The Magicians' Realm Chapter 94: Fifty Ways, a yu-gi-oh fanfic

Chapter 94, everybody! Hey, my first chapter of the new decade! Hopefully not the last *bricked*

Gonna be knuckling down on my active fics the next couple of months because come summer I might have to be working for a living—hopefully I'll figure out a means to make money off of the fun stuff like drawing and writing, but…any way you slice it, I really do need to be working on these. ^^;

In other news, the title for this chapter—and a mention Teana makes—is in reference to the song "Fifty Ways (to say goodbye)" by Train. Nice and peppy and has a pretty fun line dance to go with it. ^^

Angiembabe, thanks for the review! No it isn't! And maybe—we hope. D:

References:

Original characters, + setting © Kineil D. Wicks (myself, not the girl in the story)

After a few hours of searching, Yuki decided that there was no chance to be found at Hallowed Fields.

His suspicions had been correct about there being no helpful spellbooks to be found within the library there, and after a couple of hours between alternating between the new books and the divination book, he couldn't exactly fault Jaden for feeling braindead. Divination, from what he could gather, was as Syrus said: you either had the gift, or you spent years figuring out how to puzzle it out from runes or dice or tiles or crab claws or what-have-you. And after trying some of the mental exercises outlined in the book, he had come to the conclusion that he in fact did not have the gift.

He was forced to come to the conclusion that he couldn't do anything helpful here, and that trying for anything specific would end with him having to answer questions he wasn't ready to broach. Not that he didn't trust Syrus or Jaden or Alexis, but Alexis would want to involve an adult, Jaden would run headfirst into the problem, and Syrus would have a total nervous breakdown at the idea of an undead Magician running around. No, telling more people wouldn't help.

Hence why he was excusing himself and scurrying home as the sun set, trying to see everywhere at once—the streetlamps were coming on, and every long shadow seemed to have a smile—he was running full-tilt for home before it was all over, slamming the door—for the briefest of seconds he had a full waking nightmare of turning around and seeing Skellington standing there, because of course the scary skeleton Magician knew where they lived—

His mom stuck her head out of the kitchen. "What are you doing slamming that door?"

No—no, they were safe, it was still so—so refreshingly normal here that it took several long moments to kick his brain back into gear.

"Mosquitoes?" he tried finally. "Fast ones?"

The expression he got was a sarcastic right, but she seemed to accept it and duck back into the kitchen. Hesitate—lock the door behind him before going into the kitchen after her.

"Where's Yami?" he asked. "Still upstairs?"

"No," she said, slicing some tomatoes. "He went over to the Delvaire Library a few minutes ago—said Horus was upstairs and recuperating, he'll be fine."

Oh—oh that was good.

Less good was his mom giving him that look. "Is there something you boys want to tell me?"

Um—

Back door opened and closed—"Who locked the front door?"

"Dad's home," Yuki said quickly.

"I noticed," his mom said, expression saying this isn't over you have not evaded punishment. Yuki tried for a smile, stopped when all he managed was a weak twitch, ran into the living room as his dad collapsed into the nearest armchair.

"I've decided I'm not being paid enough to deal with these people," his dad was groaning. Glance at Yuki. "So how was your day?"

Oh boy. "Uh…Dad you love me and Yami, right?"

"Of course I do."

"And you'd still love us even if we did something bad, right?"

"Of course I…would…."

"Like something really, really—"

"Yuki, what did you boys do?"

"Nothing," he said quickly. "That was a—a hypothetical question."

"Uh-huh," his dad said, eyeing him. Probably a good time to make himself scarce.

"I have to go check on H—Owley," he blurted quickly, running up the steps and leaving bemused parents in his wake. Oi he needed to get better at this—no, no he didn't need to get better at lying to his parents, he needed a solution to this whole mess and he needed it now.

"Oi, no slamming the door," Horus croaked, blinking blearily at him.

"Sorry," Yuki said, sinking to the floor. This was messed up, this was completely messed up none of them had any idea what to do they were in so much trouble….

It took a few long minutes to realize he had been staring at nothing, Horus had been addressing him repeatedly, and Scrump had toddled over and started scrubbing his shoes.

"Seriously, what is going on?" Horus demanded, when Yuki looked up at him.

He didn't—he wasn't even sure if he could explain it at all—it felt like he had been burnt up from the inside and then frozen, edges tattered around the empty hole—

"I think—" had to swallow, throat dry. "I think we're in a lot of trouble, Horus."

*\*/*

Teana decided that there was hope.

Hence why she was sitting in her room that night, retiring early with the excuse that algebra was draining. A bit concerning that no one disagreed with that, but it gave her an out.

In the meantime….

Lil' Stevie chirped at the stack of notebooks and reams of paper she put down on the desk.

"I'm trying something," she told the little Starling, putting down a can of pens before sitting down. "If I write everything down, I can figure out how to avoid all the bad timelines and stay on the good one—maybe I'll be lucky and foresee a way out of this mess we're all about to go sliding sideways into."

Lil' Stevie looked concerned about that, as though he were foreseeing a future without donuts. Which was honestly very possible, if she didn't figure this out and soon.

"Okay," she sighed, grabbing a pen and a fresh sheet of paper, closing her eyes and telling herself not to be silly, Lil' Stevie wouldn't be judging her with his donuts at risk. "Just…find that good future, follow it back."

It was harder this time to claw her way to that good future, but she managed to find it—start to wend her way back, scribbling out notes and hoping they'd be legible when she opened her eyes…felt herself reach the end of the paper, grab for a fresh piece and keep going….

It was a few more sheets of paper before she managed—opened her eyes…yes, it was mostly an illegible mess, but she could work with this. Copy it all down in legible handwriting in one of her notebooks, step by step on how to avoid dying an untimely death.

Now for one of the other notebooks. Time to write down fifty ways to die.

The notebook unfortunately filled up quickly, as did another—poke and prod and pull and tug at all these future timelines, trying to tie them into the happy one, to swerve it all and deliver them all a happy ending—

One timeline she straight-up abandoned when Kineil got shot in the orchard again.

Try another timeline…Hephaestus and Vulcan next. Another one…the entire Pleasant family. Try another one…people she hadn't met, but whose deaths drove Yami to do something stupid….

She had run out of notebooks and was working on filling the papers front and back, still trying the timelines—she had to make this work—she had to work it so she could pull them all out of the morass they didn't even realize they were sinking into, the iceberg they were heading for at full speed….

Slap her hands to her face when she saw Yami Skellington's fate.

"Chirp?" Lil' Stevie noised, jostled out of his sleep.

"Sorry—sorry," she said, waving him off. "That's…okay, that one's a dud."

She kept working, jotting down all the things they shouldn't do, couldn't do if they wanted to see the year out…one was tentatively working…start tugging—

Slap her hand to her face when following that timeline made burning pain scorch across it and down her neck—she had—that was—

She had come dangerously close to seeing her own death.

Shook her head—no, that was obviously the worst of the worst—even without venturing further down that one, she could see Yami's actions—that would be bad.

She pitied the people in that timeline.

It won't matter, because they won't exist, she told herself, trying again—just keep trying, make sure to know….

Panic when she checked for the good timeline to see that it had faded a little.

No—no no no no—dive for the right notebook, scan for the things they needed to do immediately—there was still time to make sure it went how it was supposed to, she could keep them from their ill-timed fates—

More bad threads were piling up on her.

No—no you shoo—scribble them down on the don't do this stack, hugging the good notebook to her—she could still fix this, she could…eyes burning—wipe at them, keep at it, squinting in the pale light—

Pale?

She looked up—blinked, startled at the dawn light leaking in—

Jumped at the knock on the door.

"Miss Teana?" Yami asked. "Are you decent? Er—well of course you are, but in the uh…you know what, I'm going to stop right there."

"That'd be a good idea," she said, voice creaky. Look around at the maelstrom of papers she was in the middle of, ink splattered everywhere…no, she wasn't decent. "I'm not ready yet—give me a bit."

"All right—I'll see if I can't find any coffee. I'm pretty sure it hasn't gotten up and walked off, but that's only because we don't let Vulcan make it anymore."

"This is another incident, isn't it."

"Hey, be glad it's not Bakura's coffee—that stuff fights you and wins."

"Does anyone in this house make an actually good cup of coffee?"

"That is an excellent question—I'll go find out. I'll be back!"

"I'll be here," she sighed, looking around at the mess she had made.

Teana spent the next five minutes trying to make sense of it all, stacking it in thick reams and trying to sort them via notebooks…it wasn't working. The only one she was able to keep track of was the good notebook, and only because she had it sitting on her bed. She finally gave up on making heads or tails of it all when Lil' Stevie went to tap on the French door to be let out.

Heading back past the desk to the bathroom, she considered the scribbled ink-splotched mess, tried to parse through everything….

Finally wrote down two lines.

Figure out a way to get Skellington out of Delvaire.

Montgau must be avoided at all costs.