Part 4: Pain

Aki was easily the strongest of Divine's protégés where raw power was concerned. The girl's only true problem was control. She trusted Divine completely, but she had no faith in anyone else and was positively afraid of her abilities no matter how often Divine explained to her what a wonderful gift they were. The idea of hurting others terrified her and only the prospect of helping Divine kept her going during the exercises.

It was almost a year since he had taken her away from her cruel family that had marked her as a monster, a term that still haunted Aki to this day. How anyone could do that to their own child Divine would never be able to understand.

He thought that maybe it was time for Aki to finally meet the one boy no one could not be friends with.

*

Yusei seemed excited at finally meeting the 'pretty girl' from the glass room. He had of course seen her many times by now and knew who she was, but as Divine had instructed he had kept his distance, giving Aki time and room to adjust.

Divine stood a little behind Aki, a hand at the small of her back, urging her forward. "Aki, I'd like you to meet someone, I think you might become friends."

Aki went from soft and shy to hard and cold, the front she put on for people she didn't know and hence didn't trust, which in fact meant everyone but Divine. Up until now he had been fine with that, but being so utterly afraid and hateful of people would only harm her in the long run. Yusei would soften that edge for her, he was sure of it.

"Yusei, this is Izayoi Aki. Aki, please say hello to Fudo Yusei."

Aki examined Yusei silently, brown eyes full of distrust.

Yusei on the other hand was perfectly calm, waiting for Aki to come to her conclusion, whatever it would be. He was one of the easiest children to get along with. Many came to him with severe traumas and empathy wasn't the worst power to handle them.

Finally she extended her hand and he took it. "Nice to meet you, Aki."

She didn't seem convinced of his sincerity. "He'll just run away.", she argued, taking back her hand and looking at Divine for help, "I'll hurt him, and he'll leave me. I know it!", she was so sure of it, as if there was no other way for things to go.

Divine wanted to object, but Yusei beat him to it. "I won't!", he said with the same determination Divine had seen so many times whenever his friends were involved, "I promise I won't run away.", a quick glance at Divine told him that he could go on. "You can test me. I'll stay.", there was no way he'd let Divine down, or Aki for that matter.

*

"You play Duel Monsters, too?", Yusei exclaimed as he saw Aki pull out a deck of cards.

Divine had lead them to the training areas for those with physical powers. Yusei had only been here a couple of times, but Aki sure knew her way around. They were on a field roughly the size of a tennis court, in a tall hall that was closely observed by Divine from the monitor room one story up, separated from them by a thick layer of shatterproof glass.

Aki shrugged at Yusei's question. "A little. I don't really play with people.", she was uncomfortable to talk about the game, Yusei could tell, but the reason alluded him.

He was a fan of the game himself, proudly presenting his deck and its strongest card to Aki. "This is Stardust Dragon.", he explained, even though the writing on the card made that unnecessary. "Do you use synchro monsters, too?"

The girl shrugged and shuffled her deck, drawing a card without answering Yusei's question. She looked at him first, then at the card. "Now you'll run away. Everyone does.", she held up the monster card: "Rose Tentacles!"

Yusei wasn't sure what he had expected, but this wasn't it. He couldn't really see anything, but suddenly there was a stinging pain in his leg as if a thorned whip had hit him. "Aah!", he screamed, half surprise, half pain, and the feeling didn't fade, the pressure around his leg kept growing and suddenly he felt like it was lifted from the ground which in turn made him lose his balance and fall.

"There's more!", Aki announced, every last trace of compassion gone from her voice and suddenly there was a new pain, just like the first, but this time it hit his shoulder and crawled over his arm.

"Aki!", he tried very hard not to scream again, "Aki, stop it!", he felt thorns digging into his skin, even though there was nothing there for him to see. But it was no illusion. The blood that started to soak his pants and sleeve was real and it hurt.

"See?", Aki laughed, "Now you want to run away! Who wouldn't? Try to run away, Yusei!"

He forced himself to see past the pain. It had been a while since he had done this particular exercise, but he could still do it. Let the pain flow, concentrate on everything else. Aki's emotions were like a surge, powerful and unrestrained. There was rejection and so much anger. Fear, too. And deep down... oh, deep down, there was joy, joy in hurt and destruction.

All of a sudden the pain was gone, faster even than it had begun. Yusei opened his eyes – he hadn't been aware of closing them – and looked up at Aki, who was out of breath and stood unsteadily only a few meters away from him. "Divine...", he heard her whisper and indeed he wished that the man were down here with them.

"Aki...?", he tried but she interrupted him.

"Run away already!", she snarled at him. She seemed enraged, even her hair was in disarray.

He shook his head and sat up, trying to think past the pain in his leg and shoulder. "I won't.", he said stubbornly, "I promised, remember?"

"You don't understand me!", unsaid but not unheard between them were the words: 'Only Divine understands me'.

Sometimes Yusei felt that way, too, but not always. "People can be unfair. They don't understand you, that's why they're afraid. But things are different here. You don't have to be afraid of what you can do. Divine is here, right? He takes care of us.", then he added, carefully but with absolute certainty: "And I can be your friend."

But she vehemently shook his head. "You don't understand anything!", she cried and turned around, practically running from the room.

Yusei searched the observation window for Divine, but the man was already gone.

He thought that he hadn't failed this spectacularly in a while. He'd been so sure that he'd read Aki's emotions correctly. And everyone needed friends, right?