Enjoy the huge chapter of fluff.
Lightning-Rent
Footsteps creaking along the red oak floor, the innkeeper inserted the gnarled iron key into the lock on the door and twisted it forcefully to the right. The heavy click earned a weary half-smile in thanks of another day's end. He then turned and shuffled back to his room on the first floor. Locking up the inn for the night was standard procedure at this hour: he had no assistants to keep the night watch for him, so he had to lock the door to prevent ne'er-do-wells from the streets from wandering in. No one ever came by this late at night, anyway. It was past midnight in a small trading town; who would be out in search of a room in the middle of the night, excepting the ne'er-do-wells? The innkeeper lay down on his rickety old bed, blew out the candle on the nightstand, and let out a long sigh.
Knock, knock, knock!
He frowned to himself. The rooms above him held no guests at the time. He wished he would stop imagining people moving around on the second floor, even though it would make his pockets happy if there were. With a grunt he rolled over and pulled the blanket up to his shoulder.
Knock, knock, knock!
Worry shoved aside what fatigue the innkeeper had. Certainly no one would be coming by at this hour?
Knock – a pause, followed by loud scratching noises, then: CRUNCH!
"Heavens!" The innkeeper threw off the covers and sat up quickly. The sound had rattled the candleholder on his nightstand with its volume. Just outside his door he heard voices debating incoherently, then heavy footsteps pounded their way up the stairs. "Thieves!" he hissed to himself. He fumbled around in the dark until he managed to light the candle. Seizing a broom in his other hand, he gripped the doorknob and flung it open, ready to whack the nearest thief over the head.
He screeched to a halt when he saw that the being outside his door was something he didn't expect to see: a woman!
"Oh, sir!" she cried upon seeing him. He was still frozen with the broom half-raised over his head and a dumbfounded look on his face. Her voice proved her to be younger than she had first appeared in the dim candlelight. She was dressed in strange clothes that the innkeeper had never seen the likes of before, even in all his years. "We're sorry for barging in like we did, but we needed a room!" She stepped forward a few paces and looked at him apologetically. "We're sorry about your door…"
"My door?" The innkeeper turned to look at the door, or, more correctly, where the door had been. It was now a mass of splinters and broken planks in the middle of the floor. The hinges and lock that had originally held it were now twisted scraps of iron. "My door!" he wailed.
"Oh sir," she said, and her voice took on a pleading tone. "We're sorry for breaking in, in the middle of the night, but it was an emergency. Our friend is seriously injured. We were afraid he wouldn't make it if we didn't bring him to a place like this…" She held out a bag tied at the top with a bit of rope. "We'll pay for the room and the damage to your door."
The innkeeper took the bag from her, still slightly suspicious, and opened it. Inside were dozens of gold coins, glinting in the flickering candlelight. He gasped; usually the most he ever got out of a customer was a couple of silver pieces. Before he could reply to her someone thudded back down the steps. The innkeeper saw that it was a young man with blonde hair that shimmered not unlike the gold in his hand. "Téa!" he said, his voice anxious. He glanced halfway at the innkeeper. "Are we clear for the night?"
The innkeeper nodded slowly, his jaw still slightly open. "Yeah," the girl answered. "Joey, how's Yugi?"
"Not so good – his shoulder's a mess and he's still coughing up blood even though he's out cold. You'd better get up there before it gets any worse. I have to get back to Ryou and get the others here." He jogged past and was out the door without another word.
"Right." The girl then turned back to face the innkeeper. "Sir, do you have anything I could use to…?"
"There's a bag of cloth bandages and some herbs behind the counter," he mumbled back. She nodded and rushed over to grab it. Seconds later it was in her hand, and she dashed up the stairs and out of sight. A door clicked shut upstairs, and then all was quiet.
The innkeeper stood immobile for a long moment, staring at the stairs in disbelief. He shook himself from his daze and started sweeping up the splinters on the floor. From what he had heard, it sounded as though he would be having more guests shortly.
Once inside the room at the top of the stairs Téa immediately moved to Yugi's side and knelt beside his bed. Joey had left him lying on his stomach so as not to pin his wings, with the injured shoulder facing away from the wall so it could be more easily treated. During the course of the flight it had stopped openly bleeding but still refused to let the blood dry completely. Already the white sheets sported pinkish smears from their contact with the wound.
Téa opened the bag and removed its contents. As the innkeeper had said, there were rolls of linen bandages, a few small cloths for cleaning wounds, and small bunches of dried herbs tied together with twine. She didn't recognize any of the plants except for a few slightly wilted leaves of aloe, which she determined would be of no use on such a severe wound. She sighted a pitcher of water on a nearby dresser and fetched it, letting the cloth in her hand soak in the cool liquid as she moved.
"Okay, Yugi," she murmured, more to settle her nerves than anything, "I know you can't hear me, but know this: I'm here for you. The others too, they care about you. That's why you have to live." Yugi coughed weakly in response, and a few red spots settled on the sheet near his mouth.
Taking in a deep breath, she set to work. Even though she tried to be gentle, the contact of the cloth to the broken skin of his shoulder made Yugi draw a hissed breath in pain. "Shh," Téa soothed again. "I know it hurts, but I have to do this. You'll be okay."
Inwardly she fidgeted with this statement. Though it was truly her wish for him to recover, she was deeply worried that he wouldn't. When he had been coughing up blood… there had been so much, it was a wonder he didn't cough out his heart along with it. She was no doctor, but she knew that the only thing that would cause such a response was severe internal damage somewhere along his airway: the lungs, throat, et cetera. She couldn't even remember a blow he had received that would have caused it. Knowing that, she was terrified to think that maybe he had other internal injuries they didn't know about, and here, with the limited technology of the virtual realm, the chances of him surviving such complications were so slim…
"No," she told herself aloud, forcefully, for all the room to hear. "You can't think like that, Téa. Yugi will live. You won't let him die."
By now the wound had been thoroughly cleaned of dirt and blood and had all the charred bits of fabric removed. Before any new blood could start seeping up from it she grabbed a roll of bandages from the floor and started covering the area. Yugi flinched and hissed again, but all in all he was either too weak or too much in pain to move much while she worked. At last she finished and half-tied, half-tucked away the end of the bandage neatly. Already she felt better looking at it, for as long as it was covered she could pretend that it wasn't there.
"There now," Téa said to him quietly. "Doesn't that feel better?" She felt a little silly, talking to someone she knew couldn't respond, but it helped to brighten the grave tone in her eyes. Yugi, too, seemed less tense than before; she prayed that it be because his shoulder didn't hurt as much and not because he was growing weaker. Shaking herself from her worry yet again, Téa grabbed another roll of bandages and moved over to his tail. It was too long to fit completely on the bed, so most of it lay half-coiled on the floor beyond. She had to search the seemingly endless mass of scales for several moments before she found her query: the burn left by Ryou's Parrot Dragon. It was difficult to pick out from the rest of his tail, for the blood it had lost was nearly the same color as the scales around it; fortunately the wound was nowhere nearly as bad as the one on his shoulder, requiring only a few passes around his tail to completely cover it.
Téa sighed and leaned back. Now she was at the hardest part: the waiting. She couldn't do much else to help him at this point, nothing but kneel beside him and take his hand in hers, gripping it firmly, hanging on to his every breath as she watched over him into the thin hours of the night.
She stayed like that for a long time.
How long, she wasn't sure. All she knew was that she was cold and her knees hurt from pressing into the wood floor. She had long since lost feeling in her feet. Still, she could not pry her gaze away from him, could not for an instant lift her eyes from the slight rise and fall of his breathing, as if the only thing that could assure his survival was her continual watch. If she looked away, if only for a second, he would give in to the weight of his injuries and die right in front of her, and it would be her fault.
This wasn't to say that she wasn't preoccupied. As she kept the chilly air from reaching his hand, her mind churned through everything it could, working hard, but moving slowly and curving back into itself so that little progress was truly made. Everything was a blur to her. She hadn't slept in over twenty-four hours. The room around her was hardly there, a setting of distant openness that allowed everything to drift. Reality and fantasy, her thoughts and her memories, exhaustion and the tingling feeling of being acutely awake, once individual colors, now ran together and mixed and made new colors, new versions of the truth and her own hopes.
While she struggled to sort out this warp of color and events, one thing remained painfully sharp in the back of her head: Slypher's words. Stiff and biting, they rolled around above the din of everything else, refusing to settle and mix. They reared up, hissed their messages of spite, and slithered away before she could cover them up with forget.
She tried to ignore it, but couldn't. The more she focused on eliminating them the more she focused on their words and on their sound. The sound struck her hardest. Even though the words were Slypher's – she pounded this thought into her brain again and again – the voice had nonetheless been Yugi's as he spoke. It came from the same throat, the same vocal chords… Slypher had used it differently, using more air to create a thinner hissing sound, but under it had always been the familiar voice of her closest friend.
"How can you believe in that bond when you now know it is the cause of his enslavement?"
Yugi had said that. Yugi's voice, his voice. It was as if Yugi himself were blaming Téa for everything that had happened. Yugi himself, telling her that she had offered his heart to the sanguineous god. You can't think like that, Téa. It was Slypher, not Yugi. He never said any of those things. He never would say any of those things.
…Would he?
How could she know if that were true? The stark reality of the matter hit her hard. She had no access to Yugi's mind or his thoughts, and Slypher, having spent over a day in control, would certainly know the inner workings of the body he held. How much of what Slypher said was true, and how much wasn't?
He said it would be impossible to break his control over Yugi, and yet they had succeeded in driving him out. That statement, then, had obviously been false. What then of his description of the Orb's destruction? Though he had left out some of the self-incriminating details, what he did say had been true, confirmed by the Dark Magician. The rest of his words were similarly balanced on the scales of truth and lies: he said that he would kill them all, yet didn't despite having several chances to do so; he said that he had strength aside from lightning, and stopped Joey in his tracks.
Given all of this, how could she know? How could she know if she really was the cause for everything or not? She wouldn't put it past that demon to lie just to make her suffer, but then again, those words biting at the back of her brain carried a pain stronger than anything evil could carry, a pain of truth. Slypher had been inside Yugi, wrapped around his heart and soul, the closest to his true nature. He could easily see the truth within his captured soul. Though she believed Slypher to be the type of demon to lie to make her suffer, she believed him to be the type of demon to tell the truth to make her suffer more. Téa was torn across this balance, half of her wanting so much to deny it all her fault, half of her brimming with the guilt and logic that it might actually be.
Another thought drove the debate of fact or fiction; one that should have been the focus of her energy yet strangely was not, even though it was the biggest thing there. Like having a pond with a shark just below the surface: the shark is urgent, a problem, and yet one ignores it, concentrating instead on the smooth water and lily pads and ignoring the ripples caused by a giant blade slicing through them.
She recalled the words perfectly. They had been looping under Slypher's hiss for some time now, drilling into her subconscious while her conscious mind churned away at everything.
"He was willing to have me destroy everything within radius, just to avenge… his love."
His love.
Could it be true? A lie formed by Slypher or something with a dash of truth, like her mixed reality? This wasn't just anything. This wasn't just a simple act of marking it as true or false. It was important; it was love.
What if… what if Yugi did love her? She wouldn't know what to think then. A detached part of her would soar above the clouds, but the rest of her would feel the weight of guilt anchoring her to the ground. If he really did… love her… (She almost couldn't bring herself to think the word)… then that would only solidify her fault by marking the summoning of Slypher as the return stroke of his heartbreak. Her death had been the cause of his heartbreak, and her kindness in their friendship had drawn him close to her before that… Every event eventually tied back directly to her.
The only thing left to the debate was the answer to her question: did Slypher speak the truth?
She couldn't know – not until Yugi revived and she could see his heart in his eyes.
Téa sat beside Yugi into the thin hours of the morning, when dawn's breath lessened the weight of the darkness until the air was light enough to carry birdsong. She had hardly moved at all in that time – maybe she even fell asleep sitting up – when she heard the sound of voices ringing against the buzz in her ears. They weren't loud, but they were strong, serious: the voices of worry.
Before she even realized it they were right behind her. "Téa," came the surprised voice of Joey, "what are you still doing up?"
I couldn't sleep she mouthed, but even her voice was too tired to speak.
"Téa, you look awful. Get some rest."
She gave an unsteady twitch in protest. She couldn't move now. She had to stay with him until he woke up; she had to know the answer…
"Téa, you need sleep. Yugi will be here. I'll stay with him."
Her head throbbed and she made a feeble groan of protest. No she tried to say, I can't… but before she could voice her desire a warm hand settled on her shoulder. As soon as it landed, warm with a protective concern, her entire body gave out. Her exhaustion accepted its comforting heat as a blanket, and the care in the words behind it as a bed, and pulled her backward into sleep so quickly she didn't feel Joey catch her.
"Damn," he muttered, "another person to carry to bed."
Joey sighed and leaned his chair back to rest against the wall. Idly he watched the clouds scroll past through the small window beside him. Mid-afternoon daylight poured in from the opening, setting alight small flurries of dust in the air. He stayed like that until he heard footsteps approaching the room and looked up from his daze.
The door across from him cracked open. "Joey?"
"Oh, Ryou. I didn't expect you to be up so soon." The two of them had been taking turns watching over Yugi while they caught up on their rest. On Ryou's last shift Joey had gotten in a good several hours of sleep, which had helped to ease the almost aching exhaustion he felt, but not even sleep could settle the whirlwind in his mind right now.
Ryou's deep eyes caught the light of the sun without reflecting it. "I couldn't sleep much at all… Too much tension… I've come to relieve you."
"Nah, I'm up for keeps now." He glanced down at the bed beside him where Yugi lay. "Couldn't force myself to sleep if I wanted to," he muttered as he watched his best friend take in slow, shallow breaths. Every so often there would be a slight groan and his brow would crease from some spasm of internal pain.
Ryou was silent for a moment. He watched the pair wearily before his thoughts returned to him. "I've been to check on the others," he said, careful not to disturb the dangling serenity the room had.
Joey didn't look up at him. "And?"
"They seem to be all right. Fizdis isn't injured. I stopped the attack before any serious damage could be done…" His eyes flickered and he glanced at the powerful tail now lying motionless across the room. Memories swirled up against him and he swayed slightly on his feet. "I… I think it's just stress from the battle keeping her out now. She'll be fine.
"Shimon… He was roughed up quite a bit. I don't doubt that having a dinosaur thrown at him did something to him. His breathing's a little rough; might be some rib damage. He's stable though, for the moment."
Ryou saw Joey's eyes flicker with an unreadable emotion. "What about Mai?" he murmured.
"The last time she came to, she was dizzy and… I guess 'out of it' would be a nice way of putting it." He shook his head slightly. "We'll have to wait until she wakes up again to see how she's doing."
"Hmm…" Joey turned to look out the window again. "Is Tristan alive?"
"What? Y-Yes!" Ryou blurted, alarmed by the casual tone Joey had used to voice the question. "Of course he's alive! Judging from the amount of muttering in his sleep he's been doing, I'd say he's quite well!"
"Good. I was worried that demon might've lied about the poison not being lethal." He brought the front legs of his chair back down to meet the floor. "I guess even Slypher can tell the truth…" He trailed off with a distant look in his eyes.
Ryou followed his movement with his eyes. "You're worried about Yugi."
"Damn it Ryou, of course I'm worried about Yugi!" Joey snapped. "He's just been through Hell and got ripped apart along the way, and that's just the damage we know about!" He stared at Yugi, blinking back the salty feeling in his eyes. "When he wakes up he could be… he could still be…"
"Joey…" Ryou sensed his friend's thoughts and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Slypher's gone now. We saw him get dispelled. You know he's not inside Yugi anymore."
"We don't know that though!" he hollered back, now on his feet. "We don't know that he's all gone! Maybe part of him got left behind and is still there! Maybe, even if he's gone, he did something to Yug' so that he won't be himself when he wakes up…" he trailed off and turned his gaze to the floor. "And maybe I'm just being stupid about everything, but I couldn't stand it if Yugi were affected by this."
"He already has been affected, Joey," Ryou said quietly.
"You know what I mean. More so than the obvious." The blonde glanced forlornly at the crimson-scaled wings resting against his friend's back. He wanted to rip them off or shove them back where they had come from, yet there they were, leering and solid. "That stuff he can handle. Yugi's tough. But if it did something to him on the inside… messed with his head or something… then I'll summon that demon myself so I can tear him apart."
The was a buzzing silence after that, during which the two of them did nothing but listen to the scratch of Yugi's breathing. After a moment Ryou spoke: "So then… How has he been doing? While you've been watching, I mean. Has he gotten any better?"
"…Not really," Joey replied. "He's almost the same as he was back at the castle. The big wounds will take longer than just overnight, I know… but even the little scrapes and stuff from the battle haven't healed. I don't understand it, Ryou. I thought people were supposed to heal quickly here."
"I thought so, too. Anything else?"
Just then Yugi flinched and gave a cough. A few droplets of blood joined the smattering of red on the sheet and left a thin trail at the corner of his mouth. "Yeah," he said faintly. "He's still coughing up blood. He's been doing that the whole time I've been here. It's gotta' be something on the inside that's causing it."
Ryou shook his head. "Not just that." He moved and sat carefully on the side of the bed. He peered over Yugi sadly. "There's internal damage, yes… but the damage to his soul is much more than anything physical he's suffered."
"His soul?" Joey echoed. "…How is it?"
"I don't know the full extent of the damage. I'd have to see his eyes to do that." He closed his eyes briefly. "But I can feel some of it, the way tearing apart from Slypher has affected it."
"And?"
"The edges are flayed. Sharp, uneven – splintered like wood. The interior is rough with holes where Slypher's influence was forced out. All in all, it's a mess… shredded remnants of what it was. I don't know if it's possible to reverse that kind of damage."
"What are you saying!" Joey yelled suddenly, seizing Ryou's jacket in his fist. "That he'll never recover?"
"I didn't say that, Joey!" Ryou eased. "I don't know if he will or won't. I don't know anything other than what I just told you." He breathed again when Joey released him. "The damage to his soul is just as bad as his external injuries, maybe even worse. If he is to recover at all, it will take time."
"Argh… Listen, Yugi," Joey said with a voice of half determination and half pleading, "you'd better get better soon, 'cause we can't get outta' here without you."
Gaping holes tugged in each direction, pulling on lumps of conscious thought; like puzzle pieces falling on either side of her, forming an array of nothing and not…
Téa's eyes slid open. Light streamed into wherever she was, but it was too bright for her to see anything. She scrunched up her eyes and groaned in protest. "Go away," she grumbled hoarsely.
"I'd love to, Hon', if you're going to talk to me like that."
"What?" Téa opened her eyes again. A slightly distorted image of Mai came into view, blonde hair shining unbearably in the bright light.
She came closer, the heels of her boots knocking on the wooden floor, and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Just kidding you, Hon'. I came in to check up on you. We ladies have to look out for each other, you know."
Téa shifted in the small cot to a more upright position now that she was more awake. "What do you mean, 'Look out for?'"
Mai laughed, and though it had been a casual one it still held all of her brimming femme fatale charm. "You've been sleeping so long you can't even remember it!" She turned to face her now, and Téa could see in her vibrant eyes a friendly warmth that she couldn't remember ever seeing before. "You've been asleep for almost a whole day; I'm not surprised, considering how much you've been through."
"A day!"
"Yeah. I've already been told the story of what happened in the castle. I hear you were pretty brave when you were facing Slypher."
Slypher. The hiss of Mai's tongue on the word brought back the reels of snarls to circulate through her thoughts. Immediately Téa's eyes dimmed to a cold slate color, impervious to the warmth Mai's eyes gave her. "Yugi…"
"Téa." The deliberate use of her name made her look up into Mai's concerned gaze. "I meant what I said about us ladies looking after each other. I want to make sure you're okay. You're taking everything hard – and that's not to say that we aren't; this whole thing has gotten down to everyone's center – but it's different to you. Ah!" she countered before Téa could interrupt. "Let me talk. I want to help."
She bowed her head for a moment then as though in thought. Her eyes flickered in the shadows behind her curling hair. "I've heard the stories. Witnessed half of them. Right now I can hardly believe that I'm sitting here: partly because I can't even begin to believe what took place, and partly because I can't believe I actually survived it."
Téa's eyes widened at this, and focused their whole effort on Mai. Was that a drop of silver nesting in the shadows? "I was afraid when we first walked into that castle, Téa. I was afraid, and I hadn't even seen Slypher for myself yet. Those eyes terrified me; like Death's gaze, leading straight to Hell…
"But I fought him anyway. I didn't let my fear show. It tore at me inside, but I knew that if I let my fear show, that would be the end. I'd be sliced under his tail, dead, and there would be no hope of bringing Yugi out of that madness. Do you see what I'm saying?" Mai placed a hand on Téa's shoulder. "The only thing that will make everything better is fighting what we fear. We can't let ourselves think the worst for ourselves or for Yugi. Letting sorrow and doubt show through will only hurt him more than he already has been."
Mai stared at her patiently, but Téa could no longer hold her gaze and looked down at the bed. The silence hissed in her ear through quicksilver fangs: "How can you believe… You are the cause…"
"Hurt him more…" she whispered as tears began to fill her eyes. She didn't fight them; indeed in her heart she felt deserving of the punishment. All the guilty sadness she had pent up now spilled down her face, glistening weakly in the sunlight. Mai watched in silent understanding.
"Téa," the hand on her shoulder gripped softly, "maybe the others haven't seen it, but I'm looking at it right now. You're blaming yourself for Slypher." Téa nodded; no use in hiding it now, when she had already accepted herself as the fault behind everything. "You're wrong about that," Mai told her. "No one as innocent as you could be to blame for someone so evil."
"But I am," Téa spluttered through her tears. "Everything is my fault. I'm the reason Yugi summoned Slypher, I'm the one that caused it all!"
"Téa. I want you to answer me this: were you the one that sealed Slypher away centuries ago?"
Téa gulped in a wad of air in a watery gasp. She wasn't expecting such a question to come from Mai. "N-No," she mumbled.
"Were you the one to draw Slypher's destructive streak? Were you the one to fill him with the hate of a thousand years, and did you turn it into a thirst for bloody revenge? Did you shove Slypher inside Yugi's body with your own hands?"
It felt as though Mai were opening a window with her words and allowing the first spring breeze to finally brush against her heart. "I did none of those things," she whispered.
"Mm. Then answer me this: were you the one who fought so hard for Yugi's freedom that you looked Slypher in his Hell eyes and told him that you weren't afraid of him?"
Joey must have told her about that. "Yes."
Mai let go of her shoulder then and folded her arms. "Then to me the only sin you're guilty of is a strong heart."
A strong heart, Téa repeated mentally. Even Slypher said that… Suddenly, the gravity of the dragon god's words meant nothing to her. All the events lumped together in her head melted away until nothing remained but a balance of the strength of the hearts. A weak heart, weighted by darkness enough to kill an innocent, countered with a heart strong enough to summon a god in repercussion; a heart weak with hateful revenge against a heart determined to banish it. She realized then that it was her heart that had carried her through the battle with Slypher. Yugi… the only thing he currently held was his lightning-torn heart. How could Téa hope to find the answer she sought if she continued to let her greatest connection to him suffer under her guilt?
"Mai…" Téa looked up, her eyes colored with the light of a new day. "Thank you."
"No problem, Hon'. Now, what say we go rejoin those stiff old boards we call friends, hmm?" she asked, giving Téa a light slap to the knee. "I think they've moved less than you have recently, unless you count the pacing."
"Where are they?"
"They're all in the next room, being deadweights like I said. I bet seeing you finally up and about will cheer them out of their funk." Then Mai laughed her trademark carefree laugh and strode towards the door.
You've already done so much to cheer me up, Mai, thought Téa. Some of her joking and laughs had probably been forced efforts to raise her own spirits, not just Téa's. I'll do what I can to repay you.
And Yugi.
"Tada," Mai declared when Téa entered the room to everyone's turned head.
"Wow," said Joey with a whistle. "You managed to get her up."
"I told you all it needed was a woman's touch."
"Yeah right… Sheesh…"
"So you're all right then, Téa?" asked Tristan.
Téa jumped at his voice. "Tristan, you're awake?"
He sighed and leaned back against the wall with his arms crossed: his favorite position for the past several hours. "Yeah."
"Not a mark on him either, save the bite on his arm," added Ryou. "He got off luckier than most of us."
Joey had his eyes fixed pointedly at the distant floor as he said: "Too bad Yug' wasn't that lucky."
"Joey," Mai took a step forward to strengthen her presence, "stop it. You said you wouldn't. You can't change what already happened. We can only hope for the present to get better."
"How can we do that, though?" he countered. "How can we hope for anything in the present to get better if Yug' won't get better?"
At these words the small amount of hope Téa had built up in her heart deflated into a lumpy blob. She wanted to know Yugi's status, but had resolved to herself not to be the one to ask first. "You mean nothing's changed…?"
"Nothing. His wounds won't heal; he's still in pain… and we don't the hell know why!" Joey gripped the edge of his chair angrily.
Ryou shook his head. "I've been thinking it over for a while, and – I know I'm no doctor, but… I think it may be related to the damage to his soul."
He turned to look at Téa, his gaze sympathetic to the new worry on her face. "When Slypher was banished, Yugi's soul was left torn. It's badly damaged – and, based on what happened to me when I got hurt, we know the soul is what controls healing in this world. So, until his soul recovers, I don't think he'll be able to heal physically…"
"And we're not even sure if recovery is possible," Joey added forlornly. "Ryou says the damage is serious. There may not be a way to fix everything."
Téa felt as though an arrow had pierced her heart. "I don't believe that," she said curtly. Where had the strength in her voice come from? She certainly hadn't spoken like this in the past two days. "There must be a way to put everything back together."
"It's not that simple, though," Ryou answered. "It's not simply a tear, a scattering of pieces: there are holes, pieces missing, destroyed by contact with Slypher and lightning."
"I don't care. I refuse to believe the effort is hopeless. Isn't Yugi worth hoping for?" No one answered. "Maybe you've forgotten, in light of recent events, how strong his soul is. Remember that the strength of his will is what called Slypher in the first place." Not me.
Silence, and a truth lifting their eyes. No one moved as Téa crossed the room, paused standing at Yugi's side, and then knelt. Barely visible, hiding beneath the collar of his jacket, was the silver glimmer of a thin chain. She held it carefully between her fingers and eased the injured soul gem out into the open. The once regal amethyst looked as beaten as its owner: the color was torn, leaving ragged scars where the gem had been drained of its purple hue and replaced with the empty clarity of glass. Sometimes the edges were abrupt, jagged lines that dropped off immediately, and other times the color would fade away gradually into nothing. What color there was left was a deadened hue, like thick paint mixed with smoky lead, a decayed color. Such a gem could only reflect a similar internal state of the soul.
Téa held it cupped in her hands and watched the thick purple imperfections determinedly. She focused all her heart on the heart in her hands. Please Yugi, came her thoughts. We need to see you back with us. We can't take much more worry. I believe… I know you can do it. Only your heart has the strength to come back from this. We'll be here waiting, and we'll lend you our strength. Around her, the others in the room held the sparks of equal standings in their eyes.
"We wait."
Night of the second day came quickly. Most everyone had gone to bed by now, even Téa, though it had taken some convincing to get her to sleep. The only one who remained awake now was Ryou, whom had volunteered to keep watch over Yugi. As the only one that could see magic in his soul, the others figured he would be the most able to keep an eye on him. As Ryou sat in the moonlit darkness, waiting for the sun to rise, his eyes drifted unconsciously to Yugi's still form. He tightened his gaze slightly, aiming for the sharp edges of violet in his soul.
He gasped. Rough magic, like the teeth of a saw, had worn down, smoothed, and lost its edge. Indeed, Ryou could hardly feel the damage anymore: the only reason he had been able to do so earlier was due to its sharpness. The edges were still uneven, and not all of the gaps had filled, but still, the dramatic change in his status was enough to leave Ryou's mouth ajar. Such a recovery in only the few hours that had passed since Téa had reignited their hope was impossible… and things had grown quieter, like a constant noise had died away with the night breeze. Ryou listened and realized that he could no longer hear Yugi's rough breathing.
Amethyst, slowly brightening, glinted in the moonlight.
The next morning Ryou was quick to relay the news to everyone.
"No way," said Joey, "not that quickly," yet he sounded excited all the same. Everyone came into the room to see, except for Shimon, whom was using the down time to see if he could find any information on the location of Scott's forces. Even Fizdis, who had been too shaken to visit him the previous day, was now smiling happily. Emotions ran even higher when Ryou announced that Yugi might even wake up soon.
"Still," he said with a look of thought in his eyes, "I don't know what would have caused such a rapid gain…"
"Why does it matter?" asked Téa, returning to her favorite spot: kneeling beside Yugi. "As long as he's getting better, that's all we need to know." She took his soul gem into her hands again, just as she had the previous day. She had never once put it down, not until she was made to go to bed… and then Ryou understood.
The contact with her soul is helping to heal his, he thought. She has such vitality, such hope for him, that her energy is moving to soothe the damage… (1)
They waited. The sun climbed higher into the late morning sky. Its increase of warmth and light seemed to mirror Yugi's recovery, for even those without magical sight could see the purple moving to fill in the gaps of the gem. Their anxiety grew alongside the color, and it peaked as violet quivered against the last scratch of clarity.
"Come on! Go faster!" exclaimed Joey, and Mai whacked him.
"You can't rush these things, Joey!" she snapped.
"Yes," agreed Ryou. "Just because his soul has recovered doesn't necessarily mean he'll be ready to wake up, either…"
Téa looked down at the jewel, still a tad dull, but otherwise restored to its full color. Yugi hadn't even moved once during the whole ordeal, and she was starting to get worried. "What if there's something wrong with him?" she asked apprehensively.
"There's nothing wrong with him," an irate Joey answered, as though he had been asked that question several times prior.
"But what if while Slypher was in there he did something that – "
"TÉA!" She fell quiet and took to staring at Yugi instead.
"Actually," Tristan began, "there's something I've been wondering for awhile: why isn't he turning back to normal? I mean, since Slypher's gone the dragon parts should be going away, right?"
"I don't know. I was thinking the same thing, Tristan," said Ryou. "Maybe it has something to do with…" The boys took to conversation to keep their minds from worrying over Yugi. Téa ignored them and grasped Yugi's hand in her own, squeezing gently and hoping for him to soon awake.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the others, Yugi was awake, but only in the minimal sense of the word. He lay in reverie, half-conscious to the world around him. He just felt so tired… Vapid were his arms and legs; he couldn't even direct his eyes to open and view the speakers above him. For true, he heard people talking miles away, not at all a confabulation but a heated discussion, near on argument. Their words were blurs, lost to his ears. He tried to focus on them, but doing so summoned a painful throb that pulsed thickly in his head.
"…But you have to admit, being out for three days might mean he's hurt or something…"
Those few words managed to sidle into Yugi's head before the headache grew too strong and he slipped back into semi-consciousness. Even with his fatigue, Yugi knew the speaker was talking about him. He assessed that as tired as he felt, he had to have been asleep for at least one, but three days? What had he done that led him to be so malaise? In trying to figure it out he found that he had no memory at all. He remembered an impending battle with Scott, and then… nothing. Now he was here, confused and tired.
"Please, stop it," said a voice, its words much closer and able for Yugi to hear. "You're making me even more worried." Yugi recognized the voice and felt his heart flutter.
Oh Gods, it can't be… Far away he felt a soft hand grip his own. It's her… But she's dead; she can't be here… and yet, his heart told him it could be no one else. Yugi mustered an ounce of strength, a relatively large amount in his current state, and gripped her hand back.
Téa nearly jumped when she felt Yugi's hand move. She stared down at it in disbelief. She could barely contain her excitement, yet she held silent despite herself. It could have been a fluke, just a twitch, but somehow she didn't believe that.
Releasing his grip on Téa's hand, Yugi moved his attention to his eyelids. His eyes slid open halfway: slightly out of focus but able to see the forms of people in front of him. The first thing his eyes identified was Téa's face, watching incredulously with wide sapphire eyes. "Téa…" he said blearily. "You're alive…"
She stared, hardly noticing the immense feelings of relief and joy pouring out from her heart. Ignoring the others in the room behind her, she answered him: "Yes, I am. I'm so glad you're all right, Yugi." Rings of silver appeared in her eyes as she fought to hold back the tears forming there.
"What! Yugi's awake?" That got everyone's attention and drew them to his bedside. Expressions ranging from relief to excitement to something like Joey's thought of You punk. I should have known you would make it through bedecked their faces. They held back from swarming him, in case he was still weak.
Téa, nearest to him, took charge of speaking. "You had us worried, Yugi. We were afraid you were going to be asleep forever."
Yugi smiled a bit. He let his eyes close and rest for a moment before reopening them. "It's so hard to stay awake…"
"I'll bet," said Joey, grinning. "I'd be exhausted after all that, too."
"…Huh? What are you talking about?"
The blonde's smile faltered. "What, you mean you don't remember?"
"Remember…?" All Yugi knew was that he had faced Scott, and that Téa had been shot… Had there been something else beyond that? How did he get here anyway? He couldn't remember an end to the battle… "Remember what?"
Tristan let out a long whistle. "Oh man."
Ryou swallowed. "Yugi, are you sure you don't remember anything?"
Their constant pressure was unsettling to him. The way that they spoke made it evident that there was something Yugi was missing. He turned his thoughts inward, searching for something that might even be a shred of a memory; yet the farther he delved the more deeply he sank under his exhaustion. He truthfully couldn't recall anything that would put him here in his current pain. The air rumbled in his ears as he answered. "No. Just… the sound of thunder." (2)
Téa's grip trembled. He really doesn't remember… This can't…
Yugi's eyes flickered at her dismay. "Téa…" The dull throb in the back of his head made it hard for him to think straight. He couldn't understand why everyone seemed so distressed when nothing had happened.
"This… This isn't right," Ryou said slowly. "The struggle…"
Téa's gaze was distant. "The energy was transferred–"
"We saw him fight! It was him!" Joey hollered.
"The energy was transferred; I'm sure I saw his magic fighting though…"
"Then explain to me how it is he can't remember!"
Joey's loud voice worsened the throbbing headache in the back of Yugi's head. He tried to shift and voice this, but instead invoked a snapping fire in his shoulder, one that hissed and drove jagged steel fangs down into the core of his nerves.
"Aaahgh!" he yelled with a choke in his voice. He was bewildered through his agony; how could so monstrous a pain such that he had never felt before be plaguing him if he had no recollection of receiving the wound?
"Yugi!" Téa was instantly at his side. "What's wrong?"
The pain from his shoulder thickened the pounding in his head so that each pulse from his heart sent shock waves through his skull. He couldn't bring Téa's image into focus, even though she was no more than two feet away. "It hurts!" he hissed through his teeth. "My arm–!"
Téa worked furiously over him, trying to find a way to make the fire subside, but behind her the others watched with varied worry. Tristan folded his arms over his chest, his eyebrows high above incredulous brown eyes. "You mean he still hasn't healed?"
"The soul controls healing," Ryou reminded him gently. "Up until now, he hasn't been able to heal at all because his soul was in shreds." Joey watched Yugi's face, trying not to imagine what he must have felt.
He was also trying to forget the strange way Yugi's throat had rumbled during his yell.
Eventually the fires receded, quelled by Téa's aid, though they continued to smolder try as Yugi might to remain motionless. He sought his breath in rapid gasps through bared teeth; the rest of the room was dead silent aside from his noise. Tristan was glad Yugi had his eyes shut, so that he couldn't see him staring at the fangs that three days earlier had pierced his skin. He dared break the silence with a carefully worded sentence: "Yugi… How do you feel? Apart from the pain, I mean."
Yugi didn't answer immediately. "Tired," he said, and indeed his voice mirrored it. He added, "And cold."
I wonder why, Tristan thought dryly, eyeing the serpentine tail coiled on the chilly floorboards at the foot of the bed. "That's all? You don't feel… different?"
"Tristan, don't…" Mai warned. "He doesn't need that, not while he's hurt."
Her advice came too late, for Yugi's curiosity had already been piqued. "What do you mean?"
With a swallow and a detached thought of I shouldn't have gotten myself into this, Tristan replied, "I mean like, do you feel like yourself? Everything's as it should be?"
Yugi considered this question. He couldn't understand why Tristan would be asking him something like this. His first thought was to answer yes, that everything was normal; why shouldn't it be? Then he felt something distantly that held him back. When his shoulder had erupted, he had been too preoccupied to notice that he felt… heavier, like something was weighing him down. It was on his back mostly, but he dared not move to investigate it for fear of igniting the pain again.
Tristan waited patiently for an answer, and could have died of relief when Yugi said: "Everything feels normal to me." The others' faces lifted a little, all except for Joey, whom frowned at this response.
That means he's all right, then… Téa thought inwardly, feeling a bit of happiness. She looked down at him with a smile and gave his hand a light squeeze. His eyes opened and their gazes met, and for the first time since he had awoken she had a chance to see his irises clearly.
Her grip on his hand tightened.
Oh gods… "His eyes," she murmured, softly at first as she continued to stare, then louder when their appearance hit her. "His eyes! They're still…"
"What?" Yugi was afraid of the way Téa was looking at him, yet for some reason could not tear his eyes away even as the others moved to see. His voice shaky, he asked, "What about my eyes?"
His query fell on deaf ears. The others stood in shock over what they saw. Yugi's eyes had changed. The color was different, a lighter, slightly redder purple not unlike the shade that arose when embers touched his gaze. The original deep violet had shrunk to slanted spikes around the edges that drove in towards the middle – where his pupils had become slits, thinned with confusion.
Téa was distraught. She had thought his eyes would return to normal with Slypher's departure. It seemed instead that when the god had made them dragon's eyes, he made them so permanently. Only the leering yellow light that had once shone from them had vanished.
In one action everyone averted his or her eyes. Yugi tried to meet the gaze of one of them, but none would lift his or her head and lock with him. Somewhere deep inside, he was hurt by this. He clenched his eyes shut and turned his face into the pillow, mumbling, "I don't even know what…"
"I think you do."
The sudden force of these words struck the ears of everyone in the room. Such strength they carried, like the angry rumbling of thunderclouds before a storm; they were accusing, almost spiteful, so that Yugi raised his head in disbelief to meet the penetrating eyes of their speaker.
"Joey?"
"Hey man, what gives?" asked Tristan.
The blonde kept his expression hard, not breaking his pressing stare at Yugi. "I think you do know what happened."
"Joey, he already told us he doesn't remember," Ryou said cautiously, sensing Joey's heated emotions. "Don't you believe him?"
"No," he spat. "I refuse to believe that the past five days are completely blank in his memory."
Yugi did a double take. "Five days?"
"Joey, please. This is ridiculous!" said Mai.
"That's exactly my point!" He rounded on her. "How could anyone not remember – well, that?"
"Why are you getting so worked up over this?" she demanded. "Can't you get it through your thick skull that he doesn't know?"
"Know what?" Yugi's confusion mixed painfully with the throb in his head. "What happened?"
"I don't know what's gotten into you, Joey," Tristan said with sternness in his eyes. "Attacking Yugi for not remembering?"
"I'm not attacking!"
"Then what do you call it? Being a bonehead?"
"Rrrgh… Listen to me! Something ain't right about this! You heard him say he didn't feel different. That's bad. He hasn't even realized…" Joey trailed off with a slight glance towards Yugi's back.
Yugi suddenly felt worried. "Realized…?"
"Joey, please don't," Téa said quietly, gripping Yugi's hand even more tightly.
"Don't what? Huh? Don't mention it even though it's right here in front of us?" His voice rattled the wooden room and everyone inside it with its tone of blazing nerves. "Don't speak of it, because one of our number can't see it for himself?"
He glared directly at Yugi. "It ain't right that he hasn't noticed. Or should I say, very convenient."
Finally everyone seemed to click on what Joey was getting at. Fizdis, timid in the wake of Joey's anger, broke her frail silence. "Y-You aren't suggesting that he's still…"
"Joey, we've been through this," Ryou said calmly. "He was dispelled. Everything left from him is gone."
"So you say." Yugi hardly recognized the sound of Joey's voice anymore: filled with so much spite like he had never heard before… and his eyes were the same, sparkling with snippets of lightning-singed hate. "I for one find it painfully ironic that he knows absolutely nothing." His eyes narrowed into a piercing stare aimed at all of them. "It ain't that hard to act innocent."
"Now hold on. There's more here than you're acknowledging," Tristan said, folding his arms. "Maybe he hasn't noticed anything because he can't feel it."
"Stop talking about me like I'm not here," Yugi cut in, his voice lingering on annoyance. "At least tell me what it is you're talking about."
Tristan looked down at him, a touch of sympathy in his gaze. To Joey he continued: "Look, I'll prove it." He moved out of Yugi's sight then, presumably at the foot of the bed, and bent down. He picked a spot on his tail, careful to avoid the bandaged area near the burn, and delivered a firm pinch.
Instead of getting no reaction as he had hoped, Yugi flinched. "Ow!"
Tristan reappeared at his side. "You felt that?"
"Of course I felt that!" Yugi answered. True, he had felt the small jolt up his spine… but it had been odd. It didn't seem right to him. It had been so far away – away enough to where he thought he shouldn't have been able to feel anything. "What did you do…?"
"That answers that question," Joey huffed.
"Joey…" Téa began, but trailed off.
"Mm. Well, given up on it yet, Yugi?" the blonde asked him fiercely.
Yugi's nerves prickled with anger. "Joey–!"
"Nope? Still clinging to the innocent act, huh? Tell me if you feel this, then!" Joey reached forward and grabbed a wing bone, giving it a swift tug. The pull breathed hard on his shoulder, creating flurries of flame on the sparks already present; yet this pain was forgotten almost instantly. Joey's tug had shifted the appendage and finally drawn it into Yugi's line of sight. His eyes flicked to the new object in his vision – and quivered.
Oh Gods.
Ebony leather stretched across crimson-scaled bone met his gaze. Harsh spikes crowned the highest point, almost level with the top of his head. Yugi stared for a long moment before his mind began working again and could identify the structure. "Wings…?" he murmured in a voice not his own.
"Oh, now you recognize them? Took ya' long enough to remember you're half dragon!"
Yugi downright froze. "D-Dragon?" he stuttered. He turned his head – it took everything he had to suppress the tearing cries of his shoulder – and saw, far away, that the hand Téa kept grasped in her own bore the same red scales as those dominating the wing. He moved his fingers; watched as claws glinted back at him. For the first time, too, he tasted the point of fangs in his mouth, which he hadn't even realized were out of place. "Th-This can't be…"
Now Téa's anger had been incited. "Leave him alone, Joey! You're treating him like a snake. I know what your concern is – why can't you just give it up? He's just Yugi!" Joey turned to counter her, but was interrupted as Yugi started laughing.
"What are you laughing at?" he demanded.
"Everything. All of this. This pain is real… but the rest of it must be a dream." He shifted, resting his weight on his left arm so that he was slightly more upright, and locked eyes with Joey. "Because I know," his words turned colder, "that the real Joey Wheeler wouldn't be saying such things to his friend."
Everyone else in the room remained silent, though Téa and Tristan bore the look of restraint. Joey had confronted Yugi, and even through his injury he had mustered the strength to stand the challenge. This was a fight between them.
"Bold words," Joey sneered. "Not ones just anyone would say." He held out his hand a little closer to Yugi. "Well? Are you gonna' take a snap at me to shut me up, then?"
Yugi's tongue touched a fang, yet he didn't move. He needed to stay calm. Getting angry in retaliation would only fuel Joey's spite, and Yugi still hoped to draw an explanation from him. "I don't understand you. You seem to think that I want to hurt you, deceive you. I won't sink to that level, if that's what you're asking. I have no reason to."
"No reason except to protect your own hide, snake!"
"From what? You won't even tell me what happened!"
"No need to repeat common knowledge!"
Yugi growled. "You seriously think I'm someone else, don't you?" Why, though? What could have taken place that would make Joey believe something like that?
"Wouldn't be the first time it's happened." Joey seemed to pull back some of his voice, drawing volume into a solidity of emotion. "It must be hard, restraining the urge to rip out my throat. 'Kill the mortal who dares defy me!' as you would say. But you won't. You can't, because you need safety. You need to keep outta' our reach. Well, you know something? You're here, and there's no way this human is letting you out again!"
Something in that speech struck Yugi deeply. It wasn't the actual words, the accusations – he still had no idea what Joey was talking about – but something in the way that Joey had declared himself human drove a spike through his static-tinged nerves. It angered him, and he didn't even know why… All in all it was the final straw. What contract he had to remain passive crumpled. Lips pulled back into a snarl, displaying his fangs openly. A growl formed in his throat, one that started in his vocal chords but soon drew up into the back of his throat as a rattling sound like wind through sheets of metal.
Anger vanished from Joey's face. His eyes, indeed everyone's, were wide with shock, for Yugi's growl had taken on that tone of thin air so epitomized by Slypher, a sound with no voice. Yugi, barely aware that he was doing it, suddenly cut off with a cough. He rubbed his neck broodingly: it hadn't hurt per se, but the unfamiliar sensation had tickled his tongue uncomfortably.
"That proves it," said Joey, slowly emerging from his rapture. "Yug' wouldn't have growled like that. No way."
Yugi looked up and felt hot emotion stir again – and that was enough to call another to the room.
A violet blaze of angry magic from somewhere around his neck, and the Dark Magician appeared full force. He stood tall without touching the floor, a look of burning comets in his eyes. He turned a glare toward Joey, daring him to speak another hateful word. The blonde took that as the signal to shut his mouth tightly.
Yugi shook off the tingling sense of magic on his skin and stared up at the new arrival. "Mahado!"
No answer, not immediately. Mahado turned back to Yugi with a gentle scrape of violet armor. 'Soulmaster,' he said, his voice reserved and, oddly enough, relieved. 'You are awake.'
His sentiment was ignored. 'Move, Mahado! I have to finish this.' Fang-points flashed up at him, a sign of aggression not yet quelled.
'Soulmaster, this is not a fight to be seen through to the end.'
'I will not stand such animosity, not when I am ignorant of the circumstances!'
'You are right to show such anger, Soulmaster. Your friend accuses you wrongly.' Mahado shook his head. 'Yet you must not blame him for this. Should you know the circumstances, you would understand his rationale.'
'I don't know them; that's what I'm trying to find out!'
As the pair debated, the others watched the fleeting trails of emotion on their faces: anger on Yugi's and a rising frustration on Mahado's. Unnerved by the silence, Mai spoke out: "Hey, what's with the staring contest? – Mmf!" A hand covered her mouth before she could say more.
"Don't." Surprisingly it had been Joey to cut her off. "You'll interrupt."
Yugi's eyes narrowed and mirrored the sorcerer's sternness. 'They refuse to tell me anything, Mahado. Even as they argue amongst themselves, they are careful to say nothing…' Mahado shifted, and Yugi felt a barely present tremor of guilt between their magics. 'And I have a feeling that if I asked you, you too would deny me answers.'
'It is… not my place to speak of it,' he answered. 'In saying nothing your friends have taken on the duty of protecting you.'
'…Was it really so awful a thing?' Yugi asked. 'I can't imagine what would cause all of this…'
'You wouldn't. Yes, the event was… distressing. Extremely painful to those who witnessed it. Your proof lies with the injuries you bear. They are merely a fraction of the total…'
'Please, Mahado. Tell me what happened.'
Mahado looked into Yugi's eyes, finally calmed of their anger, yet he shook his head. 'I cannot. It is the duty of those around you to relay the details.'
'But Mahado–!'
'Soulmaster, I will not. I cannot, not with the injuries currently plaguing you.'
'I can stand this pain!'
'I do not refer only to your physical wounds. You are marred internally with scars of magical strain, and even the state of your soul is fragile. Can you not feel the frailty of your magic? Even as you speak to me now, your internal voice is struggling to connect to mine.'
'I…' Mahado's words struck true. Yugi was beginning to feel the drain communicating with the sorcerer entailed. It had never been so much before. 'I can… handle it…'
'No, Soulmaster, you may not. You must rest, even if it is against your will.' A touch of light shone at the end of Mahado's staff, and a heavy magic pulled on the back of Yugi's eyes.
His eyelids drooped suddenly. Fatigue seeped down into his bones, making him feel weighted. 'What did you do…?'
'I cast a sleeping spell. You need the time to recover physically, and to allow the weak spots in your magic to strengthen. It will also give time to your companions to let their emotions cool off.'
"Darn it, Mahado…" he slurred, but he didn't have the will to fight it off. A few moments more and his eyes slid shut, and then his head fell back to the pillow. He was asleep in an instant.
No one moved for a moment. Mahado turned and looked pointedly at Ryou. Deep eyes narrowed, thinking, then suddenly understood.
"It's a sleep charm," he explained. "The Magician has bought us some time." The sorcerer nodded and gave a shallow bow. He then turned on Joey with swirling cosmos eyes, sneered, and vanished in a whirl of violet glimmers.
"What the hell was that?" Not a moment was wasted before Tristan shoved Joey forcefully. "Are you freaking nuts?"
"Shut up, Tristan!"
"You just attacked Yugi for nothing! All because he didn't remember Slypher!"
"Tristan…" Téa warned, glancing at Yugi's still form.
"It's all right, Téa," said Ryou. "The spell will hold him asleep for some time. He won't wake up until the magic ends."
"How long do we have?" asked Mai.
"Several hours, I'd say, though once he recovers enough he'll be strong enough to start resisting it."
"That's several hours for me to kick your face in!" Tristan hollered at Joey. "What the hell is wrong with you? Thinking that Slypher was still there, faking ignorance? Just how untrusting can you get?"
"Rrrr… Tristan!"
Now Tristan had a good grip on Joey's jacket collar and had driven him against the wall. "All you did was make it worse for him!"
"Listen to me, you idiot!" Joey roared back. "Let me talk! He said he didn't remember anything that happened! But we saw him fight back: Yugi fighting off Slypher! Now explain to me how the heck he can struggle free of a god's influence without even knowing!" Tristan hesitated. "Exactly. The only answer is that he's really Slypher!"
"Joey, you're being far too radical," eased Ryou. "For one thing, you've seen his eyes. They're purple again. Slypher's were yellow."
"He could just be hiding 'em!"
"That would take a large draft of energy," he answered. "Eyes reflect the nature of the soul behind them… It would take a great deal of magic for Slypher to conceal his eyes, enough that I would most likely be able to feel it.
"Another clue: look at the Orb." The dull red glass now hung from Joey's neck, far away from Yugi's reach, just in case. "The flame was extinguished with Slypher's banishment. His presence would have rekindled the fires within it."
"There's your answer, Joey," said Mai. "You heard Ryou say it's just not possible."
"B-But still," said Fizdis quietly, "it still doesn't explain why he doesn't remember."
The blonde nodded fervently. "Well, Ryou, is there an explanation for that, too?"
Ryou closed his eyes briefly, thinking back to the darkness, lightning, and pressing magic of the castle. "…There may be. Remember what Slypher said when we were trying to reach Yugi?"
The hissing words rose from the recesses of Téa's memory and her eyes widened. "He said that Yugi wasn't aware of his presence."
"Precisely so. Due to the nature of the summon, Yugi was caught completely unaware… and in that may lie the reason behind his memories of the event." Ryou folded his hands and brought them together at his chin. "If Yugi didn't know he had summoned Slypher… then he was essentially unconscious for the duration of his possession."
"Then how the hell did he fight back?" demanded Joey.
"The only way he could have," Ryou said bluntly. "Reflexively."
A shiver traversed the room. "No way…" murmured Mai. "He fought off a god on just a reflex?"
"The soul is keen to detect abnormalities. Like the body will fight off infections, the soul will fight off foreign powers and influences within it. All it took was a touch of transferred magic to help him realize there was a foreign force."
"So then he really doesn't know anything," said Fizdis, "and for him all he knows is waking up suddenly here without a clue."
"Yeah. Making it all the more painful to be hated by his own friend," said Tristan, loudly and pointedly addressing Joey. "You got on his case and he didn't know anything! I still don't understand what went wrong in your head to make you think that you could–!"
Then Tristan stopped, for he saw on Joey's face a look of grief.
"Because," the blonde said quietly; there were definitely the beginnings of tears in his eyes. "Because he doesn't know. He doesn't know anything."
His head snapped up suddenly and silver trails slid down his face. "How are we supposed to tell him? How do we tell him about the people he's killed? The blood he's shed? Death and destruction… all because of his summon… How are we supposed to tell him all of that?"
He looked sadly down at Yugi. "He's stuck like that. Stuck in a nightmare he doesn't even know occurred. And how do we leave him? With lies that hide the destruction from him, or with the truth that may do the same to him?"
The silence following Joey's words was interrupted only by the sounds of his tears. "We… We have time now," Ryou said gently. "We have time to sort through the story and decide what we will leave him with."
"We could go downstairs to the parlor," suggested Tristan, keeping his eyes guiltily away from Joey's. "More room to hash it out there; leave Yugi alone to his rest."
No one said another word, and silently they left the room.
Yugi's eyes fluttered open. Thick rays from the setting sun lit the whole wall opposite the window ablaze with charred gold. Apart from that the room was devoid of any soul. He laid motionless for a moment, unsure of what had happened, before his memory returned to him and he closed his eyes with a scowl. "I'm going to kill you, Mahado."
Vibrations of chuckles tickled his heartstrings. 'Soulmaster, I am glad to hear it.'
"I don't understand you, Mahado," Yugi muttered down to the gem around his neck. "You're acting as weird as everyone else."
'With reason, Soulmaster: I am glad to witness the return of your strength.'
"…Of which I still do not know the reason for its absence," he grumbled, "a reason that I almost learned before you interrupted me."
'My "interruption" was to your benefit, Soulmaster. Your physical strength was very low due to your injuries. Your body needed the time to heal. Were it not for your magical resiliency, you would still be asleep – you are still not fully recovered.'
"I'm fine."
'I can sense your mind's fatigue. I know you are still quite tired.'
"I told you, I'm fine."
'Are you? So it is not because you are too tired to focus your thoughts inward that you are speaking to me orally?'
Yugi paused, frowning. "I could switch if I wanted to."
'You mean to say that it is your choice to be overheard?'
"'Overheard?' What…?" Yugi opened his eyes. Standing across the room from him, staring, was Téa.
"Téa!" he blurted. He tried to sit up but a heavy throb from his shoulder bade him do otherwise. "He… I… That looked awkward, didn't it?"
She nodded slowly. "Quite."
Yugi sighed and fell back onto the bed. "I'm not crazy," he mumbled into his pillow.
"I know," she said, moving forward to sit by his side. "You were talking to your Dark Magician, weren't you?"
His eyes widened. "How do you know about that?"
She gave a light laugh. "You could say we've met. He has a wonderful voice. It reminds me of yours."
At this, Yugi's bewilderment doubled, and Mahado, whom had been listening, burst into laughter at his confusion. "Stop that," Yugi muttered.
"Huh?"
"Not you," he explained. "Mahado won't stop laughing…" He shifted, but the motion put weight on his right arm and he hissed sharply.
"Oh! Don't move; you're still hurt." She held him down at the shoulder to prevent further movement and gripped his hand. The firm yet gentle pressure of her hand on his back repelled the pain in rolling waves. Yugi stayed frozen, breathing through his teeth until the stinging subsided.
"Thank you," he said once Téa released him.
"No problem. I'm just glad you're getting better." She looked down at him and felt an internal twinge of sadness at the way he lay stiffly to prevent further disturbance of his shoulder, yet clearly revealed in his eyes his frustration over his inability to move. "Do you want some help sitting up?"
Yugi blinked, not expecting to receive such an offer. "Ah… That would be appreciated." The back of his neck prickled when he felt Téa's cool hand on his arm.
"I'm going to try to hold your arm down so that it won't hurt. I'll need some help from your end though, okay?" Yugi nodded slowly. Using only his left arm, a task more difficult to carry out than it seemed, he gradually brought himself up from the bed that bore the stain of his blood and into the freer air. Téa shifted her weight over, careful to keep him steady, and through their combined efforts he was soon upright for the first time in three days. Yugi swayed slightly, blood clouding his vision as it poured back down to the rest of his body, yet after a few moments this passed and he became more alert to the room. He had not really taken it in, the dimensions of the room around him and the objects it held, not during the scene that had taken place hours before. Indeed, the world looked different from an upright angle than it had from a prostrate one.
He had no idea where they were. He could only assume they were in a town – a decently-sized one, given the room's furnishings, perhaps even the same one with the rose-tiled square, where everyone had been before the fight.
Maryah-Denn. Where Scott had been.
Scott. These thoughts came back to him with the swiftness of blades drawn against throats. He tensed, slightly, and felt the throbs of his injuries disagree distantly; he slid back onto the edge of his senses, still hardwired as for battle. There had been a confrontation between himself and Scott, a clashing of two dichotomic forces. This much he knew as fact. Then something had happened that wrenched his soul in half to witness… Téa was sitting beside him, so it was hard to recall it as being her death… and yet it had been.
This was all. Nothing else came to him. As far as he could feel, no time had passed – he still felt as though he was in the midst of an impending battle with Scott. His heart agreed, pumping a hot strength through his veins. All this, and yet there was no one to fight. No battle. Nothing but himself and Téa, alone in a gaping room with sunshine pouring over them, a void where time had decided to stop working on him and bring him back into a timeline he didn't understand.
Nearly a week had passed since the fight. The idea of seven days leaving his memory numbed his simmering nerves. Part of him didn't want to know what had happened that would have such an effect on him, yet the way the others had avoided saying anything… purposefully, deliberately… worried him to the extent that he knew it was his obligation to know.
Téa felt him stiffen through the grip she still held on his hand, and stirred her voice. "Are you all right?"
"I… Yes, it's just…" He sighed a bit, out of place against the mix of fatigue, ignorance, and heightened nerves jumbled in his head. "Everything and nothing. Everything in that not one of you has been spared the experience of this time, and nothing because I know of none of it." He laid a hand on his temple, only to retract it at the unfamiliar feel of cool scales against his skin. Eyeing the dull sheen of the light reflected on his hand, he let his voice drop off. "I just don't understand…"
Téa watched him as he spoke, watched as his lower lip expertly avoided the prick of slender fangs. A skill that he probably didn't even know he had – though one she knew well the origin of. She couldn't speak of it – not yet, not alone. "Here," she said, handing him an apple that had been the intent of her visit, forgotten until now. "Eat this. You must be starving."
"I'm not hungry," Yugi answered, and right on cue his stomach gave a terrible growl.
"You're a horrible liar, Yugi Mutou." She took his hand and put the apple in his palm. "Eat it. You need something in your stomach to settle your nerves."
"But–"
"I'm not going to let you leave this room until you've eaten the whole thing."
Yugi let out a sigh of defeat. She had seen right through him: that his real intent had been to leave the room and confront the others, particularly Joey, over what had happened. He couldn't ask it from Téa, not after the way the light in her eyes had dimmed when she heard him say he didn't know it. With a wary glance at her he took a bite. The semisweet juice was enough to counteract the lingering taste of stale iron in his mouth. With the first swallow he felt a little bit better, but then he saw the bite mark on the apple and sank at the sight of two deep channels carved into it.
"Hey." Téa gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. "Don't think about that right now." Already memories were creeping up on her about the poor girl from the ruined town of stone. She didn't want them to somehow leak over to Yugi and cause him more grief. "Just eat. We'll deal with everything else later." Yugi nodded distantly and continued.
When he finally finished, Téa smiled. "See? That wasn't so hard. Now," she stood and made for the nearby dresser, "I have something else for you to do."
"More?" he echoed. "Will I ever be free from your tyranny?"
She grinned, and inwardly was pleased. He's making jokes… He's not too bummed out by everything. Téa found what she was looking for and pulled it out with a flourish. "We got this for you while you were asleep." She walked back over to the bedside holding a bundle of clothes. "We figured your jacket and shirt weren't salvageable."
Yugi glanced at his shoulder and eyed the charred edges of blue fabric still there. There might as well have been nothing left of his right sleeve, and the back was in shreds, torn through by broad wings. The black sleeveless shirt underneath it hadn't fared much better, with patches of its veneer marred by smoke and blood. "I would agree with you on that matter."
Téa sat by his side again, instructed him to lean forward, and reached behind his head. She took hold of the jacket collar, the only thing keeping it in one piece, and with an abrupt jerk ripped it in half. Yugi winced as he felt his loyal jacket fall cleanly from his shoulders. Téa did the same with what was left of the black shirt and came face to face with his back, and more appropriately his wings. She saw where the bones protruded from the skin, just to the inside of either shoulder blade, and where the thick leather stretched across them affixed to him. It unsettled her, for rather than the crimson scales stopping where Yugi began, they melded smoothly into him, scales melting into skin, swirls of color mixed with his own paler flesh. They were not separate parts, regular Yugi and dragon wings: they were together, Yugi with wings, shaped inseparably as one.
"Téa?" Yugi's gentle voice jarred her loose from her thoughts. She had hesitated and he shifted uneasily.
"…Sorry. Here, hand me that shirt, will you?" Yugi picked it up and felt the heavy weight of metal in its folds. Téa took it and began explaining it to him. "We got you something that would work around your… um…" She didn't really want to say the word "wings" but Yugi got the message and nodded for her to continue. "It's already got holes in the back, don't worry about that… Here, take this and pull."
He gripped the material she held out to him, black leather that was thinner than he was used to, and pulled down. The shirt slipped over his head like a sandwich board, with a front and a back. It had a high collar similar to that of his old jacket with silver studs running around it. The front had a large steel ring secured to it with bands of stiff chestnut leather. Téa wove the back material around his wings and brought the edges forward to the front, where she fastened more leather straps to the ring, thus holding the shirt together. "There's more," she said before he could say anything, and grasped the other piece of fabric that lay beside her. It was an impossibly long piece of ebony linen, which she fastened to the ring and threw over his shoulders with a grand finish. "Tada."
"You're kidding." Yugi turned to scrutinize it. "A cape?" (3)
"A tad medieval, but yes." Téa's eyes were shining. "Joey insisted on adding the cape. He thought it suited you. What do you think?"
"Honestly?" He shifted a little to get the feel of the clothes. "I like it, but… don't you think it's a little over-dramatic?" he asked.
"Nonsense! The hero is always supposed to be dramatic," she declared. "Besides, I think you look stunning." This was no lie, for Téa truly did admire the way the crimson scales and black leather played with each other's light and harmonized in their sleekness.
"'Stunning?'"
Téa blushed. Had she really used that word? "Well, y-yeah." There was a silence between them after that.
Yugi let adrift his thoughts. "Where are the others?"
"The others?" He really was intent on getting out of the dark and finding out what happened, Téa realized. For someone like him, keen with strategies and knowing his opponents' moves, being ignorant was probably not a good feeling. Not even Téa and her niceties could sway him from his ultimate goal as she'd hoped. She wanted to give the others more time, or maybe she just wanted to keep Yugi from the truth for a bit longer.
"They're… downstairs," she answered, her eyes averted. "In the parlor."
Ember-lined eyes narrowed. "Maybe this time they'll have the decency to talk to me."
Angry, she noted, and not just that. Hurt? "Yugi, Joey didn't mean what he said. You know him… the only thing faster than his words are his emotions. All the stress he was under built up and exploded on you because you were the one thing that could relieve it," she looked at him in earnest, "yet didn't."
"Because of my memory."
"Your lack of memory, which wasn't your fault at all. You'll see."
"All I want is to know what happened… what caused you all such pain," he glanced over shoulder at red scales, "and what left me with this fate."
Téa nodded grimly. There was no use in avoiding it any longer. She stood up from the bed and turned to him, a hand extended. "Here. Let's go downstairs."
Yugi took it and she helped pull him to his feet. He wobbled a bit, for his legs hadn't been used in a few days, and he was unfamiliar with the new weight behind him. He was surprised at the way the wings pulled on him, almost with enough strength to upset his balance. He hadn't noticed it while sitting, but his tail was also considerably heavy, weighing down his spine with its thick muscles and solid bone tip. When he stood it had curled on its own, supporting itself enough to keep it off the ground, and Yugi shivered at the way its movement felt.
Téa watched him distantly as he became accustomed to his new form. She felt a touch of despair when he finally settled into a capable posture to accommodate the extra weight. It was the same pose Slypher had used, back arched and shoulders pulled back. "Come on. We'd better get down there. Ryou's been saying for awhile now that you'd be awake; I'm sure the others are expecting you." She kept his hand in hers and led him towards the door.
He paused, and she turned back to see what held him up. Yugi had his head turned, his gaze fixed on the wall beside them…
A mirror.
He watched his reflection, took in his appearance with sharp eyes and a sinking heart. He could almost pretend the version of him in the mirror was just that, an altered image, if it weren't for the fact that he could feel everything. Most damaging to him, however, was the quick movement to view his eyes, after the others had despaired over them.
He saw inhuman eyes, staring from a completely different person.
"Come on," Téa urged, desperate to draw him from the sight of himself. "We need to get down there." Yugi turned and followed her as she led him down the stairs.
And after an eternity, heard the tale of thunderstorms and heaven.
Notes:
(One) – In the game, many of the marshals have abilities. Téa has the ability to increase the rate of healing for teams that are in the same town as she is. Sort of an unintentional coincidence.
(Two) – Portions of this scene were written in November of 2004. It is the oldest scene of the whole story, excluding the first chapter or two, thus revealing how long I've had this idea.
(Three) – For those of you sharp on the uptake, I'm sure you realized that Yugi is now wearing his outfit from the Duelists of the Rose game. I've been waiting forever to get him in that outfit.
SC: MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE. This is your present. I will not say sorry for being so incredibly late with the chapter, because there is no excuse for it and you have a right to be mad at me.
All of my usual readers probably forgot me…
Please, please review, if you're still there.
PS – New longest chapter record: 14,365 words.