Corrupt- altered from the base form in a negative way.
Once again, what's with the drama words?
"They can shrink?" Anzu asked curiously, all of them looking interestedly at Joey's back, which now had wings a fraction of the size as they were before. For a moment it had looked like the wings had disappeared completely, since Joey had been facing them all and the wings could be folded completely behind his back, but when he had moved to retrieve his jacket the truth was quickly known.
"Two sizes only," Joey answered, hurriedly shrugging on the jacket with hopes that they could stop talking about it already. It was awkward. They never talked about the others' Wight features, why should his be any different?
Of course, other than the fact that he'd been hiding them for years. That was a bit different.
Kaiba, who was personally already past the shock of wings (he'd gotten past the shock when the stupid mutt jumped off the roof), just wanted everyone to step back and ask what was really important in this situation.
Namely, why had Yami so suddenly ditched the duel they were having?
"As riveting as this is," Kaiba drawled, tone showing exactly how riveting he thought it wasn't, "I really couldn't care less about some mutated mutt." Ignoring Joey once again snarling at him and the rest of them attempting to chastise him for unnecessary cruelty (who were they to chastise him anyway? He was the owner of a multi-billion dollar company), he turned to Yugi with a glare. "Where did Yami go? Hiding in his room?"
As rude as the others thought Kaiba was being, even Joey stopped trying to kill him in favor of looking at Yugi in concern. It really wasn't like Yami at all to retreat into his and Yugi's shared body in the middle of a duel, nor was it like him to let Yugi be in charge during a life-threatening situation. He was notoriously protective of his brother, after all.
They were brothers. It wasn't a fact of split personality or insanity or anything like that; Yugi and Yami were simply Wight. They had, since birth, shared the same body. Apparently, according to their Grandfather, they had actually been twins, fertilized in separate eggs and everything, but during some early point in the pregnancy one of them had simply… absorbed the other. Unlike the usual case, where this would have killed one twin, they had then been born as one. When they were younger they hadn't quite known, and after they figured it out for quite a while both were convinced they were perfectly insane.
But, the fact was, that their body actually physically changed when either took over. Yami and Yugi were amazingly similar, but Yugi had more baby fat left and Yami was taller, not to mention the slight differences in their hairstyles and the fact that their eyes were different colors.
Yami had always proclaimed himself the older brother, despite the fact that they were literally born at the exact same time and they weren't even sure which one of them was born (because only one could have been physical at the time), and took his duties very seriously. So his actions in the last few minutes were highly concerning to all who knew him.
"Yeah, is Yami alright?" Joey asked in concern, since he considered both Yami and Yugi to be his friends.
Yugi frowned, looking concerned.
He could hear Yami. But… it was different. Warped. Muffled. He couldn't hear words, but it sounded almost like Yami was afraid. When he tried to think back through their mind link, it sounded like he was trying to respond, so Yugi supposed he must have been able to hear.
"I don't know," Yugi admitted, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. He'd never not been able to speak to Yami! Sure, sometimes they had fights or one just needed a moment of silence and there would be periods in which they didn't talk, but they always could! "I can hear him, but it's like… it's different, I can't understand him at all, and I don't think he could come out even if he wanted to."
Yugi was doing his best to calm down- he had already thrown up and nearly died and almost cried wasn't that enough for one day- but he couldn't help that his breathing had sped up and suddenly everyone seemed too close, to crowding, but he just wanted a hug dag nabbit and wasn't that just so stupidly contradictory that he felt so stupid thinking it.
"It's okay Yugi," Anzu soothed immediately, hugging the smaller teen and sending a scathing glare at Kaiba for having brought this on. Kaiba scoffed in response. This really wasn't his problem.
"Something's wrong with it," Yugi sniffled, trying valiantly not to cry, "something happened to our bond, what if I can't get him back?"
AN: Well, this certainly took a turn for the even-more-dramatic. Whoops.