Well. I felt so guilty about not updating quickly that I started this chapter the morning after finishing the last one. I don't know when I'll be able to post it, but I figured I should start it now. I'm so happy. I had the first four chapters written before I came up with a plot, and now I even have a better title. It used to be A New Friend and a Mysterious Enemy, but that sucked, so I had it fit the plot better by changing it to its current title (it will make sense later). I went and changed the summary too. Okay. I'll start the story now. Bakura, would you do the honors of saying the disclaimer?
'Kura: Why do I have to do it? And what makes it so honorable?
Tsuriai: You get a crown of laurels for doing it. No one else is around.
'Kura: So you want me to look like Caesar now? I don't want to. Have the pharaoh do it or something. (walks away grumbling)
Tsuriai: T-T Who'll do my disclaimer then? (Sees Seto walking by and grabs him, whispering something in his ear, telling lies again no doubt)
Seto: (uneasily) Well, Ok. If it will get Mokuba back. (clears throat) Tsuriai does not, by any stretch of the imagination, own YuGiOh. (looks around) Where's Mokuba? You said masked men ran off with him.
Tsuriai: Well, umm.... He's.... Over there! Go get him! Quick!
Seto runs off and we hear buckets toppling over backstage as he stumbles looking for a nonexistent Mokuba.
Tsuriai: okay, well then. I'd best start this fic up again before he realizes I lied to him.... So here you go!
--"—"—"—"—"—"—"--
Chapter 5: Blue Jay on the Moon
--"—"—"—"—"—"—"--
"Does it fit?" Ryou asked through the bathroom door. Willow was trying on her new uniform after they returned from the school.
"Hmm? Yeah." She said spinning around to see what it looked like from the back. Aside from the fact that most of it was pink, it wasn't a very bad uniform. To keep her mind off of the shortness of the skirt, Willow just thought of what most people back in America had taken into fashion recently. Of course, this made her think of the first couple of pages in the Yugioh manga, and she burst out laughing.
"What's so funny?" Ryou wondered.
"Oh, it's just a....personal joke" she said, wiping the tears from her eyes and coming out of the bathroom. "So, how do I look?"
Ryou considered the possibilities. After a pause he said, "Just like all the rest of the girls at Domino High."
"Yeah, I guess that's why they call it a uniform...." Willow murmured wryly, just loud enough for Ryou to hear.
"Wow! It all makes sense to me now!" he laughed, walking down the hallway. "Come here, I want to show you your room. I hope it isn't too small."
He opened the door and went in, Willow following soon after. When she saw the size of the room, her hands flew up to her face.
"It's not too small at all! In fact," she peered around, sizing up the room, "I think it's bigger than my old room back home."
"Well, it's actually the smaller of the two other bedrooms. The room that I don't use for my bedroom is used just for my tabletop RPG. Would you like to see it?" Ryou started walking out the door and Willow came warily, remembering just what happened at that table in the comic.
"I'll come see it, but I'm not going to play." Willow began. Then smirked, continuing "I've heard one too many horror stories of freaky things happening to players."
Ryou sweatdropped and froze momentarily, his shoulders hunched like he'd just been caught at something he wasn't supposed to be doing. He relaxed slowly, turning around to face her with a haunted look on his face. "Wh-what kind o-of stories?"
"Oh! Nothing too horrible! Just the players souls being put into the pieces." Willow started shaking from repressed laughter. "Now where did I read that? I think it was a comic book or something. Are you alright?"
Poor Ryou. He was staring at Willow like he'd seen a ghost; her story was so accurate to what his Yami had done a while back. Meanwhile Bakura was rolling around, laughing his head off at his hikari's reaction, until Ryou came and mentally yelled at him to shut up. Then Ryou came back to the real world, shaking Willow's account of the story off as a fluke.
"I-I'm fine. We don't have to play anything. In fact, I don't think I'll play for a while...." He looked up. "Here we are." He opened the door, admitting them both in, and then turned on the lights. The table was covered in a cloth, to keep off the dust, which Ryou removed so Willow could see the miniature world.
"It's so cute! Maybe we could play sometime, with Yugi and them." She turned to Ryou. "I think that would be fun."
"Well, only if they want to. I don't think they'll be too interested in the offer." Ryou turned to go.
Willow turned to follow, but as she was going something caught at the corner of her eye. Down on the floor something was shining, just inside the door. (stops running for a moment. Hey! That rhymed! Seto: My ass that rhymed! Get back here! Tsuriai: Meep!) She bent down and scooped it up, to see what it was.
"Willow, are you coming?" Ryou looked back.
"Yeah, wait a moment." Willow said, and followed him as he led the way back to the living room. She looked at the thing as she walked. It looked like a little sword, with a leather handgrip and everything. "Ryou, what's this?" she held it up for him to see.
He took it into his own hand and brought it closer to the light. They were in the kitchen, but the overhead light wasn't on so it was a bit harder to see.
"Hmm....it looks like one of the swords for the RPG that I, er, made. Was it on the floor?" Willow nodded. "Well, I'll just put it back." He started walking out. "Could you get some pans out? I'm going to make lunch."
"Gasp! Oh no! Anything but that! Someone save me before it's too late!" Willow joked as he left the room chuckling.
--"—"—"—"—"—"—"--
Willow eyed the food beadily, looking up at Ryou every once in a while. "Do I really trust you?'
Ryou laughed. "I'm eating it. That should be good enough. Besides, I trusted your food this morning."
"Yes but, you said that you weren't very good at cooking." She started poking the rice with one of her chopsticks.
"I've had to come this far without killing myself" Ryou took a large bite off his plate and stuffed it in his mouth to emphasize his point, and started choking. He recovered before Willow could get up to help him, and to make him feel better Willow successfully ate a large bite without dying. But she did play around a bit more by acting out a big death scene, rise from the dead, and gobble down the rest of the food from her plate.
"Ha, ha. Very funny," he drawled, and finished the rest of his food, getting up to wash the dishes at the same time.
Willow got up too. "Can I help? I'm sort of a neat freak when it comes to washing dishes."
Ryou looked over at the pans, which had some sauce caked on it. "Suuure.... You get to do the pans."
"Okay" she said hesitantly, then brightened "Lead the way!"
--"—"—"—"—"—"—"--
"Right, so.... Ummm.... That movie was.... Interesting."
"Yeah, wasn't it though? I know it was in English, but you were still able to follow the story line, right?" Willow looked up hopefully.
"H-hai. An impossibly large shark tries to eat everybody, but the 'heroes' kill it. Heroically."
"Yeah" a sparkle came into her eyes "wasn't it the greatest?" false enthusiasm.
"Errr...." Ryou hesitated.
And Willow started to lose her composure. "Oh, come on and admit it, that '80's rental was tear-jerkingly boring. I'm surprised you sat through it all."
"Well I was sorta spacing out most of the time. But when I was watching..." Ryou paused. "It was horrible! How could anyone give that, what, four stars?"
"I know! I just wanted to see if I wasn't the only one who thought so. My little sister loved it for some reason. Hey!"
"Huh? What is it?"
"The moon just rose. Sugoi, ne? It's full tonight.... Wow...." Willow was at a loss for words for once about something beautiful. Then an idea struck her. "Do the stairs go to the roof?"
Ryou looked at her strangely. "I believe they do. It's a bit late in the season for a moon-viewing party, don't you think?"
She shrugged. "I guess so. But you have blankets right? And I've never been on a high roof before." She was opening the nearest closet door to look for blankets, bringing a sigh out of Ryou.
"We don't need blankets. It isn't so cold that we can't use jackets." He went to get a couple of coats, with an enthused Willow locating her shoes at the door. When Ryou returned they left and went down the hall and up to the roof.
A blast of icy air greeted them as it wrenched the door out of Ryou's grip. The two made it a few steps out when Willow said "Oooo! It's so cold! Maybe we should have brought those blankets after all!" and turned to go back in. But the wind had whipped the door closed noiselessly behind them and forced Willow to cover her eyes from the flying dirt.
A sudden gust knocked her to the ground and made Ryou stumble. He knelt beside her. "Daijoubu?" he asked.
"Yeah, but, what's causing it to change direction like that?"
"I've got no clue—but there wasn't any wind before. One of my windows was open." He looked up at the door. "Come on. We should probably get back inside—" Ryou started getting up, but even more wind kept him from getting far. Meanwhile Willow looked for an alternative way off when something caught at her attention.
"Hey, Ryou. You know what a blue jay looks like, right?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Are they common around here? The bright, bright blue ones?" she turned to look in his direction.
"No. Where do you see a blue jay?"
"Over there" she pointed "on the power line." Willow got up and walked closer to her query in the lack of wind (somehow it let up). "Whoa. It looks like it's on the moon."
"Willow, I don't see any birds." He half turned to the door. "Let's go in while the wind is down."
At those words the Wind popped back up again, weak at first, but then with enough renewed strength that it pushed Willow to the edge, and over.
Willow was just thinking 'maybe it was a pet....how come it's so bright? The moon isn't shining on it, so what—?' when the wind pushed her that last bit. To Ryou it was like time slowed down. He turned to the door and the wind went past, knocking him down, and watched in fear as Willow fell, without any time to even shout for help, just barely catching the edge of the railing.
And just like that the wind died off completely, without a trace of it's ever being existent.
And time regained its natural speed as the Jay flew off, in a burst of light.
--"—"—"—"—"—"—"--
#. # Ooooooooowwwwwwww! (rubs head) Seto that hurt! (moans in agonized (but fake) pain)
Seto: You deserved it! Now, where's Mokuba!?!
Mokuba: Here I am, Big Brother!
Seto: Where have you been? Never mind. Let's go before she starts forcing cookie mix on us. (leaves with Mokuba)
Me: (gets maniac glint in eyes) hee hee hee, cooookiiieeee dooooooooooouuuughhhh. brotherly fluff.... bwah ha ha.
Ryou steps in, takes one look at me and rushes to the phone, pushing the speed dial.
Ryou: Yeah, Hi. Yami Psychiatric Ward? It's me, Ryou. Hi Jake. Listen, could you get over here quick? No, no it's not Bakura. It's Tsuriai. she's going on about cookies and fuzziness....I think 'Kura's a bad influence. Anyways, now she's drooling. Ack! Get offa my Leg! (thump in the background) Yeah, yeah. I'll get the straightjacket out of the closet. Okay. Thanks. See you in a bit. Okay. Bye. (phone clicks onto the reciever) C'mere Tsuriai. The nice young men in the clean white coats are coming to take you away.
Me: Ha, ha!
Bakura: Ho, ho, hee, hee!
Ryou: (facefault) Very funny. anyway, as soon as she's recovered, she'll post another chapter. R&R!