Thanks to HermioneSakuraGardner07 and Aya El maghrabi for your generous reviews! I always love hearing from you guys!
This chapter was a lot of fun to write; I hope you enjoy reading it!
As always, I do not own YuGiOh.
In the morning, Tea had gotten significantly less sleep than she had wanted, but at least had figured out a few of her problems.
She was going to need to switch to online schooling. She couldn't drop out of school altogether; her parents would probably have simultaneous strokes. And as for her parents, since they couldn't know what was going on(and would have her committed if she tried telling them) then she needed a way to hide the injuries she was sure to receive.
She bit her lip at that thought, blue eyes filled with turmoil. Because injuries were certain, looming up in her future, pain and blood and hurt. Because she could very well be killed, and the truly terrible part of that idea lay in the fact that her own death would bring about the deaths of others.
A shuddering sigh escaped her dry mouth, and the girl pressed her hands against her eyes, blocking out the gentle rays of sunlight escaping across the skyline to slip in the open window.
Forcibly, Tea returned to her earlier contemplation: how to conceal her activities from her parents.
Perhaps, the best solution would be to move out. Yes, that, that might be for the best. She had more than enough money saved up from her jobs(from a broken dream of America and stage lights) to cover rent and groceries for the next year. The difficult part would be finding a way to convince her parents to go along with the idea.
Before she had time to mull that over, however, Ryou appeared, his hair already neatly in place and attired in day clothes. His eyes were tired too, and Tea guessed he hadn't gotten much sleep either.
"Good morning!" she said brightly, shoving away her gloom(because maybe she was going to die, but that was only a better reason to be happy to see her friends). "Thank you so much again for having me over!"
And Ryou could only stifle down a snort of laughter, because honestly, the girl shows up bloody in the streets, faints in his apartment, and acts like they had a sleepover. There was something endearing(and possibly insane) about that kind of optimism.
"And good morning to you," he nodded. "I only have water and milk to drink, I'm afraid."
"Oh, water sounds good," Tea replied gratefully, sitting up and testing her feet against the floor while Ryou politely pretended not to watch. Her wounds hurt much less today, and, forcing her face into a pleasant smile, the girl stood and took a few hesitant steps. Pain lanced its way up through her legs, but that was just a part of her life now, wasn't it? And so she took a few more steps, and then a few more. Ever the impeccable gentleman, Ryou pulled out a chair for her at his small kitchen table, and she sank down into it with a silent breath of relief.
Ryou fetched her a glass of water, and beside it, he put a few pills. "Painkillers," he explained with a quick, comforting smile, and Tea felt her heart break a bit for this boy who had been through so much and yet remained so kind.
Murmuring her thanks, she downed the pills and the water.
Ryou put together a nice breakfast for them both, toast and eggs and apple. It was a bit more than either of them normally did for breakfast, but it allowed them both to stay in the apartment a bit longer, and neither of them really wanted to face the outside world quite yet.
So they sat and made inane small talk and laughed, and it was surprisingly enjoyable, despite the overlaying tension. They had spoken much in the past, but usually in the middle of card tournaments, or at school. Tea complimented him on his cooking, and he joked that if his cooking impressed her, he'd hate to see what she normally ate. Whereupon she told him seriously that eating grubs was more for the nutritional value than any taste, and he choked until he realized she was kidding.
It was nice. And then, the last bite was eaten, the plates put away, and it was over all too soon.
The door awaited them, ready to eat them up and spit them out into the uncertain world beyond.
Tea picked up her blood encrusted socks, but was stopped by Ryou proffering a pair of his own.
"They'll be too big, of course," he said sheepishly. "But you certainly can't wear those." And then he offered her a scarf and a jacket, for the day was 'a bit nippy' and Tea knew he was trying to help her cover up her bruises and scrapes before they went to meet their friends.
And it was in that moment that her resolve for the task ahead of her crystallized, unpleasant as it may be, for there were people like Ryou in the world, people like her friends, good, beautiful people, and she would do anything she could to keep them safe.
"Thank you," she said again to him, and she smiled so wide that her cheeks hurt.
They spoke more of simple things as they left, of the schoolwork Ryou had missed during the tournament, of the volatile spring weather and the upcoming summer. Both of them flinched slightly as they crossed over the threshold and looked instinctively towards the shadows, Tea rubbing the gem in her hand, and Ryou scratching at the empty spot on his chest where the Ring had hung.
There was an understanding in the things they didn't say, and after a brittle moment of fear, Tea grinned at Ryou, who gave a small smile in return. They went on towards the game shop, finding curious shapes in the clouds.
When at last the small shop appeared in front of them, Tea halted, anxiety rising up in her and choking her breath. Kaiba's limousine was parked in front, and that, more than anything, spoke of the severity of what had happened in the tournament.
But Ryou had said they were all okay, and she believed him. But the unknown frightened her, moreso now than ever, and she lingered on the sidewalk in front of the doors.
"Are you ready?" Ryou inquired quietly, brown eyes nervous as her blue ones.
Taking a deep breath, Tea nodded. Disregarding the CLOSED sign, she pushed the door open, and, with Ryou following her, walked towards the sound of her friends' voices in the living room.
Bakura kicked over a chair in frustration, staring around at Ryou's empty apartment. Where was the dratted boy? He had been sure the pathetic child would have holed himself up in his wretched little home, too terrified to venture out, too ashamed to seek refuge with the Pharaoh and his mindless posse.
He sat on the table, appreciating the height of his new body. He flexed his long tan fingers(so much better than the boy's weak pale ones) ran his thumb over the scar reappeared on his face.
There was no skin like your own skin, after all.
He stretched, arching the long length of his spine. He supposed he didn't really need the boy, not anymore. But still, Bakura had spent a long time training Ryou, breaking him down and molding him, and he was loathe to throw away such a prize investment.
That being said, Ryou clearly needed a bit more training, seeing as he wasn't where he was supposed to be. A mocking smile crossed the Thief King's lips. What should he do to punish the boy this time?
He stared around the room, mulling over dark possibilities. He could threaten the brat's friends, although since he intended to kill them anyways, that seemed rather pointless. He could set the apartment complex alight, killing all the other residents. Ah, but that might draw too much attention from authorities. Not that he would have any difficulty killing any police or whatever, but it could be troublesome.
His gaze halted on the sofa, perplexed. Was that blood? Standing, he prowled over to the furniture in question.
That…was a lot of blood. Huh. Maybe Ryou was finally growing some spine and had murdered someone. If so, he guessed he should be proud? Actually, that probably wasn't enough blood to account for a murder. He knew from lots of experience.
Bakura stood and stared at the bloody sofa for a long time. It represented an unknown in this place, this banal abode he had suffered through for years.
Bakura didn't like not knowing things. He stroked the neverending edge of the Ring glowing golden around his neck. Ryou was going to have some explaining to do.
Yami glared sullenly at the Kaibas. All three of them. Mokuba had brought his two brothers back to the Gameshop, hoping that either he or Isis would have answers as to why Seto was taking so long to break the curse of the Scales Master.
Isis had been more than obliging, agreeing to meet them despite the early hour. And now the living room was overflowing again, filled to bursting with Joey, Mai, Duke, Isis, Tristan, and the three Kaibas, none of whom seemed to understand that they needed to be quiet in order to let Yugi, still sleeping off his illness upstairs, rest.
Currently the Light Kaiba was arguing loudly with the Dark Kaiba, while Mokuba unsuccessfully tried to mediate between them. Joey looked like Christmas had come early, watching Kaiba turn on, well, himself.
Standing, Yami opened his mouth to order them to silence, but the sound of the front door opening halted him.
"Hello?" called a tentative and painfully familiar voice, and Yami felt all his anger die away instantly, because that was Tea, sweet and faithful Tea, who had come back after all, and who he hadn't realized he had missed so much until he heard her voice again.
Joey whooped at the sound of her voice, and Tristan smiled for the first time that day. Interestingly, Mokuba also reacted to her voice, looking up with a grin. Yami had no time to ponder that, however, because Tea appeared in the doorway and all the breath left his lungs.
What had happened? If not for her eyes, blue and bright and as known to him, if not for the same smile stretched across her lips that had greeted him many a day, he would have thought the girl in the doorway a stranger. Her hair had been cut, framing a face that was oh so much thinner, and to his horror, a long scar lined her jaw. Dark smudges framed her eyes, telling of many sleepless nights, and he saw more scars marring her slender hands where they peeped out from beneath the sleeves of a baggy coat.
Joey and Tristan gaped at her as well, while Mai, Isis, and Duke were more discreet in their baffled scrutiny. Yami forced his mouth to move, to shape a question, but before he could, the girl herself spoke.
"Oh god!" she screeched, staring in disbelief at the Kaiba brothers. "It's finally happened! Kaiba finally cloned himself!"
Her words rung in the silent room, and both Setos looked at her with the greatest of disdain. Then Mokuba snickered into his sleeve, and Joey burst out with a loud guffaw. Ryou entered from behind her, amusement dancing in his eyes.
"Not quite," he said lightly. "Not quite."
And then Yami made to speak up again, but was interrupted by Mokuba, who bounced over to fling his arms around the girl's waist(since when had they been that close?) and chatter excitedly up at her.
"Where were you, Tea?" he asked, and the brightness of his eyes was enough to make Tea not care about how badly his innocent grip was aggravating her injuries.
"I'm sorry, Mokuba," she apologized, bending down to hug him back. "I overestimated how long I could walk for, and then my cane broke…I was lucky to have Ryou happen across me!"
Mokuba pouted up at her. "You ought to have called," he reprimanded sternly in his child's voice.
Tea raised her eyebrows. "Mokuba, that's terribly sweet of you, but there's no way I would have cut into your reunion with your big…brothers….someone want to tell me what's going on with that?"
Yami stared at Ryou. "You didn't tell her yet?"
The slight boy shrugged. "I thought it might be best to tell her all together, so that way she can hear the whole story at once."
"Forget what happened to us!" Joey burst out. "Tea, what the heck happened to you?"
Tea froze, a brief look of panic sliding across her face as she bore the weight of a roomful of eyes. To Yami's surprise though, she straightened, staring down the blonde boy with narrow eyes.
"Joseph Wheeler," she said very clearly and carefully, and Joey gulped, because he remembered that look from when he used to bully Yugi, and it never boded well. "I," continued the girl. "Asked you first." And then she very primly turned up nose at him.
Tristan snickered, punching his friend in the shoulder. "Got you there, man," he grinned.
"How rude of you, Joey," Mai sniffed in mock offense, and even the Setos smirked at the blonde's comeuppance.
"Yeah, yeah," Joey waved them all off with good humor. He shoved Tristan out of the seat on the sofa next to him, making room for the brunette girl. "Well, Tea, it happened like this."
And the story of the tournament unfolded over the next hour, complete with descriptions of the few good times( "Joey ate a smore right out of the fire and couldn't talk for two days!) and the many bad times, wherein they were confused and scared and hurt. Yami fidgeted during those tales, struggling with guilt and the desire to prevent Tea from having to hear about the horrible things that had transpired.
When the tale was finished, Tea leaned back against the sofa, her mouth a grim line as she mulled over what had been said.
"Well, I thought you looked unusually tan, Yami," the girl joked weakly. "Not to mention the whole eye color change. And the foot or so you jumped in height."
"Yeah, what, did you think the card games were a cover for intense plastic surgery or something'?" Joey teased her.
She wrinkled her face at him. "I would, but it seems like you came back uglier than ever, so that wouldn't make sense."
She high-fived Tristan, and then grew somber again. "Is there any way of tracking Bakura or Marik?" she asked. "Like, I don't know. Magically?"
Isis spoke up then, her voice soft and weary. "Rishid and I have been searching for traces of Marik, but his essence is so intertwined with the shadows that it is almost impossible to detect him. And as for Bakura, well, he is a skilled practitioner of magic, far beyond our abilities. He has concealed himself too thoroughly for our detection."
"What about you, Yami?" Duke asked, tossing a pair a dice up and down in his hand.
The red-eyed youth looked down, ashamed. "My memories are…incomplete," he admitted. "I recall more than I did as a Spirit, but it seems even my return to flesh is not enough to mend my mind. My power is strong, but I lack the recollections of the teachings I must have once had." He clenched his hands, burning with the anger of the useless.
"Perhaps it will just take time for more of your memories to clear up," Tea encouraged gently, and he felt some of his tension leave at the sweetness of his missed friend.
"Perhaps," he conceded. "But now, Tea, I must insist that you tell us what has happened with you." He saw Joey and Tristan lean forward, and his own curiosity bubbled to the surface as well.
"Oh," Tea said, a distinct lack of enthusiasm to her voice. She fiddled with a strand of her hair(so much shorter now) and crossed her legs.
"She doesn't need to explain anything to you if she doesn't want to," snapped an unexpected voice, and Yami blinked at a bristling Mokuba Kaiba, whose eyes were currently trying to laser glare a hole in him. (Both Setos looked positively delighted.)
Tea laughed at that, a bright, delighted sound that seemed like a ray of light in the gloom of the room. "What would I do without you, Mokuba?" she asked, eyes crinkling in a grateful smile. The boy smiled back bashfully, a complete reversal from the glower he had been sending Yami. (The Setos looked much less delighted at this.)
"We didn't mean to push ya'," Joey said contritely. "I mean, I know we didn't-didn't part on the besta terms." He looked down at his lap in shame.
A multitude of emotions crossed Tea's face at the reminder: hurt, sadness, a flash of anger, determination, and finally a deep and profound fondness. She bumped her shoulder into Joey's affectionately.
"No, we didn't," she said. "But that's something we'll need to talk about some other time, when things calm down a bit. I'm not happy about what happened, but I understand what you must have been thinking."
"I don't understand what they were thinking," Mai muttered into her drink, casting baleful glances at the men in the room. She had been more than a little miffed to find that Tea had been left behind, calling the boys a bunch of gender discriminatory jerks.
"Thanks Mai," Tea continued. "Anyways, I would have tried to contact you guys before you left the next day, but I-er-couldn't, because, as it turns out, I got mugged."
"What!" Tristan burst out. "Damnit, Joey, I knew we should have gone after her!"
"Wait, what?" Tea asked.
Joey turned to her, penitence shining out of his eyes. "I'm so sorry we din' go lookin' for you, Tea."
Tea stared blankly at him. "Even if you were there," she said slowly. "What makes you think you could have done anything to help? Are you calling me weaker than you? Because, Joey," she snapped, and Yami gaped open-mouthed(Tea never got angry, not really angry). "I know I can't help you very much with dueling-yes, you've made that clear. And you might be more used to fighting than me, but I am just as physically strong as you, if not stronger."
Joey blinked at her wide-eyed, and Mokuba grinned viciously in the background while the Setos came alarmingly close to smiling.
"Ah, Tea, I din' mean it like that," he blustered. "I jus'….uh." He looked to Tristan for help, but the other boy was equally gob smacked.
"Don't be unreasonable, Tea," Yami rebuked, brows furrowed at this uncharacteristic behavior of the girl's. "We are trying to make amends."
And Mai winced, and Duke dropped his dice, because that was so terribly obviously the wrong thing to say.
Isis smoothly interjected before things got ugly, which, going by the way Tea's nostrils had flared, was about to occur.
"In any case," she said, regal and calm as ever. "We require a plan for this situation."
With that, the group reluctantly turned back to the original issue. It was decided that Isis and her brothers would work with Yami in order to try and hunt down the two villains with magic, while Joey and Tristan patrolled the city streets. Duke would use his technological skills to watch for any weird energy fluctuations, and Mai would get in touch with her contacts.
Nobody gave the Kaibas a job. Nobody even tried, a fact which seemed to please all three of them(Mokuba was feeling a little vindictive after the way Yami epically mangled an apology).
Which, of course, left Ryou and Tea. There was an awkward pause as Yami tried to think of a task to assign them.
"Perhaps you two could do research," he suggested. In all honesty, he wanted them both as far away from the action as possible. Ryou's past association with Bakura made him suspect, and Tea had already been wounded enough. It killed him to think that she had suffered such injuries while he and the rest of their friends were ignorant to her pain, miles away. He had failed her, but he refused to let it happen again. From now on, he vowed to keep her far from conflict, where she could no longer be hurt.
"Research what?" Tea asked.
He struggled to find a suitable answer, something that sounded less like an excuse and more like an actual reason, and she sighed deeply, taking pity on him. "Okay, research," she smiled tightly. "Sounds good. I have a library close to my house. Not sure it has any books on ancient Egyptian magic, but maybe I can find something. And hey, what else is the Internet for?"
"…Right," Yami replied uncomfortably, and there was too much between them then, between the girl who had been left behind, and the spirit who was no longer a spirit, who just kept going further away. He could not meet her eyes.
Ryou stepped in then, kind and perceptive as ever. "Perhaps we could research together? We might do well to bounce ideas off of each other."
Tea smiled at him, and Yami saw, with a burn of envy, that it was nothing like the strained expression she had given him.
"We had best all begin, then," Isis stated, rising. "I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your aid."
"Think nothing' of it," Joey said easily, and Tristan nodded, Duke and Mai murmurring agreement from beside him.
"This is a shared problem," Ryou added, and the pain in his eyes was evidence enough of that.
"Should we all meet each week to discuss our progress?" Tea asked the priestess.
"That sounds like a good idea," the woman acknowledged, favoring her with a smile. "I will see you all then."
With that, she swept forth from the room.
"What a lady," Duke said admiringly.
"We're leaving too," said the Setos in eerie unison, and with Mokuba pinned between them, they stalked out. The boy morosely waved goodbye to Tea, who waved back with a rueful smile that clearly conveyed, hey, what can you do?
"I'd best be off, too," she said. "Would you say hello for me to Grandpa when he gets back from the shop? Oh, and I need to check in on Yugi."
"Ah, he is sleeping," Yami discouraged.
"And believe it or not, I am capable of being quiet," Tea responded huffily, striding past him to make for the stairs.
"Burn!" cheered Mai, earning an adoring look from Joey.
Yugi lay terribly still on his bed, his breaths soft and uneven. Tea did not enter further than the doorway, unwilling to risk waking him.
Her eyes traced over his familiar, beloved features. Yugi, her dearest friend, her oldest friend.
Yugi, who had stood up at the end of that tournament and defeated the scales master all by himself. She wished she could have been there.
"I'm so proud of you," she whispered, nearly silent. "I love you so much, so, so much. Get better, Yugi." And then she quietly closed the door, letting alone the uneasily sleeping boy in the silent room.
AN: Hope you enjoyed it! I know this doesn't have the big confrontation I think you were expecting, but I figured that just wouldn't be realistic with what is going on with them right now. Besides, this way I get to drag it out! Oh the angst! XD Hope you're all having a great weekend!
Next week: Bakura appears, Tea gets her own apartment, and Yami just keeps shoving his foot further and further into his mouth! Also, action, thrilling and glorious action.