2.
"How long do you give her?"
"Oh, about eight seconds."
"That long, huh?"
Ryou blinked. "Your grandfather is really that good, Yuugi?"
"He's the best." Yuugi folded his arms. "He taught me everything I know."
"And the two of them taught me," Anzu added. Well, it was mostly true.
Ryou whistled. "In that case … I feel sorry for her."
"I don't."
Yuugi looked mock-sternly at Anzu. "That's a very uncharitable thing to say."
"She's a brat. A loud brat. One I wish would just go back to preschool where she belongs."
"I heard that!" A vision in puffy-sleeves and extraordinarily dreadful pigtails marched up behind them. She was at least a foot shorter than Ryou and Anzu, putting her level with Yuugi. Side by side, the two looked about the same age, though Yuugi was considerably older. "And I'll have you know that I never went to preschool. I am a child genius. A prodigy. As in, smarter than you'll ever be, you bunch of crooks."
Anzu rolled her eyes. "Here we go again."
"Look, Rebecca," Yuugi started, trying to be diplomatic as usual. "We already tried explaining to you. My Grandpa didn't steal that Blue Eyes White Dragon card, he was given it - "
"Put it in an envelope and mail it to a time I might care. You're cute, but you're part of a thief's bloodline."
Anzu bristled, and even Ryou looked uncomfortable. Yuugi, however, remained calm. It was one of his more disturbing qualities, borne of a time when he had his face mashed daily and got suspicious if someone didn't try to jump him at lunch. "I'll thank you not to talk about my family like that. A prodigy you might be, Rebecca, but well mannered you are not. You call attention to your immaturity by talking like that."
Rebecca screwed up her face, then pointed her nose in the air and stalked off with her teddy bear clutched to her chest. The three friends watched her go.
"Any advance on eight seconds?" Ryou murmured.
"If Grandpa doesn't, then I'll do it in three," Yuugi replied.
The dude in the cloak just didn't get it. If he'd been running from someone with shorter legs, like Yuugi, then he might have gotten away. But Anzu was a dancer. She'd spent years developing the muscles in her legs.
She caught him up with ease and cut him off as he tried to run down another tiny alleyway. "I don't know what your game is, chumley, but give me back my Puzzle."
The phoney fortune-teller held it away and tried to look intimidating. It might have worked, too, had she not been so furious with him for trying to steal something so important to her. Adrenaline made her temporarily numb to the very healthy fear of large men in dark alleys.
He took a step forward.
She stood her ground. "Give. It. Back."
"You want it?" He had a gravely voice, like he smoked sixty a day and then went home to eat Thai green curry.
"Haven't you been listening?"
"Then come get it."
She hadn't seen the little door behind him. He was heading for the warehouse district. Damn. There were a million and one places he could lose her there.
She took off without a second thought.
"I can't believe you were so reckless. You could have been killed! Or worse!"
"Jeez, Yuugi, don't be so melodramatic. It's not like the place was on fire or anything." She winced as antiseptic touched a cut. "Ow!"
"Hold still." Yuugi dabbed at her various hurts. They were in his room above his grandfather's store, and Anzu impulsively wondered what the old man would think if he walked in right now. Her tights were laddered, the knees gone, and she had her shirt off and clutched to her front while Yuugi took care of the shallow slice running diagonally across her back.
He'd flushed when he spotted the blood and realised she'd have to virtually strip to the waist for him to properly nurse her, but eventually concern had won out. Anzu wasn't the type of girl to worry that she was wearing one of her oldest, most unattractive bras – having a big bust meant lacy, pretty things just didn't work. She had to wear things that could double as car-seat covers, with thick straps, underwires that jabbed her sides and four little metal clasps at the back. Yuugi may go all googly eyed when girls walked past in short skirts, but he was her best friend, she reasoned. He didn't care what type of bra she wore, just that she was hurt and needed help that didn't involve lying about how she'd been injured.
"You don't need stitches, at least."
"Thank goodness. I'd hate to have to explain that away."
"Speaking of explaining, you still haven't told me exactly what you were doing with that weirdo to get so hurt. And please, don't treat me like a simpleton. I want the real reason – the one you're not going to tell everyone else." His touch was light, like a feather ghosting across her skin, but still firm enough that she knew there was no point in arguing.
Anzu sighed. "His name was Keith. I met him before, at Duellist Kingdom. Big guy. Broad shoulders. Lots of designer stubble. Really goes for that whole bad boy image."
"Oh. Are you two…?"
"Are we what?"
"Y'know… involved?"
"Huh? Oh, yuk, no! No! Absolutely not. The guy's a thug with the brain capacity of an amnesiac goldfish. Give me some credit, Yuugi."
"Oh. No, I didn't mean - " For all his bravado, she felt the room temperature creep up a few degrees from Yuugi's blush. "Sorry!" he squeaked. "I just thought … I don't know what I thought. I didn't mean to offend!"
"That's all right. I forgive you."
"So what - "
"He stole the Millennium Puzzle. I had to get it back."
"You fought him for it?"
"Close. We duelled. Then he went all psycho; talking to himself and tried to smash it. We scrapped a bit, and some cardboard boxes and metal rods fell on us. Then he got scared and ran off."
Yuugi was quiet for a moment. "You could've been really hurt trying to get this thing back."
Anzu suddenly realised he'd stopped dabbing at her, and was instead holding the Puzzle, which she had left beside her on the bedspread when he ushered her to sit down. He turned it over. Light reflected off it, casting a gold glow on his skin, and she abruptly wondered what would have happened had he never given her the Puzzle to solve; had he put it away and never got it out again, or else finished it himself.
"Well, I kind of had to."
"Had to?"
"What kind of friend would I be if I let something that valuable get broken just because I was too scared to fight for it?"
"The safe kind?"
Her smirk was brittle. "When have our lives ever been safe, Moptop?"
He looked up at the old nickname. "Hm. You may have a point there."
Anzu raised her head from her arms when something plunked on her desk. There was a polythene bag full of ... something, and it was staring at her. "Huh?"
"I made sugar cookies," Ryou said shyly. He inclined his head slightly, and she saw Yuugi taking his seat with a similar bag dangling from his fingers. "I ... thought you might like some."
"They're really good," Yuugi enthused, although he said it around a mouthful of baked goods, so it came out more it "Bair wheawhee gooff!"
Anzu opened the bag. It was tied with a little plastic clasp, of the kind commonly used to keep bags of frozen vegetables from spraying all over the inside of your freezer. "That's really nice of you, Ryou." The cookies smelled heavenly, banishing any Monday Morning Blues threatening her mood.A warm glow suffused her, and she felt Yami stir a little in curiosity.
Ryou scuffed his feet. "Well, y'know ... I just thought you'd both ... y'know." Ryou was kind without thinking about it, but their praise made him flush a little. "They're nothing special."
"You kidding? These are great!"
"Yuugi, stop stuffing your face or you'll throw up before class even starts."
"I don't care what you say. I'm not giving up ballet just because you don't like it."
"Stupid girl. We should be preparing for Kaiba's tournament instead of indulging in this … triviality."
"La la la, I'm not listening, la la la - "
"You haven't even examined your deck since your last match. Your card selection is getting stale."
"Because I've been busy. Groceries don't get themselves, you know. And it's not like the paintbrush was going to leap from the pot onto the ceiling on its own."
"Why couldn't your mother - "
"Mom's got enough to worry about." Since her father left, Anzu had found herself taking more and more responsibility around the house. She picked up the bills from the mat and made sure they weren't shoved behind the toaster. She noticed what needed fixing and replacing. She couldn't regulate the money her mother's job brought in, but she could make sure the groceries included stuff like bread and milk and not just chocolate and comfort food. The duelling was attractive insofar as the cash prizes were useful. And she really didn't care how mercenary that sounded anymore. Honest.
"And now this!" Yami exclaimed as though he was a newspaper reporter announcing that yes, some celebrity had done something stupid again, and oh shouldn't we all laugh and disparage them.
"Hey, this is important."
"How?"
"You may not like to think about it, Mr. Big Shot Duellist," Anzu took a breath as she walked, pacing her breathing to her steps so she wouldn't arrive at the studio gasping, "but Duel Monsters wasn't that big a part of my life before you came along. I have other things that are more important to me than some silly card game – ballet being one of them. People haven't left me alone since you opened that can of butt-kicking on Pegasus," she allowed herself a small smile at the thought of the gaming mogul being taken down a peg, and then shook it away, "so I'm not missing this. This is my last class before I have to go on hiatus. I need to make sure I'm not so out of practise I've developed big flaws in my technique."
Yami frowned. It made the backs of her eyeballs twitch, and she swore she could see him walking along beside her with arms folded – translucent and ephemeral as the germ of an idea that disappeared if you looked too hard at it. It was a big step. She'd barely been able to see him before Duellist Kingdom. It was as though he was becoming more separate from her, more his own person. It sparked a gratifying, yet strangely saddening feeling she didn't much care to examine.
"You haven't," he said at last.
"Excuse me?"
"I've watched you when you practise at school, in your bedroom, wherever. You haven't developed any glaring flaws."
"Oh, and you know this because you're an expert on ballet as well as Duel Monsters now?"
"I pay attention."
And suddenly she could picture him leaning against the barre as she practised a pas de chat with one of her class's only male students. She could see him perched on the piano like some 1920s singer as she doggedly twisted herself into fouetté after fouetté, his eyes big and dark and impossible. Yami always seemed like he was analysing more of this new world than he was enjoying.
"Oh." It was all she could think to say. "But … but I'm still going." Her voice climbed a few octaves, becoming shrill and insistent.
"As you wish. It isn't as though I can stop you."
He could. He could take over by force, like he used to do when she got so angry she felt like she could burst – and then did.
But he wouldn't. The realisation hit her like a car on a road she'd been crossing but hadn't been paying proper attention to.
Anzu stopped in the middle of the street. Yami stopped a pace later. She felt the sense of movement that was out of synch with her own. It made her feel giddy, like when she was a kid and spun around and around on the spot and then tried to walk in a straight line. She felt him looking at her, quizzically, maybe a bit calculatingly.
She was possessed of the same idea she'd played with a few times, that he had once been someone important – someone who knew how to order people around, but also how to manipulate them.
He'd saved her life before. He'd saved Yuugi's life, too.
"I'll only be an hour," she stated. "That's the best I can promise. We can go to Mr. Mutou's shop afterwards to see about some new cards."
"Thank you."
"Why are you staring at me?"
"Huh?" Anzu spat out the tip of her pen and noticed a splodge of blue on it. Swivelling in her chair, she reached across to her dresser in search of a hand mirror. "What did you say?"
"You keep staring at me instead of getting on with this 'home work' of yours. Considering it is so important to your modern educational standards, I should think you would pay more attention to it than you are."
"Oh. Well, it's not like it's important homework. Just a book report. I can churn one of these puppies out in half an hour."
Yami's scepticism uncoiled in her mind like a snake. "If it is so easy, then why do you keep neglecting it to stare at me? Why not simply finish it so you can do something and go somewhere more interesting?"
"Should've known you have a personal stake in wanting me to be a good student."
"Hm."
"I'm not staring at you."
"But you were."
"I was?"
"Indeed."
"Oh." The mirror revealed ink on her lips and front teeth. Anzu rubbed at them with the tip of one finger, but it didn't seem to do any good – expect turn her finger the same colour. "Hell. Not again." She yanked a tissue out of a box she kept for occasions just like this and scrubbed furiously at her mouth. "I wash jusht - hang on. I was just thinking about how much clearer you are now."
"Clearer?"
"Uh, visible. Able to be seen. You used to be just this voice in my head - this total figment of my imagination, but now you're not. I think."
He arched an eyebrow. He really did look a lot like Yuugi – though an older, harsher Yuugi. She'd always known he would, which was creepy by itself. How could you know what a person looked like before you ever saw them? You got an idea of what you thought they looked like – whether from hearing their voice, like with radio DJs, or from what they said, like with email-pals and people on Internet message boards – but those impressions were rarely correct. They were definitely never as accurate as her mental image of Yami had been.
"I'm quite sure that, if you'd imagined me into existence, I would have known about it."
"I think I should be afraid that's something I'll have to tell my shrink someday."
"Hello?"
"Anzu!"
"Yuugi? What are you doing, calling me at this hour? I only just beat my mom to the phone, and she's not happy about getting out of bed while she's all flu-y."
"Uh, Anzu? I have a sort of ... problem."
"Uh-oh. What kind of problem?"
"Hang on ..."
"Yuugi, who's there with you? Why can I hear voices I know don't live at your house?"
"Anzu?"
"Ryou? What are you - where'd Yuugi go?"
"He's just seeing to Mokuba."
"Mokuba? As in Mokuba Kaiba? He's there, too? What, did you guys organise a party and not invite me?"
"I don't think this is any party you'd like to be involed in. But Mokuba's been asking for you, and he didn't know where you lived, so he came here, only he's kind hurt from squeezing out of the air vent and he just keeps talking about his brother and you and needing your help because you're the one who helped so much before-"
"Whoa, Ryou, slow down. Deep breaths. Now, start from the beginning. What's going on?"
"It seems Seto Kaiba is having trouble with a new video game his company's been developing. He used himself as a test subject, only something went wrong. Now Mokuba thinks some business associates are trying to kill him. Anzu? Are you still there?"
"I'll be over as soon as I can."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me just yet. I'm charging you to stop me from kicking Seto Kaiba in the nuts when I see him."
After Burger World, Anzu had got a part-time waitressing job at a café by the freeway on the very edge of Domino. She worked some evenings and Saturdays, no fixed hours but with great pay for someone her age. During her shifts she served fry-ups to randy HGV drivers who filled the greasy air with cigarette smoke and sexual innuendo. Hiding her embarrassment, she'd laugh at their dirty jokes and concentrate on counting her tips.
Long distance lorry drivers were generous tippers and she was glad of the money. It meant that she could still put some aside for her Manhattan plans while giving some to her mother for housekeeping each month. With such a crowded schedule (because of course teachers wouldn't give less homework just because she was participating in another of Seto Kaiba's famous quirks), her ballet was down to once a week by the time Battle City came around – yet another reason she wasn't willing to sacrifice it on Yami's whim.
She'd learned from her hasty exit at Burger World. Before Kaiba's tournament started, she asked her boss for time off. She was a good worker, never late, never rude, and never left until all the clean-up chores were done. He let her go, even though she couldn't say when she'd be back. The standard of competition was going to be intense. She could be knocked out in the first round for all she knew.
"I doubt it," Yami said.
"Of course you doubt it. You're so self-confident you're smug."
"Self-confidence isn't a negative thing. It breeds self-worth."
"My point exactly."
"Yuugi has more self-worth since he gained more self-confidence. Are you saying this is a bad thing?"
"No …"
"Then what are you saying?"
"I'm just trying to get at you."
"Why?"
"Because."
"You can be very irritating."
"I'm so glad you noticed. I've been working on it."
She was walking from one stop to another for her changeover bus. Thanks to her mother's new status as a single-parent in a low income household, Anzu had qualified for a free bus pass this year, which made working across town much easier – not to mention cheaper. The short walk involved passing the museum, which she didn't really pay that much attention to when Yuugi or his grandfather weren't around.
Yuugi had inherited a little his grandfather's love of ancient history, reading up on bits of it to go into his artwork. He'd really blossomed since that charcoal second prize, much to the delight of their teacher, and with no bullies to bother him anymore he could walk around with his portfolio-folder and no fear of losing all his work.
She was only entering Battle City because he was. Her guilty protective streak again. How predictable. Of course, the publicity couldn't hurt – much. She got a couple of local newspaper and gaming magazine interviews after Duellist Kingdom, and she'd learned that those who chased were those who paid for the privilege of an 'exclusive'. After her impromptu defeat of the young tycoon Otogi Ryuuji – a national favourite with both readers and journalists because he was rich, pretty, and didn't try to punch photographers when they got too close – the glossies got involved. The attention was fleeting, but the money had lasted, and she'd only had a couple of offers for nudes. Anzu had binned those straight away, and invested in a Venetian Blind for the bathroom window.
The pulling sensation started somewhere around her kidneys and tugged insistently. She stopped, pressing her fingers into her abdomen, and then realised Yami was no longer by her side. She whirled to see him staring up at the museum, an odd look on his face.
"Yami?"
"Ishtar, actually," said a husky alto. There was a woman at the top of the steps leading into the foyer. She wore a long robe and beads in her hair, and looked totally alien to her surroundings. Her smile was formal but pleasant. "Isis Ishtar." Her head didn't move, but her eyes shifted to the spot where Yami was standing – and stayed there as though she could see him.
Anzu's throat tightened for no rational reason than she could think of. She swallowed. "Uh, I'm Anzu. Anzu Mazaki," she said, walking in front of Yami. Shielding him? Maybe. Something about this woman unnerved her. Her eyes were a little too knowing, a little too … familiar. Not familiar the way Yuugi's eyes were familiar, or Mrs. Mazaki's, or even Grandpa Mutou's, but familiar like she knew more than she should about things that didn't concern her.
Anzu felt Yami's surprise radiate behind her.
The woman's gaze came back to Anzu and she started down the steps. Her smile didn't change, but a wrinkle started up between her eyebrows. "You are … not quite what I expected, Miss Mazaki."
"Excuse me?"
"Ah, but the little one is still a part of the tapestry. I see." She nodded.
"Good, because I don't."
"Would you like some tea? I have things to show you both. Some answers to questions you have."
Both. Shit. There were no other people around.
Yami's hand on her shoulder was like a cobweb clinging to her jacket. "I think we should."
Anzu frowned, asking 'why?' with her body language.
"This woman has a Millennium Item. Look, around her neck."
Once you'd come across a couple of Millennium Items, it was impossible not to recognise their unusual aura. Something about them made them stand out from regular things – some sense that what you saw what not necessarily what you got. Anzu told herself she would have noticed the ugly necklace eventually. She would've.
Her frown deepened, but she was curious despite herself. Sighing, she acquiesced. "All right."
Anzu stared at the ceiling of her cabin and wished there were some cracks to count. It would have helped distract her mind, which had become a soup of bile and apprehension after the events of the day. Tomorrow the official blimp matches would begin, and as she'd predicted there was some stiff competition – as well as a few familiar faces.
She sat up and scrubbed at her eyes.
"Can't you sleep?"
"Huh?"
Yami was sitting on a chair near the door, arms and legs crossed. His outfit mirrored what she'd been wearing that day – faded jeans, loose white shirt and scores of thick bangles on either arm. Unlike hers, however, his shirt was not knotted at the chest to make it shorter. Whatever she wore, when he appeared as a spirit he applied a dose of masculinity to her choices. Sometimes he thought she'd like to wear something really tasteless and vulgar, maybe something short and spandex and totally out of character for her, just to see what he'd do.
Anzu looked at her hands. Her self-done manicure was all shot to hell, nail polish chipped away and covered over with a fresh coat that formed horrible lumps and bumps. "No. Too keyed up, I guess." She circled her knees with her arms. "I never expected Otogi to tag along after what happened. He's supposed to hate Duel Monsters."
"It is said that hatred is simply love with its back turned."
"Maybe. But I think he just wants a piece of Malik for kidnapping him and tying him to that chair. You know the Rare Hunters who did it wrecked his car, right?"
"I do. I was there when he told us."
"Oh, yeah. Well, he really loved that car."
"I know that, too. It was a 1956 Belvedere GTX, bought at auction, the restoration of which he used as a form of catharsis when the pressures of modern commerce threatened to overwhelm him."
Anzu blinked. "I didn't hear him say that."
"You have to listen to what people don't say to understand them."
"Uh … sure." She fiddled some more with the flaky polish on her index finger. "Listen, aren't you, y'know, nervous?"
"Not really."
Of course not. What had she been thinking? "Well I am. That Malik guy gives me the creeps."
Yami left it a few seconds before answering, slowly; "A keeper of a Millennium Item should be honourable. I think. Not like the keepers we've met so far."
"I don't know. Ryou's honest, Isis Ishtar gave us all that useful info, and that Shadi guy didn't seem too bad. I mean, apart from the whole 'no respect for personal boundaries' thing. But comparably, he wasn't as evil as Pegasus or Malik."
"True." He shook his head and let a breath out through his teeth. "But the Spirit of the Millennium Ring wasn't honourable at all. And I sensed no spirits in the items held by Pegasus or Malik. Why not? What significance is it that the Items are starting to reappear now, at this time, in these places?" He made a frustrated noise and scowled. "I'm tired of not understanding these things."
"What things?" Yami was usually so cagey. Having him open up a bit might be enlightening. If she couldn't get to sleep, then at least she'd have something to think about aside from her own fretfulness.
"This world. This … strangeness. It's too different from what it ought to be."
"You're starting to remember your past?" Isis Ishtar's words came flooding back; as well as the look of frustration on Yami's face when he tried to put her words to something personal and couldn't.
"No."
"Oh. Not even a little bit?"
"It isn't remembering. I simply think that the world has changed a lot since I was last in it, based on my reactions to things when I first encounter them."
"How very scientific of you."
Yami snorted. "People have been using magick for millennia. And yet, in this era, the world has become too condescending to believe in such a thing. Magick? Reduced to trickery and deception; sleights of hand and nothing more. That world … makes me uncomfortable. I prefer the world you fell into when you solved the Puzzle."
"Yeah, the one that keeps trying to kill me."
"That is unfortunate, but unavoidable. Magick carries an intrinsic degree of danger with it. But the world of magick … it suits my frame of reference. And the other world – your normal world – isn't exactly safe, either. Humans don't need magick to be capable of great evils."
"Are you done with your soapbox now? I need to make a race car from it."
Yami blinked. "What are you … ah. A cultural reference." She felt him slip the file marked 'childhood pastimes' back into its place in her mental filing cabinet. Somehow it wasn't as invasive as she'd worried it might be when she first asked how he'd picked up the language and details of her life so fast. Yami respected the boundaries in her head, staying away from those things she kept under lock and key. She imagined a big padlocked box that she could shove all her personal crap into, with Yami on the outside and nothing but a bedfellow of dead air on the inside.
Silence fell. Yami closed his eyes, but there was no way he was asleep if she could still see him. Anzu watched him for a second, and then, when no further conversation seemed forthcoming, flopped back against her pillow.
The digital clock read 3:13 a.m.
She wished the ceiling had some cracks she could count.
"You'd think that with a blimp this size, there'd be at least one kitchen."
Kaiba was an irritating bastard. Not only did his behaviour rankle her while awake, its pure exasperation factor was now keeping her up at night, too. If her traitorous brain replayed his 'I'm-the-best-and-that-means-better-than-you-Mazaki' speech one more time, she was going to find his room and set fire to his mattress, just so she had something to replace the sound with. No doubt he would make some involuntary surprised noise, swish his pyjamas (what was the betting he wore a long swirly bed-jacket over the top?), and then launch into a declaration of how he could have set it ablaze in half the time, and with twice the effectiveness.
She'd tried tiring herself out with sit-ups and stretches, part of the exercise regime she went through every night to keep herself toned for dancing. It hadn't worked. Neither had counting sheep. They all turned into little Kaibas jumping over a fence.
Milk. Warm milk. It sounded hackneyed as an old pony; something her grandmother would suggest, but maybe it would help her get some sleep.
Of course, that all depended on her finding the kitchen. There was one – well stocked, too, though mostly with Kaiba Corp. products. Yuugi and Otogi had been scoffing KC-brand ice-cream in it at lunch; long before the whole debacle with Malik – the real Malik – and the man they now knew was called Rishid. The trick was finding it in amongst the maze of anterooms, cubbyholes, store cupboards and dead-end corridors.
What had Kaiba been planning when he designed this blimp? Package holiday deals?
Remembering Malik's duplicity threw up a whole new set of things Anzu really didn't want to think about. Not on her own. What happened to Rishid was part of Yami's world, and contact with that strain of magick and darkness ran across her skin like a thousand baby spiders. She shivered, feeling incompatible and out of her depth.
"I don't suppose you remember where it is?" she asked Yami, who had retired to the Puzzle. Kitchen. Milk. Mundane things she could deal with.
Obviously there was no answer. Yami was asleep, or doing whatever equivalent of it applied to spirits. She couldn't sense his presence, but hearing her own voice bounce off the walls at least lent the illusion she wasn't alone.
"Didn't think so. Honestly. And they say women are bad at directions."
She smirked at the irony: For so long people had thought she was just talking to herself when she was talking to Yami. And now, here she was actually talking to herself with no spirit to blame it on. She didn't know which sounded worse.
"Man, this place is creepy. I wish I could find the dumb kitchen – or at least something to take my mind off things."
A figure appeared in her peripheral vision. Anzu turned to look, trying not to feel too pleased at the prospect of someone to talk to. It was late, and all sensible people were safely abed. Thankfully, it wasn't Malik, or Kaiba out for a midnight brood.
"Hey, Ryou!"
Ryou was still dressed in what he'd been wearing that day, when he unexpectedly withdrew from their duel and ran off. He had his back to her, stark halogen striplights picking out the darker contrasts of his hair. When he turned, he did so slowly, and there was something stiff and jerky about his movements.
Anzu hesitated a few feet away from him. "Ryou?"
For a second his eyes were just as soft and liquid as always – doe-like, her mother had once called them. Eyes that could be superimposed on a baby as it stared up at the midwife and asked innocently, "Why are you slapping me?" He might even have looked a little frightened when he spotted her – pupils dilated despite the bright light.
Then his eyes changed. It was subtle – not like a frown or a smile, but something in the eyes themselves was suddenly different; suddenly unshackled. Ryou gave a predatory grin, like a dieter unwrapping an illicit doughnut, or a police officer observing a student driving a car with a defective brake light. It was not the sort of grin he ever gave.
Anzu recognised that sharp grin. It was hard to forget – although she'd been three inches high when she saw it last. "Oh my god," she whispered, backing up a step.
Ryou-who-was-not-Ryou grinned even wider. "No playmate?" he buzzed. "Too bad, so sad. And me with no time to waste."
She didn't really remember him rushing her – although he must have, because she hurtled into the wall hard enough to leave a bruise on her shoulder. There was a sense of movement from him, but no pressure to indicate he'd struck her. Then again, she wasn't really in any position to notice stuff like that. The side of her head ricocheted off the metal with a loud clang, causing a torrent of dark spots to flood her vision. She slid to the floor.
"An … zu …" said a strangled-sounding voice, as though someone had the speaker in a chokehold.
"Ryou," she murmured as the world faded to black.
Very black.
An indeterminate amount of time later, someone shouted very loudly down her ear.
No, wait. In her ear.
"Stupid girl. Anzu! Wake up!"
"Yami?" The world had reduced itself to blotches of colour arranged like the work of an impressionist artist. They swirled every time she blinked, gradually reforming themselves into more familiar objects: wall, light fitting, irate spirit of dead Pharaoh.
"Get up," Yami commanded. "Quickly."
"Ryou," she mumbled. Her right arm didn't want to move. It felt all tingly and warm, and the backs of her eyes throbbed. She wondered if she had a concussion. "Ryou…"
"I know. I felt when you lost consciousness. He was just leaving as I emerged. Didn't he notice you lying here?"
"No, y'dun' unnerstan'." Damn it. Why was her tongue three times its normal size? "S'not him … just his body …"
"What?" "Ring. Gotta be the Ring. Not gone after all …"
"Hell." Yami glanced up. "Let me take control. It's been a little over fifteen minutes, but maybe we can catch him – it."
Still fuggy, she let go without a fight. It was like unclenching a very tight fist, and she abruptly realised one of the reasons why Yami hadn't just taken control while she was out of it. He'd been really trying not to just overwhelm her mind whenever he wanted, and since he hadn't known that this was one occasion when she really wouldn't have minded him taking the reins, he'd just waited for her to wake up of her own accord.
"Where they gonna go?" she muttered. "We're on a freakin' blimp."
They found Malik laughing out on the duelling field. Residue of Ryou's scattered essence coated the area like blood at a crime scene.
Anzu got the point. It was hammered home. Fate really didn't have to be so cruel in proving the 'be careful what you wish for' thing anymore.
She wouldn't cry, she wouldn't cry, she wouldn't cry, she wouldn't cry – damn it, she was crying.
"I never … I never approved of Yuugi entering this dumb tournament. I told him to stay home, but he wouldn't listen. He should've listened to me. He should've. Something like this was bound to happen … in the end."
The wall was cold and hard against her fist. Yami's fist. Which one of them had punched it? She didn't know. All she could think about was Yuugi, so small and frail looking with that oxygen mask over his face. He didn't look any older than Mokuba like that.
First Ryou. Then Mai and Otogi. And now … "Yuugi."
Anzu liked Mai. The older woman had guided her through Duellist Kingdom, to some extent. Privately, Anzu was convinced that, had it not been for Mai and Ryou, she wouldn't have made it so far. And Yami, of course, but Yami was different. He'd duelled because he couldn't resist a challenge – and there was that small detail of recovering Yuugi's soul from Pegasus. Ryou had helped out of gratitude for Yami severing the spirit of the Millennium Ring's control over him – or so they'd thought. Mai had helped because she just plain wanted to. It meant a lot.
Now Mai was gone – or as good as. The emptiness where Ryou should have been was still raw. He never deserved anything that happened to him. Both of them had been ripped away so suddenly and violently, Otogi was possessed by Malik's better half, and now Yuugi was gone, too…
"There's nobody left," Anzu whispered. No sensation of her lips moving. Yami must be in control again. It felt a bit weird, floating about next to a body that was like a photocopy of her own – exact in the broad strokes but altered slightly in the fine details. Her eyes were darker, red flecks making them almost purple, her jaw more angular, and her hair was like a bristling animal clasped around her skull. "He's taken them all…"
"We will save him," Yami said suddenly and stiffly. Yep, definitely him in control. Her voice never sounded that deep when she was using her vocal chords. "We will save them all."
"You sound so sure." Anzu wiped at tears that didn't, actually, exist. "Do you even know what Malik did to them?"
"Malik…" The fist tightened. He was going to cut their palm if he kept digging those nails in. "Defeating him is the key. Damn it!" The fist dropped, useless. "It should have been me who duelled him first, not Yuugi."
They stood there for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. Anzu couldn't get the image of Yuugi's crumpled body from her mind. She blamed herself. Yami, as ever, kept his thoughts his own.
"It's not your fault," she said at last.
"What?"
"I've known Yuugi a lot longer than you have. He's small, but he's brave. You never had a chance at discouraging him once he'd set his mind on rescuing Mai and Ryou." She breathed a sigh borne of starshine and frustration. "He was trying to make sure Malik's darkness didn't get to me, too. He told me … he told me he didn't want to lose any more friends. Stupid Moptop."
Yami stayed silent for a long moment. When he did speak, he kept his – their – voice low so that only she could hear, even though the corridor outside the med bay was deserted. "He's important to both of us, isn't he." It wasn't a question.
"Not that he realises it, half the time. Stupid Moptop. Stupid martyr. Stupid little hero."
"He's not stupid -"
"Yes he is! He knew the risks. He saw what happened to Mai … to that Rishid guy … he knew that if he lost he was going to get hurt …" She felt lost and too young and so, so frightened that it beggared belief. Where was the girl who stood up to bullies bigger than she was? That girl who could laugh off the butt-pinches from truck drivers without breaking her step or dropping her tray – where was she? What had happened to the responsible person who made sure her mother got to bed instead of sleeping slumped across bills on the kitchen table?
That girl was in the corner, weeping, and Anzu had to put on a different face now because everyone was counting on her, but it was so hard without Yuugi and the others nearby …
"… Going leave me all alone…"
"You're not alone," Yami said sharply. And then softer, he added, "I'm here."
When all this started, Anzu never would have believed anyone who told her that would make her feel better.
Yami looked just like an incredibly well built teenager. Except for his hands and eyes – his hands looked older, calloused from a thousand things he couldn't remember doing, and his eyes … his eyes were the most difficult part of him. They were eyes that had seen a lot and showed very little. Most of what came out of them was anger, or some variation of it. Sometimes, when they were with Yuugi, his eyes would soften a little bit – not much, but just enough that someone who'd been around him a lot could see he was in what would, for anyone else, be a vulnerable moment.
He was wearing a mixture of looks when Anzu sat Yuugi down and told him everything. That soft look was in there, but so were a whole bunch of other things she couldn't put names to.
Why hadn't she told Yuugi before? She didn't really know. Maybe she'd thought he wouldn't believe her. Maybe she'd thought herself going mad. She didn't think she really needed to protect him from Yami's … attentions anymore, but maybe that had been a factor, too. He'd been hurt before because of this. She didn't want the responsibility of it happening again, but, as Yami had pointed out, Yuugi had a right to know the full story instead of just the bits and pieces he'd picked up as they went along.
It was a lot easier than she'd thought it would be. Her approach was purely ballistic; she just pointed her voice at the end of the story and went for it. Afterwards, Yuugi sat back in his chair and linked his hands behind his head so that his elbows obscured a lot of his face.
Cold fear gripped Anzu. What must he think of her? So many lies, so many half-truths, so many times she could have told him and hadn't. So many times he'd paid the price because of her responsibilities. Yuugi was honest to a fault. She couldn't claim the same thing.
She bit her lip. She didn't have many friends, after all, and she'd been through a lot to save him. Malik's manacles, the feel of her legs, arm and lower ribcage being scrubbed out were still very fresh in her mind. "Yuugi?"
"Shh. Processing." Without taking his elbows away, he asked, "Is he here?"
"Who? Yami? Yeah, he's here."
"Where?"
"Sitting on the edge of the table. His knee is about five inches to your left."
Yuugi twitched, but didn't try to move away. "He's a lot closer to me than to you."
"Yeah. He's not … he's not really tethered to me – to the Puzzle. Not like he used to be. He's his own person." She'd left out the part about Yami's infatuation with him. It was a lot to take in as it was, without dealing with that sort of emotional implication. She'd only told what she knew about Ryou, as well, reasoning that his story wasn't hers to tell. Ryou was still very private about some things, and it didn't feel right to peel back those layers when he wasn't even there to give consent.
Yuugi's left eye came into view. "Could he be … could he be in control? For a second?"
Anzu startled, then bowed her head and nodded. The sensation of giving up control to another spirit was like sliding into a bathtub full of champagne – faintly fizzy against her skin until she was no longer wearing it. She watched as Yami took that all-important first breath and looked up to meet Yuugi's gaze.
Yuugi held it for a long moment. Then he nodded. "I thought so. There was always something … different about you when you duelled. And I always thought it was weird how you went off to Duellist Kingdom when I was so sick – it just wasn't like you. I didn't cotton on until Malik pulled that stunt in your last duel and put you two together, side by side." He blinked and lowered his arms. "So you're … really a guy in there?"
Yami twitched her – their – mouth into a fierce little smile. "It's taken a lot of getting used to."
"Wow. And you're really an Egyptian Pharaoh?"
"So I'm told."
"Cool. You should talk to my Grandpa. He knows all about ancient Egypt." He said it like he was inviting them around for video games and cookies. Just like that. No screaming, no refutations that magick wasn't real, no demands as to why she hadn't told him before, no cries of it wasn't fair, the whole experience should have been his because it was his Puzzle Yami had come out of.
Anzu had been called a hero before – mostly when Yami was wearing her skin, but still, she was always the one people addressed. And it was funny, but she never felt much like a hero until she was with someone she knew was a better person than her.
Yuugi made her feel like a hero.
"How do you feel?"
"I feel …" Ryou's right hand snaked up to his own bare chest. There were old blemishes there, tiny triangles of white scar tissue in a circle. "… lighter."
The cord of the Millennium Ring dangled from the tip of Anzu's finger. It was indeed very heavy – possibly even heavier than the Puzzle, or the Tauk that Isis had given her. She wanted rid of it as soon as possible, but she knew that she would have to hold onto it and stash it somewhere safe so that it never infected anyone with its evil ever again. She shivered at the touch of the cord against her skin, even though Yami had promised her touching it would be harmless after he'd exorcised the Spirit from Ryou for a second time.
He was back in the Puzzle now, exhausted into silence. Something at the back of Anzu's brain was worried about Yami's well-being after all the fighting and exorcising and magickal mojo, but it was overshadowed by concern for poor Ryou.
Ryou also shivered, trying to cover his scars with one hand while reaching for his shirt with the other. He fumbled with the buttons, eyes rooted on the floor. He was trembling.
Anzu reached for his hand. "It's..." Not okay, but… what was a good word for this situation? "It's … going to be ... you're going to be … okay. " Damn it. Stupid girl.
He met her eyes then. He looked scared, disillusioned that the Spirit hadn't gone from him the last time Yami banished it, but there was a tiny spark there that gave Anzu pause. She realised she hadn't seen that spark in a long time. It was distilled essence of Ryou, and it was back where it belonged.
"I hope so," he whispered.
"Anzu?"
"Mokuba." Anzu looked up in surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"I … just wanted to make sure everything was okay. With you." He stood in the doorway and scuffed his feet. His clothes and hair fitted in there, ordinary and a little unkempt, but his face looked out of place. From the way he was standing, anyone would've thought he was creeping into the backroom of the dodgy rental store instead of sinking into the cosy atmosphere of the Kame Game shop.
"That's sweet of you, but how did you know I'd be here?"
"I kind of followed you home from school."
"Oh." She pursed her lips. "I'm caught between being flattered and a little creeped out."
His smile was wan and a little wry – far more so than a kid his age should've been able to make it. "I was on my way home and I saw you and Yuugi walking, and I just thought …"
"You just thought you'd check in on us. That's very thoughtful of you." She looked through the door separating the storefront from the house in which Yuugi and his grandfather made their home. "Yuugi's around too, if you want to talk to him. I think he went to make some tea. I'm just minding things out here. For a second there I was panicking that you were a customer. I have no idea how to use this new cash register." She made a noise like a baby blowing a raspberry. "I take it your brother's okay?" You couldn't have Mokuba without Seto coming along for the ride, even if he wasn't physically there in a room. They were a pair – inextricably linked after all their shared past had put them through. Where one went, the brittle memory of the other followed.
Anzu didn't know al the details – she doubted anyone but the two brothers ever would – but she knew enough that despite the wealth and power they now wielded, Seto and Mokuba Kaiba's childhood had not been an especially happy one. As a result, their bond was stronger than that usually found between siblings. All they could really rely on was each other – or so they'd told themselves for a long, long time. Seto still did, but Mokuba's attempts at friendship with her little group suggested otherwise. Anzu briefly wondered what his elder brother thought of that.
"Oh, you know. Seto's … Seto." He sounded embarrassed.
"I do know. That's what worries me." Yami folded his arms and disregarded Mokuba's personal space just because he could, circling the younger boy like a predator examining its next victim. His stance on the whole matter was clear. As far as Yami was concerned, Mokuba was a considerate, good-natured kid. He didn't deserve a borderline-psycho like Seto Kaiba for a brother. Who knew what kind of poison he'd filled the poor boy's head with?
He did risk everything to save Mokuba in Noa's world, Anzu wanted to point out, but couldn't. That has to count for something. Of course, it doesn't make him any less of a jerk, but maybe he's one of those jerks who balances nastiness with a soft centre –
The silliness of the notion rode on its back. It wore spurs and said: Yeah, right. Seto Kaiba was a well-balanced individual only insofar as he had a chip on both shoulders.
Yami hated that Seto Kaiba featured in both there now and the then – that he'd had such an overt influence on events since Yami was released from the Puzzle, and that somehow, of all souls in all the world, Seto Kaiba's was the one featured on the stone tablet at the museum. Seto Kaiba, the boy-man who took the greatest delight in shoving business rivals headfirst down the executive ladder, who held expensive gaming tournaments just to massage his own ego and staunchly refused to call anybody 'friend' even after they gone out of their way to save his miserable life a few times, was as inextricably linked to Yami's ancient past as an Egyptian Pharaoh as he'd been to his recent past as a champion duellist. It left a sour taste, like rancid tea, settling in the back of her throat.
A tall shadow appeared behind Mokuba. It didn't even have to speak to change his expression from self-conscious hope to self-conscious disappointment.
"Master Mokuba," rumbled the black-suited security guard, "you have a schedule to keep."
"I know, I know," Mokuba muttered. "I've … I've got to go, Anzu. But it was nice to see y-… that you're okay."
Anzu shot him a reassuring smile and came around to the front of the counter to wrap him in a hug. Yami's disapproval wrapped around her brain just as tightly.
Mokuba froze at the contact, but after a moment he relaxed – though he didn't return it beyond a perfunctory pat on the back. Anzu got the feeling he hadn't had many unprovoked hugs in his life. She scrubbed a hand through his hair as he turned to leave. Her fingers got caught in a few snags, but his hair was soft and plentiful. It felt like petting a dog with a thick coat.
"Don't be a stranger, huh?"
"I won't," he replied, one half of his mouth tugging upwards in a way that was profoundly sad. Then he left. As the door closed, she heard him talking to the security guard. "He asked where I was, didn't he?"
"That's not for me to say, sir."
"It's … nice."
Yuugi stuck out his lower lip. "You hate it."
"No, no." Anzu raised her hands, palms forward. "It's just … it's very dark, isn't it?"
"I like it."
She twitched.
Yuugi looked between her and the painting. "You're flinching at it? Is it really that bad?"
"No, Yami was just putting in his yen's worth. He likes it."
"Oh. Well then, he has better taste than you."
Yami smiled and tried to pretend he wasn't by going over to the window seat and staring out into the darkened yard.
"He has different tastes than mine." She briefly raised her hands again and turned her wrists. The studded bracelets glinted in the soft lightning, and the one around her ankle twinkled, as she knew the studs on the dog collar around her throat must have also been doing. "I never used to wear this sort of thing before he came along."
"It beats all that sugary pink stuff you used to wear."
"Pink can be gothic, you know. It doesn't have to be sugary."
"Okay then. I challenge you to make an outfit from pink and still look as good as you do now."
Anzu blinked at him. "That's a very twisted way to compliment someone."
Yuugi grinned nervously and blustered about with his painting again, cheeks only a little red. "So come on, I need more feedback than 'very dark'…"
To Be Continued …
Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs
"Put it in an envelope and mail it to a time I might care."
-- Riffs off a line from the Simpsons episode Itchy and Scratchy Get Cancelled (or a title to that effect)
… having a big bust meant lacy, pretty things just didn't work. She had to wear things that could double as car-seat covers, with thick straps, underwires that jabbed her sides and four little metal clasps at the back.
-- Trust me on this. Women with big busts get the narrow wedge of the cheese when it comes to attractive underwear. What gives you support isn't pretty, and when you find something pretty in your size it leaves your boobs sagging practically to your knees. And the prices! It's a safe bet Anzu's bank account takes a hefty thwack whenever she needs a new bra.
Yuugi may go all googly eyed when girls walked past in short skirts, but he was her best friend, she reasoned. He didn't care what type of bra she wore, just that she was hurt and needed help that didn't involve lying about how she'd been injured.
-- Six of one, half a dozen of the other, methinks.
"When have our lives ever been safe, Moptop?"
-- Those who've read A Ship Sailing Over the Edge of the World may recognise this nickname.
She picked up the bills from the mat and made sure they weren't shoved behind the toaster.
-- Derived from something that happened in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend.
"Yuugi has more self-worth since he gained more self-confidence."
-- Because Yuugi isn't acting as Yami's host, he has more time to devote to the development of his own identity in this universe, independent of acting solely in the interests of others. Canon!Yuugi is a sweetheart, but he does tend to define himself by other people – especially Yami, who he even goes so far as to call 'the other me'. The Yuugi of this timeline is developing at a different tangent, and while other people are still a major influence in his life, he never made that all important wish for friends on the Puzzle, and so never had anything or anyone to hold accountable for the upturn of his luck (such as it is) other than himself.
"I'm so glad you noticed. I've been working on it."
-- Line taken wholesale from Ruber in The Magic Sword: Quest for Camelot. I used to love that film so. It was one of my mainstays while my mother was in hospital back in 2000.
His outfit mirrored what she'd been wearing that day…
-- Who else thinks Anzu would dress in something frilly and flowery (something really difficult to make seem masculine) just to piss him off when he's been getting on her nerves? It's amazing how the dynamic between people changes when they didn't start off with one crushing on the disembodied voice of the other.
"It is said that hatred is simply love with its back turned."
-- From Maskerade by Terry Pratchett. And yes, it is meant to be spelled that way.
It was a 1956 Belvedere GTX…
-- ObNit: this is the same car driven by Angel of Angel/Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame. It often makes cameos in my fanfic.
Of course, that all depended on her finding the kitchen. There was one – well stocked, too, though mostly with Kaiba Corp. products.
-- Side-fling to the YGO fic Whatever Turns You On, by LeDiz.
…a predatory grin, like a dieter unwrapping an illicit doughnut…
-- Taken from Nothing But Blue Skies, by Tom Holt.
"An … zu …" said a strangled-sounding voice, as though someone had the speaker in a chokehold.
-- In case it isn't clear, in this world Ryou is more aware of the Spirit of the Ring being inside him at this point. That's why he backed out of Anzu's duel, but the effort it took to do that weakened him, leaving him practically defenceless against the spirit, so it took control and went to duel Malik. Ryou has had his Millennium Item a lot longer than Anzu, but rather than this extra time allowing him to build up his defences and learn how to keep the spirit from taking over, as Anzu did with Yami, Ryou simply spent longer being possessed and not knowing about it. This strengthened the spirit's grip over him; therefore, the spirit really does have Ryou in a 'chokehold' whenever he wants to be in control. As Faith said in Buffy, 'Want. Take. Have'. Even if Ryou fights, as he is doing here, the spirit is practised and preternaturally stronger than him and so can eventually overpower him, much like Yami used to when Anzu (and Yuugi in canon) suffered those early 'blackouts'.