Haku: Erm... Yugi, do you have any idea where we are?
Yugi: No... Last I saw, we were in a jungle... and Mary-sues were trying to eat my head off.
Y. Haku: This isn't helpful, but there are two people over there.
Haku: -looks, then calls out- OI! Who are you?
Person 1: I... AM FIG! -a Ment of the image nation!
Haku: -sweatdrops- Uh-huh... Figment of the imagination. Listen, have you seen a really weird looking creature about yae -makes a movement with her hands- high, armadillo spikes, and a wolf's head?
Fig: No, sorry, can't say I have. But at the moment I'm trying to get back to Image nation. You wouldn't know the way would you?
Yugi: No, we're lost too.
Fig: I am not lost young lad, I am just misplaced!
Person 2: You are not misplaced master Fig; it is I who is Miss Placed!
Y. Haku: -sweatdrops and looks on-
REVIEW REPLIES:
Someoneyoudontknow- Hehe, I'm glad you likey, and I'll try to update as regularly as possible. (CURSE YOU YEAR 11 AND ALL THOSE PILES OF HOMEWORK!)
Dagger5- -glomps yew- Thanks for da spalling hrlp. I reely knead it! (Sorry, I just couldn't resist!) Anyways, thanks for the spelling help. I figured out there was another 'e' in there somewhere, but the double didn't look right either.
Yugi: Oh just admit it; you're a lazy bum who can't spell.
Haku: That too... And what's editing? -Blush- Kidding... kidding.
kIm- I haven't decided about Malik or Mariku yet, because I know how many people like them, and I actually wouldn't be able to stop myself from bashing Mariku... seeing as I don't like him.
Y. Haku: The funny thing is she can't get enough of Malik though. She LOVES him...
tati1- I read your review and literally went "Awwwww...." Thanks for the big compliment! -Hugs you and wipes away a tear- I'm so glad you like my stuff.
Yugi: And don't worry, if she tries to get Bakura to do anything to Ryou, I'll use the puppy Dog eyes against her.
hobbit13- Oh yes, I know my spelling is just ghastly. I'm continually getting scolded for it at school. It used to be really good too... I have no idea what happened. ANYways, I'll try to pick up the stray word that escapes the spell checker. (Also, I'm Australian and use proper English, not American English, so if you see words like colour or mum, they aren't spelling mistakes, they're the RIGHT way to spell those words.) Also, I've got to get back into the habit of typing in Notepad or word or something, then transferring the stuff over to my web editor.
Karasu8- Thanks for the compliment! And I'll update as much as possible, but over the next 11 weeks I have two nasty things... school and homework.
YYHgurl- Hey! My reviewer's opinions DO matter. I try to please you guys as much as possible, whilst sticking to my own sick and demented plotlines. I'm not sure about the B/R yet... I'm trying to restrain from it, because I know several people who don't like it. And they wouldn't go as far as killing them, no. BUT they may have to betray, emotionally scar, destroy mentally etc...
Yugi: EEP!
Haku: -Huggles her Chibi-pharaoh- And 'sides. I love them too much to do that. And I didn't take offence either. It's okay to state your opinions in my reviews... as long as they're not flames... they burn and then get humiliated publicly...
Renoirkmk- O.o That's not for awhile yet! -Looks down at her chapter plan- But yeah, you'll just have to wait and see.
Y. Haku: Oh gods, this isn't going to be one of your Evil 'I'm not going to reveal plot so don't bother asking' fics, is it?
Haku: It might be...
Kikoru- Yugi IS hyper... But he's a chibi... what do you expect?
Yugi: I heard that...
Haku: Anzu... She's evil. All that harping on about friendship is merely a cover-up for her sinister plots and schemes which involve something along the lines of world-domination and Sennen Item stealing.
Star Girl11- ^_^ Thanks for the compliment! And after this update, as I have said in other reviews, I'm not sure when I will be able to update... because I'm under a lot of strain and it's only first week back.
Spiritual Winds- Mmmmm Cupcakes...
Yugi: POCKY!!!! -Gobbles it up-
Haku: ^_^ Thanks for the review!
Saiyan Jedi- Okay, I can't turn this one into no pairings, because the plot pretty much revolves around Yami discovering feeling and all that crap. But hows about this... I'll have warnings for all the Shounen ai bits, and I'll write another fic, NON shounen Ai just for you Okeday? (Oh, BTW... I'm really sorry.)
Saiyan Jedi: -strangling Yugi-
Yugi: -can't breathe-
Haku: -tries to rip them apart- I SAID I WAS SORRY!!!
Y. Haku: -pouts because he didn't get chocolate-
NOTES:
1. Yes, the author's notes are going to become a very strange side-story with lots of weird happenings, as I, Yugi and Kohaku look for Experiment 28.
2. GYAAAH! The dreaded school means I'll only be able to update one fic a week, IF I push myself, so my updates are going to drop WAAAY off. I'm going to put a note on each fic, but this is the only one that I will update this week.
DISCLAIMER:
I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh!
However, I own the plotline of this story, the characters 300 and Magegirl, and everything in the side story apart from one Yugi Mouto, who coincidently is owned by Yami. MAN that felt good!
WARNINGS:
1. Shounen Ai
2. Anzu bashing.
~~~
Chapter 3
~~~
I was beginning to think that taking up the Mouto mission wasn't as bad as it'd been made out to be. He was a nice kid, smart, sweet, funny, and not nearly as naïve as appearances led one to believe. It was almost fun, sitting there, and talking to him and the other two boys, laughing, joking, Honda and Jou fighting... The usual pretty much. I was content, just to sit and listen, laughing along with them, but not really saying much as the others talked about their weekends and their plans for the afternoon.
"You coming to the arcade tonight Yugi?" Honda asked, smiling at the tricoloured boy.
"Sorry Honda, but I promised my grandfather that I'd help him out at the game shop." He replied, a sad smile playing across his features. "I'll try to get out of it... but you know how Grandpa is when he wants something done."
Jou laughed, and ruffled the boys hair, a look of distaste on the smaller's cherubic features. The slightly mattered hair seemed to spring back to it's original place, and this resulted in laughs from everyone, except the petite boy. "It's alright Yugs; just don't fall off the ladder. I mean it'll be alright from the bottom shelf... but I'd hate to see you fall off when you were up higher." There was a round of laughs again.
Yugi pouted. "I don't see why you're laughing Yami, you're short too." He said, trying his best to glare, but failing miserably.
"Yes, but you see, I am this" I made a movement with my arms, placing my hands about a foot apart, "Much taller than you, therefore meaning I can poke fun." This time Yugi joined in the round of laughter.
Even now, looking back on it, I can't explain what made me so carefree around those three boys. Enough so to ask a question that had been bugging me since I ran into Bakura. "Guys?" I asked, turning my attention to the three,
They all murmured to show they were listening.
"What's up with Bakura? Why don't you like him that much?" I asked, noticing as they all flinched. It was Yugi who spoke up.
"Well, see Yami, like you, Bakura showed up one day, completely out of the blue, with no warning whatsoever that he was coming. Almost as if his student file appeared overnight." Which, I added mentally, it probably did. "Back then, there was a guy called Ryou in our group too. He was a really nice guy, and Bakura became friends with us through him."
Yugi sighed at this point, before continuing. "Then suddenly, Bakura, who looked like he was Ryou's best friend at the time, he turned nasty, as in really nasty. He started taunting Ryou, and ignored us completely, until Ryou just became shell-like and wouldn't talk to anyone. Bakura then proceeded to ditch us and became a loner cross bully who has a go at everyone now and again." Yugi finished, looking at me sadly.
Jou started talking at that point. "The funny thing was Ryou and Bakura could have passed for twins. Almost the same way you and Yug could." The bell rang at this point, and we made to go inside.
Yugi looked at me curiously. "What?" I asked, slightly puzzled at the look I was receiving.
Yugi shrugged. "I was wondering if you'd like to come to my place after school tomorrow. That is, if your parents don't mind."
I smirked, quickly coming up to a story as why I had no guardian. "I'd love to, and my parents are on a business trip at the moment, so what they don't know can't hurt them."
Yugi beamed at me happily. "Okay then, I'll see you later, okay Yami?"
I nodded, returning the smile somewhat. "Bye, Yugi." We turned and headed to our separate, last period classes.
~~~
The last part of the day dragged on, the clock seeming to go backwards, as the drone-like teacher in front of me lectured us for the last 55 minutes of the day. The only good thing about this class was the fact that Anzu wasn't in it, and as the teacher droned on about Egyptian history, I felt myself slipping into somewhat of a stupor. It would have been mildly interesting if it was taught by a proper teacher, but the man continually made mistakes, not bothering to correct himself as he got the Egyptian Gods messed up, and called the Pyramids temples to the Gods instead of tombs. Allowing my mind to wander, I stared up at the clock, watching as the seconds ticked down to the time when the school bell would ring, and I would be able to go home.
Dragging my eyes away from the red second hand as it made its way around the edge of the clock, I focused my attention on the class instead. Most people were discreetly asleep, openly asleep, or falling asleep, except for one white haired boy who was crinkling his nose in distaste every time the teacher said something wrong. He looked remarkably like Thief, except his eyes were a soft brown, instead of a ruby red, and his hair wasn't as viciously spiked, falling to about his shoulders. The boy, Ryou was in my class.
For some reason, this was an almost foreboding sign, like something could happen that hadn't happened yet, and that Bakura, Ryou, Yugi and I would be right in the middle. It was a feeling that I didn't understand, something of dread, mixed with regret and anguish for the boy. Ryou turned his head and looked at me, something deep running in those eyes. A sense of hurt and pain. His cold and icy features looked as if they had once been warm, and inviting, but he had lost faith. I shook my head and turned away. It would do me no good to become sappy.
Somewhere from far away, the bell rang, and with an almighty whoop, the class, those who hadn't been asleep, raced to the door to escape the place of boredom and torture.
~~~
Inserting the key into the lock of my apartment home, I heard a soft 'mew'ing noise around my ankles. Looking down, I saw a black cat slinking around my ankles, and I felt a chuckle escape me.
"Hello there Bastet." I said, very gently picking her up and staring into her deep blue eyes. She licked my nose, her rough tongue a slight irritant against my face. "I guess you're hungry, aren't you." She mewed in acknowledgement of this, and I opened the door. She sprang from my arms and sat patiently in front of the fridge, waiting for the door to be opened and food to be placed in her bowl.
Bastet was not my cat. She adopted me when I first came to Domino City and came and went as she pleased. Most times she hunted and scavenged for her own food, but sometimes she was lazy, and came to me instead. That was why there was always a tin of open cat food in the fridge if she decided that food was too hard to come by. I gave her the name Bastet after one of the gods of Egypt, Who was actually called Bast and was the goddess of the home and of cats.
She seemed not to like that name though, so I added the 'et' on the end. I gave her her food, and waited for her to finish, so I could close the door as she ran out. She did so, with one look back at me before she fled. I think it was her way of saying 'thanks'. Turning away from the bowl, which I would clean later, I went to my workstation and turned it on.
The login screen came up. It always seemed to fill me with dread, the blank, grey screen with those sinister words, but for some reason, I kept logging on anyways. I often wondered what would happen if one day I just gave up. Stopped logging on, and leaving my past behind me, but then a conversation that I once had with MAGEGIRL would always come back to me. Her words still rang true in my mind from that day, a day where I asked her the very question I was often wondering.
DARKMAGE- Here's 30 cents. Call someone who cares. says-
I wonder what would happen if we just left one day, turned away, said stuff it and never looked back... I wonder what the guys in charge would do to us.
MAGEGIRL| Return to me salvation... says-
They'd come after you. Chase you until you died or they caught you.
MAGEGIRL| Return to me salvation... says-
See Dark, there's something I learnt long ago, is that everyone in the network is trapped. We can't break free, because we're buried so deep. That's why no-one quits, but a lot of people just... disappear, never to be heard from again. I don't want to do this anymore. The fighting, the lying, I just don't want to do it anymore. But I don't dare do anything about it, because I'm buried so deep that I'll never get out. We all are.
It was three days later that she disappeared. From then on, we were all careful about what we said. No-one discussed leaving again, after Girl's believed to be fatal mistake.
It's strange I think, that you could be so deeply buried in something that no matter what you do, you always end up getting hurt. People you care about get taken away, and soon you just don't care about anything anymore. My parents were long-since dead from that time and place, and the closest thing I had to a friend was a cat, and a boy who was kindly and innocent, and I would end up having to steal from him. I turned off the computer in frustration, retreating out of the apartment for some fresh air, and some time to think.
~~~
Creeping sulkily down the streets, I passed brightly lit stores, with cheery fronts. None of them seemed to beckon me in, with their tasteful displays, set up in the windows to spark the interest of one with a little spare change and no clue what to do with it. The cheery shops seemed so different from the black abyss inside me, where feeling used to roam, to be pondered on nights where no sleep would come.
Emotion was a foreign word to me. I only knew frustration, distaste, and hurt. Also, anger, and betrayal. Negative emotions, just because I gave my name to a system which allowed me to escape from the pain of my parent's passing and turn into an emotionless machine.
And for a time I was, but seeing Yugi, with his friends, happy, carefree, and managing to get me to laugh truly. Something I hadn't done in years, it seemed to reveal the black, emotionless hole where my heart once rested. I chanced a glance up at this point, and saw myself outside a strange, turtle-shaped game shop, still open for 15 more minutes, before 5:00 would come, and the sign would swing around.
A small, merry bell sounded somewhere above me, and I cursed it, for it fuelled the pounding headache I had for thinking so deeply for so long. My eyes flicked past shelves with interest, until I saw something that sparked my curiosity. Resting in a glass-fronted case was a strange looking card. The monster was black, but with blue skin, the colour, I noted, was that of one with hypothermia. (Haku: Sorry, I always thought that's what he looked like...) It had two black streaks, running down the sides of its face, and in the middle of its headpiece, a fuchsia pentagram stood out against a green background. (Haku: They removed this in the dub... in case you're wondering. -Growls-) "Magician of Black Chaos..." I breathed softly, staring down at the card, and then at the price, realising, that I could just afford it.
"Interested?" A voice asked behind me, as for the first time in years I was so far into my own world that I hadn't noticed anything around me. I jumped, and spun, meeting the eyes of a familiar boy.
"Yugi?!!" I asked/exclaimed as I saw his face. "What are you doing here?"
He laughed at me. "Duh, this is my home. My grandfather owns this place, and if you're interested, I can get you a discount. No tabs though, Jou'd spit his chips if I did."
"Why?" I asked curiously, looking at the bright eyed boy, somewhat lightened by the fact that he was around.
Yugi laughed, and I noticed that the merry sound seemed to reverberate around the store, brightening it even further. "Well, let's just say we stopped the tabs when Jou's got to be over 700 dollars."
I smiled. Not a smirk, but an honest-to-god smile. "Well, I won't hold you up any longer if you're closing."
Yugi laughed at me. "You're a friend Yami, why would it bother me that you're here?"
I would have told him all the reasons I could think of in that moment, if I hadn't been so struck about what he'd told me.
Yugi, My mission, the one that I would steal from, the most prized of his possessions no less, thought of me as a friend.
~~~
Haku: So there we go. Some Yami angst, and Yugi cheers him up!
Yugi: But... but... but... Where's the love?
Haku: LATER!
Y. Haku: Read and Review?