SPOILER ALERT: This chapter contains spoilers for the end of the series. Read at your own risk.
Rating: K+
#23 Candy
She first saw the little blond American girl in the gift shop buying some candy. The girl looked like she was ten or so and was chatting animatedly in English with an older American gentleman—her grandfather, Shizuka presumed—and Shizuka really only noticed her because she was so loud and her manner so informal and even cheeky with her elder. She also was wearing what looked like a Japanese school uniform, which Shizuka thought was odd on an American.
She saw her again when she was waiting in the place where passengers from international flights came through after customs. She was checking the flight schedule for the fourteen thousandth time and hoping Otogi had given her the right flight information when she heard the girl's loud chattering. It was then that she started thinking that the girl looked kind of familiar, like she'd seen her somewhere before. On TV maybe? She could be some child actress on one of those American TV shows. Shizuka probably could've figured it out if she'd listen to them talking; she understood English, but only if she was paying careful attention. Right now she was too anxious to see her brother and everyone to drum up enough interest and the girl's prattle was grating on her nerves anyway, so she let the foreign language wash over, not paying any attention until she heard the girl say what sounded an awful lot like "Otogi."
Her curiosity piqued, Shizuka started listening to the young American. It couldn't really be considered eavesdropping, she reasoned, since the girl was speaking loudly enough for the pilots on the incoming planes to hear.
"Yes, Rebecca," the grandfather was saying in a weary voice, "I'm quite sure Otogi gave us the right flight information. The flight arrived from Cairo some time ago. It just takes a while to get through customs. You have to be patient."
"I'm sorry, I just can't wait," she replied, a bundle of energy. "I'm just so anxious to see my darling, to make sure he's okay with everything that happened."
Shizuka moved closer to the pair. "Excuse me," she said in English, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but I couldn't help but overhear you mention the name Otogi. Do you mean Otogi… I mean Ryuuji Otogi, coming in on the flight from Cairo?" she asked, switching the name to the English order with the surname last.
"Oh! You know Otogi?" the girl asked in flawless—if a bit impolite—Japanese and Shizuka found herself surprised. "Are you like his girlfriend or something?"
Shizuka blushed. "Oh no, no, he's… he's a friend of my brother's. They're returning from Cairo together with a bunch of their friends."
The blond girl narrowed her eyes. "Who's your brother?"
"Jounouchi Katsuya," Shizuka replied and then took a step back in surprise when the girl shrieked.
"You're Jounouchi's sister? No way! I know Jounouchi! He's my darling's best friend!" she cried, delighted. "My name's Rebecca, by the way, and this is my grandfather."
"Professor Arthur Hopkins," the gentleman said with a smile and a polite bow of his head.
Shizuka bowed back. "Pleased to meet you," she said with an awkward grin, curious about who exactly this kid thought was her "darling." "My name is Shizuka. So how do you know my brother and his friends?"
"My boyfriend is his best friend. Mutou Yugi," she said with a wide smile and Shizuka almost choked. I wonder what Anzu has to say about that. The girl couldn't be more than ten, eleven tops, although her half-moon glasses made her look a little older. Then again, Yugi didn't exactly look his age, either. "I met them all a couple years ago when I thought his grandpa stole a rare card from my grandpa, but that turned out to be a big misunderstanding. And then, of course, they all stayed with us when they were in California for that whole Orichalcos nightmare, and then Yugi and Jounouchi and I all competed in the KC Grand Prix together—"
"Wait, what did you say?" Shizuka interrupted. "Did you say they stayed with you when they were in California this past summer?" When her brother had called, hadn't he mentioned something about a professor?
"That's right," Rebecca chirped. "They came to see Gramps to see what he knew about those weird Orichalcos stones, but of course that's right when those Doma creeps set our house on fire, so we all ended up crammed together in the RV. That was just before the other Yugi lost my darling's—"
"Rebecca!" the professor called out kindly but firmly. "I'm sure this young lady does not want to hear all about our exploits in California, and Yugi and the others should be through customs any time now."
"No, it's fine," Shizuka smiled politely, trying to hide her disappointment. Here was someone who had actually been in California with her brother when all that weird stuff was going on and had been about to tell her some of what really went on! If only her grandfather hadn't cut her off. But she suspected the grandfather had guessed she didn't know much about that trip by design. Still, this girl had come all the way from America just to greet them when they got off the plane, so she would probably be staying a while. Maybe Shizuka could find a way to get her alone at some point and finally get the real story.
The professor made small talk with them, explaining how he was an old friend of Yugi's grandfather, then Rebecca jumped in again. "We knew they were going to Egypt, of course, even before Otogi called. And then when all the storms started everywhere, well we just knew it was related, you know?"
Shizuka nodded, trying not to shudder. She too had figured the weird storms that had sprung up all over the world were somehow related to whatever was going on in Egypt. That was when Otogi had called her to ask if she'd heard from any of them, and when she hadn't, he'd told her he was going to fly out to Egypt to check on them. She didn't hear anything from any of them until two days after the storms had stopped when Otogi called to tell her they were coming home and gave her the flight information so she could meet them at the airport. It had taken quite a bit of maneuvering for her to get her mother to let her come to Domino so she could be here when they arrived, but she did it and here she was, waiting to see them. Waiting for confirmation that it was truly over.
Apparently Rebecca and her grandfather had felt the same way. "As soon as the storms stopped we got on a plane for Japan because I just had to be here when they got back," Rebecca said, offering Shizuka some of the grape Hi-Chews candy she'd bought in the gift shop. "It must've been hard for darling to say goodbye to his other self, even after everything that happened last summer." She sighed dramatically. "I just had to be here for him."
Again Shizuka had to battle down her need to know what exactly had gone on in California last summer; with Rebecca's grandfather there, she doubted she'd get the full story right now anyway.
"So how about you, do you know Yugi and the others pretty well, or are you just here to see your brother?" Rebecca asked her.
"No, they're all my friends," she replied, declining the candy. "I first met Yugi and the others when they were in a tournament here in Domino called Battle City."
"Oh man, Battle City! I so should've been in that tournament, but Gramps wouldn't let me take a break from school to come back to Japan," Rebecca pouted, glowering at her grandfather. He pretended not to notice. "I was just starting my last semester of high school and he didn't think—"
"High school?" Shizuka cried, interrupting her. "How old are you?"
Rebecca gave her a haughty smirk. "I just turned eleven."
"Eleven? And you're in high school?"
"No, I was in high school during Battle City. I just finished my second semester of college."
Shizuka gaped at her. "College? And you're eleven?"
"I'm a prodigy," she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "And also the American National Duel Monsters Champion," she bragged.
That was when Shizuka realized where she'd seen Rebecca before. "I remember you now! You were in that tournament in California. I saw you on television!"
"That's right," she smiled proudly.
"You did quite well, didn't you?"
"I made it to the semi-finals," said, then her smile faded to a scowl. "I wanted to win so I could duel against my darling, but that Leon was just too good. But at least I got to go to that one," she said with another angry glare at her grandfather.
"Oh, be glad you missed Battle City," Shizuka placated her. "It really wasn't all that great. I mean, other than getting to meet Yugi and Honda and Anzu and Mai and everyone."
Rebecca's eyes narrowed. "Mai? The tall blonde with the attitude? What is her deal anyway?"
Shizuka frowned. Rebecca knew Mai, too? She and her brother hadn't heard anything from Mai since the end of Battle City and he patently refused to talk about her, and Shizuka was suddenly very curious again. What did this girl know about Mai and why was she reacting so negatively? Mai hadn't been in that tournament with them, so she couldn't know her from that. Shizuka started to ask her how she knew Mai when her grandfather interrupted.
"Rebecca, look, they're here."
Rebecca and Shizuka both looked down the long airport passageway toward the exit from customs. Seven familiar figures walked wearily among the crowd toward them dragging their suitcases.
"YUGI!" Rebecca shrieked suddenly, darting past her grandfather and racing down the concourse, dropping her package of Hi-Chews and sending grape candies flying everywhere. She threw herself at the diminutive teen, wrapping her arms around his neck and peppering his cheek with kisses. Even from this distance, Shizuka could see Anzu behind them, seething. Yugi, for his part, looked mortified.
At that moment, her brother caught sight of her, his eyes widening in surprise. "Shizuka!" he called, and she started running down the concourse, too. As soon as he'd said her name, however, he'd attracted the attention of both Honda and Otogi who simultaneously moved as if to run to meet her. Katsuya was quicker, however, grabbing them both by the backs of their jackets and muttering something that she was fairly certain was a threat. She couldn't help but laugh as she reached them, stopping short in front of where Rebecca had finally let go of poor Yugi. She wanted to throw her arms around her brother she was so relieved that once again he was safe and everything was all right, but he was surrounded by his friends and she couldn't really get close to him. He looked good, though, and happy. They all did, come to think of it, even Yugi. The only difference she could see in him was that he was no longer wearing the big golden inverted pyramid around his neck like he always did.
It was later, back at the impromptu gathering they'd had at Yugi's house that Shizuka got a sense on how big a toll this trip had taken on them all. Yugi, never a big talker to begin with, seemed to get quieter and more withdrawn as the evening went on. Anzu disappeared early on and Shizuka found her a little later downstairs in the game shop, sitting behind one of the counters, crying. She tried to talk to her, but Anzu just shook her head and left, asking Shizuka to make her apologies to Yugi and his grandfather for her. Bakura, whom Shizuka knew least of all of them, seemed to hover in the corners and had to be consistently drawn back into the group by one of them. Otogi and Honda seemed the same as always, fighting over her as usual while Katsuya threatened them, but every now and then she'd catch Honda looking wistfully at Yugi's duel disk propped in the corner or Otogi fiddling with a handful of dice the way he did when he was preoccupied. The whole evening had an almost wake-like feel to it, only no one was really talking about the person who was gone. Such was the mood of the evening that she'd even abandoned her plan to get Rebecca alone and question her about California; the young girl spent the whole night glued to Yugi's side anyway, trying to cheer him up.
As the group started to disperse for the night, it seemed to occur to her brother for the first time that she was in Domino. "Hey, Sis, where are you staying anyway?"
"Anzu's. Her parents have always been so nice to me, so when Otogi told me when you guys were coming home, I called them and asked if I could stay with them. It's just for one night; I promised Mom I'd be back in Tokyo for New Year's."
"Yeah, I'll come too," he said. "I promised you I would. All right then, if you're ready to go, why don't I walk you over to Anzu's?"
"I'm ready," she nodded.
They said good-bye to Yugi and his grandfather and made their way downstairs through the shop. There, her brother paused at the same counter where she'd found Anzu crying earlier.
"Man," he breathed looking suddenly bereft.
"What?" she asked, coming up beside him.
"It just hit me, being here, in the shop at the Duel Monsters counter. He's gone, Shizuka. He's gone and he's never coming back."
She put her hand on his shoulder. "How was it? How did it happen?"
A sort of choking laugh escaped him. "A duel, of course. He had to 'put down his sword' or something, which meant he had to lose a ceremonial duel. We all wanted to be the one to do it. I mean, we didn't want him to go, but it was the right thing to do, you know? Me and Kaiba even fought over it."
"Kaiba was there?" she asked, surprised.
"Yeah. He showed up not long after we did, I guess. Turns out he and the other—" He stopped short. "He and Atem were cousins in a previous life."
"Atem?" she asked.
"That's his name. The other Yugi. His name is Atem."
"Really?" She said the name, rolling it around on her tongue. It felt weird, like it didn't quite fit right.
"Yeah, it's kinda hard to get used to, ain't it?"
"So who dueled him? You or Kaiba?"
"Neither," he replied. "It was Yugi."
Her eyes widened in surprise. "Yugi? How…?"
"They split apart. It was the freakiest thing ever. Yugi put all the Millennium Items back in the stone tablet where they belonged and then suddenly he just… split apart. And there was the two of them."
"And Yugi actually beat him?"
"Yep."
"And then what?"
"And then he walked into this doorway into this big light and that was that," he said, his voice wavering at the end.
She squeezed his shoulder. "It was the right thing to do, right?"
"Yeah, right," he agreed, covering her hand with his. "It was the right thing to do. Still feels lousy though. And Yugi… he's really starting to feel it, I can tell."
"Anzu, too. She was pretty upset earlier. That's why she left."
He closed his eyes and nodded. "Yeah. It's gonna take her a while, I think. It's hard because it seems the same, you know? Yugi's still here."
"But it isn't the same."
"No." He sighed. "But it doesn't have to be the same. It'll be good this way, too. I know it will be. We just all need time."
"Time to grieve," she agreed.
"Yeah. Time to grieve. And to remember. This time, no one will forget his name. Atem," he said, reverently. "His name is Atem. Except…"
"Except what?"
"Except… we'll never forget Atem. But to us, he'll still always be the other Yugi."
She smiled. "You know what, Big Brother? I don't think he'd have it any other way."