Eye Gate Deep 10
By Elanor Pam
"Revelations"
April 24, 2003: Weee!! Began chappie!! Wheeze, the bloody Headmaster is finally gone, Mou Hitori no Yuugi has finally made his so awaited debut, and all cars are reaching the final loop. Be prepared!
June 5, 2003: ………after writing my fic for Chibizoo's contest… finally back to this one .
May 21, 2004: …………………ONE YEAR, JOLLY GAWD!! And I wrote… four pages!! Woot!! You'll like this chapter, everything (kind of) falls in place! Who is Haruno? Who is the Headmaster? You won't know it all, but you'll learn a lot of cool things!
Disclaimer: on the phone Hey, I said I wanted mayonnaise and ketchup in my sandwich!! smacks table How do ya expect me to survive without ma mayonnaise and ketchup?!
Ok, that made no sense. You know the drill.
"YUUGI!! YOU OK? WHAT HAPPENED?!" Jounouchi shook his swaying friend, in panic, while Honda tried to pry his hands off Yuugi's shoulders and help the smaller one sit.
"Hn… hn…"
"YUUGI, SAY SOMETHING!! ANYTHING!!" Jounouchi was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
"Hn… hnn…"
"YUUGI!! OH GOD OH GOD OH GODS!! HE'S DYING!!" Jounouchi was screeching already, but Honda was pious enough to give him a punch on the back of his head using all the strength he could gather at the moment.
With the impact, Jounouchi ended up letting go of Yuugi, and so he turned to his dark-haired friend while the smaller one fell on the ground with a funny thud. The blond boy turned to Honda, his eyes blazing with fury.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, YOU FUCKING—"
"Jounouchi-kun… I'm ok."
Jounouchi turned back, slowly, while Honda pried his hands off his neck. His hazel eyes were misty as he looked at Yuugi's half-smiling and quite stupefied expression, and after a moment in which his lips trembled dangerously, he sighed in relief.
"Thank god, you looked like you couldn't breathe…"
"That's because you were throttling him," informed Honda, his brows flat.
"Was NOT! Was I?" Jounouchi turned to the boy in question, searching for confirmation.
Yuugi couldn't find it in his heart to lie, so he just gave a kind of forced smile.
"See? I wasn't!!"
"I give up…" Honda turned on his heels, hands in his pockets, ignoring the complaining gashes on his back. "Shouldn't we get going? Does anybody have any idea what time it is?"
Yuugi automatically turned to his watch, to find out it wasn't working.
"Erm… well, I don't think it's more than 1am…" the boy shrugged. "A lot of things happened, but it was all very quick, so…"
"Either way, we really should get going," Jounouchi rubbed one eye. "This place is creepy, and I'm getting tired…"
The others nodded – it wasn't as if they had an option – and walked ahead, using the secret door the headmaster came from as reference point to their original direction; when they passed by it, though, Yuugi suddenly stopped.
The boys turned to him, surprised. He was pointing to the door by his side, the light from the puzzle making his eyes seem slightly narrower.
"We could try this way," he said, simply. "The headmaster seemed to know something about this place, so this should be a safer passageway."
Jounouchi blinked. Something seemed slightly amiss, but since it didn't feel dangerous, he shrugged it off. "Hm… it makes sense…" He turned to Honda, questioningly.
Honda, that didn't seem to have noticed anything amiss at all, just shrugged and nodded, walking into the passageway without a word. The other two followed, being given a nice shot of the shredded and bloodied back of his trench coat. Yuugi raised an eyebrow, turning to Jounouchi questioningly.
"We ran into a weird ass monster on our way to you," Jounouchi said, shrugging and not looking really effected, though it was probably because the monster was in the past. "Nicked Honda badly, as you can see, and almost got me, too." He showed the rips on the back of his jacket. "But some teamwork and your friend there took care of it."
Jounouchi waved a hand at the puzzle, and Yuugi couldn't help but smirk slightly. "Oh, right…"
The blond blinked, surprised. "What's right? And what's with the smirk?"
Yuugi looked up at him, eyes widening for a moment, and then he hurriedly shook his hands in front of him. "Er, it has nothing to do with that! Just something that came to my mind just now…"
It was Jounouchi's turn to smirk. "Yeah, yeah… been getting smug after piecing that puzzle thingy, eh? Don't let it get to your head, pal!"
Yuugi had a fit of laughter at that, covering his face with a hand while his shoulders shook with mirth. Jounouchi laughed along with him, not knowing that Yuugi found his comment funny for different reasons, and they were at that when they suddenly ran into Honda, that yelped when they hit his aching back.
Jounouchi wiped away some dried blood flakes that got stuck in his overgrown fringe, frowning. "Do you have any special reason to stop without giving a warning?"
"…yeah…" Honda's voice cracked, and his body leaned to the left at an alarming angle. "…it's… fuzzy…"
Before they could hold him, Honda corkscrewed to the ground, his torso leaning heavily against the cave wall – that, unfortunately, rotated around itself and left him to fall on his shoulder all the way through.
They both ran into the new passageway, rushing to see if Honda was alive or not, and Jounouchi couldn't help but wonder if he, too, was going to pass out before the night was over. Ignoring the possibility, he helped Yuugi sit him up, the dark haired boy's head lolling to the side, eyes half-rolled.
"Honda-kun, are you feeling ok? Honda-kun?" Yuugi shook him lightly, his eyes wide and slightly watery.
Jounouchi would have shook Honda even more hysterically, but for some reason he couldn't help noticing a very small, barely perceptible difference in the overall atmosphere. He turned to Yuugi, blinking, but the smaller one was trying to cover Honda's neglected wounds with his jacket, looking about to burst in tears. When he turned back to Honda, though, the teen grabbed his arm with a sudden urgency.
"What, Honda, you're creeping us out!" Jounouchi tried to free his arm and help Yuugi with the jacket, to no avail.
"The door – wall – whatever!!"
Two seconds of silence echoed as Jounouchi and Yuugi stared at him, baffled, and then they turned to look behind them…
…just in time to pull Honda's legs out of the way as the wall closed with a very, very ominous and out of place clang.
Two more seconds of silence echoed as they stared at where the entrance had once been, and then Yuugi lifted a thin leg to kick the wall. It made a dull, low sound, and didn't budge. He narrowed his eyes at the door, as if his glare could open it again, and then turned back to the task of tending to Honda.
"Well, hot damn…" his voice was slightly more annoyed than anyone was used to hearing it, but Jounouchi couldn't blame him, since he himself wasn't feeling particularly happy at the moment.
The blond teen shrugged. "It's not like we know for sure where we're going to…"
Yuugi nodded distantly and sighed, now looking tired rather than annoyed. "You're right… but… I don't know, I'm a bit worried…"
"I'm better!" Honda exclaimed suddenly, sitting up by himself, pushing their hands away and holding his head in his hands. "Why, oh why couldn't this be a dream?" he whined, then looked up at his two companions. "Is it just me or something smells different here?"
Jounouchi blinked, then closed his eyes, inhaling deeply… to have a coughing fit.
"Er, Jounouchi-kun?" Yuugi put a hand on his shoulder, worried.
"Smoke!" Jounouchi managed to choke down a second fit, wheezing. "Something is burning down there!"
Honda's brows went flat again. "How do they say it? Oh, yeah… out of the frying pan and into the fire."
"Quite literally…" Yuugi blinked, trying to sniff any distinctive smell.
"At least it'll be warm," slurred Honda, leaning heavily on Jounouchi while standing up. "I'm feeling really darn cold."
"It must be the blood loss, I dunno," shrugged Jounouchi, standing up as well and pulling Honda along with him. "I was starting to find it weird that you were walking around for so long like that. You're tough, man, but not THAT tough."
"Gee, thanks…"
They walked down the passageway slowly, Honda dragging his feet, and after a few minutes of silent walking even Yuugi could feel the faint smell of something burning, and notice the small but meaningful change in temperature. He glanced to Jounouchi and Honda worriedly, and Jounouchi answered with an anxious glance of his own; he was noticeably trying to breathe slowly, probably to prevent another coughing fit. Honda's eyelids were droopy, and he seemed pale even in the faint light of the puzzle – it did seem as if the wound had been getting to him for a while.
As they made their way down the passage – that seemed to decline very lightly, carvings and writings increasing on its walls – the temperature rose noticeably; the air was growing hot and heavy, and the walls seemed to get a slightly red tint, perceptible even under the puzzle's golden light. The hallway widened, and hot, suffocating air blew on their faces; the now evident reddish light danced around them, and up ahead they could see the fire of what seemed to be many, many torches.
Except that it wasn't just torches. Actually, torches, walls, pyres and their support seemed to be burning down, precious carvings and drawings blackening up and charring under the heat. The fire spread slowly, up and down the wall, and while it had already reached the tall ceiling, the floor seemed relatively safe.
The threesome stepped inside, appalled but slightly hopeful at the sight of many other openings around the room, and then they noticed something, or rather, someone.
Someone surrounded by fire, calmly standing in front of the stairs to a burning altar. Someone with long black hair and a flowing skirt that reached down to her shoes.
Haruno Takasugi turned her head to glance at them, smiling; then she turned back to gaze at the burning altar again. She seemed serene and out of place, standing in the middle of the fire as if it weren't there.
Yuugi gasped, covering his mouth with his hands, and immediately stepped forward – Jounouchi stepped up after him with an exclamation, and Honda held his shoulder immediately.
"Don't be an idiot, Yuugi," he wheezed. The smoke wasn't doing him any well.
"That's right," Jounouchi glared at the woman's back, hoisting Honda back up on his shoulder; the other boy was sagging. "We don't know what she wants exactly. She was friends with the headmaster, and seems to know a lot of weird stuff."
"I do," Haruno's voice suddenly sounded different – sharper, stronger, more mature. "But I'm not and have never been friends with the 'headmaster', as you call him. You don't know his name, apparently… officially, it's Tarou Ishibashi, but his real name is Juuroumaru Tanaka."
Yuugi held his breath for a second as she spoke, his lips pressing in a grim line as if some kind of suspicion had just been confirmed. He shook off Honda's hand, to his and Jounouchi's protests, and walked till the center of the room, turning then to his left.
Haruno stood a few meters away, her back to him, the altar before and above her cracking and snapping in the fire. A wall of fire stood between them. Yuugi bit his lower lip, his expression so unreadable it was obvious that something was eating him up badly.
"Don't go off on your own like that, dumbass!" hissed Jounouchi right by his ear, making the boy jump in surprise. "What if she attacks you or whatever?!"
Yuugi blinked at him, momentarily lost as to what they were talking about, and noticed that Jounouchi, despite having both hands busy supporting Honda, had somehow managed to cover the wounded teen's face with a cloth. When Jounouchi growled into his face again, to then fall in a coughing fit, his comment suddenly registered, and he quickly shook his head. "She won't attack us!"
Jounouchi kept on coughing for a few more seconds, and then exhaled deeply. "How can you be so sure of that?"
"He knows me," Haruno answered instead, still with her back to them. "But let's not get into that right now… those other people involved in this are about to arrive, and when they do everything will be clarified."
Jounouchi seemed to mull over those words for a moment, while Honda made a sound more or less like a snort mixed with a growl and a gurgle, followed by a few coughs, which probably meant he wasn't getting any better.
And, right on cue, Sugoroku, Anzu and Suzuki came in through another entrance, looking as baffled and miserably losing hopes as they probably had upon arriving. Anzu had her jacket tied around her head in a weird way, with water trailing down her face, which just reminded Jounouchi that he was getting thirsty.
"Erm…" Honda coughed a bit, and then made an effort to speak louder. "Auntie, how come you… knew they were arriving?"
Haruno turned to look at them just as Anzu hurried over, looking tired and staggering a bit, but overall seeming all right. Sugoroku and Suzuki soon followed, and Haruno clasped her hands together, her voice going back to the soft, sweet tone she had always used. "Oh, they arrived sooner than I thought! Good!"
Anzu hugged Yuugi lightly, looking relieved, and then turned to Honda, worried. "What happened to you?" and added, her voice lowering: "And why is that woman here?"
"That's exactly what I was going to ask," Sugoroku's voice suddenly boomed; he stepped forward, his eyes narrowed, his face set seriously. Haruno stuck her tongue out playfully, a sheepish look on her face.
Yuugi gripped Anzu's arm suddenly, squeezing it, and suddenly she understood.
"WAIT!!" screamed Suzuki suddenly, walking forward to stand in front of Sugoroku. "Where's that bastard Tanaka, or Ishibashi, or whatever he's been calling himself lately?" she panted.
Haruno smiled sweetly to the woman, and it wasn't only one of them that were reminded of Yuugi's own sweet smiles.
"You could wait for him, Suzuki-sensei. All the passageways of this labyrinth end up here. But I don't think he'll come…" She smiled again, but it wasn't that same sweet smile; it was somewhat sad, yet satisfied. "He's dead. He's finally dead."
Suzuki's eyes widened, and, for a few seconds, she seemed to struggle to make a sound. "But… but…"
"How, you ask?" Haruno smiled sweetly again, though there was still that strange trace of sadness; she opened her arms as if to embrace someone. "The Judge of Darkness came and sentenced him to death… which brings me to why the hell I'm here."
She turned to Sugoroku, and, suddenly, her big, red-brown eyes were shimmering with what almost seemed like tears. Anzu squeezed Yuugi's hand reassuringly, and Sugoroku bit his lip, his eyes widening in an effort to keep his own emotions at bay…
Haruno pulled her long, shiny back hair, and a wig came off. Under it was short, glossy dark red hair, the dark roots standing out. She dropped the wig on the rests of a burning pyre nearby, and proceeded to pull the skin from her own face, the rubbery material of the mask stretching ghastly.
And now, shining to them was a sweet smile just too much like Yuugi's own, in a face too much like Yuugi's own.
Yuugi choked down a sob, while Anzu narrowed her eyes to the woman, serious. Jounouchi looked from Yuugi to Haruno to Yuugi, completely confused, and even Honda seemed to forget for a moment that he needed a blood transfusion.
"What… what the hell…?" whispered Jounouchi, feeling some strange kind of link between them –Sugoroku, Haruno and Yuugi –, a link different from any others he had felt.
"That woman isn't any Haruno Takasugi," Anzu said, fiercely. "Her real name, as far as I know…"
Haruno smiled, interrupting Anzu. "…is Hikaru Mutou."
Silence fell like a curtain, and even the fire seemed to stop crackling. The sound of a sniff suddenly seemed to echo in the hot, smoking room.
Yuugi wiped a tear. "She's my… mother…"
Jounouchi almost let go of Honda in surprise, and Honda didn't even seem to notice. They both looked at the parties involved, often exchanging glances with an equally bewildered Suzuki, and Honda was the first to snap out of the shock, while Jounouchi shook his head in disbelief.
"Is… is that true?"
A tear slid down Hikaru's face, and she looked down to the hot floor… then shook her head weakly. "…it's not…"
Yuugi buried his face into Anzu's arm, and she didn't try to stop him from crying.
Sugoroku shook his head as well, stepping forward, and spoke with a trembling voice. "Hikaru, that… that was…"
"He knows already," she said weakly. "He has known for who knows how long…"
Sugoroku looked back to Yuugi, and then to Hikaru, then shook his head as if to clear his thoughts; he motioned to the burning room around him. "And what is the meaning of this? What exactly is it you were planning? Because I know you had it all planned, kid, it wouldn't be you if you didn't."
Hikaru raised her head, looking straight at Yuugi, who seemed to have calmed down enough to stop sobbing, and now also looked at her. She smiled kindly, then, and, to their surprise, turned back to the altar behind her.
"It's crumbling, look…"
They could only watch enraptured as the pyre on the tall platform gave away under the flames and fell on itself, charring, snapping. Behind it, resisting bravely against the fire, was a wall covered in many writings, in apparently many languages.
"That altar," she kept on, "That was originally the point of my entire plan, has burned completely… it had no more purpose…"
She turned back to them, her skirt flying around her gracefully, and her voice was now cold and impersonal as she narrated facts.
"My original plan was to perform a magic ritual. A black magic ritual involving Yuugi and the Puzzle of Thousand Years." She indicated the burnt down altar with a hand. "It was to take place on that altar."
She climbed the few steps that lead to the top of the platform, and, holding the hem of her skirt to keep it from burning, she found a safe patch of floor to stand on.
"On this altar, I planned to transfer all the magic of the Puzzle of Thousand Years to Yuugi. It—" her voice wavered, "It'd probably be painful… but I was thinking about the long term advantages. I've been watching you, Yuugi," she raised her eyes to look into his eyes, "I've seen how much you suffered, at home, at school, everywhere, with the burden of a secret to carry. I know what it feels like… dad knows as well…"
Sugoroku looked down, and a single tear also slid down his face.
"…after all, we too have kept terrible secrets for a long time."
Hikaru smiled, then, and sighed.
"But then your mother came to me, Yuugi. She said she had plans for you as well. I never thought she would… she was never much of a planner; she was always cheerful and confident on the future, even in the worst times…" the woman shrugged, as if at a loss of words, and wiped a stubborn tear. "She also had a lot of fun making us break our minds trying to understand her, that little rascal… but either way she came, and told me in no uncertain ways that I was underestimating you and your abilities." she looked down at her own feet. "I felt bad, but at the same time I felt happy. I knew exactly what she meant. You had what was needed to solve the puzzle by yourself, and there was no need for intricate rituals… my job was just to make you face a situation that would require you to do so. Maybe provide you some extra power to help you do so earlier than expected. The tablet at school was the key to arrive here, and I had it all set up using the excuse of opening the gate for the Headmaster Ishibashi… you reacted quite strongly to it at school, principally after it tasted your blood. It might have felt a connection between itself and you and started draining your energy…"
She smiled up to Yuugi, who looked completely baffled, and laughed at his face.
"Quite a lot of information, isn't it? Your would-be mother knows magic, your school had a gateway to some god-forsaken place and your toy puzzle has powers! But don't grow too expectant yet… it'll be a long time till you know what and how to do what you can do. But it's a beginning. Quit with the scared look. I did it for your own good. Now, my work is done."
She held a few folds of her skirt royally, lifting the hem from the ground.
"Just like these pyres and this altar, I'm not needed anymore…"
Light started to flow from the ground, and they all felt light headed.
"I think it's about 1:30am right now… yep… it's time for you to go back the way you came from."
And she held the hem of her skirt against the fire.
"MOTHER!!" Yuugi jumped forward, without hesitation, and Sugoroku had to hold the boy to keep him from jumping over fire and pyre towards the woman. "SHE'S KILLING HERSELF, SHE'S KILLING HERSELF!!"
"HIKARU!!" Sugoroku screamed, stepping forward as if against his own will, holding Yuugi back with all his strength. "WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"
Hikaru smiled sweetly, a smile just like Yuugi's, while her skirt quickly caught on fire, the flames spreading up to her shirt – she pulled a little notebook from under her shirt and threw it directly at Suzuki, who caught it out of impulse.
"I'm sticking with the rest of my original plan. Making sure Yuugi is safe, and then paying the price." She stood there, slowly catching on fire, not seeming to feel any pain. "Do you know, dad, of all the things I've been doing these last years? I've hated, I've hated so much, and I still hate… I've done wrong things, nothing that seemed really serious for me at the time, but now I know better."
The light intensified, and her voice grew weak and faraway.
"You should know too, dad… one day, it'll all be clear. It still isn't for me, but it should be to you. Do it for me, will you? Please…"
Her last voice echoed in the formless bean they were floating in. Please…
And then their feet found smooth tiles to stand on again, back at the school's third floor, the infamous tile with an eye carelessly scratched on it shining, a humming sound lingering in their eardrums.
Yuugi seemed paralyzed with woe.
September 29, 2004: ……………………WHEEZEPANTPASSOUT gn…
I SHALL FINISH THIS DRATTED FIC IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO IN MY LIFE. And since there are still people interested in what's going to happen next, and what the mysteries were about, I suppose it's only fair I make an effort. PLEASE FORGIVE ME for taking so long to update… I was so utterly disappointed with the dubbed anime it took all my love for the series. And the cards annoy me, too.
I've thought for a while that Yu-Gi-Oh! could have survived just fine without smacking the same damn card game's key so much, even though it'd be probably a little less successful – but who cares!! "Violinist of Hameln" is my favorite series ever, and tell me if YOU know or have known about it for more than 4 months! Most of you probably don't, or if you do, I was probably the one who smacked it in your heads. But once you get to know it, there's no turning back. I don't even know the entire series and yet it made me recover my faith in humanity. There's just something about an anti-hero who's trying to save the world from himself, principally when he falls in love.
See? I started rambling about Hameln and completely forgot my point. Well. I WILL finish this fic. The next chapter might take as long as this one did… or maybe next time I have a kanji test I'll also feel like ignoring the mating call of my sexy kanji book and its 68 lessons containing 8 kanjis each, and risk an ugly grade. Oh well.
ML - to - the main page. Nothing there yet.
Till next Yuugi-chapter, in this Yuugi-channel, in the same Yuugi-time!! Nananana nananana Yuugi-man!!