DISCLAIMER - I don't OWN these characters . . . I'm just borrowing them for
a while, that's all . . . *laughs nervously*
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The extended shower at least succeeded in washing away the salty residue of tears and cleared her twisted throat, but did nothing to directly ease her endless worries and doubts. She vaguely recalled that blue-green goo Mai recommended (Nioxin) that she had applied earlier, as its distinctive scent twirled about the hallway. Her bare feet seemed to melt into the luscious carpeting with each tiny step.
She shut and locked the door behind her; an instinctive action that "Ryou" learned quite quickly to adopt. It was a cozy little room Rei found herself in, balanced visually by a wide variety of landscape paintings, and the dominant forest curtains that were gently brushed against the closed window.
On the bed, as promised, was a neatly laid outfit of a more modest style than what Rei would have expected; a long, poofy cream skirt, mint and somewhat form hugging shirt, and even a few lacy undergarments, whose lacy nature made Rei blush. She slipped everything on carefully, as to make sure not to soak the clothing with her damp hair, rolling her teeth over her lips all the while. Once she was confident that everything was successfully situated, she surveyed herself through the mirror.
It was like staring at another person, through their foreign eyes.
Rei had to ask herself; /Is this the way it's supposed to be?/ But not in the physical sense.
~*~*~*~
She felt oddly small in the dark place, also naive. But a ~known~ sense of naivety that she didn't feel quite comfortable enough to test. Not like anyone who knew they were surrounded by unknown would care to test that idea . . .
Flash.
The abrupt frame of the purest white startled her as she cowered back, blinking stars out of her sight with a soundless grunt of pain. Her vision tried it's very best to adapt back to the darkness, but another painful flash of light interrupted the attempt, before it was completed.
When everything cleared back to supposed normalcy, including a few of her wits, she confirmed her previous assumptions of the setting. She groaned and rubbed her eyes.
When she opened them however, she was in for a shock.
Eyes. Cold, lifelessly slackened eyes.
Rei stumbled back on whatever that ground-impersonating substance of the shadow realm, in mixed astonishment and horror. Her heart beat so forcefully and loudly, it was hard not to imagine it was ever contained inside anything, let alone Rei's chest. But she immediately relaxed into wariness, how she even managed that, she was unsure, for the Change of Heart wasn't precisely her top pick to see at that moment.
"Welcome to my home, Ryou." The one improperly addressed gave an involuntary shudder at the eerie and strangely malicious voice. As always, it seemed an echo, for the Change of Heart's posed lips never moved with the voice of her words, only into those frowns, grins and atrocious smirks.
"I'm ~Rei~." She corrected, as she gingerly stood.
The blonde ideal tilted her head to the side.
"Deceiving yourself is no way to handle your distress." She stated matter- of-factly.
Rei made a stubborn pose without seeming stuck-up, not at all pleased with the card's unappreciative neglect of human emotion. She was no longer frightened by reality (though this particular place certainly wasn't reality), or intimidated by possible power. At that moment anyway, and she conveniently ignored the fear of how long this daring attitude would last.
"What would you know about these things?!" she demanded angrily.
The dark soul became in control "Enough." She hissed.
"But whoever said I was deceiving myself anyway? I . . . just don't want anyone to know what happened to me!" /What happened to Ryou./
She stared at her for a moment, mouth twisted impassively.
Just staring.
"They say that humans share thoughts easily through speech . . . you are comfortable with doing so; which means you put a bit of yourself into others." She said finally.
Rei's eyes narrowed "That's not the same thing!"
"But once you place a bit of yourself in others, if you deceive them, then you are only deceiving yourself."
"That's . . . not the same . . . " her reply this time was a bit on the feeble side, as she was now thinking confused, and trying her very best to immediately counter every point the spirit had made.
She finally looked back up, 'determination' written all over her expression.
"You're wrong." Rei said flatly "I know precisely who I am."
The Change of Heart only gave another one of her unsettling smiles.
"I am not one to contradict you Mistress."
She turned smoothly, smiling to no where in particular. Or so it seemed.
The white-haired one surveyed her surroundings in suspended surprise, she had only suspected it was just shapeless shadow as usual, or maybe even that queer forest from before.
But ~this~ place, was not something she would have ~ever~ suspected.
It was a quiet grove, spilling with white flowers and leafy bushes that looked so dense, they could probably conceal even the most secretive of secrets. There was a cottage nearby; too curly and too lopsided to ever possibly exist, except in a far-fetched dreamland, ~this~ dreamland. Then there was also a sun now, but it did not glow (though her surroundings were illuminated), and a ridiculously rosy and cartoon-ish face smiled down obliviously.
Rei would have to admit to feeling quite uneasy in this heaven of skewed, fairy-tale perfection.
/This . . . is a playground for nightmares!/
"No. This is a sanctuary."
She flipped around to face the pleased-looking spirit of deception. Her creamy skin did not even wrinkle in the slightest as her grin grew wider, and her plain robe did not wrinkle as she knelt down in a patch of daisies.
"~Sanctuary~?" Rei asked as an oblivious skeptic "For ~whom~, might I ask?" /Who would EVER find comfort in such a dreadful place as this?!/
"The lost souls." She replied, focusing on something behind her uncomfortable mistress.
She turned slowly, somewhat dreading of what she might see.
Once again, she shamelessly blamed her eyes of trickery.
All it was, was a little girl. Not especially pretty, not especially cute (for she only appeared at around five), with hazy blondish hair and large blue eyes, surrounding a stubby red nose.
"Heart! Ma'am! I--" she called out to the spirit . Rei decided this was all becoming too much weirder by the very second, for this girl was a direct illustration of ~normalcy~ in this surreal setting, so dreadfully misplaced . . .
The little girl panted out a few breaths when she arrived in front of them, and looked strangely at Rei in the process. A perplexing and positively confused feeling warped Rei's mind; /How could this girl trust that thing so completely . . . doesn't she even understand what it's done?/ for she missed no points of comfort in the little conversation the three of them had already shared.
/But then again, I trusted her . . . / the full effects of betrayal were now coming through, as her gaze turned slightly into an unwelcome glare.
"Oh Rinnie!" the Change of Heart exclaimed "Your dress . . . "
Rei felt a distinct jolt of surprise.
"'S okay," interrupted Rinnie. The little girl smiled with a cute wink, and quite suddenly, the stain down the front of her dress disappeared. Then, she jutted stubby finger toward the unfamiliar white-head "Oo's dis?"
The Yami and Hikari both cared enough to pat her on the head. "This is master--"
"No."
"Ryou."
"Rei."
"~Mistress~" the spirit hissed with such a tone of finality, that she knew better than to argue. She only continued that glare.
"Yowe misstwiss?"
"Indeed." She smiled her words with such care, that it sent Rei's feelings into a mass of bitter disbelief. "You might see her about sometimes."
Rinnie giggled, just as Rei was about to inquire over that obviously mistaken statement. "Yowe pwetty!"
She stopped, her mouth now gaping like a dry fish's.
The little girl scrambled in a little pouch she had at her side, and pulled out . . . a neat white chain of daisies.
"Hewe!" she exclaimed, happily tossing it over the head of the still- shocked Rei. "'S ma best 'un. I want oo ta have it awways!"
"Well mistress," the Change of Heart said in mock disappointment, and jest reluctance "it is time for you to take your leave, as of now . . . "
"Come back soown!" Rinnie crowed, now waving energetically. The blonde- balanced-one took her arm gently, and steered her a few feet away.
"B-but I don't know how to get back!" Rei cried in an automatic reaction to please the hope that shined in Rinnie's eyes.
"You know." The spirit assured, muttering an archaic incantation over her mistress. "And by the way, look in your pocket."
The shapeless shadows became a solid mist before her, and the attempts of stilling that wondrous magic by an outstretched arm, were all in vain. Soon, all that was left of Rinnie and the Change of Heart, was darkness.
So she opened her eyes.
And found herself sprawled awkwardly on the floor of Mai's guest bedroom. Needless to say, it took a vital moment to reorient herself enough to realize consciousness, and she placed her hand on her forehead in thought.
/Look in my pocket?/
The neatly folded khaki pants received an inquisitive glare from the girl. She assumed they were indeed the topic the spirit had intended, but what on earth did she mean by that? Some weird thing to take over the world or something, ha, but then again, Rei knew she shouldn't doubt that misguided card.
"What a messed-up goodbye." She grumbled, straightening upright. Still, it wasn't as if she remotely wanted to anger or disappoint an immoral spirit (that had a knack of sticking her nose into other people's business), who could mold anything she pleased and create her own unique reality.
Rei felt that irritating feeling of her long hair drying before it was brushed, but she managed to ignore it for the most part as she stared at the pants a few feet away. Her face set in quiet (and as previously mentioned), irritated determination before she pushed herself up with water- wrinkled hands.
She crawled over the floor, not without the not-so-minor hassle of the fact that skirts were not specifically designed to be crawled upon, but she managed her purpose, however clumsy. Rei had a strange recollection from the position she now found herself in when she plopped down; one of many ideals of "the little mermaid".
The normally plain and inanimate, now lay ominously. She conveniently recalled now that the Change of Heart was not one to kid, and this most- likely was not just a trivial pursuit.
Rei tested the weight in her hand. A little heavier than usual, but not so much that it couldn't be dismissed as imaginary, and not so much that it was obviously there . . . well, whatever "it" was. She found the mystery strangely intimidating.
The careless creases seemed so plentiful as she bent them back. Almost as if . . . /What is it that something doesn't want me to see?/ She finally shoved her hand down the second pocket, to grip around something oddly comfortable in her hand. It was cold and spherical; and nothing that she could come up with seemed to fit that distinctive feel.
/Enough, I'm prolonging this unnecessary tension enough as it is!/ So she withdrew her spidery hand, turning it over carefully to see.
And her heart nearly stopped dead.
It was shocking. Unbelievable, and yet she thought nothing of power, nothing of those possibilities. Only of
/ . . . H-he was the one who did it. How could he, how could someone be so heartless!
/ . . . How could I be so heartless . . . /
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Okay peeps, if you can guess correctly of what happened to be in her pocket, then I'll share some of my super-nummy pocky! Thankies Miss Bronze Eagle, chocolate all the way! *munch*
Well, the cliffy seemed appropriate, considering that this is a much longer chapter than I have written in the past (for this story anyway), and I skipped an update for my FF9 fic, just so I could please you guys!
So many reviews *head spinning* . . . it may not seem like much in comparison to other YGO fics, but it's more than I've had on any fic, for any chapter! Thank you very much so!
Birthday was great . . . and I got the second DVD of Love Hina *cackles* which also brings up another point:
PLEASE TELL ME IF I SHOULD DO AN AU, YGO FIC IN THE STYLE OF LOVE HINA!
Even if you've never seen the show . . . I've gotta know! Here, this is like a 5 minute, and extremely bad summary of what it may be like:
Yugi Muto was a first class loser, who's failed the entrance exams for Tokyo U a whopping three times. All because of a promise he made fifteen years ago, to the only girlfriend he had in his life (and whose name he can't remember ^^). But when his freaky grandmother ((AN - it'll be the equivalent of Yugi's grandpa in YGO)) hits a midlife crisis, she leaves him in charge of her house . . . which she had recently converted into a girls dorm . . . needless to say, the residents of the Turtle Apartments are not amused . . .
It'll be shortened eventually, but would anyone be interested in reading a story like that? TELL ME IN A REVIEW OR E-MAIL PLEASE.
LET'S SEE IF WE CAN REACH 40 THIS TIME AROUND!
Hope you guys are having a wonderful day, and remember, life is entirely too short to waste unhappy!
Toodles.
giggleplex
Hopefully I'll relieve your cliffy-it is soon, but I'm not making any promises since it's almost the end of the semester.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The extended shower at least succeeded in washing away the salty residue of tears and cleared her twisted throat, but did nothing to directly ease her endless worries and doubts. She vaguely recalled that blue-green goo Mai recommended (Nioxin) that she had applied earlier, as its distinctive scent twirled about the hallway. Her bare feet seemed to melt into the luscious carpeting with each tiny step.
She shut and locked the door behind her; an instinctive action that "Ryou" learned quite quickly to adopt. It was a cozy little room Rei found herself in, balanced visually by a wide variety of landscape paintings, and the dominant forest curtains that were gently brushed against the closed window.
On the bed, as promised, was a neatly laid outfit of a more modest style than what Rei would have expected; a long, poofy cream skirt, mint and somewhat form hugging shirt, and even a few lacy undergarments, whose lacy nature made Rei blush. She slipped everything on carefully, as to make sure not to soak the clothing with her damp hair, rolling her teeth over her lips all the while. Once she was confident that everything was successfully situated, she surveyed herself through the mirror.
It was like staring at another person, through their foreign eyes.
Rei had to ask herself; /Is this the way it's supposed to be?/ But not in the physical sense.
~*~*~*~
She felt oddly small in the dark place, also naive. But a ~known~ sense of naivety that she didn't feel quite comfortable enough to test. Not like anyone who knew they were surrounded by unknown would care to test that idea . . .
Flash.
The abrupt frame of the purest white startled her as she cowered back, blinking stars out of her sight with a soundless grunt of pain. Her vision tried it's very best to adapt back to the darkness, but another painful flash of light interrupted the attempt, before it was completed.
When everything cleared back to supposed normalcy, including a few of her wits, she confirmed her previous assumptions of the setting. She groaned and rubbed her eyes.
When she opened them however, she was in for a shock.
Eyes. Cold, lifelessly slackened eyes.
Rei stumbled back on whatever that ground-impersonating substance of the shadow realm, in mixed astonishment and horror. Her heart beat so forcefully and loudly, it was hard not to imagine it was ever contained inside anything, let alone Rei's chest. But she immediately relaxed into wariness, how she even managed that, she was unsure, for the Change of Heart wasn't precisely her top pick to see at that moment.
"Welcome to my home, Ryou." The one improperly addressed gave an involuntary shudder at the eerie and strangely malicious voice. As always, it seemed an echo, for the Change of Heart's posed lips never moved with the voice of her words, only into those frowns, grins and atrocious smirks.
"I'm ~Rei~." She corrected, as she gingerly stood.
The blonde ideal tilted her head to the side.
"Deceiving yourself is no way to handle your distress." She stated matter- of-factly.
Rei made a stubborn pose without seeming stuck-up, not at all pleased with the card's unappreciative neglect of human emotion. She was no longer frightened by reality (though this particular place certainly wasn't reality), or intimidated by possible power. At that moment anyway, and she conveniently ignored the fear of how long this daring attitude would last.
"What would you know about these things?!" she demanded angrily.
The dark soul became in control "Enough." She hissed.
"But whoever said I was deceiving myself anyway? I . . . just don't want anyone to know what happened to me!" /What happened to Ryou./
She stared at her for a moment, mouth twisted impassively.
Just staring.
"They say that humans share thoughts easily through speech . . . you are comfortable with doing so; which means you put a bit of yourself into others." She said finally.
Rei's eyes narrowed "That's not the same thing!"
"But once you place a bit of yourself in others, if you deceive them, then you are only deceiving yourself."
"That's . . . not the same . . . " her reply this time was a bit on the feeble side, as she was now thinking confused, and trying her very best to immediately counter every point the spirit had made.
She finally looked back up, 'determination' written all over her expression.
"You're wrong." Rei said flatly "I know precisely who I am."
The Change of Heart only gave another one of her unsettling smiles.
"I am not one to contradict you Mistress."
She turned smoothly, smiling to no where in particular. Or so it seemed.
The white-haired one surveyed her surroundings in suspended surprise, she had only suspected it was just shapeless shadow as usual, or maybe even that queer forest from before.
But ~this~ place, was not something she would have ~ever~ suspected.
It was a quiet grove, spilling with white flowers and leafy bushes that looked so dense, they could probably conceal even the most secretive of secrets. There was a cottage nearby; too curly and too lopsided to ever possibly exist, except in a far-fetched dreamland, ~this~ dreamland. Then there was also a sun now, but it did not glow (though her surroundings were illuminated), and a ridiculously rosy and cartoon-ish face smiled down obliviously.
Rei would have to admit to feeling quite uneasy in this heaven of skewed, fairy-tale perfection.
/This . . . is a playground for nightmares!/
"No. This is a sanctuary."
She flipped around to face the pleased-looking spirit of deception. Her creamy skin did not even wrinkle in the slightest as her grin grew wider, and her plain robe did not wrinkle as she knelt down in a patch of daisies.
"~Sanctuary~?" Rei asked as an oblivious skeptic "For ~whom~, might I ask?" /Who would EVER find comfort in such a dreadful place as this?!/
"The lost souls." She replied, focusing on something behind her uncomfortable mistress.
She turned slowly, somewhat dreading of what she might see.
Once again, she shamelessly blamed her eyes of trickery.
All it was, was a little girl. Not especially pretty, not especially cute (for she only appeared at around five), with hazy blondish hair and large blue eyes, surrounding a stubby red nose.
"Heart! Ma'am! I--" she called out to the spirit . Rei decided this was all becoming too much weirder by the very second, for this girl was a direct illustration of ~normalcy~ in this surreal setting, so dreadfully misplaced . . .
The little girl panted out a few breaths when she arrived in front of them, and looked strangely at Rei in the process. A perplexing and positively confused feeling warped Rei's mind; /How could this girl trust that thing so completely . . . doesn't she even understand what it's done?/ for she missed no points of comfort in the little conversation the three of them had already shared.
/But then again, I trusted her . . . / the full effects of betrayal were now coming through, as her gaze turned slightly into an unwelcome glare.
"Oh Rinnie!" the Change of Heart exclaimed "Your dress . . . "
Rei felt a distinct jolt of surprise.
"'S okay," interrupted Rinnie. The little girl smiled with a cute wink, and quite suddenly, the stain down the front of her dress disappeared. Then, she jutted stubby finger toward the unfamiliar white-head "Oo's dis?"
The Yami and Hikari both cared enough to pat her on the head. "This is master--"
"No."
"Ryou."
"Rei."
"~Mistress~" the spirit hissed with such a tone of finality, that she knew better than to argue. She only continued that glare.
"Yowe misstwiss?"
"Indeed." She smiled her words with such care, that it sent Rei's feelings into a mass of bitter disbelief. "You might see her about sometimes."
Rinnie giggled, just as Rei was about to inquire over that obviously mistaken statement. "Yowe pwetty!"
She stopped, her mouth now gaping like a dry fish's.
The little girl scrambled in a little pouch she had at her side, and pulled out . . . a neat white chain of daisies.
"Hewe!" she exclaimed, happily tossing it over the head of the still- shocked Rei. "'S ma best 'un. I want oo ta have it awways!"
"Well mistress," the Change of Heart said in mock disappointment, and jest reluctance "it is time for you to take your leave, as of now . . . "
"Come back soown!" Rinnie crowed, now waving energetically. The blonde- balanced-one took her arm gently, and steered her a few feet away.
"B-but I don't know how to get back!" Rei cried in an automatic reaction to please the hope that shined in Rinnie's eyes.
"You know." The spirit assured, muttering an archaic incantation over her mistress. "And by the way, look in your pocket."
The shapeless shadows became a solid mist before her, and the attempts of stilling that wondrous magic by an outstretched arm, were all in vain. Soon, all that was left of Rinnie and the Change of Heart, was darkness.
So she opened her eyes.
And found herself sprawled awkwardly on the floor of Mai's guest bedroom. Needless to say, it took a vital moment to reorient herself enough to realize consciousness, and she placed her hand on her forehead in thought.
/Look in my pocket?/
The neatly folded khaki pants received an inquisitive glare from the girl. She assumed they were indeed the topic the spirit had intended, but what on earth did she mean by that? Some weird thing to take over the world or something, ha, but then again, Rei knew she shouldn't doubt that misguided card.
"What a messed-up goodbye." She grumbled, straightening upright. Still, it wasn't as if she remotely wanted to anger or disappoint an immoral spirit (that had a knack of sticking her nose into other people's business), who could mold anything she pleased and create her own unique reality.
Rei felt that irritating feeling of her long hair drying before it was brushed, but she managed to ignore it for the most part as she stared at the pants a few feet away. Her face set in quiet (and as previously mentioned), irritated determination before she pushed herself up with water- wrinkled hands.
She crawled over the floor, not without the not-so-minor hassle of the fact that skirts were not specifically designed to be crawled upon, but she managed her purpose, however clumsy. Rei had a strange recollection from the position she now found herself in when she plopped down; one of many ideals of "the little mermaid".
The normally plain and inanimate, now lay ominously. She conveniently recalled now that the Change of Heart was not one to kid, and this most- likely was not just a trivial pursuit.
Rei tested the weight in her hand. A little heavier than usual, but not so much that it couldn't be dismissed as imaginary, and not so much that it was obviously there . . . well, whatever "it" was. She found the mystery strangely intimidating.
The careless creases seemed so plentiful as she bent them back. Almost as if . . . /What is it that something doesn't want me to see?/ She finally shoved her hand down the second pocket, to grip around something oddly comfortable in her hand. It was cold and spherical; and nothing that she could come up with seemed to fit that distinctive feel.
/Enough, I'm prolonging this unnecessary tension enough as it is!/ So she withdrew her spidery hand, turning it over carefully to see.
And her heart nearly stopped dead.
It was shocking. Unbelievable, and yet she thought nothing of power, nothing of those possibilities. Only of
/ . . . H-he was the one who did it. How could he, how could someone be so heartless!
/ . . . How could I be so heartless . . . /
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Okay peeps, if you can guess correctly of what happened to be in her pocket, then I'll share some of my super-nummy pocky! Thankies Miss Bronze Eagle, chocolate all the way! *munch*
Well, the cliffy seemed appropriate, considering that this is a much longer chapter than I have written in the past (for this story anyway), and I skipped an update for my FF9 fic, just so I could please you guys!
So many reviews *head spinning* . . . it may not seem like much in comparison to other YGO fics, but it's more than I've had on any fic, for any chapter! Thank you very much so!
Birthday was great . . . and I got the second DVD of Love Hina *cackles* which also brings up another point:
PLEASE TELL ME IF I SHOULD DO AN AU, YGO FIC IN THE STYLE OF LOVE HINA!
Even if you've never seen the show . . . I've gotta know! Here, this is like a 5 minute, and extremely bad summary of what it may be like:
Yugi Muto was a first class loser, who's failed the entrance exams for Tokyo U a whopping three times. All because of a promise he made fifteen years ago, to the only girlfriend he had in his life (and whose name he can't remember ^^). But when his freaky grandmother ((AN - it'll be the equivalent of Yugi's grandpa in YGO)) hits a midlife crisis, she leaves him in charge of her house . . . which she had recently converted into a girls dorm . . . needless to say, the residents of the Turtle Apartments are not amused . . .
It'll be shortened eventually, but would anyone be interested in reading a story like that? TELL ME IN A REVIEW OR E-MAIL PLEASE.
LET'S SEE IF WE CAN REACH 40 THIS TIME AROUND!
Hope you guys are having a wonderful day, and remember, life is entirely too short to waste unhappy!
Toodles.
giggleplex
Hopefully I'll relieve your cliffy-it is soon, but I'm not making any promises since it's almost the end of the semester.