Author's Introduction:
Finally! I don't know about everyone else, but I for one am getting a little sick of Shadi.
And I think Yami-Girl is too…
**
Chapter Thirteen, Nineteenth and Twentieth Duels: There's No 'I' In Team
**
I can't regret
Can't you just forget it?
I started something I couldn't finish
If we go down, we go down together
Cause 'best friends' means—
'Best friends' means...
And you never knew
Well, I never told you
Everything I know about breaking hearts
I learned from you, it's true
I've never done it with the style and grace you have
But I've made long-term plans
Based on these mistakes
Broken down in bars and bathrooms
All I did was what I had to
Don't believe me when I tell you
It's just what anyone would do
Best friends means I'll pull the trigger
Best friends means you get what you deserve
Best friends means I'll pull the trigger
Best friends means you get what you deserve
BEST FRIENDS MEANS I'LL PULL THE TRIGGER
BEST FRIENDS MEANS YOU GET WHAT YOU DESERVE!...
(There's No 'I' In Team)
(Taking Back Sunday)
**
I knew there was a reason I hated school! Joey Wheeler thought, climbing up the third-floor windowsill like a poor imitation of Spider-Man. "Don't follow me out here, you stupid zombie!" he shouted back to the man who had once been Professor Yoshimori. His voice was snatched away by the rising wind.
A few feet away on the roof, Dark Yami wasn't having such a great night either.
"This is the final game, Yami!" Shadi announced. It was hard for Dark Yami to hear him over the pounding of her nervous heart. "You have done well to clear the first two stages."
"Thanks for the compliment," Dark Yami muttered, beginning not to care what the tall man said or did.
"You still have three ushebti holding the man up," Shadi said, looking over to where the three statuettes were still strung around the Millennium Key, against the web of the chain-link fence. "But now those three will shatter!"
Dark Yami frowned, brows meeting over her violet eyes. It's like he already knows all my weaknesses. But can I do the same thing to him? Does he have any weaknesses at all?
She stared at the tall man with those dark eyes. What are you afraid of, Shadi?
"I know what you're up to," Shadi immediately said with a knowing smile. "You may search my heart for weakness, but it will be in vain. My heart's ushebti is like unbreakable diamond, while your heart's ushebti are like alabaster, weak and easily broken!"
"How eloquent," Dark Yami snarled, lips skinning back from her teeth.
Shadi shook his head. "You will understand in this next game. Let me introduce your opponent!"
Dark Yami sighed and looked down at the rooftop, waiting for it to crumble, tear and spit out another monster. Instead, having her head bowed caused her to miss the rising smoke taking form behind her. A familiar form...
As soon as the apparition's hand took shape, it reached out and tapped Dark Yami's shoulder. Startled, she whirled, skirt flapping around her, to see—
"Joey?!"
Joey was standing before her, in his Domino High uniform, his eyes dead and angry, his old frown on his face. With the speed of a striking snake, the ghost-Joey darted forward and seized the Millennium Puzzle, snapping the cord that held it around Dark Yami's neck.
"Does he look familiar?" Shadi asked almost gleefully. "That is an image of your friend, created from a memory in the other Yami's heart. The 'friend' who bullied you in the past has been reborn before your eyes!"
Dark Yami gritted her teeth. She liked Shadi better when he wasn't being eloquent. The OLD Joey, the bully from the past!...But how did Shadi know?
As if he had read her mind, Shadi spoke again. "I caught a glimpse of those memories when I visited your soul. Even if you have forgotten, those painful memories will always remain in your heart, no matter how much time passes! Now play! Play the 'Game of Death' against your friend!!"
And once again the rooftop shifted. Blocks of stone began to fall away, leaving Dark Yami and the ghost-Joey standing on a cross-shaped section of concrete. Shadi remained safely beyond the yawning gap.
"Well, that certainly looks...bottomless," Dark Yami quipped.
"For all intensive purposes, yes," Shadi quipped right back. "Let me explain the rules. You will take turns throwing the Millennium Puzzle like a die. For each throw, your opponent moves two squares in the direction the tip of the Puzzle points. The first to force their opponent into the pit wins!"
Dark Yami gritted her teeth. He does NOT expect me to play such a dangerous game with Joey!
But suddenly her head turned to Sugoroku, still balanced precariously on the wooden board high above Domino streets. Shadi had used her grandfather as a pawn in this dangerous game...who was to say he wouldn't use Joey too?
"Now, Yami!" Shadi called. "Let me see you defeat that painful memory!"
Dark Yami trembled. I'm sure this Joey is Shadi's illusion...but there's a chance...a small chance that this is the real Joey under Shadi's spell, just like the professor was! I don't want to hurt Joey--I can't take that chance!
"Joey!" she called, skirt whipping in the wind. "We don't have to play this!"
As an answer, the ghost-Joey leaned in, waving the Puzzle teasingly in Yami's face. "This is your 'greatest treasure', Yami? What girly crap! Watching you makes me sick! You're out of your mind!" He grinned a bully's grin at her.
It was too much even for the dark spirit. Her heart thunked hollowly in her chest and tears sprang to her—no, to Yami's—crimson eyes. Her vision went double, and there was a shattering sound.
Sugoroku stumbled blindly, the wooden board shifting as two ushebti exploded in a shower of stone. Yami's breath caught in her chest as she realized the shattering sound had not been her heart, as she had dazedly thought. However, the truth wasn't much better. Yami suddenly found herself on hands and knees, staring at the shattered pieces of two of her ushebti. Tears blurred and unblurred in her vision until she saw that one statuette remained, and her eyes slid closed.
**
When she opened her eyes, she was drawing back from a kiss, the sensation of his lips still warm on hers. Her vision blurred, and then focused into a tall, tanned dream. His face was angular and his eyes were teasing, but something dark and secret welled in their depths as he brushed the soft pads of his fingertips across her cheek.
"My pharaoh?" she heard herself say, and her voice was something more and less than its usual sound. Something velvet and old.
He touched a fingertip to her lips and smiled lazily, the grin of a king. With one strong tanned hand, he suddenly lifted her chin, gaze locked on hers. "One must truly be special to have violet eyes," he said, just above a whisper.
That was it, and that was all, but somehow in her heart she knew how much it meant. She opened her mouth to say something—anything—
**
With a jolt, Yami's ruby eyes flew open. The rooftop spun before her, and she knew, somehow, without knowing how she knew, that less than a minute had passed since she'd fainted. Shadi was still waiting with that endless patience, and her grandfather was still balanced on that wooden plank between heaven and hell.
She took a minute to sort through her jumbled thoughts. The last thing she remembered was Shadi telling her he had "redecorated" her grandfather's soul...and then a blur of images was pressed into her mind. Zombies, monsters.
We were playing a game...I remember.
She turned crimson eyes to Shadi. It's a blur...but this man is my opponent. I won't let him win!
Pulling herself to her feet, she tried to shake off her daze and continue the game. I wish I felt stronger...
Suddenly a dark voice seemed to echo back at her from the recesses of her mind. (No fear! No fear, no doubt! You can do this. You are strong—be strong now!)
"I will," Yami murmured, glancing once again at her remaining ushebti and at the sneering image of Joey.
Damn it. That was Shadi's plan—to shock my heart by reminding me of the way things were in the past. I've only got one ushebti left. If I show any more doubt, I'll lose!
That will not happen!
The phrase seemed to echo in her mind, as if two voices were saying it, not one.
Standing as stately as a queen, Yami turned her face up to Joey, regarding him evenly with eyes that were once again crimson.
"Scared?" Ghost-Joey teased. "Fine! I'll go first, ya little baby."
Yami remained silent, the insult bouncing off her glassy eyes as she watched the Puzzle skitter on the concrete and point to the pit behind her. Calmly, slowly, she took steps away from her opponent, towards the swirling dark.
"Your turn, Yami," Ghost-Joey intoned.
But Yami never turned back to face him. She kept her back turned, still facing the drop, hair flicking in the wind. "I don't want to play this game with you, Joey. I won't do it."
Shadi started forward at this sudden turn of events. "Wait a minute, you little fool," he said, breaking the character of the calm, challenging guardian for a second. "Are you so reluctant that you will jump into the pit on your own?!"
Yami ignored Shadi just as she had ignored the ghost-Joey. If she heard him, she gave no sign. "Then you pass?" Ghost-Joey snickered. "Typical! My turn again!"
The Millennium Puzzle clattered on the stone, pointing again towards the pit. "Take another two steps, girly girl!"
Yami obeyed. Now her kung-fu flats were perched at the edge of the pit. She looked down at it, its darkness seeming to rise to meet her. One more step and she would fall, the darkness of dress blending with the permanence of the pit.
Ghost-Joey sang her name into the night sky. "Yamiiiiiiii." He held the Puzzle up high so that it swung back and forth, shiny, then dull, the shiny in the dim light. "Last chance, Yamigirl. This time you might fall..."
Yami still refused to turn. Instead she angled a glance at Shadi as she announced in something close to that dark velvet voice in her head,
"I pass."
It was too much for Shadi. "Some queen of games! Are you throwing the match?! Do you admit your defeat?!"
A small smile played around Yami's heartshaped lips. "What defeat?" she asked, with emphasis on the "what", as if she knew full well what was going on. "I'm not throwing anything. I trust Joey--trust my friend!"
Shadi looked baffled for a second, but it was not to last. Instead he chuckled, with a cruel twist of his mouth. "You 'trust' him. So sweet. However, the fact remains, Yami, that you seem unable to defeat your past. You lose!"
Yami remained calm, nightdark skirt fluttering in the wind.
"What I was testing in this final game," Shadi continued, "was the weakness of your heart in trusting too much!"
Yami blinked, listening, but said nothing.
"Trust is more easily broken than ushebti!" Shadi kept speaking, fueled by her silence. "In the end, friendship is nothing but weak hearts clinging together for solace. If you had sent your friend to the pit, you would have gained true strength…" he finished almost disappointedly, then turned to Joey. "Now! End the game! Throw the Puzzle for the last time!"
Ghost-Joey never moved.
"…What?" Shadi murmured under his breath.
Smoke began to crawl over Ghost-Joey's coat, his old-gold hair. A small smile crossed his lips as he faded, like all the illusions before him.
"Impossible!" Shadi burst out. "My illusion is disappearing!"
Yami finally turned to explain. "There is no past or present for friendship! If you trust your friends, they will trust you!"
A snapping sound interrupted. Yami whirled in a swirl of short dark hair and short dark skirt. "Grandpa!" She reached out with one hand but there was no way to get there in time. The roof stretched out like a concrete desert, impossible to cross…"The rope…!!"
But even as Sugoroku stumbled, something supported the board. Yami skidded to a halt at the edge of the rooftop, panting as she leaned over to see what it was. Magic?
No--Joey!
Joey's mad dash across the building had eventually led him directly beneath the board Sugoroku was standing on--now he held it up with strong arms. "Neva fear, Joey's here! Hang on, Gramps! Everything's going to be all right!"
"Joey!" Yami yelled happily.
"Whaaat?!" Shadi screeched. Impossible! It's as if they support each other..never hesitating for an instant!
Shadi's ushebti began to crumble, a small crack opening and widening.
Yami faced him from across the rooftop. "Haven't you figured it out yet? True strength of the heart can't be gained alone. The power to trust your friends--that is the true strength of the heart."
Her words echoed in Shadi's ears, but did not drown out the small explosion of stone that was his ushebti breaking.
Yami's eyes widened. "The Key! The Key! It'll slide down the rope and Grandpa will be okay!" She sprinted back to the edge of the rooftop, Shadi forgotten.
It was true--the Key was sliding down the rope to be cradled in Sugoroku's hand. Like a drowning sleeper, the old man shook his head. "Wha…?"
The sight of Domino spinning before him--and the long fall ahead of him--was not a pleasant thing to wake up to.
"What the hell?!"
"Urk!" Joey buckled under the weight. "Hey, Gramps! I can't hold on forever--do a guy a favor and get up on the roof, okay?" he chuckled weakly.
Sugoroku looked down. "Joey?! What are you doing there?" He looked around. "What am I doing here?"
"That," Joey wheezed, "is what I'd like to know!"
A growl sounded beneath them, and Joey squeezed his eyes shut. "Ohh, no. Please, no…"
Opening one eye, he saw the zombie Yoshimori scaling the wall from the third-floor window.
Gritting his teeth, Joey kicked at the zombie. "Down, boy! Bad zombie! Don't climb up here--"
The board slipped, tilting out of Joey's hands--
--but Yami was there, leaning over the edge of the rooftop, grasping her grandfather's hands. "I've got you!"
"Yami!" Sugoroku breathed in relief as he climbed to safety.
Yami had no time to exchange pleasantries--the zombie was pulling at Joey's leg, climbing up onto the windowsill. "Joey! Make the professor touch that ankh-shaped key! Don't look at me like that, just do it!" she added when she saw the blond about to ask a question.
Puzzling at the Key, Joey obeyed, pulling the professor fully onto the windowsill and forcing his hand onto the Key. He only got more puzzled when he saw the sanity return to the professor's eyes.
"You're…Joey, aren't you?" he asked, as though everything were perfectly normal and they weren't backed against a wall between heaven and hell.
Joey arched a blond brow. "Uhhh…yes?"
The professor's hand drifted to his now-rather-toothless mouth…
A scream echoed across Domino.
**
While Joey and the professor were climbing onto the roof, Yami had Shadi backed into a corner.
"You have passed all the tests," the tall man admitted, face pale beneath his turban. "It is my complete defeat."
Yami's face was stern, but she said nothing.
"I used the Millennium Items to show you illusions," Shadi continued, "Illusions summoned from the shadows…and yet, to me, the image of you and your friends trusting and helping each other, here in this world, seems like an illusion…"
A small smile, but a genuine one, crossed the guardian's face. "Somehow, that seems sad."
"I am sorry for you," Yami agreed. Her fingers danced over her Millennium Puzzle, once again safe around her neck. "I have realized something about the power of the Millennium Puzzle," she added. "My friends and I, no matter what, always come together in the end--just like a puzzle! That is our power--unity!"
Shadi's turquoise eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to say something, but Joey interrupted.
"Hey, you in the dress! Yeah, you! I don't know how you did all this, but this is our place, and I wouldn't poke around here any more if I were you!"
"Yami, are you all right?" Sugoroku asked, his stance one of readiness.
Yami smirked at Shadi. "I'm fine."
Shadi nodded, and turned in a whirl of pale robes. "I have been beaten, but I am pleased," he said in farewell. He turned only slightly as he walked away.
"Yami. My bloodline has been searching for so long…for someone like you."
Yami was confused, lips parting slightly and eyes squinting as she watched him walk away. The words echoed in her head, but in that girlish, velvet voice: I've been waiting so long…for someone like you.
Joey was also confused, but he was looking at Yami. Something about her seemed…a little different…tonight…
He reached a hand to his best friend's shoulder. "Hey, Yami? You okay?"
Yami turned and fixed those endless crimson eyes on him, but before she could answer, Sugoroku interrupted cheerfully.
"Why don't we all go out to eat? I'll buy."
And with that, Yami was herself again. She jumped high in the air and cheered. "Booyaka!!"
Joey chuckled, shaking his blond head at himself. Nah. Same old Yami.
Meanwhile, far below them, the Millennium Key fell from its place on the windowsill to be caught by a strong tanned hand.
Goodbye, Yami…we shall meet again.
**
Author's Notes:
Sorry it took so long to update! Like I said, things haven't been too calm lately. I'm trying not to think about the three papers I have due next week.
I merged duels nineteen and twenty together because, in all honesty I just wanted to get this stupid arc over with. No offense to Shadi, but I feel like I've been on it for ever!
As always, there are a few bits of myself in this chapter. In case anyone's interested, here they are:
"There's No 'I' In Team": Taking Back Sunday owns a small piece of my soul. There's nothing more cathartic, as someone I know would say, than yelling out the lyrics to this song until you deteriorate into screaming the last lines. It doesn't work as well when we bounce the lyrics back and forth over IM, but we manage.
Yami's outfit: Yami's entire outfit was stolen from my closet. I finally got all the pieces of together, and it is a new favorite outfit, so I loaned it to her.
"Booyaka!": Final Fantasy fans might recognize this one. As I've illustrated in earlier chapters, Squaresoft (or SquareEnix or whatever it's called now) owns a huge portion of my soul, especially due to Final Fantasy VIII, which might just be my favorite video game ever. It's in that one where the character of Selphie Tilmitt tries to get the word "Booyaka" to catch on. I don't think it really does, but I say it more than even I realize, I think.
It would seem that Yami's troubles are over for the time being…but we as fans know waaaay better than that.
And what was the deal with that strange dream Yami had when she fainted…?
Unfortunately, we might not find out for a while. Next chapter: It's Yami vs. Kaiba…but not the one you're thinking of, the shorter one. *smiles.*