Ave Maria

Been a long road to follow
Been there and gone tomorrow
Without saying good-bye to yesterday
Are these memories I hold still valid
Or have the tears deluded them?

She was Athena, a goddess of war, emerging from the flames, bathed in blood and dirt. Her eyes were wild but focused, daring the next man to step up and meet their demise at her metaphorical sword. Blonde hair was like ribbons, streaming every which way in the wind, forming a continuous halo that framed the sharp features covered in soot from the fire that raged behind her. She held a body close to her, dragging it to safety like a precious parcel, taking care to not harm it any further.

"She's beautiful," Jonouchi muttered, handing the magazine back to his sister who sat next to his hospital bed.

"You don't recognize her, do you?"

"Should I?"

"Geez…" Shizuka chided. "She's the Women's World Champion. She has dueled you before."

Jonouchi took another glance at the photo. He scanned his memory for someone looked like her. "I think I would remember beating someone as pretty as her."

"She beat you."

"Ah." Jonouchi sighed, leaning his head back into the pillows. "Was I humiliated?"

"I don't remember."

Jonouchi nodded, brushing his bangs out of his eyes. "Any reason why you bought this magazine?"

"Well, you said you were bored." Shizuka shrugged.

She was lying. She always was when she began to bite her lip. " When I asked for some entertainment, I am asking for some manga, not some magazine in a foreign language that I can't read!."

Her eyes lowered and he decided to pressure her into giving him some answers. "What is the real reason you bought me this magazine?"

"I thought you would be bored sitting here in the hospital all day," she mumbled.

"Why this magazine? Please don't lie to me."

Shizuka remained silent for some time, holding a silent conversation with herself over the merits of telling him the truth. Jonouchi had only just woken from his coma after a week and he didn't need to know what had led him into it. She was afraid he wasn't capable of handing it.

She looked up at him, and saw the hopeful gleam in his eyes. He was confused and desperately needing to get some answers. He trusted her to be honest with him and she was failing him.

"Jonouchi…we're not in Japan. This is America. I couldn't find anything you could read. This was the best thing I could find."

"Why are we in America?" He didn't remember and Shizuka immediately wished she hadn't started the conversation. The doctors had mentioned he might not remember certain things but to miss a segment of his life prior to the accident was painful to see. It would be a complete surprise to him when he found out, and have to relive the pain that would come from remembering.

"Tell me." He grabbed her hand and squeezed. It took all that she had not to just break down and cry right then and there.

"You had to duel here. So you came over here with a bunch of people to put on a show. Do you remember any of that?"

He shook his head and she sighed.

"Look at the front cover. That's why I bought it," she suggested.

He reached with his free hand to snatch the magazine off the coffee table. He examined it quickly and looked up at her. " What am I supposed to see?"

"Just look." He rolled his eyes at her and continued to search. He saw the pretty girl again and he wanted to say that was the reason she bought it but he knew it wasn't true. Not seeing anything, his gaze returned back to his sister.

"Look at the body."

The body that the girl was holding looked like a limp rag doll, limbs dangling, unable to support itself. Covered in blood, most of it centered on the foot and stomach, the body looked to be his age. Blonde…scruffy appearance…blue jeans, white tee…

Him.

He looked up to Shizuka who gave a curt nod, validating his fears. He sucked in breath, lifting up the sterile white sheets. He was scared to look but slowly, he peered under the sheet to see a stomach wrapped in bandages and a fat foot, tightly bound in red tinted gauze.

He screamed.

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She watched as the doctors sedated the terrified boy, who was unable to stop his screaming. To the casual observer, she appeared to look on passively but that was far from the truth. Every scream felt like someone was plunging a knife through her heart then twisting. Her face was blank, unreadable because she wasn't sure if she was allowed to revel her emotions. It wasn't like she had been friends with the kid. She was just a shadow in his life, always following him, a constant figure in his travels. She didn't matter. She wasn't welcome. But she found she didn't care. She wasn't talking to him, wasn't reminding him of what happened. She had every right to stare at the boy whose life she had saved. She deserved it.

"You should have just told him instead of hinting around the subject, " she spoke to the figure emerging from behind the door.

"It will break his heart if he knew the truth," Shizuka replied, taking a seat against the wall at the blonde's feet.

"It breaks one's heart more to not know the truth," she slid down to sit next to her.

"Mayhaps." Shizuka unzipped her purse and shifted through it to find some chocolate covered peanuts. She ripped open the pouch and after pouring some into the blonde's stretched-out hand, devoured them.

"I still don't know why you did it." Shizuka muttered, breaking the awkward silence that had filled while they had eaten.

"Neither do I."

"You must know. Why would you save the life of a complete stranger?"

"He wasn't a stranger."

"No, but he mine as well be. You never spoke to him before…"

"Why does it matter? Why does it matter that I saved him? Your brother is alive. He is alive while nearly everyone else there that day died. Shouldn't you just be happy that he is alive?" Her voice sounded agitated like she was annoyed. Shizuka suspected she had had to answer that question only too often.

"I am," she muttered. "I am grateful for what you did. I just…I need to understand. From what I got out of Kaiba…"

"Kaiba is useless."

Shizuka shot the older girl a dirty look for interrupting her again. " Kaiba mentioned…"

"You mean he stopped his superfluous ramblings of self-loathing?"

Shizuka glared, and the blonde mumbled an apology. " As I was saying, Kaiba said that Jou was stationed at the other end of the building than you. You were in a room right near the doors. You could have gotten out alive with no problem. You also had the time to save your friends' lives but instead you went the other direction for Jou. Why?"

"I…" she closed her eyes, pausing to compose an answer. " They weren't my friends."

"You were always seen with them." Shizuka shot back.

" There are no friends in Duel Monsters. Only foes needing to be destroyed."

"Why Jonouchi? Is he not your foe?" Shizuka repeated.

"He is."

"Then why did you save him?"

The blonde growled. " Why do you care? Is it not enough that your brother is alive?"

Shizuka didn't answer, and the girl climbed to her feet, gliding to the water fountain. She didn't take a sip of water, but instead let the water run over her scalp. Shizuka watched in interest as the blonde raised her head up, flipping her wet hair out of her eyes. She looked much calmer now, Shizuka realized and she hopped to her feet, strolling to stand next to Jonouchi's window aside the other girl.

"You could be like the hundreds of families out there who are preparing to put their sons and daughters into the earth, never saying how proud of them you were for the person they become," she whispered. "You could be one of the sisters who will never get to see their brother again, never apologizing for the stupid things you did for each other. You could be the girl who saw the only person she ever loved die, and now only in death, can you say the words, I love you.

"But you are not. You still have him. Does it matter why he survived? Is it so important that you know the reason to why God did not take him from you?"

"It is. He is not religious but I am. Everything that happens in life bad or good occurs for some reason. No one held his fate that day not even God. Only you."

One minute they were standing next to each other, a second later, the blonde had turned to face her, gaze pinning Shizuka literally to the wall. It hadn't occurred to her that the blonde was so much taller and muscular, almost the height of her brother. She was staring her down, and Shizuka gulped nervously.

"There. Is. No. God." She enunciated, nearly spitting in Shizuka's face. "If there was, nothing like this would have happened. He lived because I chose him to live. That is all. No hidden purpose. No other reason." The blonde was shaking with anger, and Shizuka feared that the blonde was going to slap her. She could see the hand on the hip, clenching and unclenching, and she prepared for the inevitable punch.

She heard a deep exhale and the taller girl backed away, trying to reign in her temper. Shizuka watched the blonde walk down the hall, and smiled slightly as the door for the stairs was opened and slammed ceremonially.

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His eyes opened then closed at the intrusion of sunlight in the room. He groaned and reached over to the window, being careful not to move his foot, and tugged the cord to shut the blinds. Only a thin strip of sunlight got through now, streaming across his lap and he turned the lamp on as he grabbed the magazine off the nightstand. It was the only link he had to an outside world and the only thing present that could fill in the blanks in his mind. It wasn't like he could ask the doctors what happened; they were highly unlikely to understand Japanese and he did not see Shizuka anywhere. He racked his brain for the time she had promised to return. He still couldn't remember it and he grabbed the magazine off the nightstand. He flipped to the center portion of it. It was a picture montage and he spotted himself in the first photo; the one with the blonde dragging him from the building.

He vaguely remembered her now that he was more awake as Kujaku Mai, infamous for her use of the Harpies. He had never formally met her despite that they were always competing in the same tournaments. But from what he had been told, her nature was similar to that of her monsters: beautiful and deadly. Even her features resembled that of a Harpy with seductive eyes and curvy frame. But something about the look she wore in the photograph said she wasn't nearly as weak as her looks indicated. It could have been that she was covered in blood, mostly likely little of it her own or the snarl she wore as her hand lightly lay on the gun that she had stuck in the waistband of her cut-off shorts. The decisive factor of her strength lay in the fact that his unconscious body was being dragged by her out of the rubble, and he knew for a fact he wasn't very light. He smiled at the photo, making a mental post-it note that he wanted to duel the girl. He was curious if he could actually beat her and he flipped the page, and flinched at the horror.

The second and third pictures were disgusting. It was a classroom with dead bodies littered among the books on a grimy checkered floor. Blood lay in puddles on the ground and was sprayed across the wall like an child's attempt at an abstract painting. People were lying everywhere, many faces frozen in fear as they were forced to witness their own deaths taking place.

Jonouchi wondered what had happened there. How did he tie into it? If the front picture and this one were the one and the same school, was this what gave him the foot wound? Was he being dragged from the battle that took place there? How did they all die? He didn't want to flip the page, afraid of what he might see, but the tug to understand lured him into turning the page.

Fourth picture was taken from a security camera, Jou judged, from its narrow perspective and the time date that sat in the lower right corner. It was slightly off-focus but he could see a figure in a white trench coat kneeling, clutching someone to his chest. Blood was soaking into the material and the mouth of the man was settled in a permanent howl of injustice. Jonouchi knew instantly that it was Kaiba. He almost didn't believe it; Kaiba never showed any emotion but he guessed that every stoic person had their limits before the emotional dam they held back broke.

He wondered what had caused Kaiba to break, and he focused on the figure lying in Kaiba's arms. He saw the identifying spikes and knew instantly it had to be Yugi. Only he wore all black with a single gold chain around his neck where a gold puzzle once dangled.

He swallowed, trying to remind himself that Yugi still might be alive. It was only a photo, freezing only a second of a life. Everything could change in the minute that followed it. But that second could be the one in which Yugi died.

Not wanting to dwell on that thought, he flipped to the next page, and then the next. All there was were pictures, picture after picture of people crying, of people dying, of people surviving. It freaked him out to see a picture of himself. It must have been when he had just gotten into the hospital because every exposed inch of skin seemed to be attached to some sort of tube, blood staining the white sheets. He felt oddly detached at seeing himself dying. It felt more like it was someone else and he turned the last page.

The entire mood of the photo screamed sadness seeing that it was in a graveyard. Fresh dirt lined the path, flowers plastered on every spare inch of the newly placed graves. Rain was falling as if to mourn the huge amount of life that had been lost that fateful day.

Mai was kneeling by one of the graves, tips of her white dress swimming in the muddy water. She was drenched from head to toe, dress clinging to her, its thin material exposing her black bra and thong. Normally Jonouchi would have stared at that image; it was one of the many sexual fantasies he had entertained in his daydreams over the years. But despite the provocative nature of the photo, the picture reached no other emotion in him but the despair that everyone around the world was feeling.

Her head was tilted to the sky, rain sliding down the delicate features, her own tears mixing with the rain so that it was impossible to tell where one began and ended. She seemed to be looking into the storm clouds, searching for the reason to why this all had to happened. It was singularly the most beautiful and powerful piece of artwork he had ever seen, and he regretted leaving that image.

Jonouchi expected for the pictures to end, but when he turned to the next page, all he could see was rows of tiny pictures streaming across the page. He couldn't read the names or the title of it, but he knew it had to be the photos of the people that had died. He felt sick and leaned over the garbage pail at the side of the bed in case he needed to puke. Though he gagged, he couldn't relieve the bile that had clogged up his throat, and he forcefully pulled himself up on the bed and went back to staring at the pictures.

A profound sadness filled him instantly. Though he never knew the thousands of teenagers whose pictures adorned the page, he felt like he knew them. They were like him, people with dreams and ambitions, who had their entire lives ahead of them. Their families would never get to see them again, and he exhaled, trying to get a grip on the emotions that were threatening to overrun him. He couldn't cry yet. He needed to know more.

In the corner were the duelists who had traveled with him to America.. Yugi was there, smiling, flashing a thumbs-up to the camera. Anzu was laughing. Honda was scowling at an invisible threat while Ryou looked lost and confused. They all looked so happy.

None of them would ever be doing that again.

"Those were twenty-five of us there that day." He set the magazine on his lap at the sound of a female voice.

He was surprised to discover it was Mai at his door and not his sister. Lime green jeans and an oversized black t-shirt clashed horribly with the bland décor of the room, and he pat the chair next to the bed, realizing after a minute that she wasn't going to move from the wall unless she was invited to.

She took a seat, moving the piles of books out of the chair, and he watched her play nervously with a chunk of her curly blonde hair. He had so many questions he wanted to ask but did not know where to begin and he didn't want to offend her. She smiled at him and he felt reassured that explaining was why she came.

He picked the thing that lay in the forefront of his mind. " Is Yugi alive?"

"You already know the answer."

That was right. He did know the answer. He just didn't want to accept it. But now, that he knew, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to feel. Should he be feeling relieved that he knew his best friend's fate? Should he cry because he really was gone? Why wasn't he angry over this? Why did he not feel angry? Shouldn't he be picturing horrific deaths on those who murdered the only person who had ever really cared about him?

All he felt was the questions that swirled around his mind and the numbness that was eating him alive. His body and mind felt like two separate entities, not connected so he would be protected from the weight of everything he once knew in his life crashing down upon him.

He knew he was staring through her, having nothing to respond with. She was fidgeting, uncomfortable with being scrutinized so closely, and finally she snapped her finger, pulling him out of his thoughts.

"It's okay to cry if you need to. I wouldn't think any less of you." She mumbled.

"I don't want to," was his answer and she changed her approach.

"Does it feel like it happened to someone else?"

Jonouchi glared at her. " I don't remember what happened so yeah. To me, it feels like a freakin fairy tale."

She winced at the harsh tone. " Fairy tales usually have happy endings."

"Does this one?"

"You're alive, are you not?"

"But he's not," he responded, the words slipping out of his mouth before he had time to screen

them.

The smile he got in return was sad, and he felt guilty. He should be rejoicing that he was alive, not acting depressed as if he was the one who had died. " I know I should be happy that I am alive, " he quickly added, trying to explain what he meant. " But I don't feel fully alive. There are pieces of my life that are missing within me."

"You didn't need to clarify. Your feelings are valid." She smiled at him. " Everyone else feels the same."

"Do you?"

"No. I didn't lose anything that I couldn't replace."

Again, the words were frigid and uncaring. He knew on some level, it should be bothering him. All their friends were dead and she wasn't fazed. But he didn't have the right to judge a person he had only met through pictures and through their current exchange of words. It had to be a façade. No one in the world could have that little feeling residing in his or her heart.

"I want to know what happened that day." He announced, breaking the interlude of silence.

She looked up to meet his expectant eyes " How much do you want to know?"

"Everything."

"Alright." Her eyelids flitted closed, and she sighed, beginning to process what happened so she could relay it clearly.

"We were doing an exhibition game at a high school, trying to spark some interest in the kids who lived outside Asia. Some kids showed up and began to shoot."

"Why…?" Jonouchi questioned.

"I don't know. The police said they had had plans to do it for some time. It isn't certain that they purposely coincided the attacks with our visit."

"Bastards."

"Yeah." She smiled almost wistfully.

"How many shooters were there?"

Mai raised an eyebrow, surprised by the question. "I think about twenty."

"And how many people were in the school?"

"Over a thousand…" she was uncertain about where the questioning was leading.

"Then why isn't there more people alive? Twenty people can't just kill that many people."

Mai exhaled slowly, she seemed to be doing a lot of that lately, and reached out to grab the magazine. She pointed to the front cover, pressing her nail against the section of the photo that was behind her.

"Bombs were placed around the school and when the gunmen realized that they weren't going to be getting out alive, they detonated them. Most people died, not because of being shot, but because they hid and locked the doors like they were told to if a shooting ever occurred. The fire spread and…" she trailed off.

"Who did survive that was in there?" Jonouchi asked. " Besides you and me."

"Kaiba,"

"Figures," he huffed. "How'd he…"

"His helicopter. He called for help after seeing Yugi go down. In his fit of rage, he took out the killers and anyone who dared to enter the room."

Jonouchi nodded, knocking Mai's hands away from the magazine so he could flip to the picture of Kaiba with Yugi.

"What happened here?" he asked.

"How should I know? It wasn't like I was in the room with them." She snapped, and immediately muttered an apology.

"You're the only one who can tell me how he died!"

"I am," she bowed her head in respect. " I am sorry for snapping. It's just hard sometimes to have to keep talking about it. The picture was taken right after Yugi died. Something broke in Kaiba, I think, and he started crying and screaming. His staff told me that he refused to move when they came to rescue him, and the only way they got him on the plane was by picking Yugi's body up."

"It's alright. I take it that you are the one who gets stuck telling everyone about it."

"Yeah. I have an interview I have to go to in a few minutes." She smiled.

"So how is Kaiba? Is he capitalizing on his mortality?"

"He hasn't left his mansion in Domino City. He's not speaking or working. Mokuba claims he lies around, staring at his hands. He only gets up to wash them."

He opened his mouth but she answered his unspoken question. " His hands are stained with Yugi's blood."

A buzzing noise went off and Mai hit a button on her watch. She stood up, straightening her t-shirt, and running her hand through her hand, ruffling it and checking it for snarls.

She walked to the door, stopping by the window to check her appearance. She must have been happy with what she saw because Jou saw her reflection smiling.

"Interview?"

She nodded, and turned to him. "Have a nice day, Jonouchi-san. If you have any thing you want to ask me or just need to talk, just ask for me,"

"Alright," he answered and she opened the door, slipping through it. He watched as the door slightly swayed as it began to close and he figured out what he had wanted to ask. "Wait!" he yelled.

He saw the window Mai stopping and he watched her open the door far enough that she could poke her head in. "What?"

"I survived because of you, right?" She nodded. "How'd you get out of there alive?"

"I don't die easily." Her smile was brilliant, words littered with confidence but somehow it didn't match her eyes. The violet shade was dead, and the door closed.

Is somebody out there beyond these heavy aching feet?
Still the road keeps on telling me to go on
Something is pulling me
I feel the gravity of it all