Chapter 12: Once Bitten
"I'm fine, doctor," Yami insisted. "I assure you."
The onboard doctor gave an unconvinced hum and continued checking the long-dead-pharaoh's vitals, which was ironic now that Yori had enough distance from the lightning scare not to be panicking.
In an uncommonly stern voice, Yuugi said, "Yami, you were struck by lightning."
"Holographic lightning, technically," Yori said. "But it still looked like it hurt."
The doctor glanced up with a slight frown before reaching for a stethoscope.
"Yori, I'm not here," Yuugi reminded her. "Don't respond to me."
"Nonsense," she said. "The nice doctor doesn't mind if I talk to spirits, does he?"
"Do whatever you'd like," the doctor said without missing a beat. "I'm not a psychiatrist." Then, to Yami, "Take a deep breath for me."
Yami obeyed, and after several breaths, the doctor declared that he had the lungs of a prize fighter.
Yami chuckled. "I'll take that to mean I'm prime tournament material."
"And congratulations on advancing to the next round of finals." The doctor made a note on his clipboard, then fastened a blood pressure cuff around Yami's bicep.
As the air hissed, Yami opened his mouth, hesitated, then said, "How's Odion?"
"In his grave compared to you," the doctor said mildly. "I'm not sure your adrenal glands even registered you had a normal duel, much less a strenuous one."
Yami turned his palms up with a small smile. "Strange happenings."
The doctor shook his head, made another note, and removed the cuff. "You're cleared to go. If you'd like to check on the other contestant, I'll have Fuyumi take you."
"Thank you, doctor." Yami stood, and the doctor's assistant gestured toward the door.
"I'm glad you're okay," Yuugi said, to which Yami nodded. Just as Yuugi disappeared, a new head poked through a curtained divider.
"Anzu," Yori said in surprise.
The girl shifted nervously, curtain fisted in her hand. She motioned them over.
"I heard—um." She lifted a hand like she was about to touch Yami's shoulder, then stopped. "I'm glad you're okay. You should know . . ."
She pulled the curtain back slightly, allowing them to enter the divided area of the room. It was barely large enough for a bed, sink counter, and two chairs.
Ryou was the bed's occupant. Yori's heart sank to her ankles.
"He'll be okay," Anzu hurried to add. "He just tried to pick a fight while dehydrated."
She looked to Fuyumi for confirmation, who nodded.
As if Ryou would ever pick a fight with anyone. Between his duel and whatever else had happened, the spirit must have worn his body ragged. And Yori hadn't done a thing to stop it.
"You check on the Ghoul." She struggled to keep her voice even. "I'm staying with Ryou."
Yami touched her hand, so fleeting she almost missed it. Then he followed Fuyumi back to the door.
Anzu had stayed behind as well, and she pulled the second chair next to the one she must have occupied earlier. Because it was a nice gesture, Yori sat beside her, even though her nervous energy wanted her to pace.
Ryou was paler than normal, and his hair had the matted look of not-quite-dry. Yori tried reaching out to him with the bracelet, but neither he nor the spirit answered back. At least it didn't come with the pain she'd experienced trying to contact Yami while he was unconscious.
"It happened just before the duel," Anzu said.
Yori nodded. She didn't ask for details; Anzu wouldn't know the truth anyway.
"Speaking of the duel . . ."
She left it hanging, likely waiting for Yori to explain what had happened to Yami. But it was a long story, and Yori wasn't in the mood to revisit it. So she let the silence speak.
"He really will be okay." Anzu smiled gently. "He just needs rest."
What he needed was to be rid of his demonic possession, but Yori couldn't force the matter when Ryou insisted he wanted to handle it himself.
Yori sighed, rubbing her eyes. "People are frustrating."
Anzu snorted. "Especially boys."
"Especially boys," Yori agreed.
She scooted forward in the chair, leaned back, and tilted her eyes up. The fluorescent lights had been dimmed, and shadows pooled along the curtain track in the ceiling. It had to be late at night already, and there were two more duels still to go. Yori would be in one of them, and her opponent could only be one of three people. Maybe she would have a friendly spar with Joey. Maybe she would trade insults across the field with Ishizu.
Or maybe.
She would fight Marik.
"Actually . . ." Anzu's voice had risen in pitch, though she tried to sound casual. "Since you're here, maybe I could get some . . . advice. About, um, boys."
Yori snorted. "There's a dumb idea."
When she straightened in her chair and saw Anzu's expression, she realized her mistake.
"Sorry, asking for advice isn't dumb. It's me giving it that's dumb. I have the worst track record." Funny how people kept coming to her anyway: first Jiro and now Anzu.
"Oh." Anzu crossed her legs and shrugged. "That's funny because I think Yami's pretty great. A little dramatic sometimes, but—"
Yori raised a hand, stopping her short. Anzu smiled.
"It's hard not to notice," she said in a stage whisper. "I mean, you held hands a minute ago."
"We didn't—" Yori scowled and changed the subject. "What advice?"
Anzu scooted forward in her chair, leaning close and lowering her voice. "Okay, so you know that feeling when you're spending time with a boy—nothing romantic at all, absolutely at all, just normal, non-romantic time studying or something—but you know your family's going to see him eventually, and you know they won't approve and they'll make a huge deal out of it even though it's completely fine?"
Yori blinked. Then blinked again. ". . . I can honestly say I have no idea. Again, maybe I'm not the best person for this."
In fact, no one smart ever turned to her for advice about anything. Asking someone for advice meant they did something worth admiring.
Not Yori's forte.
"Oh." Anzu looked down, tugged at the edge of her mini-skirt. "I just thought . . . You're just so good with people."
Yori's eyebrows rose. "You mean, like . . . intimidating them or getting money?" She laughed. "Are you taking Tristan home to your parents?"
"No, I'm not taking anyone . . ." Anzu sighed. "I just think there's been a big misunderstanding, and I want everyone to give him a chance, but I don't know how to even bring it up without people freaking out. You're good at, you know . . . saying things how they are and not backing down."
"I have literally no idea what you're talking about. What misunderstanding?"
Anzu tucked her hair behind her ears, refusing to meet Yori's eyes. "He's not . . . good, exactly. But he's not as bad as we thought."
"Duke?"
"No, he's not . . . I mean, Duke's . . ."
"Ryou?" Had she caught on to the spirit's possession?
"No, Ryou's great—"
"Anzu, spit it out!"
"Marik."
The silence stretched, and then Yori laughed again because it had to be a joke.
But Anzu didn't.
"Marik?" Yori repeated. "Marik is the misunderstanding? Marik is 'not as bad as we thought'?"
"I know he doesn't seem—"
"How's your hand, Anzu?" Yori thumped the brace with her middle finger, making Anzu wince. "How's your head?"
"Okay, I came to you for advice!" Anzu stood, her chair sliding back an inch under the force of her movement. Fire snapped in her eyes. "I knew Joey would be bad, but I didn't realize you would be—"
"Sure, we're the bad ones." Yori narrowed her eyes. "Did you know Marik almost killed Seto today? Chained him to an anchor and dropped him in the ocean. But hey, maybe there was a misunderstanding."
Anzu struggled for words. Yori had no such trouble.
"You know who else was attached to that anchor? Mokuba. He's a kid, Anzu. A sweet kid who couldn't hurt anyone if he tried. Marik almost killed him. He's been trying to do the same or worse to Yami since before the tournament even started."
"That's the misunderstanding," she burst out. "Marik thinks—"
"I don't care what Marik thinks. I. Could. Not. Care. Less." Yori stood and pointed at Ryou, still unconscious on the bed. "I didn't ask for details, but I'd bet a hundred bucks this is Marik's fault, too."
"It isn't." Anzu set her jaw. "Ryou attacked him."
"Well, good for him"—spirit though it may have been—"because Marik tried to kill Ryou today, too. He set him against Yuugi in a death match. One that almost cost me my legs, thanks for asking. Do you see the pattern here?"
Anzu swallowed. "I know. I get it. But there's also—"
"I don't think you get it at all if you're still defending him. I don't care what you've seen him do or heard him say that makes you think he's not that bad. That's all part of the act for guys like Marik, and once you fall for it, they'll stab you in the back. Trust me."
In her mind, a set of gold eyes winked, and she heard the echo of Haku's laugh, of her own scream. Even with the warmth of Yami's jacket, goosebumps rose on her arms.
Anzu looked away and muttered, "Well, so much for you not having any advice."
"It's not advice; it's fact. Here's my advice: Stay away from him."
"I dug my own grave here." Anzu carefully set a water bottle and a half-empty sleeve of crackers on the counter beside Ryou's bed. "So I'm just gonna go."
"I'm serious, Anzu. Stay away."
"I heard you, Yori. And I'm done getting chewed out after I tried to avoid it, so goodnight."
She ducked through the curtain and disappeared. Yori was too wound up to sit, so she shoved both chairs against the wall and paced. She could only hope hers was the next duel and that Marik was her opponent. She wanted to face him more than ever.
Of course, she didn't need to wait for the duel. He couldn't avoid her now that they were trapped on the same blimp.
Before she could rethink it, her switchblade was in her hand.
"It's the pharaoh's destiny to defeat him, not yours."
Yori turned to find Shadi standing at the foot of Ryou's bed. "I thought you didn't go in for destiny. I thought that's the whole reason I'm alive."
He tilted his head slightly, acknowledged. "There are some times I do not, and there are some times I do. If you fight Marik, everything that is already bad will grow worse; of that, I am certain. It is why I have come to warn you."
"Thanks a heap." Yori resumed pacing. As she reached the wall, she shook her head. "You know, if you really wanted . . ."
Her voice trailed into silence because when she looked back, Shadi was gone. So much for that. But she put her switchblade away, and she didn't hunt Marik down. Instead, she touched Ryou's shoulder.
"Wake up soon, okay?" She swallowed.
Then she kept pacing.
Sometimes it was disappointing, the lack of creativity among the shadows. The spirit of the ring knew them well after living amongst them for thousands of years. In those years, they'd exhausted all their voices to his ears. He feared neither their power nor their punishments, and he had learned all their rules. So it was no surprise that after his ghostly shadow game with Kaiba, his punishment should be indulging the ghosts of his own past.
All one hundred and twenty-seven of them.
It was the impersonal first, the ones he'd barely known in life and not by name. A man with a beard. A girl with a scar. He watched them die by the spear, felt their pain firsthand, but it was only their pain, distant and tingly. The spirit cackled as the sting faded. Next came the acquaintances, the ones he'd known by necessity but not by emotion. The old woman who kept a basket of scorpions. The ornery man who crafted odorless poisons. They were trampled by hooves, impaled on knives, and the spirit felt his own bones crack, his own skin split. It was close and ugly, but the spirit still laughed.
Last came the family. Menes, who taught him to set lures, who gave him his first blade. Hepsut, who fed him each time he ran away from home and listened to him swear up and down that he would never return only to convince him back to his parents by morning.
Bo, his best friend.
His father.
His mother.
This pain was raw. Burning. And it was not entirely theirs; the screams were half his, as much the pain of mourning as of death.
And it wasn't that it wasn't torture. He was simply disappointed at the lack of creativity. After all, he'd tortured himself in much the same way in both life and death. Perhaps not with such vivid colors, but old news nonetheless.
He bared his teeth at the shadows, gave them his best cackle to show what he thought of their power. He rode their little punishment out to the end, at which point he exited the ride, raised his arms to the dark, and said, "How about another go? You tossers didn't even get me dizzy!"
However, the self-indulgent smirk died on his lips as he heard a scream that wasn't his, either personally or in memory.
And the shadows told him of their deal with Ryou Bakura.
Ryou didn't have much in terms of ghosts in his past.
Just a mother.
Just a sister.
Over.
And over.
And over again.
The spirit sat on his cushioned throne and listened to the kid's high-pitched, wrenching screams, the ones that sounded like the shadows were breaking his spine one slow disc at a time.
Ryou never laughed at the shadows.
No.
In between his screams—
—he sobbed.
"I didn't ask for his help," the spirit snarled into the dark. "You can't accept something to help me when I don't want it. I didn't give permission."
The shadows didn't answer, of course. Only one person's permission was needed for the shadows to work; it was the reason clueless opponents fell victim to shadow games. The spirit had taken gleeful advantage of the system plenty of times in the past.
He couldn't cancel someone else's deal, couldn't interfere.
So he just waited until the screams and the tears faded into silence.
When the shadows finally retreated, the spirit sat next to Ryou. The boy turned away, rested his head on his knees.
It could have been days in the real world they sat like that. Who knew.
The spirit wanted to believe the kid had only done it to get his life back. To get some kind of control. He wanted to believe in selfish reasons because selfish reasons didn't require anything from him in return.
He knew better.
So in the end, he said, "Nakhti."
Ryou didn't move. Then his back rose in a long, slow breath.
"What?" he murmured, voice barely audible.
"It's my name," the spirit said. "Nakhti."
Ryou turned his head, met the spirit's eyes. A faint smile crossed his face.
"Now get out." The spirit stood.
Ryou climbed to his feet and started for the door.
"Not that way."
He turned, frowned.
The spirit gestured above them. "Out there. Get out."
That faint smile returned.
And then Ryou was gone.
The spirit sighed, reclining against his throne. No matter how he mocked it, his mind and soul ached from the shadow torture, and he'd just voluntarily set his plans back an indeterminate amount of time. The items would only be all together on the blimp for a short window.
But he'd sort it out later. Once the echoes of Ryou's screams didn't feel so fresh.
When Yami entered Odion's room, he nearly hit Tristan with the door. Luckily, the other boy stuck a hand out to stop it.
"It's packed in here," Tristan said. The improvised care room barely had space for the gurney and IV stand much less the five people crowded around them—six with the addition of Yami. Apparently, the real medical bay wasn't equipped for more than one patient at a time, so the staff had had to make do. "You doing alright, man?"
"I'm fine." Yami turned sideways to sneak through the opening so Tristan could close the door and clear some breathing room again. "How's he?"
Tristan shrugged. "Nurse didn't know what to call it. Something like he's got the pain responses and dilation and whatnot, so it's not a coma, but he's not waking up either."
"More than likely, he's with Osiris," Yami said.
Duke frowned, joining the conversation. "His god card?"
Yami shook his head. "The god himself."
"Why not?" Tristan snorted. "Honestly, nothing sounds weird anymore."
"Sounds plenty weird to me," Duke said.
Serenity scooted close to Duke so Yami could step forward to the bed. Odion looked anything but restful in his unconsciousness; creases marked his tattooed face, and his forehead was dotted with sweat.
"I don't like any Ghoul," Joey said from his place at Yami's shoulder, "but it ain't right that Marik just walked away—like, what, this guy ain't a useful pawn no more, so Marik could care less?"
Yami thought back to Marik's scream, to the surge of shadow power he'd felt.
"I think it may be more complicated than that," he said quietly.
"Or maybe it ain't." Joey shook his head, a dark look in his eyes. "You seen one gang leader, you seen 'em all. Tell you what—I hope I'm duelin' next, and I hope I get to cut that creep down to size."
No one said anything after that until a minute or two had passed in silence. Then Mai heaved a sigh.
"What a dark crowd are we," she said, "and doing no one good by standing. Go, be out. I will stay."
Joey frowned. "I get the going thing, but why are you gonna—"
"Never question a set woman, mon cher. Only say, 'Oui, mademoiselle, you are right.'"
"Oui, mademoiselle, you're right," Tristan said, grinning as he opened the door.
"There." Mai pointed. "Tristan is a smart man. He will go far."
Joey scowled. "I don't get it."
His sister giggled as she and Duke followed Tristan out the door. Mai waved a hand at Joey like brushing crumbs off a table, to which he said, "I'm goin', I'm goin'," and made his exit.
Yami lingered a moment more, watching the slight tremors in Odion's hands where they rested on the sheets.
"A god, you say?" Mai raised an eyebrow.
Yami smiled faintly. "Would you believe it?"
"I work a cruise liner, mon cher; I hear and believe many things."
"In that case, oui, mademoiselle, a god."
"Oh, your accent is not bad. You should learn." She smiled. "You noticed, of course, the way he dueled."
"I noticed. Hopefully Osiris did, too. True honor is a rare thing." It was unnerving how little Yami knew of his own religion. According to tradition, he was as much a part of it as Osiris. He was Ra on Earth. The high priest of every temple.
"Maintain ma'at," Osiris had said before disappearing.
If only Yami knew what it meant.
"Nonsense," Mai said. "There are two honorable men in this room alone."
Yami blinked himself back to reality, and then he gave an embarrassed chuckle. He didn't bother arguing; he simply asked her to let him know when Odion awoke. Maybe they could have a conversation as people rather than enemies, especially if Marik wasn't lurking.
When he stepped into the hallway, his group of friends was nearly at the corner.
"Headin' to the lounge," Joey called back. "You comin'?"
Yori was nowhere to be seen. He waved for them to continue without him.
When he re-entered Ryou's care area, he found Yori with an awake-and-alert Ryou.
/Ryou's awake,/ he said as soon as he registered it.
Yuugi appeared instantly and sagged in relief. He didn't need to ask; Yami surrendered control.
"Ryou, are you okay? I was so worried!" Yuugi jumped on the end of Ryou's bed, tucking his knees up as Ryou laughed.
"I'm alright, mate. I could really use a full English, though, or a big steak."
Yami traded smiles with Yori, and as the two boys continued to talk, she edged her way closer to him.
"Still feeling okay?" she asked.
"I feel fine," he said seriously, "but I think something may have happened to my hair. Has it always stood on end like this or was that the lightning?"
She laughed.
It was such a strange thing; whenever he was around her, he wanted to do anything to hear that laugh. He didn't consider himself a lighthearted person; it was one of the biggest differences between himself and Yuugi. And he certainly didn't possess Joey's goofiness. But around Yori, sometimes he felt like a new version of himself. Maybe a better version of himself.
One who believed in the future.
"I'd like to speak with you privately," he said, "when we have a chance."
"Don't sound so serious; I'll worry it's about the fate of the world." She smiled, but it was strained. "Shadi stopped by earlier with warnings and all that jazz."
"Shadi?" Yuugi perked up, turning his head. His eyebrows drew together in a worried frown. Ryou leaned around him, obviously curious.
"It's nothing," Yori said. "If I think about anything he's told me too much, my mind will probably shut down, so I'll just take things day-at-a-time like I always do."
Yuugi nodded, though he was still frowning to himself.
Maybe that was the wisest choice. One thing was sure—over-worrying had never gotten Yami anywhere good in the past.
After getting the doctor's permission to leave, Ryou joined the others in the lounge. Yuugi walked with him to the lounge entrance, then traded places with Yami once more. Yami offered to wait, but he was relieved when Yuugi insisted things were fine as long as he knew Ryou was okay. He returned to the puzzle, and then it was just Yami and Yori.
Alone.
Note: This chapter's scene with the spirit of the ring is one of my favorites. Hope you enjoyed! I'm going out of state next week to visit my in-laws, so the next chapter update will be Halloween (Thursday, October 31st).