Chapter 4: Enlightened Secrets of the Guilty hearted
Ann looked up to Mokuba and Kaiba and Tristin standing in front of them. Mokuba's checks were pink and seemed attached by the huge grin of his face as he threw a snowball up and down contentily. As usual, Kaiba stood tall and business like, holding his hands together in front of him and watching the snowball go up and down by is traveling eyes. Tristin was bent down and collecting a huge mound of snow to make into a huge ball to throw at them. Bill coughed loudly, making Tristin jump and find them staring at him. Smiling he casually put a hand in one pocket as he brushed the other through his hair, dispensing of the evidence by slyly kicking it behind him. Everyone one noticed.
"…Let's go…now." Kaiba commanded at mid-silence and walk off quickly rubbing his hands together as Mokuba tagged along. Everyone sweatdropped as both brothers left with out even helping them push the car back up.
"Uh…Kaiba…"
"Use some for your powers." Kaiba replied, know exacting what he was about to ask. Bill looked dumbfounded a moment and suddenly was hit with a light bulb, not literally mind you, but enough to the point were Ann could have sworn they saw something bright shinning over his head a seconded ago from the corner of her eye.
"Oh yeah… I forgot." Everyone fell on the ground as Bill made the car suddenly disappear in a puff of smoke and dusted his hands off like a professional. Ann got up, looking puzzled, but not about the car but what Kaiba had said before.
"Bill… what powers?" Bill moved on quickly up the hill without saying a word, almost tripping a few times at the height of the snow and shivered on the way back from the cold. Ann thought about following when the rest of the group pasted her, Bakura in back, with the most twisted expression on his face. Getting sick of wondering so many things at once and feeling guilty about the whole dress up thing she caught up to him at a good run because she had thought about it far to long and started to walk beside him. At first he ignored she was even there, becoming every interested in the clouds to the opposite of her, so she only saw the white of the back of his head. She looked down to the ground sadly, knowing she must have really pissed him off, and tried to think of something to say. Bakura I'm sorry I was a bitch earlier and… no that wouldn't work. I'm sorry about how I reacted earlier and I shouldn't have thrown that mirror at you, not that, it was _way_ too corny. As she thought it out while staring at the snow, the others got a head of them slowly, Yami talking to Joey about dueling and how he was doing, and Tristin listening and laughing at Joey, and Tristin noticing them in the back and how weird Bakura seemed to be acting. Tristin just grinned as Yami found himself totally clueless to why he was grinning like a maniac, then puzzled about why he was grabbed by his arm and dragged forward with Joey who didn't notice anything but his stomach making very loud noises, like volcano erupting sound. Bakura watched them leave suspiciously from the corner of his eye and tried to slip his hands into his pockets wondering why they were leaving like that. He wondered about how his counterpart had gotten back so easily and the danger Bill was exposing himself too by even wearing that thing. He sighed and wondered if Ann knew if it was safe or not, to leave it in Bill's control. It was a very good show she was keeping up about not knowing a thing about it.
Finding what she was going to say she opened her mouth when Bakura spoke.
"It's a good act." Her eyebrows burrowed perplexed.
"What act?" Bakura looked at her with laughing eyes, which took her by surprised.
"Marie was right, you could have been a comedian…"
"I really don't know what you're talking about…" Bakura's eyes changed drastically to a deep serious and his face lost all it's light and turned dark and gloomy like a flash.
"You…really don't know?" She temper flared a moment as she immediately cool off enough at the thought that it seemed he sounded like he wanted to tell her.
"No… I don't." She said guiltily, or trying to make it sound so. His expression turned grave, worst than normal moping he was having.
"…He didn't tell you…?" His voice questioned almost to himself as he brought his hand to his jaw to steady the chattering chill going down his spine, looking down to the snow. Ann looked at him concerned.
"Tell me what? What's going on?" She was getting sick of being left in the dark from all this bull that was happening, the portals, the bracelet, the house, the seminars, the car chase, Malik after them, how TombRobber returned, them working together, and Bill doing this with these "Powers" of his. She was tired of wondering.
"What has happened, what is happening, what's on your mind." She demanded with keen and stern eyes, looking right at him. Bakura brushed through his hair nervously staring at the snow, not catching her gaze on purpose and started to speak.
"Things have happened since you have left. Little things that pile up into big changes…" He turned swiftly to her gaze and looked at her just as sternly. She came to realize that he, too, like everyone else, had changed.
"Bill has taken on new burdens by living here. The fact he has to defend himself at all costs because of the powers and responsibility that he has now doubled, he doesn't… die by mortal things… it's complicated." He rubbed his head as if thinking hard enough to give himself a headache.
"What do you mean die?"
"Tristin killed him last week… on accident…almost…" He looked at her expressionless face, clearly unable to think of the words that he had just uttered so softly into swirling fog.
"He was making sausages… tried to throw the sausage prong into the sink when Bill walked by and turned to look at him…" He steadied his cold hands at the shiver of the memory of Tristin with an aghast look covering his white face while he looked down to the glassed over brown eyes that looked so much like his own. He had seen himself dead on the floor, not Bill.
"Tristin was shaking with grief… until Bill got up off the floor like he tripped and started to laugh and looked at everyone like nothing had happened, with the prong sticking through his chest, not even noticing that he was suppose to be dead." Ann covered her mouth completely aghast at how she could he him like that, how clear it printed itself onto the walls of her mind, enough to make her shake looking at him like Bill had actually died and found herself drowning in the sorrowful pools of his eyes.
"He figured it out quickly by our looks, and started at the thing surprised until Kaiba had the nerve to reach over and pull it out of him, blood pouring onto the floor like water from a glass, Bill's look of anguish as his own fluid leaked out of him like a hose…I lost it about then all over the floor and locked myself into a room for about three days… it brings too much back." He rubbed his ice hands onto his heating forehead numbly as the far colder but comfortable touch of another made him twitch as it covered and pressed against his forehead lightly.
"You're getting a fever…" Her voice strayed away, trying not to get upset as her throat thickened and she felt hot tears licking her eyes.
"He's alive not from his own doing, but from a trinket my other has the most understanding of. Bill's gotten himself into more trouble than he can possibly imagine by even being arrogant enough to think he can control it. It jumps his powers over it's regular limit but will come at a greater price." He sounded more and more tense as he went along.
"What powers?"
"He's, the one he has just by being alive here, his imagination in another's. It's like lighting a match to gasoline, it spreads like wildfire, but only enough in the space he's allowed and the other has left open." Ann was looked at him confused as he yawned wearily and swayed a bit, as she realized this was getting ridiculous.
"Bill having powers just by being from my world and exercising his imagination? It sounds far fetched."
"It not only having the imagination, it's being able to picture things in your mind clearly, like a photograph, for long periods of time, like watching your own movies. Bill explained it to me that way…all these things are not happening by random, he's still testing his abilities, he tells me so, it's only frightening to me." He took a slow breath like he was going to throw up but swallowed quickly and continued as Ann thought about catching him if he fell.
"I know about those things, you know it was the priests that started to rob the tombs, one of my ancestors had to have been one once because of how he knows so much and the fact he looks like me so much, like Yugi to Yami, it only scares me to think of my ancestors at all, if he's one… I must talk to him soon, and settle everything between us, to finally have one of us put up the white flag…"
"Are you sure he's still alive?"
"Yes, I can feel it. We are, like it or not, connected…" He stopped talking about then and didn't look at her, frankly Ann was taken by surprise at how serious he was, she had always pictured him as quiet and calm, but never really toured like this… to be so afraid. After a while of silence she spoke when Bakura didn't.
"…What do you want me to do?"
"We need to contact my… other." Bakura said with a shiver at the words that just came out of his mouth.
"…How?"
"Some of the things in Bill's room… I think we could use one…" Ann was taken aback by the way Bakura was thinking. She had never pictured him like that, but she too was a quiet one in her class, she too had many thoughts like him. She was embarrassed with herself to think herself different. The thought of taking one of his… things… was strange. Bill had been there as a friend for a long time, it had been sad when he had left and good when she saw him again, and now strange that she was almost going against his will. Bakura seemed to know what he was talking about. She knew it wasn't the TombRobber speaking because he had been with them the whole time, but it was still a disturbing factor to consider.
"I'm not him…" He said suddenly, with the red light of the setting sun setting behind him, adding the dark shadow onto his face and into his distressed eyes, shinning brightly through it like a lighthouse.
"I believe you, I believe everything… I'll get one. I have one question though." He turned and looked at her to show his ears were open and listening.
"What is Bill using?"
"It's a charm, a golden scarab he found in Egypt, our world, he went there for a vacation… or so he said. I think it's making him ill… but I'm not sure…" He wrapped his arms around himself and blew out a cloud that swirled forward and twisted into nothingness.
"It would figure, Bill has always had a curiosity for Egypt, which explains why he jumped at the chance to go with you guys… you know he's very fond of you."
"…Yes…he is. He says I was his favorite character… it was kind of strange when he said it."
"I would think so, anyone who would say that would freak me out too!" She smiled at the blank sky where Bakura use to be, froze at the sight of no one, and looked down to Bakura laying flat in the snow, fainted because he's back was moving up and down as if breathing. Ann found herself sighing and calm instead of panicky as she picked him up the best she could, finding he weighted a ton as she lifted him on her shoulder with difficulty and started back to the house at a slow crunching pace, wondering what everyone would say when she was carrying him in the door, and not the other way around like in the movies.
"That's hilarious…I wish I could have been there…" Billed laughed at her as he updated his files on his laptop Kaiba gave him, while sitting on the couch in the family room sipping an expresso in pure glee. Ann twisted uncomfortably and tried to sink back normally as she switched the TV on nervously, avoiding the subject. She hadn't told Bill what had went on, and she wouldn't for Bakura's sake. She knew he would be fine in the morning, after he recovered, tomorrow she would talk to him and then go on with the plan. She glanced out the window to the deep red light pouring from the small orb hiding behind the blackened trees from view. She frowned out at it, knowing she would be going home soon, and leaving this place. Bill typed on seemingly without noticing the time, with the computer blipping every few seconds and him typing furiously enough to disregard the time a look over his screen.
WizardOfAnime: Who the heck are u?!?!
SupperGenius: Someone completely out of your league with your small mind. It's over, I won.
Bill started to smoke angrily and as he thought so something else to say to that as Ann looked at the screen with haft closed eyes at the Instant Messenger box.
"That's got to be Kaiba." Bill looked at her annoyed.
"Yeah I know its Kaiba I'm just waiting for the right to catch him…"
"Give it here." Bill passed the laptop to her and she typed on it quickly.
WizardOfAnime: Go play with your gadgets before I whoop your ass.
Bill raised an eyebrow at her and read the response from SupperGenius with rage as he clicked his fingers and suddenly held an internet came and took the laptop and plugged the thing in.
WizardOfAnime: Read between the lines punk.
Bill held his ring finger his middle finger and his index finger up to the camera.
SupperGenius: You can't even rudely "Flip someone off" the right way either, you coward.
Bill steamed uncontrollably and started punching the keys angrily.
WizardOfAnime: You better watch it Kaiba! Or I'll expose you to your employees!
"What are you simpletons doing?" Bill and Ann looked up to Kaiba holding a cup of expresso baggy-eyed in bathroom robes and fluffy dark red slippers. Ann struggled to hold in the bubbling laughter over coming her senses as Bill looked to Kaiba and then the computer horrified.
"Uh Hey Kaiba! What's up?" He asked sheepishly as he shut the computer down and slammed the screen shut before Kaiba could see what he was typing; Kaiba raised an eyebrow and demanded to know what he was doing.
"…Figuring where Ann's room is from the Shadow Realm…" He haft lied as Ann kept a steady lock on her mouth as Kaiba raised the blue cloud mug to his lips and stretched with the other arm.
"Are you staying here tonight?"
"Yes… to get some rest from those morons at work." He responded, almost dreamily, making Bill look at him funny.
"…Your not sleepwalking again are you?" Kaiba's slips twisted into a smile unexpectedly and spilled about haft of the cup onto the floor as he put it down onto the coffee table clumsily and sat on the table with a thud.
"Oh god… not again." Bill groaned as he casted off the laptop on his lap and stood up to pick up Kaiba off the table. Ann was looking amazed as Kaiba wobbled to his feet and stumbled with Bill out of the room, as she decided to follow them out into the hallway.
"Jeez, I probably should have guessed that him being so stressed out that he would sleep walk." Bill mumbled to her.
"I dunno, it seems normal really, my father does it a lot… we kept finding him in weird places though, like he once turned up in my sister's closet once." Ann told him as they reached Kaiba's door and opened it. The room was plain but contained many machines all over the floor, flashing screens and beeping buttons. Mokuba stopped staring at the massive monitor and froze his hands on the keyboard, as he looked at his brother and then to them without surprise.
"He fell a sleep on the second couch up stairs a hour ago… put him on the bed." Bill threw him onto the bed, letting his feet hang off the end, and glanced at Mokuba's computer and widened his eyes.
"YOUR SupperGenius! You little Pu-"
"Leave my brother alone…or I'll…muberdf…" Kaiba snored and turned over uncomfortably.
"You'd think he'd listen to me when I tell him he sleepwalks." Mokuba said while shaking his head.
"I was only playing with yea Bill, no hard feelings?" Bill looked at him suspiciously and glanced at Kaiba and nodded with a cocky smile, one she had deeply missed while he was gone.
"I'm cool… got that info I asked you for?" Mokuba smiled and handed him a pile of papers. Bill took it gleefully and looked over it quickly, his light brown eyes darting around it until he was satisfied.
"Great job! Thanks Mokuba!" Mokuba grinned and went back to his original work, reading fanifics as Bill dragged her out of the room.
"Yeah, we get the website here." He answered her, as if reading her mind. Ann didn't bother to ask him what was in the packet of papers or where they were going now. They traveled down the musty stairs to the cool floor and over to the wall, where he took out the papers and looked over them again, slowly this time, taking in all the words. Ann shook off his grip on her arm and watched as the wrinkles increased on his forehead and the now familiar purple-black hole growing on the wall until it was large enough for both of them to climb through.
They walked for about a haft hour in the purple mist when the bracelet lit up again and opened another portal like before, bright like fireworks and suspended in the air, motionless. Bill squinted at her threw the shinning rays painfully.
"This is where you go from here." He stated. Ann nodded.
"When will I see you? Tomorrow?" Bill pondered it a moment, rubbing the back of his head while shielding his eyes.
"It sounds good, 3:00? Use the bracelet to come, just be careful on the way…" She nodded again and climbed through the light and fell into bulky darkness as it dimmed and popped loudly behind her, leaving her in pitch black.
At first she panicked and slammed her head hard against something solid, making her increasingly dizzy. While rubbing her head furiously she stumbled up and against a smooth surface when she heard a familiar voice.
"Ann? Where are you?" Jumping she whacked her head again and cried out painfully when the smooth surface moved and exposed her room and a boy about eight or nine looking up at her annoyed.
"Mom said we're leaving in five minutes if you haven't heard the first time…what are you doing in the closet?" She didn't answer him as she kicked a box out of the way and got out of the closet not looking back as she shut it behind her.
"Where are we going?"
"To the store…we're having dinner when we get back…you're not going in that are you?" He asked disgustedly looking at her clothes as her lips tighten with controlled rage.
"If you weren't my brother Drew I'd…oh never mind, just get out so I can change." His dark brown eyes shinned as the smirk grew on his face on the way out the door, making her suspicious until it came to a soft click, then she started ripping her room apart in search of something decent to wear out.
She finally found a black sweater and a green pair of pants and stumbled out the door while putting her shoes back on to the sound of the car horn beeping loudly in her ears. She sprinted out to the green truck and climbed into it while shaking, to find only her sister, her brother, and an older woman with dark brown eyes, her eyes. She was about forty years older, few years younger or older, but still beautiful with long brown wavy hair and pale skin and the same nose as Ann's. She buckled her seat belt and turned the key quickly, starting the roar of the engine and driving off.
Shopping was short. All though it was enough time to decide not to go with her mother and brother to the toy department, instead to do something she never did and went with her sister, to look at clothes. She watched her sister walk around a while, looking at tight-fitting clothing and mumbling about how her boyfriend would react if she wore this, most reactions made Ann wonder what they didn't do besides make out. Finally getting sick beyond purpose, she cut the gleeful moment with Marie.
"Joey misses you." Marie immediately dropped the blue silky skirt and small white blouse and turned to her with wide-eyes.
"W-What did you say?" She asked nervously at his name.
"You heard me right, he misses you every much." Ann explained to Marie what had happened this afternoon quickly and discreetly behind a clothes rack. She was surprised and suddenly ill looking as she told the story, it was almost disturbing for her to look like that in a place she enjoyed so much. When the story was done they both stood up and pretended to weed through clothes, Marie furiously whispering to her.
"I did not mean to leave him, I was so sure I would probably never see him again… I mourned for what seemed like forever-"
"Yeah six months"
"- when my friends noticed and set me up with some guy, that was how I met him." Ann rolled her eyes annoyed and shifted through the clothes angrier, looking enraged at a tacky pair of pants.
"Well you're not the faithful type are you?"
"You know every well that isn't fair…how would you react to someone you loved leaving forever?!"
"I wouldn't love anyone ever again! That's how I would react!" Ann stormed away angrily, out of the women's clothes to follow the cream tiles somewhere else, anywhere else.
Her mother found her roaming around the magazine rack, bored and fuming as she read and reread the titles, trying hard to control the boiling temper. When she was called her mother gave her a worried look, almost inviting her to talk about it, but she ignored it with a fake smile and tried to assure her everything was fine. She was given the "are you sure" look and nodded as they left the store carrying a few bags of Marie's clothes and Drew's toy car and something else.
"Ann, why did you buy a slide latch?" She was taken by surprised by this.
"Uh… to have some privacy in my own room… to keep nosey brother's out." Drew stuck his tongue out at her as her mother swallowed the lie with some doubt, but took it all the same.
Dinner was uneventful. Ann picked at her food, still feeling a twisted emotion between angry and guilty as Drew wolfed down everything on his plate and looked longingly at her hamburger. Ann pushed the plate over too him, making him smile at her and eat her food, while her mother watched.
"Are you sure you're okay?" She asked in her light voice, giving her full attention, not something the middle child of the family got every much. Ann just smiled warmly at her.
"Yes, I'm fine Mom, I just ate a snack too late… I'll eat something good when we get home." Her mother again took her answer, more suspicious that before. It caused even more worry in Ann's mind.
The moment she returned home, she immediately took the latch and started to nail it into her door and the wall, while Drew watched her curiously through the noise of the hammer pounding away as she worked. Marie didn't come near her in that time. When it was done Ann locked herself into her room.
"Hey Drew, bust the door open." She heard feet scramble behind the door and back away.
First it was silent then loud footsteps banged against the hallway and a body was thrown into the door at full force with a loud bang. The door squeaked loudly but stayed intact and tightly closed.
"Okay! Thanks bro!" Footsteps waked away from the door and she sat on the floor, tired from all the stuff that had happened with afternoon. Her eyes were bagged, much like Kaiba's, but from the weariness of her own heart. Guilt, rage, and happiness was twisted into a deep lump in her chest, as she slowly drifted off into sleep, holding her knees and being pulled tight into a ball as her vision blurred and slipped into darkness.
The lack of food must have really affected her, for she didn't eat anything went she got home, by attacking her own dreams, that or just the guilt stone in the pit of her stomach calling to her. She stood on the stairs, the stairs of her house that lead to the second floor, and she stood frightened at the shouting and roaring down stairs. In the hallway to her kitchen was a loud bellowing and crashing as coats and shoes flew and hit the walls. The doors were kicked and pounded at mercilessly, but stood firm and strong, only making the noise and scrapping louder. Holding her head she realized it was Bill's voice echoing off the walls as a deep ocean of blackness splashed the foot of the stairs and grew to the second in moments, Bill screaming swears and curses at the oak doors as the sound of the wood splinted. Panicked Ann turned the stairs and found Bakura looking at her sorrowfully, standing calm and depressed, tears coming down his eyes and onto his soaked shirt.
"You've got to stop him Ann, you're the only one who can…" He stepped forward and suddenly grew huge in front of her and pushed her off the stairs and down, down, down into the oil sea, and into blood red eyes.
Ann shot awake to someone pounding on the door shouting for her to open it. At first she backed away from it, not realizing this was not her dream and hiding into the corner, until her senses came back. She felt like yelling at herself as she opened the door tiredly to her sister's face. Remembering the fire in her mind she glared at her.
"What?!"
"It's seven o'clock…"
"So."
"Well, you got to go." Ann rubbed her eyes annoyed.
"Go WHERE?!"
"Go out with your friends…today's SATURDAY!" Marie screamed at her and left just as angry as she had yesterday. Ann looked at the calendar and quickly found some other clothes and hopped out the door again.
She met her friends at the market, hanging out near the no loitering sign. She stopped right in front of them, fifteen minutes late, and holding her knees breathing hard in a deep blue sweater with cream colored cotton pants, her hair tighten back carelessly. Brian and Kyle sitting on the cement wall looking down at her, wondering what happened to make her like this.
"What's up?"
"Bill's up." Brian jumped off the wall looked at her seriously.
"You're serious?"
"Yeah I'm serious, I'm going back to visit him today…at 3… you guys gotta help me think of an excuse for a reason why Marie isn't going."
"Tell him she's got to do chores."
"How did you know it was an excuse for Joey?" Ann asked Kyle curiosity.
"Because he likes her." Ann looked at him annoyed.
"Thanks a lot…but I guess the chores idea will have to fly…what's the time?"
"2:15" Brian told her casually looking at his watch and leaning against the wall, bored as all get out.
"…Want to go now?"
"…Alright." Ann smiled. Hopefully Bill wouldn't mind a couple of old friends showing up. Ann rolled up her sleeve and held out the bracelet carefully and suddenly froze. She had forgotten to ask him how to open a hole into the realm.
"Uh…" She took off the bracelet and tinkered with it, trying to figure out how to do it, feeling stupider by the moment in front of both of them.
"…What are you trying to do?" Brian finally asked, glancing at his watch. Ann groaned annoyed.
"I'm trying to open a portal with this thing…Bill did it yesterday…while taking a bus engine…" Ann finished annoyed as Brian signaled to fork it over. She handed it to him disheartedly. He looked at the symbols, shook it once, and rubbed the banned admiringly but baffled when sparks started flying all over. He almost threw it away when Ann took it and held on as it ripped open a hole, surprisingly not attracting that much attention from anyone, it was a good reason they hid here, all though she hoped the sparks still wouldn't cause any trouble. The hole stood glinting and shinning in everyone's eyes, Kyle was awe struck and Brian was just as looking at it admiringly and Ann was cursing.
"WHY THE HELL DOESN'T IT WORK WHEN I TRY TO DO IT!" She yelled furiously. Brian and Kyle just looked at her annoyed and wondered what to do next, Ann walked forward simply and put her hands on the edges of the circle and pulled herself through. The boys looked at each other a moment and shrugged. They followed.
In the usually air of the Realm the boys were a bit started as Ann reassured them it was fine, even though she was only in this place twice, she had confidence in Bill and ignored the pang in her gut at the guilty raising. She rolled her sleeve again and took the bracelet off and started walking forward with it in front of her, into the air faithfully.
Into the unknown.
BookDragon: *yawns* "I hope you guys are happy with nine pages…"
Bill: "Please review, or call that number!"
BookDragon: *whacks Bill with a notebook* "I told you the phone's broken."