Unsurprisingly, unreliability weaves a common thread through most gangs of Domino. Hire a thug to steal a diamond necklace, and he will be selling it himself the next day.
The Hirutani family is different. It has been since feudal days when the codes of honor were stronger. With everything from torn jeans to low hanging pants to hoodies, the younger members certainly dress like all the other delinquents of the city, but they are different in the most important way. They follow the rules. Do not steal from a client. Follow the established method for collecting late "fees" and debts, etc.
All follow these rules or they die regardless of importance or rank.
Shibutaku keeps the history of his gang in mind as he eyes the delicious gold glinting against the boy's chest. It is a shame, really. If it's as solid as it looks, that pyramid could fetch a pretty penny on the black market. Shibutaku sighs as he closes his eyes. Oh well.
He opens his eyes again to survey the unconscious boy. The child, a Domino High student judging by his outfit, sleeps drooped in a chair. Even his hair sags at the tips as his arms drape, unbound, over the seat's edges. Even untied, the kid's too small to be a threat to five grown men. Besides, even if he woke up from whatever drug the client used, Shibutaku remains certain that he could catch him before the short kid could make it down the first step.
A sensation of heat tingles on the back of Shibutaku's neck, so he turns and meets the glare of the second captive. He cannot help chuckling; the little girl thinks she looks so tough with that burning in her eyes.
"You better let us go." Anger adds sternness to her tone, and Shibutaku does not miss the undercurrent of warning.
"You'll regret it if you don't." Her eyes glow with blue fire.
Shibutaku grins and pulls out his gun. The girl's eyes grow wide even though his finger rests off the trigger and the gun points harmlessly at the floor.
"Yeah, because your other, bigger friends will show up any minute? Don't worry, I got that covered." In reality, he is above shooting punk kids, but they behave better when they don't know that.
A flicker out of the corner of his eye makes Shibutaku turn back to the boy. The grin fades as he watches for another movement, but all he sees is the boy and his dark shadow lingering on the floor.
After shaking off his suspicions, Shibutaku glances at the doorway just as his crony, Kiichiro, shows up with the packaging from the car.
"Got it, Shi-" The younger man jolts upon entering the room. He stares at the star-shaped hair.
"What?" Shibutaku's demand is slight, but it is enough to snap Kiichiro out of his gape.
"That, that hair."
Shibutaku sighs. Perhaps he should have picked someone smarter to come up here.
"Yes, yet another kid has dyed his hair three colors. I admit, the star shape is new, but do you really have to act like a speechless moron."
The young man shakes his head. "That's not what I meant." Kiichiro remains by the door. "Remember the boss's son's group."
Shibutaku raises an eyebrow.
Kiichiro glances at the older gang member and then continues. "They all got put into the hospital 'cause some freak with a yo-yo managed to use the toy to punch holes in the roof they were on."
The girl snorts. It is quickly strangled by her own efforts, but it is loud enough for the two men to pick up.
Shibutaku glances at her. "Let me guess. The freak had the same hairstyle."
"Yeah." Kiichiro nods.
They could still tie the kid up, but it would probably be faster to chuck the gold in a box and leave the two here like initially planned.
"I don't see how that changes things. It's not like he's gonna hit us with a yo-yo in his sleep." The man waves at Kiichiro with his gun. "Bring the box."
When Shibutaku kneels down next to the boy, the kid's shadow appears darker than before. He shrugs that off to tricks of the light and reaches towards the jewelry. Fingers touch the glinting surface.
"Aaah, Shit." A fire. He must have stuck his hands too close to a fire. Fingertips sear into red and withdraw to the chest without much more than instinct driving their motion.
"Hey, man," Kiichiro drops the package and rushes to him, "you okay?"
With gritted teeth, the Hirutani thug glares at the unconscious boy. The kid still looks out, but gold never just heats up on its own.
"Hey, brat." The growl reveals suspicion. If this kid is the same one cunning enough to beat half a dozen gang members on a rusty roof with a few well-placed yo-yo strikes, then he must be clever enough to hold his breath when he felt the drugged air hit his senses.
Well, there's only one way to find out if he's out.
"That wasn't very polite of you." The growl stays low and the gun comes up and aims at the star-shaped head. "I'm not in the mood for games."
In response to his superior, Kiichiro pulls out his gun as well. He keeps it pointed at the ground, but his finger is on the trigger. Behind them, blue eyes alight with horror and a glow too bright for the darkness of the room. For the first time since Monster World, a girl's hands glow with power.
BANG.
The sound of exploding wood causes a jolt through Shibutaku, but his gun does not go off because he has never been foolish enough to put his finger on the trigger when there is no intention to kill. Kiichiro, on the other hand, whirls around to face the noise and blindly shoots once. The gun blast forces Shibutaku's attention behind him
The girl is standing. The ropes that bound her lie in fragments on the floor. The ends of each fragment glow orange as heat eats up the rope. Behind the girl's chair, pieces of burnt carpet smolder and chunks of wood lay scattered on the scorch mark.
Shibutaku's eyes widen when he sees her hands. The palms glow blue, like little flashlights, but then the light fades with the sways of the girl.
Slowly, she looks down at her school shirt. Her eyes widen. Its pink color had contrasted beautifully with the blue palm-light, yet now, in the dimmer light of the room, an ugly darker patch grows next to her belly.
"Oh." Once she falls to her knees, the girl stares back at them with those wide eyes.
Behind them, the black shadows under the boy grow darker still until they are bottomless holes. They pull inwards, binding tighter and tighter into the soles of the boy's feet until nothing remains of their existence. Through a drug-induced haze, they dig and rip while the men stare dumbly at the pale girl. To the sound of a friend's ragged breaths, clear crimson eyes tear open.
The roofless houses on this street stand like wooden skeletons. Neither plaster nor insulation protects their frames from the weather, so black rot creeps along much of the wood. It won't be long before they collapse in on themselves into piles of nails and boards. But today, they hauntingly loom at the edges of his vision as Joey walks past them and tries not to look at them. After all, there is no way that a kidnapper would hide Tea in something so open and no way that Joey wants to be exposed to any more creepiness than he has to.
There is also the fact that a part of him he ignores insists that, the next time Ryo and him run into Yugi, Tea will be standing there beside his spiky-haired friend.
To avoid glancing at the buildings, Joey looks up at the sky. The light grey appears as the edges of ghosts. Perhaps that is where the plans for these buildings went, into the sky as nothing more than faded dreams.
The blonde huffs as he drags his focus back to the sidewalk in front of him. There are a few cracks through the concrete. They draw Joey's eyes to them and he traces their short paths with a look. Unbidden, the sound of the Other Yugi laughing at the recording echoes in Joey's ears as the near silent winter wind whispers by. The blonde shakes his head.
Stop thinking about that. Yug was just upset. You'd be freaking out too if it was Serenity.
More unwanted thoughts tug at the edges of Joey's mind, so he looks around to find something else more important than these mental strings. One glance happens to land on Ryo. Green eyes stare straight back at Joey, who blinks at the attention. For his part, Ryo jolts and quickly glances at the sidewalk. The boy breathes in before looking back up at Joey, but he says nothing as he stops walking.
"Somethin' wrong?" Joey halts his own steps while he looks over his friend. Pale hands do not tremble, and the shadows under the boy's eyes remain pale, thin strips, so no worry over Ryo's hesitation clouds Joey's brown eyes. Still…the silence stretches too long.
As Joey opens his mouth to speak, Ryo's sets itself in a determined line before letting out, "Has he done that before?"
"Wha…?" The question comes so far out of the left field that Joey forgets about the skeleton houses and ghostly grey skies and focuses completely on Ryo who stares right back. "Who are you talking about?"
"The-the Other Yugi." The catch in Ryo's voice dissipates as he continues. "Has he laughed like that before?"
The reference to the Other Yugi's laughing fit causes a spasm of the almost barred memory in Joey's mind and he shakes his head to rid himself of the image. Even with the motion, he cannot quite purge himself of the flashes of that unnatural glint in those crimson eyes.
Relief trickles into Ryo's eyes. "Okay, then. Forget I-" He cuts himself off as he catches something in Joey's expression. No words come out as the relief drains away.
Confusion colors Joey's awareness to the point that he does not notice the chilly bite of wind that hisses past. He does not remember, honestly, because half the time the Other Yugi comes out when everyone else is more focused on surviving whatever threat than what the Other Yugi is saying. No, that's not right. Joey would have remembered if he had laughed like that before.
"No, this is the first time I've heard him do that." Joey pauses because…what does that mean? If the Other Yugi has not laughed like that during Monster World or Death-T or when any one of Domino's weekly thugs was messing with them, what does that say about now?
Ryo stares. Joey fidgets. The latter can feel an adrenalized question in the air, but not knowing what it is or where this left field conversation is going sets an itch across his skin.
Ryo narrows his eyes. "Has he ever acted like that in other ways?"
"Like what?" Joey should ask, but a thought pings the answer to him before he can even look more confused.
Unbalanced.
The traitorous whisper causes Joey to wince. No, that's not right. Sure, the Other Yugi might be a little out there sometimes, but that does not mean he's unbalanced. Just a little unconventional, like the rest of their group.
"Nah, I mean, he did do that mind, magicky coma on Kaiba, but the guy had it coming. He also made someone think they were on fire once, but the creep had blindfolded and pointed a gun at Tea, so he got off a lot lighter than I would have let him. Oh yeah, then there was the time he electrocuted Hirutani and his thugs. They survived of course, but you can sure bet that they had a long vacation at the hospital."
Ryo looks at him with almost pity.
In response, something sparks in Joey's eyes, but it does not light into a full out flame like it would if someone else had questioned his friend. Ryo's had a bad, bad experience with his darkness; so, these questions, these doubts that he has about Yugi's own dark side are more than understandable.
"Look," Joey lets no harshness into his tone. "I know what you're thinking, but it isn't like that. I know Bakura put you through the ringer, but the Other Yugi isn't the same as him. I've known him and Yugi for a while now, and he has a solid head, especially when he's trying to protect the rest of us."
The way Ryo looks at him…Joey cannot read those green eyes, which are darker from the clouds above, nor can he figure out the meaning behind the straight line of the boy's mouth. His scrutiny breaks with the white-haired boy's sigh.
"Sorry, I just…" As the apology weaves through his tone, Ryo looks annoyed with himself. "It's hard not to be paranoid, especially since Tea's missing." Ryo stumbles over those last two words as he swallows.
Joey forces a grin. "Don't worry about that. Yugi'll find Tea and things will be back to normal in no time."
Ryo does not reply to that. Instead, he looks past Joey's shoulder, and surprise flits across his pale features. Joey spins around because this is an empty, creepy neighborhood and who knows what's sneaking up behind him.
A man stands frozen a few yards away. Long black hair accents the man's white face as green eyes that look like fogged glass stare with dilated pupils.
"Ba-Bakura." The stranger's voice thins on each syllable. It is almost like the cold saps the strength out of his words.
Ryo's eyes grow round as he moves swiftly from the stages of confusion to a dawning horror of understanding as to why his appearance strikes fear in the stranger's eyes. Joey, for his part, still resides in the dark of ignorance.
"Hey! Who are you and how da ya know Ryo?"
The stranger only stares in silence.
"Joey…" Ryo's voice thins as well, but that is because of a rush of memories of Bakura stuffing every friendly person they have ever met into little figurines. Who knows what this poor stranger has endured?
"I think that he was referring to Bakura," Ryo finishes.
The quiet words linger in the air, and for a fleeting instant, Joey wonders if someone is finally seeking vengeance for Bakura's Shadow Games. Perhaps Tea's kidnapping was payback for some torment. The fleeting instant passes when the stranger's mouth parts and the fear in fogged eyes glows too much for this person to have purposely set foot in the same city as Bakura.
With a blink, the stranger's fear dims behind a hazy mask, and Joey is left feeling disoriented by the change.
"Hey, Bakura." The stranger raises his hand in greeting. "Didn't expect to see you around here." The fingers of that hand tremble.
A chill, which has nothing to do with the winter, shoots through Joey.
"You're not after the Puzzle, are you?" The man winces. "Sorry, that's a stupid question, of course you are."
"Hey!" The chill that had traveled through Joey flashes away in a trail of heated suspicion. "That isn't Bakura you're talking to, that's Ryo! And what are you talking about Puzzle?" In Joey's mind, the electronic-tinted voice of the recorder sounds a little too close to this new guy's.
"Ryo?" The stranger stumbles over the name.
"Yeah, and don't forget that!" Yugi sent Bakura packing a while ago." Joey's voice reaches the edge of the block. "Now, if you don't want me to show you how Joey Wheeler sends his enemies packing, I suggest that you give us Tea back." The green jacketed teen punches his own palm.
The man's fogged green eyes lose focus as they stare past Joey. Somehow, the stranger's face pales further.
"There ya go. Glad to see that you're taking us seriously." Joey marches forward.
"I just killed five people." The words are audible enough not to be a mutter, but not by much. There is no guilt in that voice, only a kind of quiet awe.
Joey stops. "Wha-"
In the distance, the first gunshot goes off like thunder.
The incidents that involved Yami and enemies that Joey refers to were all events that took place in season 0 (a prequel to the main series) and the manga volumes. During these times, Yami's punishments of foes tended to match what one would expect an ancient spirit to act like after thousands of years of solitary confinement, so they were a little more severe than the treatment that the calmer Yami that was shown in Duelist Kingdom onward displayed towards later opponents like Pegasus, Marik, etc.
