The Game of Life
By: Rogue Fox
Part Nineteen... Twisting Time
A/N: I'm soooo sorry for the long wait! I'm fighting off writer's block so please please be patient. I'm really trying. In the mean time, somewhere in the next two weeks, keep your eyes open for a really dumb, really sappy, romantic "experiment" from me. ... What? I need something to keep the mean writer's block away!!! I hate the stupid thing, I really do. But I can't stop writing on it!!! It's an obsession! It's also a yaoi. v_v I'm experimenting. So leave me alone. Anyway, please be patient and don't come after me with torches and pitchforks!!!
*+*+*Yuki*+*+*
I smiled softly at Seto as he slept. He looked so peaceful there, so without worries. When he slept, he seemed safe and happy. Soon he would wake, and he would smile at me and get on with his life in spite of what he had gone through. That was part of our life. Bad things happen. The trick is to get up the next morning and get on with it, despite all the bad things. Seto was good at that. He stirred softly and I smiled again. Here was my friend, my best friend. He had stood beside me always, always there for me, always supporting me in my time of need.
I remembered the night my mother died. In sorrow and despair I dialed his number, desperate to hear his voice across the distance that separated us. When he spoke, he was soothing and gentle. I knew no one else heard him speak like this, save Mokuba. I sat down on the bed, absorbed in my own thoughts. When Yami Bakura came raging in with the intent of taking me captive, didn't Seto try to come to my rescue? When Machiko was about to slit my throat, wasn't it Seto's voice that woke me up? Now, in the face of his own threat, I wondered what he had done to try to protect us all from Nen. So much suffering... What was the point? So many people suffer every day, so many children cry. What was the point? All the death, the pain, the blood... It was all pointless. And my own life... Cut short because of something I can't control. How many more people would cry needlessly? What was the point of living if you're only going to die?
Seto groaned beside me and I snapped from my morbid thoughts. He smiled at me as he rose to full consciousness.
" What time is it?" he asked groggily. I looked at his bedside clock.
" Almost ten at night. Relax, everything's fine." I murmured softly, giving his hand a comforting squeeze.
" That was scary. Is that what it was like? Someone always there, just taking control?" he asked suddenly. I sighed.
" Yes, that's what it was like. It is scary." I agreed, remembering the terror when Himeko first took control, both my own and hers. I took a deep breath to quell the unreasonable fear that rose up. Then I felt it. First, it was Yami's absence from the immediate area that alarmed me. Then, it was a presence, not far away, that attracted my attention. All conscious thought ceased. I was attracted to that presence like a moth to a candle. I needed to be near it. I had never felt anything like it. An unreasonable attraction, as undeniable as breathing. I rose from the bed and walked out the door, Seto's cries falling on deaf ears.
*+*+*Perl*+*+*
I could feel them approaching. She was coming. The one I had been waiting to meet. Yami called her Yuki. Yuki. The one I was waiting for. One of the two I was searching for. I wondered, was she the past form of... I wondered what she looked like. Like Himeko? Did she have Yami's majestic eyes? Or perhaps she didn't look like them. Excitement bubbled up inside of me in the form of butterflies in my stomach. I felt the undeniable attraction. The attraction of one power to another. The attraction of one of ours to another. The attraction that marked our kind.
*+*+*Yami*+*+*
I almost wrecked, when I saw her. Perl. Standing in a field on the side of the road, staring out into the darkness expectantly. I slammed on my brakes, and I was out of the car before it completely stopped.
" Perl!" I cried, wiping the stinging, almost frozen rain off my face. She was dressed in her normal skirt and button up shirt, completely soaked. I ran up to her and shook her shoulders, my earlier apprehension forgotten. " Perl! What are you doing out here in the rain?! You'll catch your death!" I cried, trying to pull her to my car. I was shocked when she didn't even budge. Her gaze was strange, sort of detached. I turned suddenly, sensing someone else approaching us. " Yuki!" I cried, both relieved and even more frightened. " Yuki, what the hell is going on here?" I asked. But even as I spoke, I saw the golden tint to her eyes, gradually growing stronger with every step she took. Perl started walking as well. They both walked toward each other, stopping every few steps to observe the other. " It's like a ritual. An acceptance ritual." I realized. Finally, the two started to circle each other, neither one breaking the eye contact. They completed three counter clockwise circles, always going slowly, neither one seeming to acknowledge the driving rain that was making me quiver viciously, and both of their gazes locked on the other. It was a ritual, every movement with its own special meaning. Finally, as they completed the third circle, the two stopped. They both raised their left hands and approached each other, until their hands almost touched. Then they both stopped, as though having a moment of doubt. Finally, they both seemed to steel themselves, and, in unison, they took the final step and pressed their hands together.
The boom was deafening. It wasn't a true noise, but I felt it all the same. I felt like someone had wrenched my soul from my body and wrung it out, stretched it, and sliced it to shreds. Like someone had inflated it until it burst. There's not much that can rival that kind of pain. Thousands of miles away, other Millennium Item holders or past holders later told me that they too felt that boom. Back at the mansion, Himeko, Yugi, Ryou, and Bakura all were knocked off their feet. Every single person I knew of that had anything like my abilities felt the same pain. And I could only imagine it from Yuki's point of view.
When true awareness returned to me, I was lying on my back, rain splattering on my face. I was disoriented and still trying to deal with echoes of that pain. I let out a string of curses, all in Egyptian. When I did finally manage to get to my feet, cold, wet, and muddy, the sight that greeted me wasn't exactly warming. Standing about ten feet apart and opposite each other with a large circle of barren, smoking earth between them, was Perl and Yuki. What kept me from barging in there, I'll never know. Instinctively I knew that this was a ritual, pre-ordained since before time. No matter what I did, they would continue. This was their purpose, their destiny.
*+*+*Yugi*+*+*
Have you ever been around a plane that just did a sonic boom? Think about that huge boom that rocked your insides. Now try to multiply its force by about a thousand. You're still not even close to the force of the boom that hit Ryou and I as we sat calmly in the living room of the mansion. It knocked us both over. Right off the couch.
The pain was unbelievable. Colors exploded in front of my eyes, even though I had squeezed them tightly shut. And even though I instinctively curled into a ball to protect my gut and clenched my head in my hands, it wasn't a physical pain. My soul, my essence, my very being felt like it was being run through a press and then one of those slice and dice machines. Flashes of images, faces, snatches of conversations flew through my mind, even though I was far from comprehending anything other than the pain. I vaguely saw my mother, whom I could barely remember, holding me.
When I snapped out of my funk, I was laying on the floor, curled up into a ball. The entire mansion had gone silent. Then, the back door slammed open. Ryou and I nearly had heart attacks as it did. Himeko and Bakura stormed into the room, both of them randomly babbling, Himeko in Egyptian and Bakura in a language I didn't recognize. Finally, Himeko remembered to speak Japanese.
" What... What... What the hell?!" She finally managed to ask. I shook my head numbly, too dazed to do anything else. Bakura said something in that strange language, and Ryou said something in English. No one was really thinking. It took about five minutes for everyone to calm down.
" That was freaking scary!" Ryou shrilled. I nodded enthusiastically.
" Forget scary. I thought I was dying. Again!" Bakura cried.
" I was wishing I would die and be done with it." Himeko muttered.
" What the hell was that?" I asked.
" I've never felt anything like it!" Himeko protested angrily. She was scared. We all were, but yami's, I've noticed, tend to react to fear with anger.
" God, I thought someone was carving me open." Ryou muttered, leaning heavily on the couch for support.
" Better question. How do we find out what the hell that was?" I asked. Himeko gave me a withering look.
" When something makes that big a boom, where does it usually come from?" she asked. " My dear little light." She added dryly. " Someone must have pissed her off really bad. I don't think she's ever done anything like that before."
" We'd better find her." Bakura said dutifully. And at that point, Kaiba came tearing down the stairs, struggling to pull on some socks.
" Kaiba! What are you doing up?" I asked.
" Yuki just walked out the door! I think something's wrong with her!" he cried. I wondered if he had felt the boom.
" Hey, where's Yami?" Himeko asked suddenly. Everyone froze.
" May whatever gods there are have mercy on our souls." Bakura said finally.
*+*+*Yuki*+*+*
When I was in pre-school, there was this boy who was bigger than me. He picked on me and stole my cookie at snack time. He called me wimpy and scaredy-cat. At first I did what Mama always told me to do and I ignored him. Then he started hurting me. When I came home, trying to hide a black eye from my parent, Papa took me aside to talk to me. I remember because Papa was rarely home, and I didn't often see him. He told me that it's good to try not to fight. But sometimes, the other person refuses to be ignored. Sometimes, like the boy at school, they won't stop until the person they're being mean to, like me, either fights back or gets really hurt. Papa told me that I was being a very good girl, trying not to fight, but he and Mama didn't want me to get hurt. So, the next day, when the bully came to hurt me, I fought back. It wasn't much of a fight, and I didn't win. It was more like one of those frantic dust balls you see on cartoons. I got sent to the principal's office and I got punished, but not as bad as the bully did. And he never picked on me again. But best of all, I felt good about myself, because I fought back.
Then, when I was in junior high, there was a girl in my grade that nobody liked. For the first few years, I couldn't figure out why nobody liked her. She was nice and pleasant. She wasn't like a lot of the other girls in our grade, who were too busy flaunting their new-found sexuality to be nice to anyone that wasn't of the opposite gender. Then, when I was in eighth grade, Zack told me that all the other kids teased her and were horrible to her because her dad was an alcoholic and her mom had to work two jobs to support the family. I didn't think that was fair. It most certainly wasn't her fault. Zack had to explain it to me a few times before I had it down. Why people are mean to other people is beyond me. I just can't grasp the concept. There was one particular cheerleader who was notably more vicious to the poor girl than the others. One day, she told my friend that she would grow up to be a prostitute like her mom. My friend cried and ran from the room. I didn't know what a prostitute was, and I'm still not exactly sure. But I figured it must have been bad. That night, I went over to my friend's house, even though it was small and often smelled of alcohol. It was quiet, and I thought it must be because her father was passed out on the couch and she didn't want to wake him up and make him mad. I went into her room, which had once been a storage closet, so there was a rod across the room where coats had once been hung. I found her there. She had hung herself from the rod. Her mother and I were the only ones that came to her funeral. Zack and Sarah waited for me outside the funeral home, but they didn't go in. The police found her mom a week later, dead from a self- inflicted wrist wound in a back alley. I decided then that I would never let anyone hurt my friends ever again, whether it be emotionally or physically. I went to school after her funeral, and for the first time in my life, I took revenge. It wasn't for me, it was for my friend. I beat the snot out of the cheerleader who had been so mean. I cried as I beat her up, and I told her I hoped she hurt as much as my friend hurt. I hoped she never stopped hurting. They suspended me from school for three days, on counts of provoked assault. When Seto asked me why I did it, I told him that no one had the right to make others hurt so much.
Hurting is pointless. I shouldn't have beaten that girl up, even though it was her fault that the world lacked one wonderful girl and a loving mother. I know that. But I did. Pain and death... They're all so pointless. Life seems pointless, if you're only alive to put new people in your place and die to make room for them, so they can do the same and carry on this never- ending pointless cycle. And in the back of my mind, I knew my own life was cut short. I was robbed. Would I even be able to bear children? And my friend, the girl everyone hated for no reason... What was the point of her death? What was the point of her pain? Destiny is a joke, I realized. There's just no point. There are people out there who think they're better than everyone else, that they have the right to judge. No one does. It's just so pointless, and it makes me feel so empty.
Maybe that's why I plunged headfirst into that battle. I was looking for something with a meaning, a point. And it felt right for me to fight this fight. Even though I wasn't willing to admit it right then, destiny was no joke. There was a point to this.
I'm different. I'd accepted that fact. I'd accepted the fact that I was not like anyone else, and I was never going to meet someone like me. I was never going to meet another person who knew what it was like to hold that Key in their hands. I was never going to meet someone who knew the power. So you can imagine how it rocked my world when I touched the brown-haired girl's hand.
I was told later that the boom was enough to shatter a soul. But I didn't feel it. I felt something soft, gentle. I felt another soul. A soul like mine. A soul with power. The contact between us was a bond. But with that bond came knowledge. It was our purpose to always seek each other out, to look for each other, and to do battle. To test each other and discover who was stronger.
" The Judge..." The girl murmured. I gave her a curious look, aware for the first time since I had left Seto's room. We had ceased the contact. Too much would kill us both, we both knew that without being told.
" Who are you?" I asked, tensing myself. I sensed danger here. I knew a fight was coming, and she wouldn't catch me by surprise.
" My name is Perl. You're Yuki." She said easily.
" How do you know my name?" I asked suspiciously.
" Yami told me." Perl answered.
" Yami?" I asked, turning my head to see him standing there. Somehow, I had known he was there, although I couldn't remember actually looking over there and seeing him.
" You're the Judge, right?" Perl asked me suddenly.
" I'm nobody's judge." I responded.
" Show me your Key!" Perl requested. I straightened, mostly from shock.
" What do you know about the Key?" I asked.
" I have one too!" Perl explained, exasperated, flashing a golden Key in her hand. I didn't see it appear there, it was just there. As if rising to the challenge, my own Key appeared in my hand.
" I didn't know there was more than one." I muttered, looking down at it.
" Don't you know anything?" Perl asked.
" I know it's the Key of Ra!" I shot back, rising to anger. This girl grated my nerves.
" That's not the Key of Ra! Ra is so overrated." Perl growled. " Let me see it." She requested, crossing the space between us. " You dolt! That's the Key of Ma'at! Who told you it was the Key of Ra?" she asked. I shot Yami my best glare and he grinned sheepishly. Something hard hit me on the head. I saw another Key in my face. Mine was delicate and very ornamental. The Key Perl was holding was blunt and more squared off. " Meet the Key of Set." Perl told me.
" The Key of who?" I asked, thoroughly confused. I didn't understand what was going on.
" Set! You know, the Egyptian god?" Perl cried, angered by my ignorance. I nodded like I understood, even though I didn't. I figured Yami would explain it to me later. Supposing I made it to later. " You're Key is the Key of Ma'at. The Goddess of Judgement. The feather that they weighed people's hearts against on the Scales was hers." Perl told me. " The person who holds the Key of Ma'at is known as the Judge."
" And what are you?" I asked, instinctively fearing her answer. She grinned maliciously as she did answer.
" The Destruction. You're Ma'at's Judge, I'm Set's Destruction." She told me. I shivered. If I was only a judge of some kind, what chance did I stand against Destruction? " There's a Key for every Egyptian God. They can only exist one on every plane. It's impossible for more than one to exist for an extended period of time on a plane with another." Perl went on to explain. I gritted my teeth and steeled myself.
" What do you want?" I asked slowly.
" I came to meet you. And change the future." Perl said. " I always wondered what you were like in this time. Dad just told me you were sweet." She said. I stared at her.
" What?" I asked, not comprehending.
" I'm your daughter." Perl told me.
*+*+*Ryou*+*+*
I had begun to wonder if someone up there liked making a mockery of us. We knew something was wrong. The questions were what and where.
I've always been sensitive to passing time. I'm the kind of person who always has an idea of what time it is, even without a watch. It annoys my yami, even though he finds it a useful attribute when both of us forget to wear a watch. Yami, Yugi's yami, thinks sensing time might be my talent. Which would be great. A talent is hard to find, and that would make me the first light to have a defined talent. Yugi and I rarely use our abilities, and if Yuki has a talent, she can't control it.
So it makes sense that I felt time being distorted. Something was not right. Time had been twisted back in such a way that it wasn't natural. You see, time, like everything else, exists in planes. Layers, if you will. And it doesn't flow constantly in one direction, like the common assumption says. It flows outward, like a tree, each branch going off into new branches. Every choice we make takes us onto a new branch, and possibly onto a new plane. There are planes of existence out there where people live and exist just like this one. There might even be another me there. But something is different because one person made one different decision. With that knowledge, it's common sense to say that there are infinite plains, right? Wrong. There aren't infinite plains. But there are a whole lot.
Aside from my sense of time, I was picking up large amounts of energy being given off not too far away by two people. One was most definitely Yuki. She shows up as cerulean blue on my scans. I was also picking up a familiar disturbance nearby. I was used to sensing only five other people with abilities like mine. Now I was sensing eight. Scratch that. Nine. Another one just popped up. And another. That made ten other people. I couldn't believe it. Four new, unknown people with abilities were slowly drawing closer to Yuki and Yami's location. And in Himeko's book, that was cause for panic.
" Yami's car is gone!" she cried, running in out of the pelting ran, her wet hair clinging to her face. It was easy to why my yami thought she was beautiful. I'd always thought of both Yuki and Himeko as very beautiful girls. And even soaking wet, Himeko was still a picture of grace and beauty. Not sense.
" Well, Himeko, if Yami goes anywhere, how does he get there?" Kaiba asked, annoyed. " He drives." He answered himself. It was good to have Kaiba back, the way he was supposed to be. The markings of exhaustion were plain on his face, but he still managed to be his sadistic, morbid, easily annoyed, yet somehow calming self. No matter how bad the situation, Kaiba was never panicked. Shocked, angry, perhaps even a little scared, but never panicked. And that coolness, the calmness, seemed to calm the people around him. Himeko was calming down because of him.
" I'm-I'm j-just so s-scared!" she moaned. " I h-hate this stupid s- stutter!" she added angrily.
" Well, anyone know how to operate a car?" my own yami asked, sheepishly grinning.
" Oops. I was s-supposed to read th-that manual, wasn't I?" Himeko asked. Yugi laughed sheepishly.
" Me too." He agreed. " I totally forgot to read the manual for the test."
" I haven't actually got a license yet, but..." Kaiba said, trailing off his voice.
" Good enough! L-let's go!" Himeko cried, running out into the rain again.
" At least she didn't pass her impulsiveness to Yuki." I mumbled.
" Obviously, you haven't seen Yuki plan a meal." Kaiba told me. Finally, we all managed to pile into a Rolls Royce Kaiba got from goodness knew where. It wasn't exactly a comfortable fit either. Those cars were made for luxury and style, I discovered, not for carrying five distraught teenagers. And Kaiba was driving. Now, don't get me wrong. Kaiba drives fine. He was actually a very good driver for someone who had never driven without a licensed driver in the front seat. The problem was, he was just a mortal, and had no scanning sense to help him navigate. And it was very dark. And rainy. And the roads were slick. And since everyone scans differently, Himeko, my yami, Yugi, and I were all yelling out different instructions. Kaiba pretty much tuned Himeko out, because she was yelling contradictory things like "G-go left! Go r-right! S-stop! Go!" and all that. My yami was no help either, because half his breath was spent calming Himeko down. Yugi, in the front seat, and I, crammed against a window in the back and constantly getting elbowed in the face by my larger yami, ended up coordinating our efforts and did eventually get us all to the field where the unknown powers of the world were beginning to gather.
I sensed power. Himeko and my yami both fell silent. Even Kaiba had to feel the prickling in the air, the crackling energy. There had never been a gathering like this. And so few were visible. I could see Yami, and through the rain, vague shapes moving. Yami turned to see us and motioned for us to be quiet. We approached him, all of us walking on our tiptoes. Everything was silent. Everyone in the clearing was waiting for someone else to make the first move. Just sort of feeling everyone else out, trying to figure everything out. Someone stepped on a stick and it cracked, and everyone jumped. Clear across the field, a girl yelped. In the middle of the field, Yuki was face to face with another girl, with brown hair. Both of them were soaking, but so was everyone else. Lightning flashed, lighting up the shadows for one brief moment. Flashes of blonde hair, grayish eyes, white cloth, and gold met my eyes. I blinked, sensed the power and the danger that came hand in hand with it, and moved closer to my yami. Something big had just happened. I studied Yuki's face through the rain as best I could. It was blank and her eyes were wide, as though someone had just delivered a great shock. There were whispers to my left, but when I looked, no one was there. Yami growled, pulling Yugi and Himeko to him protectively.
" The powers of your time and plain are gathering, Mom. What are you going to do?" the brown haired girl asked.
" Mom?" I whispered incredulously.
" Last I checked, she was just a sister. Not a mom." Yugi muttered. Yami hushed us all. It was a long, thick silent moment before Yuki responded.
" I don't believe you're my daughter." She said quietly. " And I'll prove it. If anyone can beat me, my daughter could. So let's go!" Yuki cried. And the battle that would shape the world began, right there, in a flash of lightning. And all the while, all of us in the field crept close to each other, including the hidden people. Eight pairs of eyes remained glued to the two in the field, in awe. There was more to be revealed. More secrets, more betrayals, more lies. And the battle had only just begun.
A/N: Wow. That was really pointless. I didn't want to start the battle yet. I wanted to make everybody sweat. Did I? A new contest! No one got the five hundred points from last time. v_v So, here's your new question! For five hundred points... If Perl claims to be Yuki's daughter, then why does Yami have to die, according to Perl? And if that's too hard, here's an easier one... Who are the people in the shadows? Count 'em up and use your YGO knowledge! Well, don't forget to review and tell me what you think. This saga coming to a close, and I think I've got a pretty good mini-saga. Of course, you all will be the judge of that. Till next time!!!
By: Rogue Fox
Part Nineteen... Twisting Time
A/N: I'm soooo sorry for the long wait! I'm fighting off writer's block so please please be patient. I'm really trying. In the mean time, somewhere in the next two weeks, keep your eyes open for a really dumb, really sappy, romantic "experiment" from me. ... What? I need something to keep the mean writer's block away!!! I hate the stupid thing, I really do. But I can't stop writing on it!!! It's an obsession! It's also a yaoi. v_v I'm experimenting. So leave me alone. Anyway, please be patient and don't come after me with torches and pitchforks!!!
*+*+*Yuki*+*+*
I smiled softly at Seto as he slept. He looked so peaceful there, so without worries. When he slept, he seemed safe and happy. Soon he would wake, and he would smile at me and get on with his life in spite of what he had gone through. That was part of our life. Bad things happen. The trick is to get up the next morning and get on with it, despite all the bad things. Seto was good at that. He stirred softly and I smiled again. Here was my friend, my best friend. He had stood beside me always, always there for me, always supporting me in my time of need.
I remembered the night my mother died. In sorrow and despair I dialed his number, desperate to hear his voice across the distance that separated us. When he spoke, he was soothing and gentle. I knew no one else heard him speak like this, save Mokuba. I sat down on the bed, absorbed in my own thoughts. When Yami Bakura came raging in with the intent of taking me captive, didn't Seto try to come to my rescue? When Machiko was about to slit my throat, wasn't it Seto's voice that woke me up? Now, in the face of his own threat, I wondered what he had done to try to protect us all from Nen. So much suffering... What was the point? So many people suffer every day, so many children cry. What was the point? All the death, the pain, the blood... It was all pointless. And my own life... Cut short because of something I can't control. How many more people would cry needlessly? What was the point of living if you're only going to die?
Seto groaned beside me and I snapped from my morbid thoughts. He smiled at me as he rose to full consciousness.
" What time is it?" he asked groggily. I looked at his bedside clock.
" Almost ten at night. Relax, everything's fine." I murmured softly, giving his hand a comforting squeeze.
" That was scary. Is that what it was like? Someone always there, just taking control?" he asked suddenly. I sighed.
" Yes, that's what it was like. It is scary." I agreed, remembering the terror when Himeko first took control, both my own and hers. I took a deep breath to quell the unreasonable fear that rose up. Then I felt it. First, it was Yami's absence from the immediate area that alarmed me. Then, it was a presence, not far away, that attracted my attention. All conscious thought ceased. I was attracted to that presence like a moth to a candle. I needed to be near it. I had never felt anything like it. An unreasonable attraction, as undeniable as breathing. I rose from the bed and walked out the door, Seto's cries falling on deaf ears.
*+*+*Perl*+*+*
I could feel them approaching. She was coming. The one I had been waiting to meet. Yami called her Yuki. Yuki. The one I was waiting for. One of the two I was searching for. I wondered, was she the past form of... I wondered what she looked like. Like Himeko? Did she have Yami's majestic eyes? Or perhaps she didn't look like them. Excitement bubbled up inside of me in the form of butterflies in my stomach. I felt the undeniable attraction. The attraction of one power to another. The attraction of one of ours to another. The attraction that marked our kind.
*+*+*Yami*+*+*
I almost wrecked, when I saw her. Perl. Standing in a field on the side of the road, staring out into the darkness expectantly. I slammed on my brakes, and I was out of the car before it completely stopped.
" Perl!" I cried, wiping the stinging, almost frozen rain off my face. She was dressed in her normal skirt and button up shirt, completely soaked. I ran up to her and shook her shoulders, my earlier apprehension forgotten. " Perl! What are you doing out here in the rain?! You'll catch your death!" I cried, trying to pull her to my car. I was shocked when she didn't even budge. Her gaze was strange, sort of detached. I turned suddenly, sensing someone else approaching us. " Yuki!" I cried, both relieved and even more frightened. " Yuki, what the hell is going on here?" I asked. But even as I spoke, I saw the golden tint to her eyes, gradually growing stronger with every step she took. Perl started walking as well. They both walked toward each other, stopping every few steps to observe the other. " It's like a ritual. An acceptance ritual." I realized. Finally, the two started to circle each other, neither one breaking the eye contact. They completed three counter clockwise circles, always going slowly, neither one seeming to acknowledge the driving rain that was making me quiver viciously, and both of their gazes locked on the other. It was a ritual, every movement with its own special meaning. Finally, as they completed the third circle, the two stopped. They both raised their left hands and approached each other, until their hands almost touched. Then they both stopped, as though having a moment of doubt. Finally, they both seemed to steel themselves, and, in unison, they took the final step and pressed their hands together.
The boom was deafening. It wasn't a true noise, but I felt it all the same. I felt like someone had wrenched my soul from my body and wrung it out, stretched it, and sliced it to shreds. Like someone had inflated it until it burst. There's not much that can rival that kind of pain. Thousands of miles away, other Millennium Item holders or past holders later told me that they too felt that boom. Back at the mansion, Himeko, Yugi, Ryou, and Bakura all were knocked off their feet. Every single person I knew of that had anything like my abilities felt the same pain. And I could only imagine it from Yuki's point of view.
When true awareness returned to me, I was lying on my back, rain splattering on my face. I was disoriented and still trying to deal with echoes of that pain. I let out a string of curses, all in Egyptian. When I did finally manage to get to my feet, cold, wet, and muddy, the sight that greeted me wasn't exactly warming. Standing about ten feet apart and opposite each other with a large circle of barren, smoking earth between them, was Perl and Yuki. What kept me from barging in there, I'll never know. Instinctively I knew that this was a ritual, pre-ordained since before time. No matter what I did, they would continue. This was their purpose, their destiny.
*+*+*Yugi*+*+*
Have you ever been around a plane that just did a sonic boom? Think about that huge boom that rocked your insides. Now try to multiply its force by about a thousand. You're still not even close to the force of the boom that hit Ryou and I as we sat calmly in the living room of the mansion. It knocked us both over. Right off the couch.
The pain was unbelievable. Colors exploded in front of my eyes, even though I had squeezed them tightly shut. And even though I instinctively curled into a ball to protect my gut and clenched my head in my hands, it wasn't a physical pain. My soul, my essence, my very being felt like it was being run through a press and then one of those slice and dice machines. Flashes of images, faces, snatches of conversations flew through my mind, even though I was far from comprehending anything other than the pain. I vaguely saw my mother, whom I could barely remember, holding me.
When I snapped out of my funk, I was laying on the floor, curled up into a ball. The entire mansion had gone silent. Then, the back door slammed open. Ryou and I nearly had heart attacks as it did. Himeko and Bakura stormed into the room, both of them randomly babbling, Himeko in Egyptian and Bakura in a language I didn't recognize. Finally, Himeko remembered to speak Japanese.
" What... What... What the hell?!" She finally managed to ask. I shook my head numbly, too dazed to do anything else. Bakura said something in that strange language, and Ryou said something in English. No one was really thinking. It took about five minutes for everyone to calm down.
" That was freaking scary!" Ryou shrilled. I nodded enthusiastically.
" Forget scary. I thought I was dying. Again!" Bakura cried.
" I was wishing I would die and be done with it." Himeko muttered.
" What the hell was that?" I asked.
" I've never felt anything like it!" Himeko protested angrily. She was scared. We all were, but yami's, I've noticed, tend to react to fear with anger.
" God, I thought someone was carving me open." Ryou muttered, leaning heavily on the couch for support.
" Better question. How do we find out what the hell that was?" I asked. Himeko gave me a withering look.
" When something makes that big a boom, where does it usually come from?" she asked. " My dear little light." She added dryly. " Someone must have pissed her off really bad. I don't think she's ever done anything like that before."
" We'd better find her." Bakura said dutifully. And at that point, Kaiba came tearing down the stairs, struggling to pull on some socks.
" Kaiba! What are you doing up?" I asked.
" Yuki just walked out the door! I think something's wrong with her!" he cried. I wondered if he had felt the boom.
" Hey, where's Yami?" Himeko asked suddenly. Everyone froze.
" May whatever gods there are have mercy on our souls." Bakura said finally.
*+*+*Yuki*+*+*
When I was in pre-school, there was this boy who was bigger than me. He picked on me and stole my cookie at snack time. He called me wimpy and scaredy-cat. At first I did what Mama always told me to do and I ignored him. Then he started hurting me. When I came home, trying to hide a black eye from my parent, Papa took me aside to talk to me. I remember because Papa was rarely home, and I didn't often see him. He told me that it's good to try not to fight. But sometimes, the other person refuses to be ignored. Sometimes, like the boy at school, they won't stop until the person they're being mean to, like me, either fights back or gets really hurt. Papa told me that I was being a very good girl, trying not to fight, but he and Mama didn't want me to get hurt. So, the next day, when the bully came to hurt me, I fought back. It wasn't much of a fight, and I didn't win. It was more like one of those frantic dust balls you see on cartoons. I got sent to the principal's office and I got punished, but not as bad as the bully did. And he never picked on me again. But best of all, I felt good about myself, because I fought back.
Then, when I was in junior high, there was a girl in my grade that nobody liked. For the first few years, I couldn't figure out why nobody liked her. She was nice and pleasant. She wasn't like a lot of the other girls in our grade, who were too busy flaunting their new-found sexuality to be nice to anyone that wasn't of the opposite gender. Then, when I was in eighth grade, Zack told me that all the other kids teased her and were horrible to her because her dad was an alcoholic and her mom had to work two jobs to support the family. I didn't think that was fair. It most certainly wasn't her fault. Zack had to explain it to me a few times before I had it down. Why people are mean to other people is beyond me. I just can't grasp the concept. There was one particular cheerleader who was notably more vicious to the poor girl than the others. One day, she told my friend that she would grow up to be a prostitute like her mom. My friend cried and ran from the room. I didn't know what a prostitute was, and I'm still not exactly sure. But I figured it must have been bad. That night, I went over to my friend's house, even though it was small and often smelled of alcohol. It was quiet, and I thought it must be because her father was passed out on the couch and she didn't want to wake him up and make him mad. I went into her room, which had once been a storage closet, so there was a rod across the room where coats had once been hung. I found her there. She had hung herself from the rod. Her mother and I were the only ones that came to her funeral. Zack and Sarah waited for me outside the funeral home, but they didn't go in. The police found her mom a week later, dead from a self- inflicted wrist wound in a back alley. I decided then that I would never let anyone hurt my friends ever again, whether it be emotionally or physically. I went to school after her funeral, and for the first time in my life, I took revenge. It wasn't for me, it was for my friend. I beat the snot out of the cheerleader who had been so mean. I cried as I beat her up, and I told her I hoped she hurt as much as my friend hurt. I hoped she never stopped hurting. They suspended me from school for three days, on counts of provoked assault. When Seto asked me why I did it, I told him that no one had the right to make others hurt so much.
Hurting is pointless. I shouldn't have beaten that girl up, even though it was her fault that the world lacked one wonderful girl and a loving mother. I know that. But I did. Pain and death... They're all so pointless. Life seems pointless, if you're only alive to put new people in your place and die to make room for them, so they can do the same and carry on this never- ending pointless cycle. And in the back of my mind, I knew my own life was cut short. I was robbed. Would I even be able to bear children? And my friend, the girl everyone hated for no reason... What was the point of her death? What was the point of her pain? Destiny is a joke, I realized. There's just no point. There are people out there who think they're better than everyone else, that they have the right to judge. No one does. It's just so pointless, and it makes me feel so empty.
Maybe that's why I plunged headfirst into that battle. I was looking for something with a meaning, a point. And it felt right for me to fight this fight. Even though I wasn't willing to admit it right then, destiny was no joke. There was a point to this.
I'm different. I'd accepted that fact. I'd accepted the fact that I was not like anyone else, and I was never going to meet someone like me. I was never going to meet another person who knew what it was like to hold that Key in their hands. I was never going to meet someone who knew the power. So you can imagine how it rocked my world when I touched the brown-haired girl's hand.
I was told later that the boom was enough to shatter a soul. But I didn't feel it. I felt something soft, gentle. I felt another soul. A soul like mine. A soul with power. The contact between us was a bond. But with that bond came knowledge. It was our purpose to always seek each other out, to look for each other, and to do battle. To test each other and discover who was stronger.
" The Judge..." The girl murmured. I gave her a curious look, aware for the first time since I had left Seto's room. We had ceased the contact. Too much would kill us both, we both knew that without being told.
" Who are you?" I asked, tensing myself. I sensed danger here. I knew a fight was coming, and she wouldn't catch me by surprise.
" My name is Perl. You're Yuki." She said easily.
" How do you know my name?" I asked suspiciously.
" Yami told me." Perl answered.
" Yami?" I asked, turning my head to see him standing there. Somehow, I had known he was there, although I couldn't remember actually looking over there and seeing him.
" You're the Judge, right?" Perl asked me suddenly.
" I'm nobody's judge." I responded.
" Show me your Key!" Perl requested. I straightened, mostly from shock.
" What do you know about the Key?" I asked.
" I have one too!" Perl explained, exasperated, flashing a golden Key in her hand. I didn't see it appear there, it was just there. As if rising to the challenge, my own Key appeared in my hand.
" I didn't know there was more than one." I muttered, looking down at it.
" Don't you know anything?" Perl asked.
" I know it's the Key of Ra!" I shot back, rising to anger. This girl grated my nerves.
" That's not the Key of Ra! Ra is so overrated." Perl growled. " Let me see it." She requested, crossing the space between us. " You dolt! That's the Key of Ma'at! Who told you it was the Key of Ra?" she asked. I shot Yami my best glare and he grinned sheepishly. Something hard hit me on the head. I saw another Key in my face. Mine was delicate and very ornamental. The Key Perl was holding was blunt and more squared off. " Meet the Key of Set." Perl told me.
" The Key of who?" I asked, thoroughly confused. I didn't understand what was going on.
" Set! You know, the Egyptian god?" Perl cried, angered by my ignorance. I nodded like I understood, even though I didn't. I figured Yami would explain it to me later. Supposing I made it to later. " You're Key is the Key of Ma'at. The Goddess of Judgement. The feather that they weighed people's hearts against on the Scales was hers." Perl told me. " The person who holds the Key of Ma'at is known as the Judge."
" And what are you?" I asked, instinctively fearing her answer. She grinned maliciously as she did answer.
" The Destruction. You're Ma'at's Judge, I'm Set's Destruction." She told me. I shivered. If I was only a judge of some kind, what chance did I stand against Destruction? " There's a Key for every Egyptian God. They can only exist one on every plane. It's impossible for more than one to exist for an extended period of time on a plane with another." Perl went on to explain. I gritted my teeth and steeled myself.
" What do you want?" I asked slowly.
" I came to meet you. And change the future." Perl said. " I always wondered what you were like in this time. Dad just told me you were sweet." She said. I stared at her.
" What?" I asked, not comprehending.
" I'm your daughter." Perl told me.
*+*+*Ryou*+*+*
I had begun to wonder if someone up there liked making a mockery of us. We knew something was wrong. The questions were what and where.
I've always been sensitive to passing time. I'm the kind of person who always has an idea of what time it is, even without a watch. It annoys my yami, even though he finds it a useful attribute when both of us forget to wear a watch. Yami, Yugi's yami, thinks sensing time might be my talent. Which would be great. A talent is hard to find, and that would make me the first light to have a defined talent. Yugi and I rarely use our abilities, and if Yuki has a talent, she can't control it.
So it makes sense that I felt time being distorted. Something was not right. Time had been twisted back in such a way that it wasn't natural. You see, time, like everything else, exists in planes. Layers, if you will. And it doesn't flow constantly in one direction, like the common assumption says. It flows outward, like a tree, each branch going off into new branches. Every choice we make takes us onto a new branch, and possibly onto a new plane. There are planes of existence out there where people live and exist just like this one. There might even be another me there. But something is different because one person made one different decision. With that knowledge, it's common sense to say that there are infinite plains, right? Wrong. There aren't infinite plains. But there are a whole lot.
Aside from my sense of time, I was picking up large amounts of energy being given off not too far away by two people. One was most definitely Yuki. She shows up as cerulean blue on my scans. I was also picking up a familiar disturbance nearby. I was used to sensing only five other people with abilities like mine. Now I was sensing eight. Scratch that. Nine. Another one just popped up. And another. That made ten other people. I couldn't believe it. Four new, unknown people with abilities were slowly drawing closer to Yuki and Yami's location. And in Himeko's book, that was cause for panic.
" Yami's car is gone!" she cried, running in out of the pelting ran, her wet hair clinging to her face. It was easy to why my yami thought she was beautiful. I'd always thought of both Yuki and Himeko as very beautiful girls. And even soaking wet, Himeko was still a picture of grace and beauty. Not sense.
" Well, Himeko, if Yami goes anywhere, how does he get there?" Kaiba asked, annoyed. " He drives." He answered himself. It was good to have Kaiba back, the way he was supposed to be. The markings of exhaustion were plain on his face, but he still managed to be his sadistic, morbid, easily annoyed, yet somehow calming self. No matter how bad the situation, Kaiba was never panicked. Shocked, angry, perhaps even a little scared, but never panicked. And that coolness, the calmness, seemed to calm the people around him. Himeko was calming down because of him.
" I'm-I'm j-just so s-scared!" she moaned. " I h-hate this stupid s- stutter!" she added angrily.
" Well, anyone know how to operate a car?" my own yami asked, sheepishly grinning.
" Oops. I was s-supposed to read th-that manual, wasn't I?" Himeko asked. Yugi laughed sheepishly.
" Me too." He agreed. " I totally forgot to read the manual for the test."
" I haven't actually got a license yet, but..." Kaiba said, trailing off his voice.
" Good enough! L-let's go!" Himeko cried, running out into the rain again.
" At least she didn't pass her impulsiveness to Yuki." I mumbled.
" Obviously, you haven't seen Yuki plan a meal." Kaiba told me. Finally, we all managed to pile into a Rolls Royce Kaiba got from goodness knew where. It wasn't exactly a comfortable fit either. Those cars were made for luxury and style, I discovered, not for carrying five distraught teenagers. And Kaiba was driving. Now, don't get me wrong. Kaiba drives fine. He was actually a very good driver for someone who had never driven without a licensed driver in the front seat. The problem was, he was just a mortal, and had no scanning sense to help him navigate. And it was very dark. And rainy. And the roads were slick. And since everyone scans differently, Himeko, my yami, Yugi, and I were all yelling out different instructions. Kaiba pretty much tuned Himeko out, because she was yelling contradictory things like "G-go left! Go r-right! S-stop! Go!" and all that. My yami was no help either, because half his breath was spent calming Himeko down. Yugi, in the front seat, and I, crammed against a window in the back and constantly getting elbowed in the face by my larger yami, ended up coordinating our efforts and did eventually get us all to the field where the unknown powers of the world were beginning to gather.
I sensed power. Himeko and my yami both fell silent. Even Kaiba had to feel the prickling in the air, the crackling energy. There had never been a gathering like this. And so few were visible. I could see Yami, and through the rain, vague shapes moving. Yami turned to see us and motioned for us to be quiet. We approached him, all of us walking on our tiptoes. Everything was silent. Everyone in the clearing was waiting for someone else to make the first move. Just sort of feeling everyone else out, trying to figure everything out. Someone stepped on a stick and it cracked, and everyone jumped. Clear across the field, a girl yelped. In the middle of the field, Yuki was face to face with another girl, with brown hair. Both of them were soaking, but so was everyone else. Lightning flashed, lighting up the shadows for one brief moment. Flashes of blonde hair, grayish eyes, white cloth, and gold met my eyes. I blinked, sensed the power and the danger that came hand in hand with it, and moved closer to my yami. Something big had just happened. I studied Yuki's face through the rain as best I could. It was blank and her eyes were wide, as though someone had just delivered a great shock. There were whispers to my left, but when I looked, no one was there. Yami growled, pulling Yugi and Himeko to him protectively.
" The powers of your time and plain are gathering, Mom. What are you going to do?" the brown haired girl asked.
" Mom?" I whispered incredulously.
" Last I checked, she was just a sister. Not a mom." Yugi muttered. Yami hushed us all. It was a long, thick silent moment before Yuki responded.
" I don't believe you're my daughter." She said quietly. " And I'll prove it. If anyone can beat me, my daughter could. So let's go!" Yuki cried. And the battle that would shape the world began, right there, in a flash of lightning. And all the while, all of us in the field crept close to each other, including the hidden people. Eight pairs of eyes remained glued to the two in the field, in awe. There was more to be revealed. More secrets, more betrayals, more lies. And the battle had only just begun.
A/N: Wow. That was really pointless. I didn't want to start the battle yet. I wanted to make everybody sweat. Did I? A new contest! No one got the five hundred points from last time. v_v So, here's your new question! For five hundred points... If Perl claims to be Yuki's daughter, then why does Yami have to die, according to Perl? And if that's too hard, here's an easier one... Who are the people in the shadows? Count 'em up and use your YGO knowledge! Well, don't forget to review and tell me what you think. This saga coming to a close, and I think I've got a pretty good mini-saga. Of course, you all will be the judge of that. Till next time!!!