bRoKeN gLaSs

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We're stuck in a place so dark, you could hardly see
A manner of matter that splits with the words I breathe
And as the rain drips acidic questions around me
I block out the sight of the powers that be
Duck away into the darkness, times up
I wind up in a rusted world with eyes shut
So tight that it blurs into the world of pretend
And the eyes ease open and it's dark again

From the top to the bottom
Bottom to top I stop
At the core I've forgotten
In the middle of my thoughts
Taken far from my safety
The picture's there
The memory won't escape me
But why should I care

-Linkin Park, Frgt/10

"I'm mad at numbers, there's like too many of the them and stuff."

(It's funny because it's true)

"Happiness doesn't buy money"

Note: Please, please review! I like reviews a lot and if you like this at all or have suggestions for it please review!

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Yugi Motou had to admit he was a bit crazy for actually being in school on a Saturday. A day off, a day he could have spent at home relaxing but, no on this lovely Saturday night our hero Yugi was at his school doing, you guessed it, still looking for his beloved lunch box.

Earlier in the day he had been happily eating his duel monster fruit snacks being perfectly content sitting on his rather comfortable plush couch and channel surfing. A memory from a commercial popped into his head about leg waxing, the small boy quickly dismissed this horrible torture that many female creatures did to themselves from his mind and shone the light from his flashlight in a different direction flashing it about the school's empty halls.

But anyways, his mind wandered back to earlier that day. He remembered being mildly interested in playing air hockey at the arcade among other entertainments. Carelessly he remembered how he had tossed another delicious artificially flavored duel monster snack into his mouth. Now he vaguely remembered it being red, and if it was red then it had to have been the red-eyes black dragon shape. Yugi wondered why he wasn't able to use the inductive thinking he had just used when he actually needed to apply it in geometry. He winced thinking of his dismal math grade.

The school was most definitely had an eerier sort of aura to it at night. He began to wonder why exactly he'd come here in the first place. Ah yes, it had been fate. Fate had brought him to the very place he was now. After Yugi had consumed what he thought to be the red-eyes black dragon fruit snack he had pulled out a grape flavored one from the small plastic package, the dark magician. That's when the lunch box came to haunt his mind once more. Now that he thought about it, he felt slightly bad about eating it, after all he had chewed, swallowed and was now probably digesting something that had looked remarkable like his favorite duel monster card.

But then Yugi didn't feel so bad, after all it didn't really look like the Dark Magician anyway it was all mashed into a small shape that resembled a man wearing an odd hat.

"Yugi…"

Instinctively he snapped out of his semi-daze and looked behind him. Then he thought better, he knew this voice all too well, it belonged to only Yami of course. Yugi's some-what multiple personality who was taller than him and also had a voice that puberty obviously hadn't graced him with yet.

The purple-eyed boy blinked, of course Yami couldn't really see this, but Yugi wondered what had awoken him. He hadn't spoke to him since Yami wanted to know why those women on TV were putting wax on their legs. Yugi remembered that discussion hadn't gone very well after Yami retreated back into his spirit room muttering some vile oaths under his breath about not understanding 'modern day culture.'

Then automatically Yugi looked next to him, there Yami stood in his ghostly form with his hand on one of his slim hips and raising an eyebrow. Yugi always wondered where Yami had learned to do this, after all he, himself was unable to raise his eyebrow higher than the other one. It must have taken a lot of muscle control. Yugi then wondered if Yami had actual muscles in his spirit form.

"Maybe pharaoh's learn how to do that sort of thing…or maybe he just has a lot of free time, after all from all his poses it seems how he knows how to do the 'I-am-a-cocky-pharaoh-hear-me-roar' poses very well."

Then he remembered Yami's questioning look.

"I'm looking for my lunch box." He responded. At least he was able to speak freely, the whole mentally speaking thing got to Yugi from time to time after all it was slightly abnormal to be hearing a voice in your head. (He figured he should be used to that by now) Especially when people suspected he was talking to himself, that usually earned a few speculative looks from his classmates.

"Again?!" Yami answered him, keeping his eyebrow raised.

Yugi decided to ignore this, after all he got enough of this from Joey (When he wasn't preoccupied with his letter) and he certainly didn't need it from his own Yami.

"Just help me look, please Yami." Yugi sighed.

"Alright Aibou ." Yami nodded in agreement.

Yugi rubbed the back of his neck, it was slightly cramped up but nothing too painful, he knew he must have been too thorough in his search through the art room buckets. He almost thought he'd have to spend the weekend with his head stuck between two buckets in the art room if it hadn't been for his nimble maneuvering abilities.

He walked down the locker hall following Yami, figuring if anyone knew where his lunchbox was at this point, Yami would be the most likely.

"Yugi…something…something's here." He informed the smaller boy.

"What do you mean Ya-

But suddenly, Yugi knew exactly what he meant. And what exactly he meant was currently sitting at a lunchroom table in the center of the cafeteria sobbing hysterically.

Though Yugi stood at the threshold of the cafeteria, he could tell it was the "ghost" he had seen before. He had to admit he was sort of expecting this sort of unnatural thing to happen to him, after all unnatural things seemed to follow Yugi like a lost puppy.

Yami confirmed his thoughts "The being is not alive." He informed his counterpart.

"You mean it's… a….a ghost?" Yugi questioned biting down on his lip. Yami slowly nodded after Yugi finished stuttering.

At the mention of the word 'Ghost' the ghost seemed to wail even harder (if that was even possible) the small boy swallowed, he wondered if she had heard him. Yami seemed somewhat distracted by the miserable sounds emanating from the ghostly figure.

There were two things Yami hated most in the world; one of them being people who tried to tried to hurt Yugi and the other being crying girls.

"Yugi…" he paused, Yami did not like saying this at all "Maybe you should…" he looked helplessly at Yugi as if to somehow suggest he go over and speak with the sobbing girl. Yugi gave his Yami back a look as if to say 'Why me?!' Yugi wasn't good with sobbing girls that were alive! Let alone DEAD!

"Yami…umm…maybe…" he looked at his counter-part who was giving him a firm deciding look.

"You're coming too." Was all Yugi said giving in to his Yami.

"I guess the rumors were true…" Yugi said to himself as he crossed the threshold of the door and into the heart of the cafeteria. The tri-colored hair boy looked at the posters hung around the cafeteria, hoping to distract his mind a little. So far the cheery "We Recycle!" poster wasn't helping. Yami cringed slightly as if he couldn't stand hearing the pitiful moans of the creature beating her fists in berserk looking rage upon on the poor lunchroom table. Yugi, on the other hand was terribly frightened, many normal people would be scared if they saw what the purple-eyed boy was currently trying not to stare at even if they didn't have another being residing in them that now looked a bit more calm, Yugi figured that Yami had, had time to collect his nerves and pull them miraculously together.

"Hey." Yugi said quietly trying to convey to her that he saw her ghostly presence in front of him. However, she didn't seem to notice. The purpled-eyed boy thought for a moment…if he were dead, what would someone who could randomly see him say to him that might get his attention? Yugi was drawing a blank, he never thought about being in such a dire situation before.

"Hello?" he tried again, this seemed to get some response from the spirit as she suddenly turned her head frantically to see who was speaking. She glanced back at Yugi.

The girl opened her mouth and drew breath in before curling her bottom lip and then creasing her eyebrows. Yugi took his as a hostile expression from the wandering spirit.

"I heard you crying and I thought…well…maybe…you might want to talk about what's bothering you?" Though it took awhile for Yugi to finish his sentence, explaining further he was trying to 'help' her, (though somewhat unwilling) she finally seemed to understand as she quieted down.

"Anything on your…mind?" he asked.

This seem to spark an interest in her as she stood up and pushed in her chair after a few attempts (her not-so-solid hand kept sliding through the back of it, finally the chair pushed itself in seeming on it's own accord) "I…" she started out in a loud booming voice, Yugi hadn't expected such a sound to come from a seemingly gentle looking female.

"AM NOT SUPPOSED" she paused and continued even louder "TO BE DEAD." She screamed as if she had been wanting to get this off her chest for a long time. Yugi pressed is fingers in his ears to avoid any permanent damage her shouts might have caused to his hearing. Yami stood there unaffected and mostly wondering if she knew he was there.

She pressed her hands firmly down on the table and let out a cry of frustration, chairs sailed through the air at one mere thought of her rage, one crashed into a wall and with a loud noise as it hit forcefully into the solid surface and then dropped to the floor knocking the "We recycle!" poster off the wall.

"Meep." Yugi said after her wild display of poltergeist power. She appeared to be panting now, long strands of her transparent brown hair clung to her face as the rest of it fell upon her back. Yugi noticed the front of her hair seemed to be shorter than the back, he was sure this was some sort of recent hair style trend (ruling out the possibility she was from the 1800's) She began to catch her breath as she breathed in heavily. Her chest rose and fell in a rhythmic pattern, she leaned more of her weigh onto the table with her hands still clenched in fists firmly upon its hard surface. Her eyes looked completely vicious and seemingly full of malice, but beneath the rage were a pair of vivid, concrete matching cinnamon brown irises. The ghost readjusted her blouse collar and flipped her hair back out of her face, not really paying much attention to the fact that Yugi was still there.

"I…want…to be alive again…" she started with tears anew. From a few moments ago she looked completely different. She had changed from an uncontrollable rage that flashed upon her face to a seemingly helpless girl with fresh tears streaming down her face (which Yugi could see the exit door through)

"It's his fault…HIS FAULT!" she pointed around wildly and directed her finger to a chair. Just as Yugi was about to finish his escaping plan, he noticed what she was pointing to and what was on the chair. It was his lunch box! He could have cried for joy, his precious possession was in his eyesight once more!

"What does she mean its his fault?" Yami questioned mentally as he looked curiously at the lunch box plastered with Dark Magician images.

"He did it! He did it! HE DID IT!" she yelled viciously waving her finger at Yugi's lunchbox.

"The Card?" Yugi questioned.

"The owner…the owner's…looks…" she began to babble but stopped as if to rubbed her head from a headache she couldn't possibly have (Being dead and all)

Yugi took in what this might have meant. So far he was able to conclude who ever owned the Dark Magician killed her. He certainly knew he hadn't murdered anyone, unless Yami had been up to no good, which he sincerely doubted not being able to envisage Yami as the killing type. (You never know though)

But there had to be more people who owned the Dark Magician obviously.

"The person who owns the Dark Magician killed you?" After Yugi said this he instantly regretted it not wanting to say the word 'killed' around her in fear she might be set off in a rage again.

"No! You don't understand!" she cried "Not him! Not him!"

"I don't understand what you're saying!" Yugi yelled back to her using hand motions to exaggerate what he was trying to say.

"Not purple!" was her answered, she howled out like a wounded animal "I can't say the name!"

She stood there for a few minutes trying to calm herself. "I can't help but be angry…it just flows through my veins…enticing…and…" she trailed off.

"The dead often are pulled towards becoming evil wandering spirits if left in the land of the living for too long." Yami mentally informed Yugi "Sometimes they lose control of their once human traits and succumb to the will to do what ever is holding them back from moving on, whether it be right or wrong."

"My name's Yugi…do you have a name?" he questioned hoping now she might be a bit more reasonable.

"Yes, I do…its Miori." She answered running her fingers through her hair trying to avoid looking down at the small boy who was staring at her. "I'm sorry for acting the way I did…Yugi."

Miori…so that was her name. It seemed like a perfectly ordinary name to Yugi. There must have been at least a million Miori's wandering around living in Japan, so the fact that her name was 'Miori' didn't seem to help him much or give him a clue at all.

"Maybe…I can talk to who ever you need to talk to for you?" he suggested.

"No." she answered, "It won't be necessary."

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Kaiba's short brown hair whipped about in the wind as he drove past a few dimly lit streets. He felt he owed a special visit to a certain someone. Casually he turned the steering wheel of his classic black convertible, whipping around a street corner causing a few papers that had been lying around the street to suddenly move from their spot and fly to the other end of the street. The blue-eyed teen smirked; it was always fun having four wheel drive and turbo transmission in your dazzling black high-tech convertible. Let's just say Mr. Seto liked to show off every now and then, after all with all the hard work he had done for Kaiba Corp. he earned such a fun 'toy' to play around with. In his opinion at least. As he turned the last street corner rather recklessly he pulled right up the game shop where he knew the answers he wanted would be waiting, and Kaiba didn't like waiting, especially when he felt he had so little time to figure out what was actually going on.

Kaiba burst through the doors of the game shop, trying not to let his anger show. He knew he had to take this into his own hands. Telling the company would just cause general havoc (He was surprised they didn't know about the note he had found on his desk) so he was going to get to the bottom of this- by whatever means necessary.

"Kaiba?" Yugi Motou's grandfather said suddenly surprised at his night entrance.

Solomon put down a dirty old rag he had been using to wipe off the glass window of his shop. "What do you want?" he said looking suspiciously at the brown-haired teen.

"Where's Yugi?" Kaiba demanded.

Solomon made a strange expression; from Kaiba's rude entrance he had a feeling Yugi wasn't in his room where he was supposed to be. "He went out." Was all Solomon said, however this was when Yugi made his grandiose reentrance to his home. The purple-eyed boy had a shocked expression befall upon his face. "Grandpa!" he said (he hadn't expected him to be down here so late) then he noticed the other person in the room, Seto Kaiba. Yugi felt a terrible headache coming on.

"Where's Yami to cover for me when I need him?"

"I'm right here Aibou but I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean." He responded almost automatically.

Firmly Yugi held his recovered lunch box in hand and went to reply to Kaiba.

"Kaiba listen, I really don't want to duel right now and I'm tired-

"That's not what I came here for." Kaiba uttered darkly.

This came totally unexpected to him, what exactly was Seto Kaiba doing here if he didn't want to duel? He looked at him suspiciously

"I want to know the meaning of this." He demanded handing Yugi a note. Solomon eye's widened…it looked exactly like the note Bakura had dropped off to Joey.

Yugi blinked before grasping the letter in his hand and opening it. His eyes widened for a moment as his eyes quickly scanned the piece of paper.

"Kaiba…I didn't send this…I didn't even write it." Yugi explained.

"Who wrote it in your handwriting, and in something only the both of us would know?" Seto told the small boy glaring daggers at him.

"I don't know." He explained honestly "But I didn't write this."

This was when Solomon raised his voice "Bakura came in here with an envelope for Joey that looked exactly like that…only it had a different message…do you think?" he trailed off.

Kaiba's eyes widened in the surprised, Bakura he was certainly an unlikely suspect and Kaiba had not thought of him as someone who might send such a letter, perhaps this was what he was planning on.

"Don't think I still don't think it was you." Was the deep blued teen's response to Yugi, pretending to have ignored his grandfather's comment. "I'm going to be watching you closely." He sneered. Briefly he sent a menacing glare towards the two Motou family members before stalking out the game shop's door.

"Geez save a guy's life and soul and look where it gets you."

After receiving a stern and suspicious look from his grandfather Yugi quickly headed upstairs to his room, hoping he might actually be able to get to bed today.

He set his Dark Magician Lunch box on his cluttered desk where he normally kept all his schoolbooks and papers on and then went to slide off his shoes and shirt to prepare himself for bed. Just as he finished brushing his teeth to a pearly white with his newly purchased blue and purple tooth brush, Yugi turned around to face his room wondering if he had left his rinsing cup in there. He moved his arm back and forth to finish brushing his teeth and then proceeded to spit in the sink. After turning on the water and rinsing off the teeth-cleaning device he decided he was good enough to finally let his head hit the pillow for the night.

Only he now he discovered he might have a problem with that. For sitting on his bed was Miori, who was folding her arms across her chest "You left me alone at the school." She claimed pouting slightly.

"I didn't think you'd want to come home and…" Yugi stuttered off.

"Oh great a house guest." He thought to himself

"Its lonely there." She answered him as if this explained everything.

"How long have you been in my room? Did you see me change into my pajamas?" he blushed slightly.

"No, I closed my eyes." She said in a huff as if this was an unimportant fact.

"How many personalities does this girl have? At first she's mess and then she's polite and now she's a teenager, she looks older than twenty!"

"Can I stay?" Miori asked somewhat politely even though she knew she was intruding "I didn't mean to intrude and all but…well you know…I can't move on and I need help and you're the only one who can see me…" she paused and then looked around the room "You play duel monsters?" she asked

Yugi nodded "Yeah, why?"

"I used to work for a company that had something to do with that." She responded looking at the cards. Suddenly she held her head as if it was in pain. "You just helped me remember a little more…I just saw something that might have…well might have happened to me."

She stopped and looked down at Yugi with a pained expression in her eyes

"I should be alive…" Miori said unexpectedly "He said it would work…he said nothing would happen…THAT BASTARD!"

"Oh no." Yugi panicked "Crap."

Luckily for Yugi just as quickly as her rage had crept up upon her it faded back to where it had come from.

"I did it again…" she explained "The times when I remember things…the feeling comes back…where I have to do something, only I don't know what."

Yugi eyed the letter that Kaiba had handed to him on his desk, he knew it was only a photocopy but someone had written it in his name. Not only did he have a ghost to worry about, he also had someone who was pretending to be him out there.

Yugi decided he had a lot to worry about.

Sometimes he wished he was Yami, after all the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh never seemed to have a lot to worry about and yet he, well he was up to his neck in problems. He always seemed to have something wrong, nothing could have give him a break. Yugi was getting tired of this, but he couldn't leave the things that had happened to him at rest, at least not now.

"Tomorrow, Miori…maybe we'll find something out tomorrow." Was all Yugi said as he climbed under his blue sheets into his bed. The ghost graciously shut out his light and sat in the corner of his room for the time being nodding her head in understanding. Yugi had no idea why she did this but he didn't feel like questioning it just now. (He figured ghosts didn't need to sleep- having no human needs and all) Usually this was the time he spent talking to Yami, who always seemed to be able to cheer him up somehow but tonight he looked up to his ceiling and out at his sky light, the moon was full and cast an faint glow upon his strangely darkened room. Miori huddled in the corner of the room, hugging her knees and leaning on his wall. He offered her a blanket but she insisted she didn't need it.

Some how he wanted to talk to the deceased girl, but part of him also wanted to be left alone. Of course Yugi realized he never would be left alone. After all there was Yami, and he was with him always, and there were the times he was lonely. There were always pros and cons to what ever Yugi was dealing with, he didn't like it most of the time, why did he always have to risk everything to achieve his goals?

Yugi found this slightly unfair.

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In 'Dire' times like these, the next morning after Yugi completed a few phone calls and wrestled up some tasty looking junk food the usual crew found themselves in their somewhat usual spots around the game shop fighting over who was going to hold the bowl of popcorn that was being passed around, Joey was sprawled out on a chair leaning his arm on the arm of the chair and placing his hand upon his chin. Tea was sitting on the floor on top a cushion to the left of Joey whereas Bakura happened to be politely sitting on a fold-up chair that Yugi had provided for him, watching Tristin and Joey fight over some of the munchies Yugi had brought in. Tristin sat to the right of Joey and had turned his chair around so the back of the chair had become the front of the chair and therefore he had something to lean upon. Yugi, himself was standing as he paced back and forth for a few moments. "So what do you think?" He asked after having had explained the whole story about Kaiba's visit to him last night (He neatly ignored the minor detail of Miori who happened to be learning against the corner wall watching them mildly interested)

"So you're saying the letter Kaiba-boy got looked all most the same as mine?"

"Exactly the same." Yugi pointed out.

"So," Tea concluded (unaware of what the letter Joey had gotten looked like) "You think who ever sent Joey his letter, sent Kaiba his?"

Tristin groaned "Don't they have DNA testing for these sort of things?"

"Kaiba called me this morning, about that he said they couldn't find a shred of living evidence about who wrote this, not even a single piece of dead skin was left on it." Yugi explained.

"Weird." The blonde replied scratching his head. "Maybe we'd have more luck if we started with my letter, that is if it is even the same person."

At that point Joey passed around the letter to each of the people in the circle. Yugi of course had already read it, so he glanced around at the shop's yellow walls and glass counters looking a little bit distracted (Miori almost broke the house planet she was standing next to) the others started reading what had been written upon a piece of paper that was supposedly for Joey Wheeler's eyes alone.

"Joey…are you sure you don't want to kill Kaiba?" Tristin asked raising an eyebrow after reading the letter.

"Are you trying to say I wrote myself a letter from a secret admirer?!" Joey questioned his friend and got up off of his chair clenching his fist in front of the brown-haired teen.

"Basically." Tristin answered him with out batting and eyelash. He looked back at Joey skeptically.

"Joey's right," Yugi began "I know his hand writing, that's not his, it's way too neat. Anyway who ever wrote Kaiba's letter has bad penmanship."

Tea immediately grabbed the letter from Tristin's hands "My God!" she said aloud as she read and then quickly began start swearing under her breather, while the other's stared at her, she blinked nervously before covering up "Um yes, this isn't Joey's handwriting- heh…" she glanced at Bakura suspiciously. However, she knew she could not say anything for if she did they would most certainly know it was she who sent the letter.

"My grandpa said Bakura dropped off Joey's letter, is this true Bakura?" Yugi questioned.

"It is." He said finally speaking "But I didn't write it."

"Do you know who did?" Joey asked as curiosity slowly got the better of him.

"No." Bakura lied quickly.

"How did you know to deliver it to Joey then? And deliver it here? There was no address, just like Kaiba's letter." Yugi looked at Bakura raising an eyebrow, something didn't seem right here.

"That letter Joey has, has nothing to do with Kaiba." This was Bakura's hint that the subject should be dropped.

Tea wasn't paying any attention to this, in fact now she was regretting ever writing that letter…if Joey ever found out it was HER and it was meant for YUGI, she wouldn't know what to do. Tea could only wonder how the letter found its way to Joey…

Joey eyed Kaiba's photocopied letter again "Yugi, this does look like your handwriting, I mean its pretty messy."

As much as Yugi hated to admit it Joey was right, it DID look like he had written it and Kaiba believed he had too, but Yugi knew he didn't. But he didn't understand how or why someone would go to such lengths to do such a thing. Unless it was Yami, but it couldn't be Yami? Could it? Yugi didn't want to explore that possibility, not at all. (A silly part of him questioned if Yami had sent Joey that love letter, he quickly dismissed the thought though, it was too creepy)

So far, with out any leads- this investigation was going nowhere.

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"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."- Albert Einstein