Yuu finally explains some things about herself.
Yuu managed to stop crying after several minutes, Yumi having led her into the house and to the sitting room to process. She hiccuped and sniffed, looking blankly at the table in front of her while trying in vain to understand why she'd had this strange outpouring of emotion.
Yumi sat beside her patting her shoulder, both Kazuhiko and Hideo standing off to the side in utter bewilderment. It was clear that Yuu wasn't much of a threat anymore, but seeing her break down like this was all kinds of bizarre after her previous display of combat aptitude. She was just about impossible to read and that was kind of worrisome.
"Is it okay if she stays over tonight?" Yumi asked her grandmother as she entered the room with some tea.
"I guess so," she replied, though she was just as confused as any of them. "As long as it's okay with her parents." Setting down a tray on the table, she looked to each of the children gathered there, sensing the tension. "So, Yumi," she said a bit uneasily, "is your friend alright?"
"I think so," she said. "She's just kind of overwhelmed right now."
"I see." While still somewhat uncomfortable and unsure of what to do, she elected to trust her granddaughter's judgment in these matters. It was striking how much she'd grown over the course of this year, both individually and in how she communicated with others. If nothing else, that put her mind at ease a bit.
"Well, if there's nothing you need from me, I guess I'll start making us something to eat." She looked to Kazuhiko and Hideo. "Do you two want to stay for dinner? It's been a while since you came to visit."
"Oh, sure," Kazuhiko answered for the two of them. "Yeah, I'm kind of hungry, I guess. If it's not too much trouble, at least."
She waved off his concerns. "Always nice to have you kids here."
As she left the room, they both approached the table. Kazuhiko kicked his legs out from under himself to sit down, propping himself up on his arm. "Hey, if you're all done with the crying, maybe you want to give us some answers now?" he said plainly. "Like why you decided to try to kill my friends or how you got here."
"I didn't want to hurt anyone," Yuu mumbled, covering her head with her hands.
"Kind of late for that," he replied, looking to Hideo and what were likely some bruises (at the least) that they didn't want to make a big deal about. "You just had a fist fight on Miss Yumi's front lawn after you, I guess, stalked us here. We need some kind of explanation."
She shook her head, unable to form the words to explain herself. "I don't know," she said, voice shaky and weak.
"But what does that mean?" he asked, patience growing thin. "You just happened to wander over here looking for a fight?"
"I don't know," she said again, breathing growing heavy.
"Okay, everyone calm down," Yumi told them, trying to stop the questioning before things got out of hand. She thought for a few moments to consider what she wanted to say next. "Maybe..." It was on the tip of her tongue but she just couldn't think of how to explain it. "Let's have a duel," she finally blurted out.
All three of them looked to her in disbelief. "You think now's a good time for that?" Kazuhiko asked. He'd normally be down for a card game at just about any occasion, but this seemed like a bit of a distraction from the matter at hand.
"Well, sort of," she said, trying to make her case in a way that people could understand. "It's like...when I duel people, I feel like we get to understand each other better. You know what I mean, right?"
Kazuhiko scratched his head, seeing Hideo nod. "I guess I get that," he relented. "Still, you don't think we're kind of getting ahead of ourselves?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "Yuu, you don't really know how to explain things, do you?" She saw her shake her head slowly. "Then you could try explaining like this. Duel with everything you've got and maybe we can all understand each other a little better."
Yuu remained silent. Her mouth moved slowly, words refusing to come out. It took quite a bit of effort, but eventually she managed to squeak, "I don't like it."
"What don't you like?" Yumi asked.
After another long pause, she said. "Duel Monsters."
All three were taken aback. It was already unusual to have that opinion in society these days, but to also join a tournament for a game you disliked? What sense did that make? "What's wrong with it?" Kazuhiko asked.
Once more, she struggled to speak. It was starting to get a bit easier to converse with these people, though. "It's sharp," she said, knowing that was probably the wrong word but unsure of what the right one might actually be. "Sharp and cold. It's stress. Work. Hard. I don't like it."
Thinking bad to their duel, Yumi was starting to get what she was trying to communicate to them. She picked up that there was something off about the way she dueled, feeling that emptiness behind her plays. She'd asked before if Yuu actually enjoyed the game and got no answer, but now she seemed ready to admit it.
"In that case..." Yumi reached into her pocket and pulled out her deck, presenting it to Yuu. "Why don't you try something different?" Yuu didn't respond, looking from the cards to their owner then back again. "It's okay if you don't like dueling, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad if you tried using different cards sometimes. You don't change things very much, do you?"
She shook her head in response. "Yeah, then it's worth a try. I won't force you or anything, but maybe it could be fun. We'll all trade decks and see how it works out."
"Hey, don't rope me into this, "Kazuhiko said, his point undermined as Hideo reached into his pocket to retrieve his cards. "Seriously? We're all just going along with this?" With a sigh, he couldn't help but admit he was intrigued. "Fine, fine. I'm not going to hold back, though. Don't blame me when I destroy all of you."
"Do you think you can try?" Yumi asked Yuu once more, setting her cards down and taking Hideo's to her right. Yuu continued to look at the deck for several more seconds, finally relenting and placing her arm on the tabletop. Her wrist clicked as he hand fell forward, her deck presenting itself at the top to allow her to remove it. "That's still so cool," Yumi added.
Yuu slowly relinquished her cards, pushing them along the table with two fingers until Kazuhiko could take them. Seeing someone else handle the deck that had been constructed for her filled her with anxiety, but she'd press on. Yumi wanted her to do this. She trusted Yumi. She wasn't entirely sure why, but she did.
What followed was a chaotic mess of a game the likes of which Yuu had never seen before. Yuu herself likely had the most user friendly deck given the simplicity of Yumi's main strategy and the ease with which her cards could be played, but having virtually no experience actually using cards different from her own meant her turns regularly took more than five minutes just to make simple moves.
Kazuhiko, on the other hand, constantly ended up screwing himself over by not fully grasping the entirety of the plays he had available to him, frequently wasting cards and passing turns with things left undone that he only realized seconds too late. Needless to say he was the first to be eliminated.
Yumi fared a bit better but still struggled using Hideo's deck. The lack of an Extra Deck threw her for a loop now that she'd gotten used to having her Xyz Monsters as her main attacking force, all the lower-powered bugs making it hard for her to feel confident in going on the offensive. In the end, she didn't make it past LV5 on the Ultimate Insect.
Hideo was the only one of the group that actually had little to no trouble adjusting. Being such an integral part of getting Kazuhiko's deck to where it was now, they already knew every play his cards were capable of. They came out the victor for this reason, win secured about the moment Kazuhiko lost and began advising them on strategies from the sidelines.
Despite (or maybe even because of) all this chaos, it was an immensely fun game. Winning or losing wasn't really the point here as opposed to simply breaking some of the tension that hung in the air. In that way, it was definitely a success. For the first time in what felt like her whole life, Yuu actually managed to enjoy a duel.
"We should do that again," Yumi said. "I think I'm starting to get the hang of playing like this."
"Wasn't this all about understanding each other better, not just having fun playing cards?" Kazuhiko pointed out.
"Who says we can't do both?" Yumi asked, trying to act like she didn't notice the judgmental stares aimed at her. "Besides, Yuu had fun. Didn't you?"
She looked down at the table, eyes darting from side to side. "Maybe," she replied quietly, unsure of whether or not she could really express what she was thinking – whether she was able to or if it was actually allowed for her to do so. "I think so."
With a grunt, Kazuhiko crossed his arms and conceded, "Fine, I guess you're in the clear. I won't grab you by the ankles and shake you in the air this time."
"That feels kind of good, though," she said, reaching into her pockets to make sure there was nothing that would go flying and hit someone.
"Which is why I'm not doing it. You're on thin ice." While they'd normally continue pretending to argue for some time longer, there was still a purpose in what they'd just done. Taking a step forward dramatically, he leaned down low to the ground and squinted at a now very confused and scared Yuu. "And as for you, I'm still expecting some answers."
Pulling on the end of his jacket to move him back, Yumi added, "It would be nice if you told us why you came here," with Hideo nodding in agreement off to the side.
While their duel earlier hadn't inspired any kind of instantaneous friendship or feelings of kinship between them, it did seem to have worked at least to the extent of helping Yuu to relax just a bit. Though she didn't exactly trust anyone here save for maybe Yumi, she at least wasn't so thoroughly fearful of speaking around everyone.
After a few moments of thought, she tried to explain. "I lost." She paused again, knowing that didn't get much of anything across. "Before. I wasn't supposed to. I always win."
"Everyone loses sometimes," Kazuhiko said. "So what?" He felt himself nudged in the side, urged to stay quiet and let her try to process her thoughts.
"I lose and get punished. So...I was going to win. And make it better. I wouldn't still lose if I could win again." She placed her hands on her head, quivering slightly. "But I can't. You're kind. I don't want you to be punished. But I can't go back if I don't win."
The initial confusion of what sort of sounded like complete nonsense passing, Yumi was the first to speak. "Who's punishing anyone? I don't understand."
"You get punished when you lose," Yuu said, saying it as if it was something everyone should know.
"But why would someone punish you just because you lost a duel? That doesn't make sense."
"Yeah," Kazuhiko agreed. "I lose all the time and no one's trying to punish me for it. Losing just means you get to learn and do better next time."
Yuu shook her head. "No. You get punished when you lose. That's what happens." The idea of anything else occurring was completely inconceivable to her. This was with no exaggeration the very first time anyone had said as much to her.
"I get feeling bad about it, but no one should punish you for losing," Kazuhiko told her. "That's messed up. Who's punishing you, anyway? Is it your parents?"
Yuu went silent again, pulling her knees up against her chest and looking down at her feet with hands still clutching her head. This conversation was beginning to overwhelm her again, especially with the request for more information about where she came from. She'd always been ordered not to reveal anything more than was necessary when she was allowed outside.
What was necessary in this situation, though? They already knew this much, after all. It felt easy for her to talk to these people, too. Even so, going further was terrifying. What if she was punished even more for saying something unnecessary? She'd never done that before so she couldn't even know what to expect.
As she fretted about in her thoughts, Yuu's attention was finally brought back to the present when Yumi placed a hand on her knee. "You don't have to talk anymore if it's upsetting you," she said, "but it sounds like there's something really wrong going on here. I don't know what we could do, but we want to try to help you somehow."
Yuu look from Yumi to Kazuhiko to Hideo. That sentiment did seem sincere (though her ability to gauge such things was, admittedly, somewhat stunted). More than anything, maybe she just wanted to trust these people. Positive interactions of any kind were so rare to her, making her want to cling to this and more like it all the harder.
Her mouth opened despite no words escaping. It was almost physically painful for her to speak, but something was telling her she had to. "You get punished when you lose," she finally managed to say. "They always say that."
"Who says it?" Yumi asked, the group moving closer to hear her more clearly with how low she was speaking.
"Handler. Trainers. Doctor." Like before, these words seemed like nonsense initially. As she continued, though, the picture Yuu painted about her life only seemed to grow darker. "They punish me for losing. In simulations or to real people."
"How?" Yumi asked, though she almost didn't want to.
She was quiet again for a moment, but slowly obliged. "I don't get to eat. I don't get to sleep. I get hit. I have to keep doing it until I don't lose. You get punished when you lose because a real loss means you die."
"What the hell is all that?" Kazuhiko said while scratching his head in utter confusion. "Who are these people? What do your parents say about all of this?"
"I don't have parents," she admitted. "I was never wanted. Except by them."
"But who are they?" Yumi pressed, hoping for some kind of name to put to these people.
Yuu wanted to answer but only now realized she couldn't. "I don't know. I...don't know. I don't know if we have a name." Despite spending her entire life that she could remember with these people, never once had they ever told her something as basic as what they were to be called. Apparently, it was never necessary.
Hideo nudged the two, explaining that they'd tried to search for Yuu's name as she was talking but turned up virtually nothing. A few similarly named people, one mention of her as a finalist in the tournament, then nothing else. Nothing like social media, school names, home addresses, or anything else that might shine a light as to who she actually was.
"Yuu...where do you live?" Yumi finally asked.
She had to think on that. "Inside a building," she replied, though the looks on their faces said that wasn't good enough, forcing her to think harder. "It's a place...in the ground. The walls are mostly white. You can go inside a box and go up, then you go to an open place with people dressed nice, then you go outside where more people are."
"You're not making any sense," Kazuhiko groaned, slumping onto the floor. "Is it, like, a house? An apartment? Some kind of office? Like, the basement of an office?"
"I don't know," she returned to saying.
Their frustration mounting, the only thing any of them knew for certain was that Yuu needed to get out of that awful place. But knowing that was only half the answer; they knew the "what" but not the "why" of it.
Yumi said what they'd all begun to ponder. "What's the point of all of this? Why are they doing this to you?" She remembered back to something Yuu said earlier, as well. "And...what did you mean before? When you said a real loss was death? Was that just a figure of speech?"
Yuu shook her head. "No. We'll die if I lose. I have to keep winning. If I lose, we all die."
"But why?"
"They'll kill us," she said very matter-of-factly.
"You mean the people who punish you?"
She shook her head. "They will. The ones who are coming."
While this, again, sounded like nonsense, Yumi was the one to first understand it. In fact, she entirely believed it. In a single moment, the last several months of her life finally clicked into place. Feeling her chest tighten, she looked to her friends, only now realizing that she'd still been keeping secrets without meaning to.
"She's right," Yumi said suddenly, taking all of them by surprise. "I...I know what you're saying. It...it makes sense, but..."
"How?" Kazuhiko asked. "I don't get what's happening."
Yumi picked up her deck from the table, finding the blank card she carried with her. "You know about this," she said, pointing to it. "It doesn't make sense, right? Well...I think it has something to do with what Yuu's talking about."
While they all took notice of this, Yuu especially seemed shocked that someone else had any sort of familiarity with her mission. "I mean, maybe not directly since...well, you remember how I got this, right? But, like, it seems to be..." She shook her head to clear her thoughts. "Okay, so, there's something I didn't tell you. And it's not because I meant to keep it a secret, I just didn't remember to say it." She paused. "I didn't want to."
"Wait, what? Fine, explain, I guess, but..." Kazuhiko scratched his head, Hideo patting him on the back. "What the hell is today?"
As Yumi began to explain, Yuu drew closer to her, hoping to find answers to questions she didn't even know she'd always had. "So...I don't know where to start."
"The start, I guess?"
"Yeah, but I don't really know what the start would be." Rubbing the sides of her head, she settled on a particular day. "Well...do you remember that day during summer when we...met that man. Yoshimori."
"Obviously," he replied, thinking that it would be hard to forget the day all of them were nearly killed. "What about it?"
"I won that duel, didn't I?"
"I mean, yeah. Where are you going with this?"
Yumi was silent for a moment, finally confessing, "The thing is...I didn't." She cleared her throat, the memories flooding back to her. "I couldn't continue and just...collapsed. But then I met someone. In my head, I think. I don't know who or what he is, but he said his name was Izar. And he took over after that. He was the one who won. With that card."
"That Xyz Monster?" He nodded after a moment's consideration. "I mean, Hideo, you did say you couldn't find anything on it, right? I guess...magic brain people is an option."
"I don't really know how it got in my deck. And whenever I got rid of it, it just kept coming back." If there were any doubts that the card wasn't normal before, that more or less confirmed it. "I only used it once by myself. I dueled Rio and..." She had to stop and compose herself, the weight of these multiple near-death experiences fully hitting her for the first time.
Fortunately, the others were understanding, nodding to her and reassuring her to go at her own pace. "I didn't have a choice," she said, though that didn't help to alleviate her guilt. "It felt like I would die if I didn't. It didn't kill her, but...she wouldn't wake up. At least until now. And Izar was there, too."
"Are you trying to say he's what Yuu's being trained for?" Kazuhiko suggested while connecting the dots.
"I mean...maybe. Like I said, I really don't know what to make of any of this. I'm sorry I never said anything until now, but...I mean, this sounds ridiculous."
"Yeah, that's true," he agreed. "If it wasn't coming from someone I trusted, I'd probably say you're stealing from some crappy anime plotline. But all kinds of weird stuff has been happening lately, so I guess I have to believe it."
"Weird like someone deciding to date you?" Yumi said, the complete change of subject making the attack even more effective. "Sorry," she apologized while returning a fist bump from Hideo. "Sakuya would yell at me if I didn't make that joke."
Recovering from the attempt on his life, Kazuhiko added, "Speaking of Ishikawa, you should probably tell her about all of this if you haven't. She's going to be coming back here soon, so she'll definitely want to get herself involved in all of this."
Yumi nodded. "I should have told her before. I'm sorry I'm so bad at telling everyone stuff. It just feels like I'd be stressing everyone out about stuff I don't even really understand or know how to deal with."
"I get what you mean, but you don't have to keep it all to yourself." Kazuhiko tapped her on the shoulder as a sign of reassurance. "We've all told you before that we're here for you. Friends help each other even with weird crap like this. You all gave me advice when I had that weird blister that wouldn't go away, so I figure this is at least as bad as that."
"That was a really creepy blister," she agreed. "I guess we really are in this together." She looked to both Kazuhiko and Hideo, then to Yuu. "And I guess that includes you now, too."
Yuu seemed shocked by this, unsure of how to react. She mumbled something incoherent before finally saying, "But...they wouldn't want me to involve people. I would get punished."
"No one's punishing you like that when you're with us," Kazuhiko said, suddenly feeling protective. "We'll figure something out here."
"And until then, you can stay here with me," Yumi added. "I'll get my grandma to say so, just watch. Then you don't have to go back there."
"I don't want to be trouble," Yuu said, afraid of what might happen to everyone if someone came for her.
In response, Hideo slid their phone to Yuu (a surprising sign of trust given everything that happened), with the message, "Everyone deserves to have a place to belong, so you can belong here," on the screen.
Though she didn't know what to say to this, some part of her understood these words were supposed to mean. She never belonged back there in a sterile world of exploitation and cold indifference. Things might all be new and scary right now, but it was better than before. And if she didn't belong back there, maybe she really could belong here after all.
After a few seconds of thought, she nodded slowly. Though it was true she didn't fully know what she was doing, she was sure now that she didn't want to go back. "Why do you get all the cool lines?" Kazuhiko grumbled to himself, fishing a handkerchief out of his pocket. "Here, you probably don't have one."
Yuu was confused for a moment, taking the thing and looking it over. It wasn't until she noticed she'd started crying did she have the thought to wipe her eyes. Evidently, all of this was starting to get overwhelming for her again, though it was a slightly different kind of overwhelming than before. Overwhelmed with something good, maybe.
"Guess the hard part's done," Kazuhiko said as he sat back on the floor. "Now there's everything else to deal with."
"Wouldn't the hard part be figuring out more about whoever Izar is and why Yuu was supposed to fight him?" Yumi asked. Hideo brought up things like school and ensuring Yuu wouldn't simply be dragged away by some shady individuals if there was no one around, as well, using a text-to-speech program set on the voice of seemingly the world's oldest and most uninterested man because it was the one Kazuhiko liked the least.
"Details," he said, waving his hand. "We've got to process what we know first. It's not like any of us know what to do about any of it right now."
"I guess you have a point," she agreed.
"Besides, this is the first time we've gotten to just hang out in a while and someone's already had a fist fight. That stuff can wait until tomorrow." Sometimes it was hard to tell whether or not he was being foolish or just optimistic. The fact was they probably couldn't work on any of those problems right now anyway, so it wasn't like they had much choice in the matter. Yumi would talk to her grandmother about Yuu living with them for a time after dinner, so they had the intervening time to do whatever they wanted.
What they wanted was, understandably, to try and learn more about Yuu herself. "Do you like any TV shows?" Yumi asked her, receiving a blank stare in response. "Did you have a TV?" Same thing there. "Do you know what a TV is?" Yuu finally shook her head.
They all rose and went to the next room, Kazuhiko getting distracted partway there and joining Yumi's grandmother in helping to cook since he enjoyed it the last time. Once the rest of them arrived, Yumi pointed to the large box in the corner of the living room. "That's a TV," Yumi said in an unintentionally patronizing tone.
"Screen?" Yuu asked, seeming to have learned at least that word.
"Oh, yeah. See? You know what this is. Have you ever gotten to watch anything on one before, though? Like, a show?" Yuu shook her head, Hideo pressing the power button right after. Almost immediately, Yuu moved in close, watching a game of baseball with more interest than anyone had any right to considering the sport in question.
"You shouldn't stand so close to it," Yumi said, Yuu silently taking a few steps back without removing her eyes from the TV. "There's all kinds of stuff you can watch on here, too. Some people even have game systems that they plug into it, too." She didn't seem to be listening, too transfixed by the images. To test, Yumi flipped a channel, hearing a small gasp of amazement as the screen changed to that of a music performance.
"Hey, we're almost done over here," Kazuhiko called to them while helping move some things onto a serving plate. "Show her basic technology later."
"Sure!" Yumi said to him, Hideo walking off to help move things into the other room. "Time to eat, Yuu," she said, nudging her gently. When she didn't respond, Yumi turned off the TV to finally get her attention, leading her by the hand back to the sitting room and towards the nice smells.
Yumi's grandmother had been hard at work, preparing an ample spread of grilled mackerel, miso soup, fresh salad, and white rice, plus a small portion of takoyaki (it was sort of a special occasion, after all). Predictably, Yumi went for the latter first, immediately popping one of them into her mouth before even saying a word of thanks for the food, mumbling it out through chewing after being side-eyed by her grandmother.
Nudging Yuu next to her, she said, "It's okay to eat. Take whatever you like." Seeing that she was either still indecisive or a bit confused, Yumi took the initiative and picked up a takoyaki and held it out for her. "Try this, at least. It's my favorite, so I bet you'll like it."
Hesitating slightly, Yuu decided that she was allowed to eat and let the food be placed in her mouth, overcome by the delicious flavor in a similar fashion to the ramen from earlier. Stealthily, Kazuhiko snapped a picture of Yumi feeding her, saying to Hideo, "Saving this for later," with a mischievous look about him, already thinking of how best to tease Sakuya with it.
That one bite had apparently opened the floodgates for Yuu, swiping food left and right and inhaling it at a rate everyone was fairly sure was dangerous. Thankfully, they had enough there for everyone, but it was still a bit alarming to see how much someone so small could eat in such a short amount of time.
"Yuu," Yumi's grandmother said, "did you become Yumi's friend after that tournament? I didn't know you two got to know each other. She never said anything about it."
This caused her to pause, though she didn't say anything. What could she say, anyway? Yuu looked to Yumi for support, the latter answering, "Not really. We just kind of met again recently and she came over."
"It's nice when that kind of thing happens, isn't it?" She smiled with a nod, following up with an even harder question. "Do you live in this area? I hope you didn't have to travel too far to come see us today."
"She...doesn't," Yumi replied after another worried look. "It's kind of far, which is why it took us so long to see each other again."
"Oh. Yumi, why are you answering for her?"
"Yuu's just kind of shy," she said, starting to sweat. Thankfully, Yuu managed to nod at this so this seemed a bit less strange.
Her grandmother smiled, saying, "That's okay, then. You can talk if you want. I hope you like the food, at least." Yuu nodded again, this time what could almost be considered enthusiastically.
All in all, they had a fairly enjoyable meal together, Yuu even managing to thank the host for giving her food. They spent the rest of the day showing Yuu around the house and explaining things like phones to her. As the sun started to set, Kazuhiko and Hideo said their goodbyes and headed out, leaving Yuu in the care of the Takanos.
"Yuu, you can take a bath first if you want," Yumi said to her as the three watched TV together. Though she initially didn't seem to hear her, she slowly got up with the intent of following what seemed close enough to an order. "Oh, do you need help with your arm or anything? Can it get wet?"
"My arm is waterproof," she said before heading off.
"She seems sweet," Yumi's grandmother said after she'd left the room.
Yumi nodded in agreement, summoning her courage to try talking about some of the more important topics she'd learned about today. Unsure of how much time she'd have given she wasn't aware of how much difficulty Yuu would have trying to figure out how to work the bathtub by herself, she had to force herself to get on with it quickly.
"Can I talk to you about something important?" she asked bluntly, not sure of how to start this conversation.
"Well, of course," she replied, a bit surprised but no less willing to listen to what her granddaughter wanted to say.
"Thanks." Clearing her throat, Yumi tried to find a good starting place. "So...well, about Yuu..." Like most things of this nature, this was going to be an exceedingly rough experience. "I want to ask...if she could maybe live with us for a little while."
"Why?" she asked in response.
Wishing she had more to reply to than just a one word answer, Yumi tried to find a way to explain. "Well...it's hard to really explain, but..."
"Is something wrong with her home?" she said.
"Sort of," Yumi admitted. Frustrated with her own indecisiveness, she managed to force herself to say, "I don't know for sure, but...I don't think they treat Yuu very well where she lives. The woman she was with that day wasn't her mother – I don't think so, at least – and she's told me that lady and some other people aren't taking care of her. She said she doesn't even get to go to school, and she's afraid of so many things because she gets punished for doing anything wrong."
Her expression suddenly became a lot more serious. "You believe all of this?" she asked Yumi, receiving a nod in reply. Thinking for a moment, she said, "It's okay for her to stay the night, but I want to talk to both of you about this in the morning. If what she's saying is true, then...I'll see what we can do for her."
"I promise she's not lying," Yumi assured. "I don't think she even knows how to lie."
"I understand," she replied. "Like I said, she can stay the night and we'll all talk about it together in the morning. Even if I said yes right now, there's a lot of things that would need to happen before she could live with us, understand?"
Yumi sighed, nodding. "I know."
"I'm glad you're trying to help a friend, though," she said. "I'm proud of you." She gestured for Yumi to come toward her, the two hugging tightly. "I'm sure we can make things work out somehow."
Around ten minutes passed, Yumi getting up to check on Yuu. There hadn't been any noise coming from the bathroom in quite a while, so she was starting to worry. "Are you okay?" she asked while knocking on the door. There wasn't a response, so she went inside, finding Yuu sitting in the tub with the water just below her nose, expression stern despite being very clearly overheated from the near-boiling water she'd managed to pour in.
"You probably shouldn't stay in so long if it's that hot," she said, looking around and finding that there were neither towels nor clothes for her. "Oh, sorry. I forgot to get you something to wear." As she left, she grabbed a towel and tossed it inside for Yuu, collecting a pair of blue pajamas for when she was dry.
"They might be kind of big, but that shouldn't be-" A strange sense of shame washed over her as she saw Yuu be a near-perfect fit for her clothes despite being so much shorter. They were a bit long on her but were otherwise just fine despite their age discrepancy.
"I'll go take my bath now," she said dryly, grabbing a green set of clothes for herself before heading inside. This left Yuu standing outside and entirely unsure of what to do. As a result, she was right there when the door opened several minutes later, following Yumi around for the rest of the night.
When it was finally time for bed, Yumi pulled out a pair of futons, laying them out in her room. "It's cold now, so we finally get to use the giant quilt," she said happily, unrolling an enormous patchwork fabric almost half an inch thick across the bedding. "Are you okay sleeping next to me?"
Yuu nodded, looking at the things on the ground like they might attack her. It was understandable given her sleeping arrangement she was familiar with was barely more than an uncomfortable slab of fabric in a corner. Apprehensive as she was to jump under the covers of something she didn't understand, it sure did look soft.
"Oh, and before I forget," Yumi said, walking to her closet and opening the door. Sitting down, she looked through one of her card boxes and pulled something out. "Here, you can have this." The card she was holding out to Yuu was called Angel Trumpeter. "It's pretty cool, but I don't think it would work very well in my deck. I thought you might like it. Even if you don't use it, you could think of it like it's a good luck charm. Just something to have, you know?"
Yuu quickly took the card, marveling at it in her hands. It wasn't anything special, little more than a common card with decent stats, but the fact that it came from Yumi meant she'd cherish it. Nodding quickly, she placed it inside her arm with the rest of her cards, resolving to find a place to keep it safe where no one would ever try to take it away from her. That's what she did whenever she found something that she didn't want to lose.
"I'm glad you like it," she said, crawling under the quilt and patting the space next to her. Yuu followed suit, the futon being just as soft as she'd imagined. "Hey, can I take a picture of us?" she asked. "I want to show Sakuya."
Though a bit apprehensive, Yuu eventually agreed, Yumi pulling in close to her and holding her phone above the two of them before snapping the picture. Yuu whimpered slightly at the flash of light that shone when it happened, unused to this sort of thing given how few times she'd actually been photographed in her life.
"You look so scared," Yumi laughed, showing her friend what she'd taken. Yumi herself was smiling just the same as ever at the edge of the frame while Yuu almost looked to be about to cry with one eye nearly closed. "I'm keeping this one. I know you don't have a phone right now, but I can send you this if you get one."
They spent the next hour or so talking (Yumi doing most of the work on that front), possibly getting a bit ahead of themselves on what life might be like when Yuu was presumably adopted into the family, Yumi not at all trying to hide the fact she was excited to have a younger sibling. Would they stay in the same room? What grade would she start school at? When was she going to meet the rest of Yumi's friends? It was a wonder they got any sleep at all, but it happened just as all things eventually do.
They awoke the next morning to the sound of loud banging on the front door at barely the crack of dawn. Yuu jolt upright from where she was under the quilt, having curled into a ball while resting her head on Yumi's stomach. This only resulted in her having to fight the thing off her, ensuring Yumi was thoroughly awake by the time they both heard her grandmother's footsteps hurrying down the hall.
The two peaked their heads around the corner, Yuu recoiling in fear as the door opened to reveal the well-dressed woman who'd accompanied her to the tournament. Behind her were two men in suits, standing in what was likely intended to be a somewhat threatening manner.
"Good morning," she greeted with an artificial sweetness rivaling even the most prolific of coffee additives. "Sorry to disturb you so early, but we have reason to believe that a child named Kasuga Yuu might have been here at some point yesterday. Have you seen her?"
"Can I ask why you want to know?" she asked, already suspicious given the way these people carried themselves.
"We're her guardians. Yuu lives with us at a childcare institution. It seems she was able to sneak out at some point and witnesses say a small child matching her description headed toward your house. She can be a bit of a handful, so I apologize for any trouble she might have caused you. If you'd kindly tell us where she is, we can have her home safely."
"I see," she replied. "Well-"
"Yuu doesn't want to go with you," Yumi said, having urged Yuu to stay in her room as she went to confront her supposed caretakers.
The woman simply smiled. "Takano Yumi, it's nice to see you again. You defeated Yuu at the tournament. That was impressive given her skills."
"Why does that matter? Yuu doesn't even like Duel Monsters, especially when you keep forcing her to play it." Despite all of Yumi's righteous anger, none of the people at the door seemed fazed in the slightest by her words.
Yumi's grandmother gave her a look telling her to settle down. "I'd like to help you," she said to the woman, "but I don't exactly feel comfortable telling you where a child might be without any proof of who you say you are."
The woman nodded her head, producing a government ID from the interior pocket of her coat. "Would this be enough?" she asked, already knowing the answer. Before a response could be given, Yuu herself walked into the room, hiding behind Yumi. "There she is," the woman said cheerfully.
"I'm aware that this is a very unusual thing to ask," Yumi's grandmother began, "but if Yuu doesn't have a home, would there be any process I could undertake to adopt her?" It was all she could think to do at the moment.
The woman simply shook her head, plastic smile still in place. "I'm afraid not." Looking into the house, her eyes set firmly into Yuu herself. "Come here," she commanded, her voice remaining unchanged yet carrying an unmistakably threatening feeling to it.
Slowly, Yuu took a few steps out from behind Yumi, not wanting to look at anything but the floor. Upon getting a good look at her, the woman asked, "What are you wearing?" Predictably, there was no response. "Get your clothes," the woman ordered, producing a silver bell from her pocket and ringing it once.
Closing her eyes, Yuu's posture stiffened, moving almost mechanically to collect her clothes from where she'd left them the night before. Yumi followed behind, whispering, "You don't have to go with them. We could...we could run away. Go hide somewhere until they stop looking." Yuu didn't respond outside of a single pleading glance as she collected her things from the floor.
Returning to the front of the house, Yumi ran to her grandmother's side, the two sharing a look as they tried to think of anything that might be of use in this situation. What could they do, though? These people had the legal authority to take Yuu away. Not only that, it didn't seem too impossible for them to try and have the two of them arrested for something if they felt like it. Trying to fight them or run would be foolish at best.
"Don't make her go," Yumi said, trying one last time to convince them. "She doesn't want to be there."
The woman merely continued smiling, digging her nails into Yuu's shoulder once she moved within range to do so. Pulling her in front of her, she said, "Thank you for your cooperation," as she prepared to leave, pulling Yuu along with her.
As she was jerked along, Yuu managed a small, sad smile. "Thank you for having me," she said to the two as she was led to the black SUV parked outside. For all Yumi and her friends' talk of being a family and protecting her, it seemed like they were just empty words after all. Even so, she wouldn't ever be able to forget the brief time where she was able to pretend she belonged somewhere.
Cards Used in Order of Appearance
Angel Trumpeter
EARTH
Level 4
Plant/Tuner
1900 ATK/1600 DEF
Told you we'd be getting a heavy dose of plot coming up soon. None of you believed me, yet here we are.
Took me a while to get this one out, too, since I got pretty grievously ill at the end of last month. Unfortunately, I survived, so here we are. Might mean there's only one chapter this month, but things should be back to normal after that.
We're just about at the numerical halfway point for the whole story now. That's pretty wild. We might actually make it to the end one of these days.
I've said before how Yuu is one of my favorite characters, so expect her to come back again sooner or later. Her role is about to get a lot more complicated. Unfortunately, that role won't be to get hugged a lot more, which would probably solve most of these problems.
Izar came up again. Wonder what he's been up to since the tournament. Maybe we'll get to find out soon.
That's all I've got for now. Thanks for reading. Share if you enjoy. Always remember to treat foster kids better than this.