders slumped, his posture utterly dejected.

Yuugi stood and took a concerned step towards him. "Honda-kun…" he said gently, carefully.

Jounouchi came up behind him and clapped the brunet on the back, though Yuugi noticed that the action seemed softer than normal. "Hey, cheer up, Honda. There are plenty of other girls in the sea."

It's 'fish in the sea', Yuugi couldn't help but think. He didn't mention it out loud, of course. Honda didn't say anything, either.

"Y'know what?" Jounouchi said when he saw that the gloomy mood still hadn't lifted. "We should go get burgers after school! How 'bout it?"

Yuugi's eyes lit up at the mention of his favorite food, and although the question hadn't been directed at him, he quickly voiced his agreement, looking over at Honda. With both of his friends staring at him expectantly, Honda sighed and assented.

"Yeah, alright."

After school let out, they spent about half an hour at a local fast food joint, eating and talking (Yuugi was the most enthusiastic about the former, and Jounouchi was the one doing most of the latter, but at least with the blond's near-constant chatter filling the air there wasn't any room for depressed silence). By the time they finished, Honda had at least been pulled part of the way out of his funk, so Yuugi and Jounouchi counted the outing as a success. The three eventually parted, each going their own separate ways.

Yuugi gave his grandpa the usual after school greeting as he entered the game shop, and Sugoroku waved Yuugi off when the boy offered to help out, telling him he had it covered. So Yuugi went up the stairs to his bedroom, closing the door behind him. He dropped his backpack on the floor and toed off his shoes before sitting on the edge of his bed, stretching and thinking back on the day's events.

Now that he was home and free of distractions, he realized that there was a strange touch of emotion tickling in his chest and at the back of his mind when he thought about what had happened with Chono-sensei. The feeling was distant, hazy, like it wasn't his own, but as soon as he identified it, he quickly tried to swipe it away. A tiny bit of it stuck with him, however, and he was disgusted with himself for the part that remained.

Because satisfaction was the last thing he should be feeling after what had happened.