Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds: The Judgement of the World
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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"What are we supposed to do, Fudo? We're just high school students, we don't..." Ryo shook his head in frustration as he leaned back against his seat. Ryo reached forward with his empty hands as though he was trying to find something to grab. Something solid that he could hold on to, guide him..
Yusei shook his own head, unable to think of a good answer for the question. It left him silent as he stood there, the guys were ok for the most part. It was the girls that he was concerned with, anything that bothered the guys would be dealt with later. A young boy, though older than the twins and with similar hair color went walking by down the hallway.
"Any idea what we should do about the Yusuke/Honest issue? I mean all the Spirits are back and that means he's back to. What about school?"
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When they arrived.
He felt it first.
It ran up his spine, stretched out until his feathers fluffed up and his hair stood on ends. Whatever was in the darkness of Yami was far more dangerous than just Yusuke. Primal, raw, it made all of Honests' senses scream that they needed to run. But 'Yusuke' was an average teen, without such powers. All he could do was beg and plead...
Fubuki would glance at him from time to time. Both curious and concerned but he could not say no to his sister. So Fubuki held his tongue.
It was the last 'gift' to the gang that Honest could give.
He made them forget the truth.
In exchange he remembered it for them.
"I would complain about what Kara did, but hers is a tough love for mankind."
Yugi noted from somewhere in front of Honest.
The pair were in the Duel Spirit world, already the dragons had collected a reasonable number of healing spirits. Spirits were marshaling for dealing with Yubel and Yusuke's presence. While Honest was sitting under a tree, his wings were out and furled around him, hiding him from the world. Tears ran down his face and his robes stained in tears and shame.
For his part Yugi, the one Yusei encountered, walked over and sat down on the vibrant grass next to the fairy. The grass didn't bend to the weight of the God for there was no weight, only the presence of divinity. Honest said nothing in response, the only motion was the gentle breeze that rippled across his feathers and tugged at his hair.
"I have been patient with you Honest." Yugi began, each word weighed against others, he could recall the day he made this world. Watched it expand and stretch out, oceans and lands, mountains and valleys, and now seeing it again like this. It was... comforting, to see his works as he tried to comfort a soul. "I'm not angry with what you have done, far from it. You aren't a human soul made spirit, you are a pure spirit showing more independent thought and action than most. I'm not even disappointed. I just think that it would be for the best that you stop trying to use lies and manipulation to get what you want. You know. Live like your name.. Be honest..."
"Ok, so I admit its not as though you could just walk up to the group you befriended and explain that you're a duel spirit. However; you now have Aki and they 'have' met their spirits, Honest you're acting like Yusuke. Interacting with people while not having any faith in them."
"Perhaps."
'There we go,' Yugi thought as he unfolded his legs and stretched them out. "While I admit I 'know' everything that's why its called 'Omnipotent'. I do respect the wishes of people and don't act on things without being 'told' first. So if you're going to sit there and keep thinking 'he knows what happened I don't need to say anything'. Well you're both right and wrong, I do, and you do as well."
"Honest, when I'm angry, you'll know. I'm not here dispensing judgement, I'm here because Kara got involved. Meaning its for the best of those who have been in her presence to have a little more compassion given to them. I'm here to listen, I'm here to let you have someone to talk to, and know that they care. With the added bonus that you can't hypnotize me into forgetting what happened in an effort to avoid the situation."
This was worse than Charades. In that game the desire to communicate thought was restricted to action not word. But Honest was just not giving Yugi anything to work with. It was facing down someone he knew was in a dark place and wanting them. No, 'needing' them to admit it. Let the words out so that the healing could begin... Only Honest was being so stubborn!
"Its Kazu. You're afraid of facing Kazu."
"Fubuki and Ryo are the closer of the four, Yusuke is their friend, but I find myself considering Kazu more my friend. My relationship to Fubuki and Ryo is more 'me trying to save my partner and their friend'. While my relationship to Kazu is more actual friend, a friend I made on my own without really trying to be another person... I should have dragged him back from Yami. I shouldn't have..."
"You didn't know that Yubel could possess people."
Honest sucked in a breath as he tensed up further, but Yugi couldn't put a comforting hand on the fairys' shoulder. Not in his state. They sat like that side by side for a while, letting the day drift by, the winds teasing the long grass of the field. Yugi could see the memories playing back in Honests' mind over and over. While loathing himself more and more for being a lowly weak fairy.
Thus Yugi snorted out a soft amused breath at one thought that passed by Honest's thoughts. "I spent three thousand years hanging from meat hooks driven through my head, throat, chest and hips. I was torn apart daily and reknitted back into a whole person nightly. I was only the human age of ten when that began. I endured it for three thousand years before my cousin forced my seal open and dragged me out. Which, by the by, is how I'm here now." Yugi recalled, causing Honest to pull his wings back enough to peek at Yugi in awe. "I know about pain. Physical pain, emotional pain, mental pain. I've been subjected to it for the sake of others and onto myself for the sake of others. You're not going to 'horrify me' so you can stop worrying about how I'll take it."
Honest settled back, bringing his wings back around him as a feathered cocoon. Finally he began speaking, "I don't know how to help someone in his state. I don't understand humans well enough. When Yubel possessed him, and had him twist Queen's around to snap her back. She let him watch as Queen died by his hands. How could I let him remember that? How could I, as his friend, let him remember murdering someone he cared about in cold blood?"
"I could have ran, everyone had all these spirits, Fubuki had all of Mr. Jounouchis' deck, the big three had all these spirits and it was just Kazu and the girls. Kazu only had Queen, Momoe only had Scout and Junko had Cyber Harpy. And Yubel used Kazu to hunt the girls down, made Kazu murder his Queen then," Honest's mouth opened but words couldn't come out. Instead they worked soundlessly for a minute before he found his voice box, "attacked the girls. Created this fire that they channeled through Kazu into Junko and then Momoe's head..."
Heart rendering sobs could be heard from within the wings as Honest processed Kazu pouncing at Junko and grabbing her leg. Momoes' desperate attempt to pull Kazu off Junko resulting in her head... her head... "The last thing I remember is erasing their memories, planting new ones and sealing it with my life force that they never 'ever' remember what actually happened."
Honest choked a sob as he sat there, his toes digging into the grass as his voice became muffled. As he hid his face in his folded arms. "I came to, only to find You, that You, and she told me 'You're a lot like that Asuka girl. You keep trying to do the right thing but boy are you a failure at it.'"
Yugi dropped his head in his hands as he heard that. 'Motivational speaking is something you have clearly forgotten, Kara.'
"Probably because the two of you keep trying to do everything on your own. When you should be learning to work with others and to depend on others. There's no purpose to a group of friends if you don't learn to lean on each other 'as' friends. What you both are doing is little more than holding court, treating the others like servants or vassals. Sure you're looking after them and doing the best you can, but you could do 'so much more' and better as well. If you just were honest with each other about what is going on."
"I don't deserve them as friends. After what I've done, to them, to the school. I have sowed so many seeds of distrust..."
"If that's the case why aren't you giving up on them?" Yugi asked calmly. "They're hurt and they need help yes. If 'you' want to be a friend, perhaps you could stop pretending to be Yusuke, be 'Honest' and go be there for them. They know the truth after all, or at least the truth of who you really are."
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"Yusei! You made it," Aki's voice was startled but then hushed quickly as she gave the room behind her an anxious once over. Her make up was smeared from her tears to the point where it appeared as though she took a pair of punches to the eyes. While Yusei was leaning against the wall with Ryo and Kazu both resting in their respective beds. Numerous Spirits lounging about as much as metal could. Though Queen was quiet, curled up next to Kazu's bed, her head resting against it.
She walked further into the room, a glance in a mirror making her do a double take and grab at her purse.
"Witch let me know, felt it was better to be in here than in there for now," Yusei explained while Aki went about wiping away her eye make up.
"Thank you."
"How are they, I haven't been able to visit yet," Ryo asked... well 'asked' was a nice way of putting it. Was fairly more 'commanded' in tone, and Yusei had to stifle an instinctive response to someone 'commanding' Aki. It wasn't hard, the girls were Ryo's friends and he had a great deal to worry over them for. But it was still there.
Aki stilled from her make up, her head lowering as she tried to gather herself. She moved from the mirror and put herself around the bed so she was between Ryo and Kazu. Even then she lowered her voice, "not good. Junko just has to worry about losing a leg. Get a prosthetic, fine whatever. Its Momoe, she's devastated and when you're head is melting... I think its not easy to have your fellow female friends trying to tell you that 'its ok'... Because to avoid the topic of her possible death she keeps focusing on her looks and how hor-..."
Aki's words crumbled causing Yusei to push himself from the wall and go to her. He pulled her away and to the wall where she curled up against his chest. Her face pressed into her hands as she sobbed out all the tears she couldn't dare show in the girls' hospital room.
Ryo, the Cybers and Queen turned to watch for a moment, Phoenix turning around to face her in that stilted way birds had. After a few moments she was able to stammer out, "I'm sorry, I'm not as good at this as Asuka is.."
"You didn't do anything," Phoenix noted sagely only for Ryo to shake his head.
"You're right, I didn't do anything. I've just sat in here and listened to her crying herself to sleep, listened to the doctors. Because I don't have the means to do anything, a fangless Emperor. Which I guess is where the two of you come in." He turned his gaze from his Spirit to the couple at the corner. "You know how to fight, and sure we can't summon, but there has to be something you can teach us. We wouldn't just get our spirits back for nothing. Things have a cost and we need to find out what that cost is."
Yusei nodded quietly, Aki's hair tickling his chin with each bob of his head. "For that we need to talk Asuka and find out what she did."
"She didn't do anything wrong," Aki began, her tone rousing into a defensive one.
"Maybe, she's not a child Aki, and we need to know what she's got them into. Because this is still not 'our' issue, its been assigned to them. No one is a Dragon, and only Fubuki has any abilities, well him and Judai. They deserve better than going into this blind and helpless."
"Yusei..." Aki didn't know how to even begin processing that, her expression one of misery.
He looked down at her for a moment before looking back at Ryo. "We need to go see Asuka, once we get the full story from her we'll come back."
Asuka's room was where they found Tutu, with a fresh box of tissue in her hands standing next to Asuka's bed. The rest of the spirits, mostly somber faced hard body athletes or warriors were leaning against the walls. Not all of them were Asuka's deck, making their presence known, Panther Warrior's sleek purple furred presence was there, tail lashing out while the rest of him was painfully still.
Walking into the room the pair were not so much confronted by the presence of spirits as they were worried about the two humans in the room. Asuka was sitting in her bed fairly staring at the wall across from her. If Fubuki was awake, it didn't appear to be awake. But it wasn't his particular actions that got them in the room to start with sooo...
"So you heard..." Asuka noted, her tone this defiant, borderline combative tone. It was enough to make Yusei think she was expecting a fight or being damned for something. He merely blinked and moved further into the room away from the door.
Aki, deflated behind Yusei for all of a moment before she gathered up her own strength and straightened up. But she followed Yusei into the room obediently. She heard him messing with enough music to know he probably had the better idea of where to go in the room. They didn't need to be where the sound was libel to bounce off and down the hallway to the other rooms.
"Yes, I understand their deaths were a terrible loss. I want details," Yusei replied. He dropped his hands to his side, slipping them into his coat pockets. Unguarded but focused, wanting to know what was going on and expecting the truth.
"I messed up is what you're saying," Asuka began and Aki wanted to speak only Yusei shook his head.
"We're all human, no one is perfect or flawless, that said. We're only really here because Ancient Fairy is going about finding spirits. Those who might be able to work with your friend to keep her alive." Yusei answered, watching as her expression pinched up.
But she took a breath and gathered her courage and began her tale. Explaining Kara's arrival and explaining that half the situation they were facing was man made, how she and the others would have to face that. Since the Dragons only existed to deal with things 'beyond' man made.
"So the negation of reality is what we're dealing with," Yusei began slowly, his thoughts already grinding into action. "So you're responsible for Yubel and Yusuke, because they're the outcome of some type of machination. While we are responsible with the very source that empowered them into doing this?" Yusei asked, but both humans and all the spirits could only shrug.
"How can the spirits help Momoe though? She can't summon and I don't think I can either," Fubuki asked, startling the pair into revealing he was awake. "Are you giving us Aki?" He asked with this cheerful smile that got him LOTS of girls in school to give him giggles and attention.
Aki, mid make up application, stopped, and gave Fubuki this look. This flat 'do you not see my boyfriend right here' look that he answered with a cheerful smile.
"Is it official?"
"I mean as soon as mating season happens. Humans have that right?" Red Eyes Black Dragon suggested, sticking his head into the room.
Yusei and Aki could only stare at the dragon in profound silence and embarrassment.
"Can we stay on topic? Its only 'reality' we're talking about..." Panther Warrior growled, unable to understand what Red Eyes said, but able to recognize that glint in Fubuki's eyes. "I don't want to find out Yugi decides our world needs to be destroyed with the rest of this reality."
Fubuki blinked and quietly lowered his head, "oh come on I'm just kidding and..."
"No 'and'," Panther growled. "Our worlds come first," the older warrior growled with his whiskers fairly bristling.
"I mean, it sounds like you have a good idea of what's meant for us," Blader thought aloud. "God would not be so ruthless as to abandon those without power to defend the world... there has to be something they know can happen."