5.
After she and Yami visited the Dominion of the Beasts, and Timeas visited a great big, very public smackdown on a giant eye in the sky, Anzu went back to bed for a fitful sleep full of blonde women with pleading green eyes and ancient wars with monsters on either side. She got up the next morning, checked the mail, had a breakfast of pain au raisin on the way to school, sat at her desk for her lessons, surrounded herself with her normal routine, and quietly freaked out.
Everybody was talking about the monsters they'd seen, which had now all disappeared. The most common theory was some kind of mass hallucination, or another Kaiba Corp. publicity stunt. Yami commented on how people could swallow a big lie but choke on a little fib.
"What are we supposed to do?" Yuugi asked later, when he, she and Ryou were in a little huddle at the side of the schoolyard.
"Wait," she replied, shrugging. "Get ready to battle evil?"
"How do we do that?"
"We don't."
He eyeballed her in that way that only he could. "Don't talk like that. Please."
She braced herself. She'd been rehearsing for this. "Yuugi, I don't want either of you getting involved this time - "
"Why not?"
"Because this … this feels bigger than the other stuff we've faced."
"Bigger than Malik? Bigger than Noa, or Pegasus? Bigger than the God Cards?"
"Bigger than the Spirit of the Ring?" Ryou echoed, absently fingering the scars under his shirt.
"Yes."
Yuugi looked a little shocked, as though he'd been expecting her to cave and admit that no, this wasn't, really, as big as all those things – especially with Ryou sitting right there.
But he hadn't been in the Dominion. He hadn't tried to pull the sword out of the dragon's chest, failed, and nearly wrenched his shoulder trying again, even with Yami's help. He hadn't talked to Black Magician Girl – hadn't seen the anguished look on her face as she explained what was going on. She'd had such an open, honest face. It was impossible not to believe her when she said how grim things were for her and her … was people really a good word to use in that context? Some of the creatures she and Yami had seen didn't even have opposable thumbs.
"This is only going to get worse," Anzu said grimly.
"How do you know? You completely flattened that guy who stole the God Cards. And remember how you blew that creature away last night. How bad can anything else be if you cleared the city of monsters just like that?" Yuugi snapped his fingers.
"Because that was just the floorshow. Yami and I didn't get the God Cards back, did we? Whoever called up that … thing in the sky has them now. He and I will be fighting against the power of the God Cards, and whatever magick those thieves have already got on their side."
"You have Timeas," Ryou offered.
"Yeah," she admitted. "I do have him."
When lunch was over and Ryou dashed to the bathroom before afternoon classes started, Yuugi pulled Anzu to one side and hissed, "I don't think it's a good idea, you trying to shut us out on this one."
"Don't you think that's my decision?"
"Actually, no." He fixed her with those big eyes of his and said bluntly, "I had a dream last night."
"Excuse me?"
"After the thing in town, when I went home to bed. I didn't think I'd sleep at all, but I was out like a light the moment I hit the pillow. AndI dreamed that … look, this is going to sound corny, but after what you said before about the sword and Black Magician Girl, it came back to me. I was in this, like, this big ballroom, and it was really cold. I think the walls might have been made of ice. It kind of sparkled, all pretty, like when we had that thick frost last December. Someone was asking me if I was 'chosen', over and over, but I couldn't see them, so I asked, chosen for what?"
Anzu didn't like that sound of this.
"I didn't get an answer, just more of the same question. It was a lady asking it, I remember that, and when I said I had no idea what she was talking about, she stopped and said – and this is the corny bit – she said, 'Are you pure of heart?'"
Anzu liked the sound of this less and less.
"I mean, what kind of question is that? It's like asking someone if they could choose between the lives of two people they love. You can't answer that, not realistically. Not honestly. So I said I didn't know." He bit his lip.
"You remember your dream very clearly," Anzu said, watching for Ryou's return. She sounded vaguely accusing.
"I know. It's weird, I usually forget every one as soon as I wake up. This one was different, though. It was … it seemed really real while it was going on, but I knew it was a dream, y'know? Like, I was following this voice around and talking to it, but at the same time I was thinking 'I'm in a dream. This is dumb. I'm acting like this is real when it's just a figment of my imagination'. But that's not the important part. The important part is that when I answered that last question, the voice told me I'd -" He stopped.
"What? What did it say, Yuugi?"
"'You have twisted fate, and must reap the consequences. The beaver's dam can change the flow of a river, and what is time but a river? What is a dam but sticks and mud? What are sticks and mud but tiny things? But the preservation of light against the dark is paramount. Preserve the preserver, one who is pure of heart. Protect the protector, little champion who would change the course of fate.'" Yuugi raised his eyes to Anzu's. "That's what it said. Word for word."
She swallowed, hard. "And you think that means you're supposed to protect me?"
"Well … yeah." He dropped his eyes and scuffed his feet. "It's always been you looking after me, ever since we were kids. This time, I thought it might be my turn."
The silence that followed was heavy and defeaning.
The door to the Boys' Bathroom banged. Ryou walked towards them, waving, and Anzu impulsively reached out to ruffle Yuugi's hair. "Doofus," she murmured. "It was probably just something you ate."
Yuugi caught her wrist, faster than she might've expected. "Anzu, don't. Just … don't." He looked serious and resolute, bangs falling into his eyes and throat bobbing.
"We've got to get to class," she replied, pulling away.
Later, when she was dressing for bed, she sat on the floor in just her socks and underwear and fought back a wave of tears.
"What is it?" Yami wanted to know.
"Shit," she mumbled, scrubbing at her eyes. "Yami, I'm seventeen years old. I get unbearable period pains and I'm flunking math. I can't save the world."
His expression was still diamond hard, but his eyes softened. "Stupid girl."
"Oh thanks. Thanks a lot."
"I meant that you're a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for."
"Yeah, sure. Whatever." But the scant words of comfort meant more than she acknowledged.
Rebecca had grown up a lot since they saw her last. She no longer wore her childishness like a badge, but sported the kind of overemphasised maturity that said, super-genius or not, she was still just a kid inside.
Anzu met her warmly, prepared to forget old feuds and past crimes because Rebecca really was a little girl in an adult's world – even more so than those who had been affected by magick. That dimmed, however, when Rebecca latched onto Yuugi's arm and pressed herself against him in a way kids her age weren't even supposed to know about yet.
"But you said you weren't attracted to him," Yami pointed out while she was seething on the plane.
"That doesn't mean I want to see some … some fangirl draping herself across him," she hissed back so as not to wake the others. Otogi wore a set of earphones playing hard rock music straight into his brain, but the jetlag had caught up with Ryou and Yuugi and they were both fast asleep.
A face appeared over the seat in front. Mai's presence on this trip had not been a foreseeable one. It had taken Anzu quite by surprise when she opened her front door to find her standing there, bag in hand and brittle smile in place, wearing one of the new outfits they'd bought on a shopping trip together. Jeans suited her more than either of them had thought they would after all the micro skirts, though Mai had put her foot down when Anzu tried to dress her in floaty gypsy blouses and loose tops.
Mai's recovery, such as it was, wasn't – and hadn't been – a smooth path. She still had good days and bad days – days when she functioned like any normal woman, and days when she locked herself away, screaming obscenities at anyone who tried to go near her. Anzu and the others were patient, though Otogi once likened her to an addict being forced off a drug. It seemed true enough when you were nursing a bruised ego after some particularly incisive verbal abuse; except that Mai's only drug was fear with an edge of depression and paranoia. You couldn't just remove those from the equation like a physical object – not if they expected her to recover properly. She had to learn to overcome them, and that was the hardest battle any of them had ever undertaken.
Apparently Mai had overheard Otogi on his cell phone when he chartered his private jet for them. Overtaken by an urge not to be left behind, she'd let him go home with his excuses, then packed a few necessities and hastened on over to Anzu's famous address before she had chance to depart. She wouldn't be dissuaded from her mission, either.
"You're fighting evil again, aren't you?"
"Well … probably, yeah."
"Then there's definitely no way you're leaving me behind."
"But Mai - "
"Put it this way, Anzu; problems or not, I'm still one of the strongest duellists you know. These guys who stole the God Cards, they duel – using magick, no less. It stands to reason you're going to end up duelling them. It makes sense to have me on side. I'm not going to go all to pieces. Really. You guys have all worked too hard for me to slip backwards like that, and besides, I keep telling you; I'm not some wimpy princess who needs rescuing from her big dark tower. Give me some credit."
"I still don't think it's a very sensible idea for you to come - "
"Horses and saddles, Anzu. Beside, I have a … a feeling I need to be with you guys for this. Like I'm supposed to do something important. Haven't you ever had those?"
"Could it be just gas? My special feelings are usually gas."
But Mai wouldn't be dissuaded. She was more forceful than Anzu could remember since Battle City, and eventually, owing to time, pressure, and a small portion of her subconscious saying this might, actually, be beneficial for Mai's mental health, she'd given in and fielded the surprise and concern from the others when she turned up at the airfield with Mai in tow.
Now Mai peered at Anzu with eyes so big as to be positively luminous. "You should get some shut-eye. We'll be landing in a few hours, and the jetlag is going to be hellish enough as it is. Trust me, I've done this time-change before."
"I can't sleep."
"Try. Or I'll knock you out." Mai gave a razor-sharp smile, like she was just now remembering how enjoyable it was to say things like that and be impulsive like this, and disappeared again.
Yami smirked. "I couldn't have put it better myself."
Once, when they were discussing where Yami came from, Otogi said how some cultures believed everyone had their very own spirit guardian from birth. Anzu had decided that whatever one was assigned to her wasn't some benign creature with wings and sandals, or the type who showered gold coins on his charges for a bit of nookie, or even some animal-headed thing who wreaked vengeance on her enemies. No, hers was more like a wannabe comedian; with her life as the clip show used to entertain the other guardians on a Saturday night.
"See how Anzu thinks she's done so well at her maths exam? Fifth in the entire year! Little does she know, that's a typo we carefully slipped in there as a hilarious red herring. And how about those ballet pumps, huh? It's considered bad luck unless a dancer sews on her own ribbons, y'know. So much time spent sewing them on, so little for us to tinker with them. Oh! One snapped. She's down, folks! On the face, too. Right in front of her new classmates! Ooh, that's got to smart."
Sniggers from all assembled.
"As an extra bonus, we threw in one of our verbal grenades to comment about the good cushioning of her fun-bags. You can't buy that colour red in any shops."
She could deal with a little embarrassment as much as the next girl. And she had to admit, talking about it with the others later made it seem funnier. Mai even cracked a few smiles over her hot chocolate. These were rare during the early days of her convalescence. They were like short bursts of sunlight through a cloudbank, and to get at them Anzu was willing to fall on her butt a thousand times. Ballet classes weren't the huge deal they used to be. Neither was school, really – much to Mrs. Mazaki's chagrin. Dance was still important, and she still planned on going to New York while she was young enough to appreciate it, but it didn't rule her life to such an extent as it once had.
Things got a little hairy when it came to the apocalypse, however.
She could imagine her guardian rubbing ethereal hands. "Now, watch how Anzu enjoys being able to talk openly to the spirit of her Millennium Puzzle because her friends already know about him. See how they all think he's such a great guy? A little emotionally constipated, maybe, and boy howdy, can he wax lyrical on the benefits of friendship when he's got a card in his hand. Our little leading lady has got some competition there, methinks. But watch out, chickadee! Your knight in duelling armour is about to shapeshift into a complete dickweed! Mind for those biker buds, now. Ouch, but you could cut yourself on those bad boys."
Yeah, a real laugh riot.
Why oh why had she left the Millennium Tauk at home? At least if she'd had it she could've blamed herself for not checking out what the future held and seeing this coming.
She wasn't supposed to feel things when she was in spirit form, but the backs of Yami's knees (her knees!) were disturbingly solid. She kicked hard, and a little part of her took pleasure in the look of shock on his face as he buckled and fell over. Shock was good. It was better than the ruthless determination he'd been wearing since he played that damn card.
He looked up into her face. It was weird standing over him. He looked small and kind of young this way. "What are you doing?"
"You can be a complete asshole sometimes," she said sternly. All around them bright green energy flowed upwards into a funnel of dark cloud. She suspected it operated in the same manner as lightning, targeting the tallest thing it could find. It was already tugging at her insides – and hey, was she supposed to be able to feel this sort of thing when she wasn't in control of her body? Huh. Maybe they were both flesh now, in which case this was a double irony. Face to flesh-and-blood-face for the first time. Or maybe they were both spirits, and her body was offstage somewhere waiting for whoever came back to claim it.
It only required one soul. Just one. That was all. One itty bitty soul.
Stupid stupid stupid stupid –
She sucked in a breath that tasted of citrus and saltwater. "But right now? The world needs you more than it needs me."
Friendship and caring about someone – even if you didn't like admitting to it – was all about sacrifice. If anything, she'd learned that much since she met him.
Realisation dawned in Yami's eyes, even as the grip of the Oricalcos that had accentuated his darker impulses and impeded the link between their minds began to loosen. "No! Stupid girl, you can't – I lost the duel -"
"Too late. We're having a special offer on second chances. Today only." She was a floating torso. Oh god. A floating torso. Too late to back out now – or so she told herself. Her next words came out through gritted teeth. "But if you screw this up – if you give in again, I'll be waiting in the afterlife to … to do something really unspeakable to you!"
She sounded a lot braver than she felt. Maybe it was a survival instinct – a coping mechanism. Her lungs were dissolving and she was making smart remarks.
Yami reached for her, presumably to drag her back, which was dumb because she was already mostly faded, probably intangible with it, and he was a better candidate to save the world. He'd wielded big magicks once upon a time, right? Saved ancient Egypt from some terrible fate, Isis said. If he could just sit on his ego long enough to do it again, then maybe …
It was more likely he could get her soul back than she could retrieve his. He was the strong one, the spirit who'd survived thousands of years of imprisonment in an unmade Puzzle. She was just a schoolgirl from a little-known town who had a best friend for him to crush on and got glory from his achievements with her duel deck.
No glory this time. Just him, reaching and yelling, and her not even trying to get away, and –
Time stopped. Anzu felt the universe fall away, the little bit of green-tinged rock peeling back like orange rind, leaving behind an unpleasantly cold, rushing darkness. There were voices, cut short – random syllables of sound – and the sensation that she was as thin and insubstantial as a shadow being cast on stone made hot by a baking midday sun.
Please don't screw up please please come rescue me please don't leave me here in the dark…Fade to black.
Very black.
She didn't know where she was; apart from the fact it was a barren wilderness. She thought that should probably sound more profound, but it just sounded like what it was – lost and a little pathetic.
It was impossible to look away from Yami. Anzu understood black holes now, because she was staring into what he'd done to her eyes. How had anyone ever mistaken those eyes for hers? They sucked you in and held you, right there, on the event horizon.
Yuugi was up on the mountainside, being held back by some old dude she thought she maybe ought to recognise. There was some animal and a little girl with them. She was pretty – reminded Anzu of Rebecca a little. Seemed older than she looked.
Yuugi was screaming something, but she couldn't concentrate on him, couldn't focus on anything but Yami-wearing-her-skin. Her thoughts were fuzzy, melted, all smooshed together like her mom's leftovers-casserole, but shot through them was the urge to fight him. No, not just fight him – humiliate and massacre him the way she'd massacred Johnny Steps.
She hadn't picked up this much duelling knowledge in their time together, had she? Surely not. Grandpa Mutou had given her some lessons when she thought she ought to have some way of explaining her new expertise, but she was nowhere near this level. No, it was Yami who was the glory-hog. He was the Master of Games. She was just the bus he used to get around in.
Well, not anymore.
"Is that the best you can do?"
"Anzu," he said, sounding pathetic even to her ears.
Anzu scowled. Pathetic. It was a word that just sounded wrong in context with Yami. She couldn't forgive him for deteriorating into a lesser person than the one she had come to respect and care for – yes, care for! She could admit it now, because she didn't anymore. Not anymore. She. Didn't. Care.
"You're pathetic," she snapped. Her mouth felt full of acid, but she couldn't stop herself. "You can't even face up to what you've done to me without whining."
"I'm sorry!" he said. "I'm sorry, but please, don't make me do this! I don't want to hurt you!"
"Could've fooled me. You've got what you wanted now. A brand new body to run around in. No more having to share it with anyone. How does it feel, Nameless Pharaoh? Admit it – you played the Oricalcos because you wanted me out of there! You knew I'm just dumb enough to take your place, so you used me. You sacrificed me to get what you wanted. Admit it!"
"That's not true!"
"And you've even got a way around Yuugi's sexuality now. Convenient, isn't it? Seems like everything worked out quite nicely for you."
"Anzu, please stop this duel. I can't restore your soul if you force me to hurt you here."
"Then I guess the choice is up to you, isn't it?"
She didn't smile as she drew her next card.
She didn't smile as Yami collapsed to his knees in a crisis of faith, nor when his monster's attack wiped out her life points.
She did smile, however, when the fog in her mind cleared away and she realised what was going on – but by that time it was a little incidental.
"Y-Yami," she stuttered as he scooped her into his arms. Had he done this before? Pegasus's laughter rang in her ears. Yami's hands were wide and strong and familiar, even though they couldn't be. "I guess you passed."
"Stupid girl. You – passed what?"
That sounded so very, very bad.
Another smile. She felt weak and funny, like she'd been caught by the Oricalcos all over again. She also felt ashamed of some of the things she'd said and thought, because there were grains of truth to them, and that was enough to send the embarrassment of real honesty – honesty without thought for consequences or the feelings of others – zinging through her veins.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean it…"
Yami tried to touch her hand, but it wasn't there anymore. His (her!) eyes widened. "No! Not again!"
"Sorry. Gotta go back now. The magick of this place isn't … strong enough to keep me tethered." She closed her eyes. "So … so tired …"
"Don't you dare! Don't you dare! Anzu, I need you to come back. I … when I fight without you there to restrain me … People are being hurt. You once said you would keep me from becoming evil. You said would keep me in check. Stay and fulfil your duty, damn it!"
Duty called. Which was all very well, except that whenever she tried to call Duty back, all she ever got was its answering machine.
Yami's voice dropped, as though he didn't want anyone to hear what he was saying – totally ridiculous, since the only people around were hundreds of feet away and couldn't hear them anyway. "I can't do this without you. I can't save the world on my own."
" … Arrogant … you're not on your own …" Forming words was like trying to carve an intricate statuette out of cottage cheese with a chisel made of liquorice.
"Don't go – fight it!"
"Fighting. Always fighting. Sometimes you can't …"
"I don't believe that," he snarled. "You can always fight. You can always win if you try."
"Hypocrite. Can't stay … Guess you gotta practise what you … preach … keep yourself in check now …" She looked up at him. Shifting her eyelids felt like moving Tokyo Tower with just a fingertip.
His eyes were pleading. Someone pathetic didn't work as a description anymore. "I can't," he whispered, bitterness evident in his tone. "That's what caused this mess in the first place."
"Can so. You're … you're not … evil. You're just not very good at … controlling yourself …"
The pull was insistent. Dartz's magick and the power of the Oricalcos reasserted themselves as whatever held her here, whatever had clouded her mind and steered her into the duel with Yami, waned.
Anzu struggled to streamline her thoughts and sound coherent once more. "I – nngh – I haven't much time, but you can do this. Believe in yourself, you n-numbskull. The others are there to help you if you need it. You're … their friend, Yami – in your own right. You earned that friendship, so … let them help … you."
"Anzu -"
"Everything will be okay. Trust me."
"I-"
Whatever he was about to say was lost, as she felt herself sucked back down the cold tunnel and into the dark.
Of course Yuugi was the first one to hug her. A running hug, of the sort other people might call a tackle, were it not for the fact that Yuugi's size meant he couldn't tackle a squashed apricot. Ryou had been a bit of a surprise. He'd never been very tactile. Nor had Otogi with her, for that matter; and as for Mai –
"Okay … oxygen becoming an issue."
Anzu's friends undid their complicated knot of hugs amidst words like "Really is you," "Missed you so much," and "Welcome back." Otogi even pecked her on the cheek. Even though this was no strange occurrence, and she'd learned not to take it seriously, it still made her blush. The sense of appreciation was almost overpowering.
"I wasn't away that long," she muttered, as Yuugi held her hand for maybe one second too long.
It was odd being back in her own body. She'd been floating in that bubble of nothingness just long enough that having fingers, toes and squidgy bits felt very peculiar. She flexed her hands a little, just because she could; felt the hairs rise on the nape of her neck and – there. There he was.
Yami was right behind her left shoulder, not touching her, but the tiny spaces between the tightly-knit plates of his personality was were oozing approval at her return and – relief?
"If you're done with your displays of needless emotion, can we please leave now?" Kaiba's voice whipcracked across the chamber, brazenly ignoring the hand he had resting on Mokuba's shoulder.
Mokuba's expression said he might have liked to run over and hug Anzu too, the way he had when she first met him in Duellist Kingdom and let him eat with them, share their provisions and sleep curled next to her against the cold of the night. Yet his brother's touch held him fast – not because Kaiba gripped him tight, or used any kind of force, but because that was the way they always were.
Anzu looked up, the moment broken. "Kaiba, I didn't know you cared."
"I don't. You were incidental."
"Thanks. Can I get that in writing to show any reporters who see us together?"
She'd thought Yami had a blank look, but he was positively wreathed in smiles compared to Kaiba when Kaiba wanted to look blank. "You know, with a sense of humour like yours, I'm surprised you haven't chosen a career in light entertainment instead of duelling. There are all sorts of things you could do – change fuses, hold things for people, make tea - "
"Seto!" Mokuba hissed.
There was a body on the floor. Anzu recognised the man named Valon, one of the bikers who had taken a shine to Mai but been shot down. She vaguely recalled his soul floating in one of the other bubbles in that ... place – wherever it was she'd been sent after the duel in the desert with Yami.
"Why wasn't his soul returned too?" she asked, pointing to him. Ugh, the guy gave her the creeps – though there was perhaps something babyish about his face when he wasn't smirking.
She felt Yami frown. "A good question."
A noise like thunder filled the chamber. Dust began to waft out of the darker corners in the ceiling, as the breeze blowing through the huge space sharpened. Tiny pebbles on the floor jittered like peas on a drum skin.
"I don't like this," said Mokuba. "We should get out of here while we still can."
"And take him with us?" Mai moved Valon's elbow with the toe of one shoe.
"Yes," Yuugi said without hesitation. "He helped us a lot against Dartz."
Really? Anzu made a note to ask about that when there was time. Maybe Valon wasn't such a jerk after all.
"Only because he thought he could get it together with me," Mai shot back. "Ever heard that phrase about means, ends and justifying?"
To Anzu's surprise and chagrin, Yuugi and Mai both looked to her for the yea or nay. Her. Probably a throwback to Yami being in charge while she was out – although when she last saw him he hadn't exactly been playing with a full hand, but the implications of the alternative were rather more than she wanted to consider with the more immediate concern of bad roofing going on.
"Sure. Whatever," she said, waving a hand.
It was Otogi who noticed the other part of the major equation. "Hey, where's that Dartz guy?"
Anzu spun around, only slightly unsteady on her feet. She'd been trapped outside her body for several days, but she'd been trapped inside it for over sixteen years, and most of those had included rigorous physical training for dance. Her muscles felt only a little loose – obviously Yami hadn't been doing her stretches in the mornings and evenings to keep her toned. But then, he'd had other things on his mind, hadn't he? Like Dartz. Speaking of whom … the other side of the duelling field was empty.
A tremor ran through the chamber. Chunks of masonry broke off and crashed to the ground, narrowly missing the prone Valon until Otogi scooped him into an awkward fireman's lift.
"Man, this guy needs to either lose a few pounds, or switch to aluminium studs."
"Quickly," Kaiba snapped, making for where Anzu assumed was the way out. She hadn't exactly come in by conventional means, so she had no real idea of where she was – something she now realised as they scuttled after him and arrived at the top of a staircase that led down to a raging ocean.
"Whoa."
A gargantuan shadow rose above them.
Mai shielded her eyes. There was a Legendary Dragon card clasped between the fingers of her other hand. It glowed ominously. "Oh for pity's sake, what now?"
The room was lined with mirrors on all sides, like a dance studio; with a barre and a piano and that potted aspidistra Miss Odori insisted sit in the corner.
But wait. Hadn't she stopped going to Miss Odori's when she was eleven?
The air was redolent of rosemary and perfume – Fiji, the one Mrs. Mazaki wore for special occasions. Apart from the ticking of a metronome, everything was silent.
Feeling as though she should be somewhere else, Anzu walked across the room in search of the metronome. It wasn't on the piano where it usually sat, nor was it on the desk. And where had the desk come from, anyway? That wasn't usual. It had pictures on it; photographs of people and places. One showed the famous Statue of Liberty, tall and green and imposing. The glass covering that one was covered in a spider web of cracks. Another was of a group of people, but it was all blurry so she couldn't properly see their faces. Yet another showed a snake, poised to strike right at the camera, and yet another showed a blonde woman with the kind of green eyes a slushy romance novel might call 'bottomless'. Anzu picked the pictures up and put them down, and then turned around, certain something wasn't right.
"Something isn't right here," she said aloud, as though that might inspire the wrongness to come out of hiding.
Her voice echoed. Her reflection bounced backwards and forwards between the mirrors an infinite number of times, the image getting smaller and vaguer at each stage. When she raised her hand, so did a million other Anzus. When she waved, they all waved back.
"Hello?" she called, looking for a door or window. "Can anyone hear me? Is anyone there?"
One of the farthest images winked out of existence.
Anzu blinked, not sure she'd just seen that.
"Hello?" she said again.
Another, nearer reflection vanished.
"No, don't go!"
An even nearer one also vanished.
"Don't leave me all alone!"
One by one, the reflections disappeared, until only the closest one remained. Anzu ran up and touched the mirror, leaving greasy fingerprints on the glass. The last reflection copied her action, but her fingers left no marks and her breath left no condensation when she got too close. All Anzu could feel was the cold, hard surface. It said that she was being ridiculous – she was alone no matter how many reflections there were.
"You're not real," she said sadly. "Stupid. Of course you're not real. You're just me in a mirror." She bowed her head, engulfed by a sudden irrefutable loneliness. "Where am I? Where is everyone?"
"You can have it, if you like."
"What?" Her head snapped up.
"He won't mind. Honest."
"Yuugi?" She looked around. The voice was very faint, but she would've known it anywhere.
"It's mine to do with what I want, and I want to give it to you."
"Where are you?"
"I can't believe you were so reckless. You could have been killed! Or worse!""Reckless? Yuugi, what's going on? Where are you? Come to that, where am I?"
"You are … not quite what I expected, Miss Mazaki." This voice was less familiar, but she recognised it all the same.
"Isis Ishtar?" she said, more to herself than anyone else. "Please, what's going on?"
"No playmate?" a different voice buzzed. "Too bad, so sad. And me with no time to waste."
Wait a second, that was what the Spirit of the Ring said when he cornered her on Kaiba's blimp …
And all at once Anzu knew that the speakers weren't there at all. These were things she'd heard before – echoes, snippets of conversations long past. How she was hearing them, she didn't know, but she was still as alone as before. She just had a soundtrack to her loneliness now.
So … where were the real speakers? Where were Yuugi, Ryou and Isis now? Had something happened to them? A horrible thought then occurred to her: Was she dead? They said your entire life flashed before your eyes when you died. Maybe they were only half right. They also said hell was other people. If that was the case, then heaven sucked.
"Well, you have to admit, you aren't very … girly."
She leaned against the mirror and slowly slid down it, covering her face with her hands. She had the feeling she'd been involved in a great battle recently. How it had gone, she couldn't remember. All she knew was that it had been important, and now … now here she was. Lost and alone. Worried about her friends, her family, herself – just plain worried, really.
"Anzu, your wardrobe has altered since you first met me. If I recall, there were no chains or metal spikes involved before."
Stupid Otogi. If she really was dead, she'd miss him and his stupid smart remarks.
"You really should do something about those split ends. A good conditioner, maybe…"Mai didn't need looking after. Except when she did. Anzu wondered whether Mai would accept that her going away wasn't intentional – that she hadn't meant to abandon her friends. Anzu also hoped this was true.
"You know, drawing is a lot like solving puzzles."
Yuugi …
"You put it together piece by piece, and with the really good stuff you're never quite sure what you're going to end up with until it's done."
Please don't be dead – please don't let her have failed in her self-appointed task of protecting him.
"Please don't say you're sorry."
"Can't a trio of devastatingly handsome men drop in unannounced without being interrogated?"
"I … I had a sister, once."
"I'm not a charity case. I don't need 'saving', and I don't need you to baby me."
"I challenge you to make an outfit from pink and still look as good as you do now."
"This stone tablet shows the Pharaoh and his opponent locked in battle. The cartouche showing their names has been scratched out, as you can see. We don't know how, or by whom."
"ZNN's top entertainment story tonight? The deepening relationship of billionaire CEO Seto Kaiba and gaming genius Anzu Mazaki."
"I still miss her. Sometimes I talk to her – write her letters. My Dad always hated that."
"I've given you the power of the Oricalcos. It's up to you how you use it."
"My name? I … I don't have one."
"You have twisted fate, and must reap the consequences."
"Your mother and I … we're filing for divorce."
"The beaver's dam can change the flow of a river, and what is time but a river? What is a dam but sticks and mud? What are sticks and mud but tiny things?"
"And I would like to repeat that there is no romantic connection between myself and Anzu Mazaki."
"Yami? Not the name I might've chosen, but … rather fitting. Yes, you may call me that for the time being."
"But the preservation of light against the dark is paramount."
"Ever heard that phrase about means, ends and justifying?"
"Preserve the preserver, one who is pure of heart."
"Well, there's the friendship thing, and then there's the friendship thing. What those three got up to? So very thing."
"Protect the protector, little champion who would change the course of fate."
"You're like the poster child for all that touchy feely team spirit crap."
The voices never rose in volume, but they clustered together, words overlapping and blending like whispers rushing through ranks of schoolchildren before the principal called for quiet. Anzu listened to them, morbidly curious as to why these were the things she could hear, but the sounds only underlined how isolated she felt – so cut off from people and answers to her questions.
"You're not alone," one of the memory-voices said sharply. And then softer, added, "I'm here."
"Anzu?"
Anzu jerked her head up. That had sounded far too close. There was no fuzziness to it, as with the older memory-voices. It was sharp and clear, and when it came again she turned around.
"Anzu?"
Her reflection stared back at her.
And then it spoke.
"Anzu, you aren't alone."
It looked exactly like her, except … a little different. The hair was maybe a shade longer, the mouth slightly crooked. An upside-down pyramid hung around from the neck, and Anzu's hands immediately went to her belt to feel the familiar contours of the Millennium Puzzle. The reflection watched and shook her head in a wry manner. Anzu felt like she ought to understand the significance of this, but she didn't.
"You aren't alone."
Behind the reflection rose a tremendous and sinuous bulk.
"Look out!" Anzu yelped, pointing and nearly breaking her finger as it hit the glass.
Her reflection turned, but the jaws of the Mirror Leviathan shot downwards closed around her, swallowing her whole. There was no blood, no gore; one moment she was there, the next she wasn't, and all Anzu could see was leathery grey skin and eyes as big as her head, but as hard and pitiless as uncut rubies.
"No!" she shrieked, as the creature reared back and vanished like all her other reflections had. She was suddenly possessed of the idea that the reflection-her could've told her what was going on, and filled with anger that she was to be ripped away so soon and so viciously. "Come back! Bring her back!"
Only echo.
All around her were mirrors. And she cast nothing in any of them.
Now she knew how vampires felt.
The memory-voices were all silent. Even the sound of the metronome was gone. The squeak of Anzu's shoes against the floor was loud and inexorable. She pressed her hands against the glass, as though looking for a way through; then she whirled around, thinking there might be another Leviathan waiting to take her as well.
There wasn't.
There was just a room like a dance studio, with a barre and a piano, a potted aspidistra and a desk with framed photographs on it.
"I want to go home," she murmured, saturated with a need for one of her mother's special it'll-all-be-okay hugs, like she used to get when her father first left.
"Anzu …"
The voice came from above. She looked up, to the mirrored ceiling and a reflection that had been forgotten in the cull. This one wore ballet pumps and a leotard that clamped her chest a bit flatter, and smiled down at her.
"Wha-?" Anzu mumbled. "What's going on here? Where am I? Who're you?"
The reflection said nothing, but turned and walked, upside-down, across her mirror, clambering out of it and into another when she reached the edge. From there she dangled by her hands, as though hanging from a parallel bar, and then dropped the six feet to the mirrored floor with ease. Her smile never wavered, nor did she appear worried by the loss of the mirror's previous inhabitant. Instead she threw her arms up in a flourish, as though coming to the end of a pirouette.
"Ta-daa."
"Look, you." Anzu felt herself bristling. "I want some answers."
"Those I can do."
"Am I dead?"
The reflection was shocked. "Of course not."
"Oh. Right. So then … where am I?"
"Silly. You're dreaming."
"I'm …" That … actually made a lot of sense. Real sense and dream sense, which were quite different things. "I don't remember falling asleep."
"Probably because you were knocked out. Don't worry, it'll all come out in the wash."
Knocked unconscious? Finally a few meagre details trickled back to her. "We … won? Against Dartz?"
"Something like that." Her reflection smiled. It was a very infectious smile – like measles.
Anzu ran a hand through her hair. "This is weird. Usually my dreams involve chases and big purple monsters."
"Consider this your first big dose of symbolism then. Don't worry. You'll get used to it. I did."
The tone of these last two words caused Anzu to narrow her eyes at her reflection. "You don't sound like something cooked up by my subconscious. Who are you?"
"Who do you want me to be?"
"I mean it. Who are you? And why are you invading my dreams?"
The reflection cocked her head to one side, but said nothing.
"Answer me - " Angry and tired of not understanding, Anzu thumped a loose fist against the glass – and then stepped back in alarm.
The features of her reflection melted, rearranging themselves into another, different face. Spikes flared up around her forehead, while the back of her hair rose and prickled in direct proportion to her legs and chest shrinking. Her waist thickened like flesh popping from an undone corset, and her leotard became a baggy shirt and pants.
"Y-Yuugi?"
Yuugi looked up at her with the eyes of a sweet old hound gazing up at the muzzle brake of the vet's humane killer. "Who do you want me to be?"
"What?"
His face morphed like a Picasso painting. Soft waves of hair flowed down his back, and his eyes darkened without getting dark. "Who do you want me to be?" Ryou asked quietly.
"Stop it."
The light hair fell away, replaced by a tangled mess of spikes and tufts working their way free of a headband. Otogi's eyes sparkled as he asked, "Who do you want me to be?"
"I said stop it!"
"Who do you want me to be?" Mai demanded, voice sharp as the heels of her boots. She tossed her hair and fixed Anzu with an imperious eye that was already turning the colour of cornflowers caught up in an unplanned ice age.
"Who do you want me to be?" Kaiba growled.
"Who do you want me to be?" asked Mokuba.
"Who do you want me to be?" Valon smirked.
"Who do you want me to be?" Dartz's oddly coloured eyes held her, even as they changed.
"Who do you want me to be?" enquired Miss Odori, tapping the cane she'd never carried, but which Anzu had always thought would've looked right in her hands.
Anzu clapped her hands over her ears. "Stop it, stop it, stop it! You're not real! You're not them!"
"Who do you want me to be?" asked Rebecca, Grandpa Mutou, Raphael, Keith and the bitchy girls from school. "Who do you want me to be?" repeated Pegasus, Amelda, Malik, Isis and Rishid Ishtar.
Bottomless green eyes held hers, as hands twisted around a staff in a deniably nervous habit. "Who do you want me to be?" Black Magician Girl invited in the same voice she'd used the night the first dragon was awakened and drawn into battle against the Leviathan.
Anzu looked away, unable to meet those eyes.
"Who do you want me to be?" asked her own voice. Back to the beginning now – the reflection from the ceiling. "Who do you want me to be?" she asked again.
"Nobody!" Anzu exploded. "I don't want you to be anybody! I just want to wake up, in my own body, and forget this whole freaky dream."
"You can't." Her reflection seemed sadder than before, as though this answer had disappointed her in some way.
"Why can't I? That's what happens with dreams. You wake up, go back to your life, and forget all about them. And I've definitely had enough of this one."
"You can't go back. Not until you get it."
"Get what? I just spent … I don't know how long trapped in a world where souls go once they're ripped from their bodies. And no sooner do I get back from there, I find I have to go into battle against some megalomaniac riding around on a frikkin' lizard the size of my whole hometown. I've survived things I didn't even know existed, things I didn't think could exist, and things I didn't ever want to know exist. And now? I don't even get a break from the weirdness when I'm unconscious!"
"Anzu …" The reflection suddenly looked anxious. She glanced over her shoulder. "You know, I never could've acted like this before … before … well, the obvious." She gestured at herself.
"Obvious to you, maybe."
Anxiety morphed into fear. Her reflection was frightened. She looked over her shoulder again. "I'm not made of stone," she whispered.
"What's going on?" Anzu demanded. "Or is this just more of that general nuttiness that goes on in dreams?" Lucid dreaming was where you knew you were in a dream, right? That must be what was going on here. She was in the middle of a lucid dream. It made her wish she was fully immersed in this one, just so she could get through it without realising how freaky and wrong it was.
"I can't …" Her reflection – and was it really accurate to keep calling her that? – faltered and nibbled her lip in the exact same nervous habit Anzu had developed in fifth grade. She'd given it up by sixth, though it sometimes resurfaced when she was particularly stressed. She'd made her lower lip raw on the boat to Duellist Kingdom, and the first night she stayed over at Mai's. "I can't …"
"Can't what? Explain? Get me out of here?"
"I CAN'T BE WHO YOU WANT ME TO BE!" The shout was unexpected, full of venom and … panic? Her eyes were wide and her fists clenched. "I can't … "
The inflection was right, but the voice was all wrong. Anzu narrowed her eyes, searching her reflection's face for some sign of difference beyond the obvious.
"Anzu … help …"
"Me? Help you?"
"When did you start needing a reason to help people? Stupid girl."
Click.
Anzu's scalp prickled. "How?"
"I can't be who you want me to be."
Slowly, waiting for the other shoe to drop, she raised both hands, palms facing forward like in the universal gesture for 'calm down'. She pressed them against the glass. It was still solid, still cold, and still very glassy.
All at once she felt very foolish.
What am I doing? This is like a cheesy scene in a movie. Use the Force, young Mazaki.
What was she expecting to happen? The mirror to shatter? Her consciousness to be propelled back into her head? The world to end? She honestly didn't know.
Her reflection looked down at the hands. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to be symbolic."
"… Oh." Equally slowly, she raised her own hands and pressed them against the other side of the glass.
Anzu gave out a little gasp when she felt her other self's palms – the rough warmth of calloused skin, the faint pulse of blood beneath the surface. Something arrived in her head – she didn't think it, it was just suddenly there. "I … I think I understand, other me."
The mirror warped like the surface of water or some other, thicker liquid around their hands. Their fingers tangled and Anzu pulled. Her other self's arms sank into and through her side of the glass, but when they emerged on the other side they were altered – slim hands became wider, stronger, attached to forearms that weren't exactly muscular, but which could probably choke you with only a little effort. Dancers' arms were skinny, like stalks of wheat. Anzu remembered being told off once, when she was very small and her mother made her take a swimming course at the local pool so she wouldn't drown if she fell in the canal. Her dance teacher before Miss Odori had shaken a finger and said swimming developed all the wrong muscles for a dancer.
Anzu yanked hand, nails digging into hands that weren't her own. After the arms came an upper body that was definitely not female. A foot appeared as her reflection stepped forward, dragging the rest of the body after it. With a noise like a flame blowing out, it left the mirror and lurched fully into Anzu's little studio.
Yami stared at her.
"Are you really here?" Anzu asked hesitantly. "Are you really … you?"
"I can't be who you want me to be."
Question answered. She heaved a gusty sigh. "I know."
And then the world fell away.
"So you're finally awake. I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever come round."
A sense of incredulity and muddy relief uncoiled at the back of Anzu's brain. In her left hand, the Puzzle tingled. "We're alive," Yami murmured. He coalesced next to her and rubbed his head. "In a manner of speaking."
"Yeah."
"Are you injured?"
"No. Though I think I should be. No way we should've made it out of that intact."
"The gods favoured us."
"Or the God Cards." They were in her right hand, facedown and one on top of the other. She'd stared at them for what seemed like an age while waiting for Yami to re-emerge from the Puzzle.
The beach they'd somehow landed on was covered in pale sand and lined with exotic plants. It looked like something off a picture postcard, complete with sparkling blue sea and small white clouds floating in a perfect sky. Anzu had stared at the view while she dried out – which didn't take long in the bright sunshine. Despite the sky, the air was like air right after a storm, washed out and redolent of great energies just expended. The sea looked like a mirror. It was all very beautiful.
Dartz had said that beauty was impermanent, just like everything else good in the world. Pain, misery and hatred – they were the always-theres, the eternal. He'd watched the world for over ten thousand years, and all he'd been able to see was the dark. To him, hope wasn't so much a virtue as an elaborate hoax.
Anzu wasn't infallible. There were times she'd wanted to give up, times she'd thought almost the same thing as Dartz – that life was pain, and anyone who said different was selling something. She knew that, had he tried to break her the way he'd broken Valon, Raphael, Amelda and countless others through the centuries, she would've broken. She wasn't strong enough to resist him.
And yet … and yet she couldn't bring herself to believe that there was no such thing as hope. Nothing came without a price, but that could just as easily be flipped on its head. Seto Kaiba was a heartbeat away from being a complete misanthrope, but even he cared about his brother beyond all sense or reason. Pegasus had stolen souls and done terrible things, but he'd once loved so deeply that he still held up that time as a standard by which the rest of his life was measured.
Yami hunkered down beside her. It was the first time – outside of life-threatening world-saving shenanigans – that they'd been reunited since the Oricalcos pulled them apart. For a second Anzu was back in the desert with a funnel of green around her, and she shivered, hands tightening around the God Cards and Millennium Puzzle.
"Anzu?"
She should've been angry. She'd lost her soul for him.
But she was done being mad with Yami – for the time being, at least. Good things were impermanent. And Yami? He was a good thing.
Mostly.
She didn't like holding grudges – not usually – but still, just letting go of the feelings like that felt weird, almost like she was martyring herself for something. Forgive and forget – it wasn't as easy as Yuugi made it look. Maybe this was how he felt all the time, just letting the crappy feelings go, never letting the bad stuff stick. Of all the people in the world, Yuugi was the only one Anzu would consider able to resist Dartz's worldview. Not for the first time, she wondered whether Yuugi might've been a better choice as Yami's partner.
She'd had over a year to get used to the idea that she wouldn't ever know Yami. And while she knew more than she had, knowing more didn't mean understanding more. Except when it did, and even then … things were complicated.
And maybe … maybe that wasn't such a terrible thing.
Duellist Kingdom would still have happened if she never solved the Millennium Puzzle. Battle City would still have gone ahead, because hey, Kaiba had behavioural problems and an ego the size of China long before they met him. A whole range of things might have been better – more normal – had Yami remained trapped.
But then again, things could have been so much worse, too. Ghostly images of Dartz's bi-coloured eyes flitted across Anzu's mind, as did Ryou's eyes, sharpened by the presence of the Millennium Ring's spirit within him.
There was no use in obsessing over any of it – not anymore. They'd come too far and been through too much to let their all-too-human frailties bring them down now, and sitting there, staring at the sea, Anzu had come to an important decision: Whatever didn't kill her may not make her stronger, but it wouldn't make her weaker, either. She wouldn't let it.
They'd saved the world. They'd saved the freakin' world.
"I'm okay," she said, levering herself to her feet. "I …Yami?"
"Yes?"
This was the perfect opportunity for a stirring speech; maybe something about the merits of friendship and having faith in each other. She had enough evidence now for it to really mean something, but instead all she said was, "Thank you."
"I think I should be the one thanking you. And asking for forgiveness."
"Yami, you just helped save the world. I think you did enough to merit th- Yami?"
He was staring out to sea like he was afraid he'd go blind tomorrow and have nothing good to remember. She followed the line of his gaze, but all she could see was the horizon.
"We should find out where we are," he murmured at last. "And find the others."
"Yeah. Yeah, we probably should."
The air tasted salty. Anzu let go of the Puzzle and tucked the God Cards back into her deck. Her hair, clothes and skin stank of seawater, and she felt like she hadn't bathed or eaten in days. "When was the last time you ate?" she asked abruptly.
"Excuse me?" Yami blinked and looked at her, perplexed. "I … yesterday? Maybe?"
"That'd explain why my stomach's trying to crawl up my throat and eat my tongue. Honestly, I can't leave you in charge for five minutes, can I?"
It took a moment, but the smile came – the real smile – and something warm crept over Anzu's brain. It made her think of candyfloss and cold evenings combatted with hot beverages and central heating. She could get used to that feeling. It tasted sort of like a hug might.
"Stupid aibou."
FINIS.
But in his delicate form – a dream of love,
Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast
Long'd for a deathless lover from above,
And madden'd in that vision – are exprest
All that ideal beauty ever bless'd,
The mind within its most unearthly mood,
When each conception was a heavenly guest –
A ray of immortality – and stood,
Starlike, around, until they gathered to a god!
-- Canto IV: Verse 162, from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, by Byron.
Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs
"A little emotionally constipated, maybe, and boy howdy, can he wax lyrical on the benefits of friendship when he's got a card in his hand. Our little leading lady has got some competition there, methinks."
-- This is something I've never understood. Anzu is famous for her friendship speeches, but Yami is far, far worse for this sort of thing. Go on, watch your average episode. Count how many times he makes some comment about friends and friendship. Do it. He's a bloody broken record.
Why oh why had she left the Millennium Tauk at home? At least if she'd had it she could've blamed herself for not checking out what the future held and seeing this coming.
-- This works for Yuugi in the anime, too.
"But if you screw this up – if you give in again, I'll be waiting in the afterlife to … to do something really unspeakable to you!"
-- Ever had that? You're in a perfect situation to really hit home with a witty comment … and you can't think of a damn thing. Yeah, me too.
She couldn't forgive him for deteriorating into a lesser person …
-- Line liberated from the crime novel Body of Evidence, by Patricia D. Cornwell.
"Everything will be okay."
-- I think this (or something very like it) was the motto of Yoh Asakura, the protagonist of Shaman King (also dubbed by 4Kids, who use pretty much the same voice actors as inhabit the YGO dub).
"Okay … oxygen becoming an issue."
-- One of Willow's lines (of which she had many) in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Doppelgängland.
… that potted aspidistra Miss Odori insisted sit in the corner.
-- One of the longstanding effects of reading InterNutter's works is dropping cameos of aspidistras into fics. I don't really understand her fascination with them, or why they're following me around, but they are, so here you go. Consider it homage to one of the first really good fanfic authors I ever found on the Net.
But wait. Hadn't she stopped going to Miss Odori's when she was eleven?-- Miss Odori is a lingering echo of my old (unfinished) YGO fic Dandelion Days. Odori is Japanese for 'dance'. I think. It was a while ago when I first wrote her and had to look it up. Props to those who recognised her.
"Something isn't right here."
-- Not quite what Miss Clavel kept saying in the film version of Madeline ("Something … is not right.") but close enough.
There was just a room like a dance studio, with a barre and a piano, a potted aspidistra and a desk with framed photographs on it.
-- This is pretty much what Anzu's Soul Room looks like in the manga – complete with photograph of the Statue of Liberty.
Use the Force, young Mazaki.
-- If you didn't know that was a Star Wars side-fling, then shame on you! No cookie!
… life was pain, and anyone who said different was selling something.
-- Taken from The Princess Bride.
Seto Kaiba was a heartbeat away from being a complete misanthrope, but even he cared about his brother beyond all sense or reason.
-- A misanthrope is someone who hates humanity and humankind. Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, more famously known as the playwright Molière, wrote a famous French play called The Misanthrope –though if you're going to read Molière I'd suggest starting with The Hypochondriac. You can get really cheap versions published by Nick Hern Books (NHB) that are just the right size to fit into the average pocket. Hey, Culture in My Pocket! Maybe I'll market the idea and make millions!
Anzu had come to an important decision: Whatever didn't kill her may not make her stronger, but it wouldn't make her weaker, either. She wouldn't let it.
-- My last thought isn't linked to a specific moment, but to the fic in general. It should be evident from the very beginning that these are not the versions of the characters we know from the manga and anime. Differences between those two incarnations aside, the characters themselves remain the same here, but there are differences prompted by the events of the narrative. I'd just like to point that out before anyone starts biting my head off for writing them OOC (out of character).
To take the most obvious example, Anzu changes over the course of the fic, from someone resembling the Anzu of the manga and anime to a rather more abrasive and cynical personality. She does still believe in the power of friendship, and she puts tremendous faith in that power on several occasions. However, she doesn't rely on it as much as she does in the canon. No more being a receptacle for background noise and positive thinking for this girl. She changes, not because she wants to, but because she has to. She is forced to accept that Yuugi isn't the complete innocent she thought he was (although he's still cringe-makingly clumsy in social situations), that Mai maybe isn't as strong and capable as she makes out, and that Ryou has more secrets than just the Millennium Ring.
Incidentally, the Ring is most likely back with Ryou by the end of the fic. Whether intentionally or not, he probably (and possibly under the lingering effects of the spirit's mesmerism) unearthed it from Anzu's room and took it home with him after the reporter siege. Since all she wants to do is forget it exists, and since Yami assured her it was no longer a threat, she probably wouldn't check on it all that often.
Anzu's relationship with Yami is what really changes her. She isn't Yuugi. Even in her canon incarnation, she isn't as accommodating and charitable as Yuugi is, so it stands to reason she wouldn't react to being possessed the same way he does.
Canon!Yuugi is ingenuous enough that he looks on Yami's presence as a gift and means of gaining and keeping friends. Yami is his protector, confidante and trusted advisor. Anzu isn't and doesn't. Plus, her dynamic with Yami is substantially different than the dynamics between canon!Yami and either canon!Yuugi or canon!Anzu. Living with Yami can't be an easy experience when he's not in love with you. You'd have to concentrate on the logicalities of sharing yourself with another person. And be honest – would you be totally comfortable with that?
Think about it – he's there practically all the time. When you're shaving your armpits in the shower, when you're making an arse of yourself singing into a hairbrush, when you're trying to do homework, when you're on the toilet – All. The. Time. And even when he's taking a timeout in the Puzzle, there's always the chance he'll pop out while you're in the middle of loofahing the fungus from your foot, or picking your nose, or doing something you never wanted other people to see. Ever. There is no privacy. People seem to forget this when they write about possession (especially in YGO) and it pisses me off. Possession isn't all shared feelings and moments of comfort. There are long stretches of not speaking to each other, blazing arguments over who gets to be in control now, and other unpleasant things. Yami isn't some noble person who always puts the feelings of others before his own. Even in canon he can be selfish and arrogant.
Yuugi manages to change this simply by being himself and letting his personality rub off on Yami. I'm not sure he ever realises he's doing/done it. Anzu argues with him and, as Yami himself acknowledges, 'fights him at every turn'. Yet this seems to work – for both of them.
Through her interactions with Yami, Anzu gains a greater appreciation of both the meaning of friendship, and a healthier way of caring about those she loves. Likewise, Yami files down some of his rougher edges by being in and observing Anzu's life. She is the total antithesis to everything he embodies, from her views on killing and means justifying ends, to her relationship with her parents and the tendency towards guilt and a desire to fix the world's problems only lightly touched on in the canon – not to mention the obvious: her gender. Though they don't always get along (no giggling over his sultry voice for this Anzu), they work. It's like bananas and wholemeal toast – you wouldn't think they'd go well together, but they do. It's not romantic – each knows too much about the other to find them attractive – but by the end of the fic they've moved beyond pity and protecting the landlady for one's own self-interest. They do care about each other, as Yami's last line attests. They just have a very unpredictable and idiosyncratic relationship.
There are other major things that secede this timeline from the canon – the catching of Mai's problems post-Battle City, the absences of Jounouchi and Honda from the 'Inner Circle', and Shizuka's subsequent blindness to name but a few – but it's the subtle changes in character relationships that make the difference, and Yami and Anzu exemplify this far more than any other characters. Some people may say this strays too far from the canon versions of the characters to be worth anything, but Yami and Anzu's partnership is a fascinating thing (a variation on a theme, if you will) that I thoroughly enjoyed looking at while writing this fic, and which I hope you enjoyed reading about, too.
Thanks for sticking with it, those who got this far. And thank you for indulging this old cynic and her kinks.
As ever, reviews longed-for.