Chapter 2: An older sister's rage a little sister's sadness
Anzu Mazaki woke up with a flaming jolt going through her body. Her body drenched in sweat as she tried to calm her frantic heart beat and catch her breath. She had an almost irresistible impulse to scream out in horror from the nightmare she just had. The nightmare she has been having since she turned eighteen.
She was now twenty two, and still having that same haunting nightmare. Anzu slowly sat up making the quilt that kept her warm through this winter night fall to her waist. 'Why do I keep having this nightmare? It isn't normal!'
Anzu closes her eyes in frustration and runs her right hand's fingers through her sweaty bangs; her heart beat slowly becomes calm again. When they open again the azure orbs show a flame that wants to consume and be set free but is being chained down. She closes her eyes again, listening to the silence that fills her apartment bedroom. Her breathing becomes normal and she could feel her mind clear.
'It's just a dream and it's not real, I'm here safe in my home.' Anzu thinks reassuring herself of her safety. 'You think you're safe, but you're not, don't be fooled so easily Anzu!' A male voice shouts in Anzu's head, echoing in her eardrums.
Anzu's eyes snap open in horror; she puts her hand over her mouth as she feels bile rise up in her throat. She quickly makes her way out of bed and rushes out of her room into the bathroom. The toilet becomes her new best friend. She lies on her side on her white tiled bathroom floor curled into a ball. She lets out a couple shallow breaths as her face lost some of its color.
'What the hell was that? Am I going crazy?' Anzu closes her eyes again trying to calm herself again. A familiar pair of amethyst colored eyes appears in her mind, this causes bile to rise up and the toilet continues to be a great friend to Anzu.
When Anzu is done emptying her stomach contents, she doesn't even bother to try to calm herself down. Anzu wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, trying to ignore the nauseous feeling in her stomach. She grabs the star shaped pendent around her neck and holds it to her heart with trembling hands. She lets out a few shaky breathes.
Somewhere else in domino two women were watching Anzu through a big black pot of water in the center of the little living room with great frustration. A blond in particular was pacing around in circles as she let out curses in Greek. It was Mai, she was wearing a white no sleeve shirt with her favorite purple jacket and blue jeans. Her wavy blond hair was loose as always.
Mana looks up from the fashion magazine she's reading. "Getting frustrated is not going to make her remember us or them any faster Mai." Mana says in a bored tone as she sits on the red sofa with one leg crossed over the other. She was wearing a light spring green dress, with short sleeves and green flats; her blonde hair was loose as well and went past her shoulders
Mana's appearance had changed drastically when she was born in this life, Mai almost didn't recognize her when she found her. Instead of having brown hair and tanned skin like she did in her last life, Mana now had blonde hair and pale skin. Mai looked exactly the same as the last time, same blonde hair, same purple eyes, same everything. Anzu looked exactly the same as well.
She flipped through the pages of a fashion magazine out of boredom as her oldest sister continued to rant and curse. All of Mai's cursing and yelling was giving Mana an extreme headache. You'd think she would've learned how to channel and let out her anger through her magic, but no she chooses to make my head suffer! Mana thinks annoyed.
"Cursing isn't going to help either, all this stress you're putting on yourself is going to cause you wrinkles." Mana says looking up from the magazine still bored. "Oh, shut up Mana! I don't see you doing anything to make Anzu remember us!"
"It's because I know she needs time to cope, out of the three of us Anzu was the one who was hurt the most." Mana says in a very annoyed tone. "We were all hurt Mana!" Mai shouts at her as she finally stops pacing around.
"We were all hurt and betrayed by someone we loved!" Mai shouts angrily as tears fill her eyes. Mana finally looks up from the magazine infuriated. As she puts the magazine on the black wood coffee table she closes her eyes and lets out a heavy breath, in an attempt to calm herself down.
When she opens her eyes you could see the anger boiling in them. "Maybe you don't understand the differences in the ways we were hurt Mai. You only got your trust betrayed by the man you used to love, I'm not saying that it's not something to be angry about but compared to what Anzu went through your anger is towards something very small." Mana says in an angered tone.
Mai clenches her fist at Mana's words. They struck a chord with her. "So what you're saying is that Anzu's feelings are more important than our revenge?" Mai asks her tone raw with old fury.
Mana gets up walks over to Mai and looks her straight in the eye. "Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying Mai. Do you want to know why? It's because I saw how broken Anzu's heart was when we were casting that damn curse two thousand years ago!"
While the two argue they don't notice that they left one of their living room windows wide open. A figure quietly sneaks in and leans on the wall. He has his arms crossed over his chest and a cocky smirk on his face. He briefly wonders how long it would take for the two bickering sisters to take notice to his presence as he listens to them argue.
Mana shouts at Mai, her anger finally taking over. "We were all heartbroken Mana, even you were! Or have you forgotten because you were feeling so much pity towards Anzu!" Mai shouts back at Mana, her anger beginning to flare up rivaling Mana's.
A hard slap sound filled the room; Mai looked shocked as she felt her right cheek begin to swell up. Mana had tears cascade down her cheeks out of anger as her left hand began to sting from the strike. "It is you who I feel pity for Mai!" Mana shouts at her, no longer holding her temper back.
Mai holds a hand to her red swelling cheek as she continues to look at Mana with shock. Mana had never struck anyone before, not even in her past life. So for Mana to strike her was very shocking. Mana had almost lost her temper and that was very life threatening, so Mai kept her mouth shut and listened to what Mana had to say.
Mana's clenched fists were trembling and her green eyes were burning. "I'm so sick of you undermining Anzu's pain and feelings! You and I got our hearts broken and trusts betrayed, I admit it hurts me to think about it and yes I want revenge! However neither of us was with a child inside us when we burned our bodies to ash!"
The figure frowns at Mana's words as she yelled at Mai. An innocent woman and an innocent child were killed. It was partly his fault and nobody knew so he was living with guilt. However he is also after something at the moment and nothing was going to get in his way.
Mana takes in a shaky breath as her eyes filled with new tears for her second older sister, remembering the way Anzu begged Mai and her to save the child she was holding inside her. "Neither of us could feel that child's aura being in pain! Neither of us could feel that child dying because we weren't carrying it, Anzu was!" Mana shouts to the top of her lungs.
Mana takes in another shaky breath; her clenched fists still were trembling as her sides. "Anzu was a mother Mai! How could you possibly compare you getting your trust betrayed, to Anzu losing her baby?" Mana asks in a sobbing voice.
Mai lets Mana's question sink in, and tears fill her eyes as guilt finds its way in her heart. How could I compare losing trust to losing a child? Is this what two thousand years of hatred has brought me to? Mai covers her mouth and sinks to her knees.
She literally begins to feel disgusted with herself. Mai begins to sob uncontrollably as endless streams of tears fall down her cheeks. Mana kneels down to Mai and hugs her, tears continue falling down her cheeks as well. They both stay like that for awhile letting out sobs of sorrow.
When their sobs quiet down Mana starts to talk calmly. "I know you're angry at Atem Mahado and Jounouchi. I know you yearn for Anzu to remember us as well but you cannot rush her to awake. It could cause much damage to her physically mentally and emotionally." Mana says sadly, hating her own words for she herself missed her second older sister very much.
"Why can't she remember us? We both remembered the moment we hit the ages we died, but Anzu she didn't. She's about to turn a year older than the age she died and she hasn't showed any other sign of remembering but the nightmare she keeps having." Mai says in a frightened tone.
Mana begins to feel terrified as well. "Mana, if Anzu doesn't remember anything before the time she hits the age twenty three, we're all as good as dead. Jounouchi, Atem and Mahado will find us and they are going to kill us." Mai says with a trembling tone.
"Anzu wouldn't let that happen, you know that as well as I do. There has got to be a reason why she isn't waking up, maybe there was a glitch in the spell. Or maybe one of us didn't say our part correctly." Mai breaks away from the hug and shakes her head sadly.
"I check and looked over the spell over a dozen times Mana, there was no side effect and we all said our parts correctly." Mana looks at her with a worried expression. "Are you saying that Anzu may be gone?" Mai nods her head sadly; Mana covers her mouth out of shock as new tears fill her green eyes.
"No she can't be gone! Not Anzu!" Mana says in a sob, curling into a ball. Mai hugs Mana protectively. Mana curses and screams through her tears of sadness, most are hard to make out because their being muffled by Mai's shoulder.
"I hate them; I hate those three so damn much! They did this to us, they killed us! Now Anzu might be gone because of them too!" Mana shouts while she sobs uncontrollably, her hatred grows towards the three Mai Anzu and she put a curse on.
"I might be able to help your sister in her situation." Says a deep calm voice from behind Mana, it makes Mai and Mana jump. They immediately go into their attack stances. Both their hands aiming at the intruder, Mana's hands were glowing green while Mai's hands were glowing gray.
A boy with long white hair and sharp brown eyes was leaning against the black boiling pot. He was wearing a white and blue stripe shirt with short sleeves, with dark blue jeans and brown heavy shoes that sort of looked like hiking boots. He had his arms crossed over his chest as he stared at Mai and Mana. Mai and Mana narrowed their eyes dangerously at him.
They were not pleased that this stranger had the nerve to enter their home without their permission. "Who are you? Are you one of Atem's men?" Mai asks in an enraged voice, her temper was reaching its dangerous limits.
The boy with the white hair doesn't answer Mai and continues to stare at the two sisters with a blank expression. It seems they don't remember me. I wonder if they could guess who I am. Bakura thinks to himself as he continues to stare at Mai and Mana.
This annoyed both Mai and Mana; this was an unwelcome guest in their home. "My older sister asked you a question, now I'm going to ask nicely and if you don't answer I will kill you. Who the hell are you?" Mana asks in an equally enraged voice.
The boy just stares at Mana for a moment as if pondering to answer her question. "My name is Bakura." He says plainly as if he was bored. Mai and Mana now dropped their attack positions and look at Bakura with complete shock.
"Wait a minute, now I remember you! You're that boy who tried to save us Anzu and her baby two thousand years ago." Bakura smirks at Mai's outburst. The look on her and Mana's face was completely priceless.
"Wait he's the hot guy that stood up for us?" Mana asks in a shocked voice, looking at Bakura with amazed eyes. "How the hell is he still alive?" Mana asks in an amazed voice, she had an amazed sparkle in her eyes, like a child seeing candy for the first time.
"The reason why I'm alive is thanks to your sister, she casted a spell that gave me eternal life and happiness. I would like to repay her for that and show her that she has my eternal gratitude, but only if you two lovely ladies would let me." Bakura says bowing in a gentlemen manner. Mai and Mana turn their gazes towards each other, both questioning one another if they should trust Bakura.
They both smile and nod their head; Mai crosses her arms behind her back and stands up straight. "Alright Bakura, you are allowed to go near our sister and try to bring back her memory. However you must do this carefully, because forcefully making Anzu remember may shatter her mind and put her in a coma state forever." Mai says carefully explaining the rules.
Bakura shoots up from his bowing position with a huge smirk on his face. He then rushes up to Mana and Mai and embraces them. This shocks both Mai and Mana; it also causes Mana to flush red. When Bakura releases them out of the hug he bows to them in a gentlemen manner again.
"Thank you two so much, I promise you both you won't regret this." Bakura says in a grateful voice. "We better not Bakura, we will be watching very closely so if you do something to hurt Anzu we will kill you without hesitation." Mai says in a sweet but threatening tone.
Bakura nods his head understandingly, knowing far too well from the rumors he heard off the streets that Mai's death threats were never empty. She always fulfilled her threats and that's what made Bakura slightly fearful of her. He could tell she knew of his fear for her cause of the smirk she wore on her face. He turns to leave but Mana stops him at the last second.
"Hold on Bakura, I have one more question for you before you leave." Mana says in a serious tone, this causes Mai and Bakura to look t her curiously. Mana is never serious unless it is something truly important. Mai thinks curiously as she continues to stare at Mana.
Mana has a very serious look on her face with her arms crossed over her chest. Mai and Bakura wait patiently for her question looking at her with anxious eyes. "Are you single? If you are, want to go out on a date?" Mana asks in a flirting voice.
Mai smacks her forehead, while Bakura sweat drops. Here I thought she was going to be serious. Mai thinks annoyed. "I'm sorry Mana, that's very sweet, but I'm interested in someone else."
Bakura says in a nervous tone, Mana giggles at his nervousness. "Relax, Bakura I was just kidding around with you. Besides I know you like my sister, that's why you want to help her remember." Mana says while smirking at him.
"Am I right?" Mana asks with a wink, Bakura's cheeks flush light pink at Mana's question and he begins to stutter in denial. Mai smirks at this and Mana's smirk grows. Looks like I hit the nail right on the head. Mana thinks smugly.
Anzu's pretty lucky, Bakura's a handsome guy and I think he's about her age. If not he's probably a year older. She always did attract the attentions of a good man, ninety nine percent of the guys she dated were pretty good but she said she didn't feel a special spark with them. Mai thinks sadly, she never understood why Anzu was hell bent on finding true love.
So, Anzu never settled down sometimes Mai and Mana would tease her about how Anzu was going to be the one to marry last out of the three f them. Boy how right they were. "Miss Mai? May I go now?" Bakura asks Mai snapping her out of her dazed state.
"Huh? Oh, I'm sorry Bakura you may go now." Mai says her eyes still having that far away look in them. Bakura nods his head and leaves out the window he snuck in through. Once he's gone Mana goes over to the window, closes it and seals it with a spell.
She rubs her arms from the cold winter wind she just felt. She notices Mai as a worried expression mixed with a bit of anger and nervousness. "What is it Mai? Mana asks curiously, she wonders if Bakura's presence made Mai uncomfortable.
"Is something wrong? Did Bakura make you uncomfortable?" Mana asks in a worried voice. Mai snaps out of her thoughts and lets out a heavy sigh as she sits down on the red silk cushion sofa.
"It's not his presence that made me uncomfortable." Mai says in a frustrated tone, Mana raises a confused eyebrow at this. "Then what is bothering you?" Mana asks in a confused tone.
"His aura is what bothers me." Mai says in an irritated tone. "I don't get it, what irritates you about his aura?" Mana asks getting frustrated with her sister.
"What irritates me about his aura is the fact that I wasn't able to sense it." Mai says in an angered voice, Mana tilts her head to the side still not understanding what Mai meant. "Mana, think about it, there were two witches here you and me. How is it that neither of us was able to sense his aura?"
Mana puts her finger to her chin and goes into deep thought. Mai's right, the both of us are very powerful witches, so how was he able to sneak in without being noticed. His aura was pretty strong as well. Mana begins to feel irritated and angered as well.
"I wonder what he overheard us saying." Mana says while rubbing her temples in an attempt to calm her nerves down. "He probably heard everything we said, everything about our deaths, everything about Anzu and everything about our hatred for those three bastards." Mai says in an exhausted voice.
"Great, could this get any worse?" Mana asks in a sarcastic tone. "Well, he could have been secretly working with Jounouchi, Atem, and Mahado to spy on us but luckily that's not the case." Mai says in a relieved tone as she closes her eyes out of tiredness.
Mana gives her a panicked look after those words are spoken. "Mai, if we couldn't sense this boy's aura that that means he could hide the aura's that linger on him. He could have been working for those three when he attempted to save Anzu's life!" Mana says in a panicked voice
Mai's eyes shot open at Mana's words realizing that they could be true. "I really hope you're wrong about that Mana." Mai says running over to their big black pot to see if Anzu was alright. She put the tip of her index finger in the water and began to spin the boiling water in circles.
"Show me my first younger sister Anzu, witch of the element fire." Mai chants to the water of the pot as her purple eyes begin to glow gray for a brief moment. Mai removes the tip of her index finger and the waters stills for a moment. Then ripples begin to form and Anzu's image appears in the water.
She's sitting next to her apartment toilet holding the star pedant that Mai left on her doorstep on Anzu's sixteenth birthday. Mai gave her the pendent so when Anzu awoke from her two thousand year slumber Anzu would have immediate access to her powers without any difficulties. It also would let Mai or Mana know if Anzu was in any type of danger in her slumbering state,
Right now it seemed like Anzu was having a panic attack after having a premonition of her past life. It was right when she died, when Anzu was begging Mana and Mai herself to save her unborn child. It brought rage inside Mai's heart to see her sister like this, to see her frightened the way she was. Mai put both her hand palms over Anzu's water image and began chanting a nerve calming spell.
When she sees Anzu's expression change from panicked and scared to calm and peaceful, she smiles. My sister is going to sleep peacefully tonight. Those memories are not going to haunt her again. Mai thinks as she puts a peace dreaming spell on Anzu.
Mai than wipes away Anzu's image in the water, and the water goes still and gray. The flame beneath the pot dies out and the wood's ash that was beneath the pot disappears as soon as Mai snaps her fingers. "How is she?" Mana asks in a concerned voice as Mai sits down next to her on the red sofa.
"She was having another panic attack." Mai says in an angered tone. "She was having another one? That's the fifth time this week, and it's only Wednesday!"
Mana shouts angrily. "If this keeps up her powers are going to go berserk." Mana says in worried tone, she knew that Anzu's nerves had their limits and what scared Mana more was that Anzu's emotions are automatically connected to her powers. So if Anzu were to feel too much of one emotion her powers would go off without Anzu wanting them too.
It's why Anzu had to keep her emotions separated from her powers sometimes. "That is why I cast a nerve calming spell on her, along with a peace dreaming spell." Mai says in a calmed tone. Mana crosses her arms over her chest and raises a brow at Mai.
"What is it Mana?" Mai asks when she sees the look Mana was giving her. "Surely, you do realize she is going to be pissed off when she wakes up from her slumber." Mana says in a warning tone to Mai.
"Why would she be pissed off?" Mai asks in a confused voice raising a brow at Mana. "Remember in our other life how she used to hate how we used to do one spell on her, even if it was to help her?" Mai nods her head slowly.
"How many spells have you cast on Anzu or around Anzu to help her?" Mana asks smirking at Mai, seeing fear creep up in her eyes. "Um…" Mai begins to hold her fingers and count. When she is done she looks like she wants to hide under a rock.
"So, tell me dear sister of mine how many spells have you cast on our middle sister?" Mana asks with a smirk. "Seventy eight, I've cast seventy eight spells on Anzu." Mai says in a frightened tone.
"Don't forget to add the two spells you just cast on her." Mana says in a sweet voice while still having a smirk on her face. Mai looks over to Mana and pouts at her. "You're enjoying my fear aren't you, Mana?"
"Maybe a little bit." Mana says while putting a small distance between her right index finger and thumb to show how much she was enjoying Mai's suffering. "Although Anzu may not know about the spells you casted on her, unless somebody were to begin to mention the spells to her."
Mana says in a bored tone while examining her left hand nails. Mai raises a suspicious brow at Mana. "What do you want Mana?" Mai asks in a curious tone,
Mana never used threats against someone unless she wanted something really bad and couldn't get it on her own. She looked at Mai with a nervous expression, and Mai could tell that whatever Mana was going to request was going to have her temper fuming. "I want to locate Jounouchi Atem and Mahado." Mana says in a nervous tone.
There is a long pause, neither Mai nor Mana say anything. There is just silence in the air, along with tension. Mai and Mana just stare at each other. Mana's nervousness grows when she sees rage light up in Mai's eyes.
"YOU WANT TO DO WHAT?" The yell echoes throughout domino city and reaches Bakura's ears making him tremble in slight fear. "That woman has a set of lungs on her, along with a temper." Bakura says to himself making a mental note never to make Mai angry.
Back at Mai and Mana's apartment, Mai was yelling and cursing at Mana in their Greek language. "Have you lost your damn mind Mana? There is no way in hell that we are going to locate those bastards!" Mai yells in Greek as she yelled at Mana while standing right in front of her.
"Calm down Mai, you haven't even heard my reason for wanting to locate them and you're already losing your temper." Mana says trying to calm Mai's rage. Mai lets out a grunt of frustration as she turns her back towards Mana and crosses her arms over her chest stubbornly. Mana lets out an exhausted sigh because she knew Mai was going to be stubborn, she always was.
"The reason I want to locate Jounouchi, Atem and Mahado is because I think I saw Jounouchi the other day in the fruit market while I was getting some apples." Mana says in a nervous tone. Mai now looks at Mana shock as if she couldn't process the words that just came out of Mana's mouth.
"Are you Sure Mana?" Mai asks in a serious tone filled with anger but it was not towards Mana. It was towards the fact that the three men the three witches were hiding from may have found them and one of the witches was still asleep. Mana solemnly nods her head.
"Here's the worst part of the news, I don't think that they want to come after all three of us anymore. I think that they are after only one this time, Mai." Mana says in a frightened tone and Mai could tell by the expression Mana had, it was not fear for herself. Mai's heart clenches hoping that what she was predicting was wrong.
"I went through our Mother's old spell book and I read up on the curse we put on Jounouchi, Atem, and Mahado." Mai nods her head urging Mana to continue, Mana lets out a heavy sigh. "The book said there are two ways to break this curse, number one was that one of us could lift it from them." Mai nods her head again urging Mana to continue.
"And number two was you could kill the witch who suggested putting the curse on you. The one who suggested on putting the curse on those three was Anzu." Mana says in a sad voice. Mai's powers nearly go berserk.
The wind outside is wild, blowing and raging with anger. "Mai you have to calm down, if you keep this up they'll defiantly find us." Mana says trying to soothe her sister's anger, the wind outside stops blowing immediately going back to its calmness. Mana lets out an exhausted and relieved sigh.
'That was too close.' Mana thinks to herself, she sees Mai's clenched fists trembling and begins regretting telling Mai anything. "So what you're saying is…that those three are going to attempt to kill Anzu." Mana nods her head.
Mai nods her head, but doesn't say anything. That begins to frighten Mana, when Mai doesn't talk it usually means she is boiling with rage inside. Mai goes over to the little coat rack they have next to their door and puts her black leather hunting coat on. Mana knew in that instant that Mai was about to do something rash.
When Mai did something rash it usually leads to pure and utter disaster. "Mai, where are you going?" Mana asks in a nervous tone. Mai briefly looks at her as she opens the door to leave the apartment.
"I'm going hunting." Mai answers before slamming the door shut, leaving Mana gaping at the door for a few seconds. When Mana processes what Mai had said and regains her composure, she panics. Mana runs over to the coat rack and puts on the black leather hunting jacket that's identical to Mai's and runs out the apartment.
"Mai wait you're acting on your emotions!" Mana calls out after Mai as she runs down the stairs to the lobby. She looks left and right but doesn't see Mai; panic begins to rise in her chest. She runs outside in the snowy streets heading towards Devil's Hangout knowing that, that's where Mai was about to or is raising hell, she just hopes she wasn't too late.
'For their sake I hope I'm not.' Mana thinks as she continues running as fast as she could. She screeches to a stop when she reaches the entrance of the Devil's Hangout, this is where they did their main hunting jobs as witches of the White Coven. When Mana hears glass crash and wood break she rushes inside, knowing that all hell was about to break loose through Mai and herself.
Chapter End!
A/N: *Wipes forehead and sighs* that was a long chapter to write but it was worth it! 99 views people, 99 views and 1 review? Come on everyone I think we could do better than that! By the way a huge thanks to my first reviewer!
IMPORTANT NOTE PLEASE READ: Oh and to all the readers of my story make things interesting I have decided to put a poll up in three days. This poll will show options of what could happen in the next chapter and to the Reviewer whose review sparks my attention the most they will get to choose what poll wins but it MUST have a reasonable amount of votes! So if you want to be the one who could choose what happens next, PLEASE REVIEW!