Chapter 3
Yugi struggled not to kill himself.
Not that he wanted to. Yami was in a fit of deep depression, and he kept seizing control of parts of Yugi's body and trying to 'put us out of my misery' as he put it. Day one of the week until Pegasus arrived had come and gone. Yugi and Yami had gotten up that morning with high hopes, especially after Yami had reached into their deck and drawn the Swords of Revealing Light. Twelve straight losses (To TRISTAN!) had quickly sunk that, and confirmed that Yami only drew award-winning cards (such as the 'Unstable Hamster', with a world smashing attack power of negative fifteen and the amazing ability to destroy one monster on its own side per turn) when he was in a duel.
Yugi had an unshakable optimism (one reason was that he was good friends with the equally unshakable Tea) so he wasn't particularly upset by this. Yami, however, was not quite so optimistic. He was deep into what could mildly be described as clinical depression, and already Yugi had had to prevent his own hand from stabbing himself in the eye with a pen, hold on to an open window for dear life as Yami attempted to use his legs to jump off the school roof, and desperately try to cushion the blows as Yami tried to bash their head open against a desk.
Currently, Yami was trying to strangle himself (which unfortunately required strangling Yugi, or Yugi would have been tempted to let him do it) and Yugi found himself in a brutal battle with his left hand.
Yugi's friends were helping all they could, but there was only so much of the suicidal Pharaoh they could take. Anyway, they needed to continue coming up for creative explanations as to why cheerful little Yugi was trying to kill himself, seemingly against his own will.
A rare sighting, Seto Kaiba was seated in his desk. He seemed to be enjoying the spectacle of an unwillingly suicidal Yugi. He'd taken dozens of snapshots.
Wonderful. Just wonderful. Yami, you're humiliating us!
~SHUT UP! I JUST WANNA DIE!~
Yami, so you haven't won in a
while! It's no big deal!
~No big deal to YOU! You're just an ordinary wuss!~
HEY!
~I'm the KING OF THE SHADOW GAMES!~ Yami continued as though Yugi hadn't protested. ~I'm supposed to WIN! In the last five THOUSAND years I have never lost a match to ANYONE who was not also a Millenium Spirit… Well, discounting the time that YOU gave up and let Kaiba win… UNTIL NOW! I can't even beat TRISTAN! 'I don't really play Duel Monsters, hasn't won a REAL match in my life' TRISTAN! It's not just that I don't want to live, I don't DESERVE to live! I'm a failure! A sham! A disgrace to the title of Pharaoh! If my father were alive to see this, it would kill him AGAIN!~
Don't you think you're taking this a little too seriously…?
~SHUT UP AND LET ME DIE!~ Yami roared, and redoubled his efforts to strangle himself (And Yugi).
Joey slumped in his desk, defeated. "We're all gonna die." He proclaimed in a flat voice.
Tea scowled. Joey and Tristan had been doing this at random intervals. They would just suddenly plop down, and announce their impending doom. It was a constant chore for Tea to keep such a negative group going, especially with Yugi desperately fighting off himself.
"We are NOT going to die." She informed Joey firmly.
"Tea, I appreciate you trying to cheer us up, but look at it this way. Pegasus is coming. If Yami loses to him, he'll kill us. Yami can't win. We. Are. All. Going. To. Die."
"What?! Pegasus is coming HERE?!" Kaiba said, suddenly all business.
"Yep. He wants to duel Yugi, who is unfortunately on a losing streak."
Kaiba's eyes lit up and his face formed into the most evil smile any of them had ever seen.
"Uh… Kaiba?" Tea said nervously. "Pega-"
"Screw him!" Kaiba cut her off. "What were you saying about Yugi?"
"Um… he's on a losing streak?"
Kaiba sprinted out of the room, laughing maniacally.
"That was odd." Tristan commented.
"… … … uh-oh." Joey said.
"What? … OH. Oh NO." Tea said, realization dawning on her face.
"Did we just…?"
"We DID!"
"I can't believe we forgot who we were talking to there!"
"How could we have been stupid enough to tell KAIBA that…"
"Well, we can't get out of it now. We should probably tell Yugi to hide somewhere for a day or two… or a month… the rest of his life…"
The three walked up to Yugi, who had at least temporarily gotten Yami under control. "Um… Yugi?" Tristan said a little nervously.
"Yes?" Yugi said, gasping for air.
"Well, we… kinda… just…" Joey began.
"It was an accident! He helped us in the Duelist Kingdom, so we weren't really thinking!" Tea blurted out
"What?"
"We didn't mean to, honest…"
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
"We told Kaiba…" Tristan stammered.
"Told Kaiba what? You… OH. OH! Oh NO." Yugi said, burying his face in his hands. "How could you? Kaiba will stomp me like a bug, especially now! Not only that, he's a billionaire! He's in a position to make my life a living hell!"
~Now will you let me kill us?~
NO! Shut up!
"Yugi, we're sorry, man. We totally forgot that Kaiba has a massive grudge against you and he's rich so he can hunt down every duelist you've ever beaten and tell them all you suck now and he's perfectly willing to threaten us or your Grandfather to force you to duel each and every one of them and be totally humiliated. Oh, and he'll probably broadcast it all over the world so billions of people will watch you get creamed dozens of times in a row. And let's not forget that in six days Pegasus will be coming to town to kill you." Joey said helpfully.
Yugi slumped down to the floor, his unbeatable optimism sorely wounded. Maybe Yami had the right idea after all. Everything was going so wrong…
Their teacher walked in. The man hadn't taught them anything in so long that they had all forgotten his name, but this time Yugi definitely noticed him because he was followed in by an angel from heaven.
She had shoulder length black hair, pale white skin, huge green eyes that seemed to draw him in. She was about Yugi's height, and definitely put together right. She wore the girls' school uniform, but on her it looked like some kind of gown. He hated to quote a boy band, but he felt it was clear God had spent a little extra time creating her. She was drop dead gorgeous.
"This, class, is Laryssa Colimina, a foreign exchange student from England who will be with us for the rest of the year. You can sit… oh… right over next to that short kid with the weird hair."
Yugi pointed at himself and mouthed out: Me?
Laryssa looked at him.
Right. At. Him.
And smiled. And winked.
Yugi felt his body temperature rise about three hundred degrees.
He couldn't help but think that not EVERYTHING was going wrong after all.
!!