Later That Day
Aglaia, unaccustomed to the feeling of a friendly atmosphere with Yugi and pals, was deeply disappointed when all of her new friends left homeroom whence the roll was called and the bell rang.
The unsocial new girl sat in a shroud of silence amongst all of the teenage banter.
She remained in her seat as the chairs shuffled and she pulled out her mythology class book. It was a topic that interested her, but there really wasn't any need for her to learn about the Greek lore.
For, while other girls heard of princesses and dragons as they fell asleep at night, Aglaia heard about golden arrows and Greek gods, though she was raised as a Greek Orthodox Christian, as every member of her mother's family had been before her.
"Enough, enough now!" A woman with a tight bun and wrinkly hands clapped sharply and the students all slid into their seats.
"There, there we go." She pulled down a map from above the white board to reveal an old, nautical looking laminate with sea beasts and an island of sirens.
"Now, if the new face is any indication, I do believe that we have a new student in our midst."
The woman looked straight into Aglaia's face and nearly broke it. Metaphorically, of course.
"Well, now, don't be rude. Stand up and introduce yourself, um--" she glanced at the roll sheet. "Atsuko."
"Um-- I-- I'm--"
"Now now, don't stumble over your words. Speak up!"
"Atsuko Aglaia. . ." she muttered into her staunch torso.
"And where are you from, Atsuko Aglaia?"
"T-- Tokyo. . ."
"Tokyo." The woman gave an unreadable grimace. "Yes. Sit down now and stop bowing. It's embarrassing."
Indeed, Aglaia was embarrassed.
Sinking into a random page of her book, Aglaia's red face faded slowly as the woman, who had introduced herself as Ikeda-sensei, jumped straight into a lesson about the Greek goddesses.
"Now, If you've done the reading, you know that Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love and beauty. Famous for her promiscuity, it is ironic that she is also considered the goddess of chastity." Ikeda said it as though she found it more hilarious than both deserved detentions and boys with piercings combined.
Suddenly Aglaia's head pulsed with a surge of pain. It was odd, she thought, because she didn't usually get migraines.
"She was born, so it is said, when Ouranos castrated--" The class chuckled in muffles and the weird new girl grabbed her forehead. "--Cronus, the first generation Titan, who threw his severed genitalia into the sea." More chuckling proceeded so the pained grown that came from Aglaia went unheard.
Ikeda slammed her hand on the desk of a boy in the first row.
"Silence please."
Silence answered her.
"Thank you." She nodded in agreement. "Now, there was sea foam, the shell, you've all seen the picture." A boy sitting behind Aglaia punched a boy next to him in the arm, whispered something perverted that on any other occasion would have caused Aglaia to blush profusely..
It felt as though the Grand Canyon was caving in inside of her head.
Her inhibitions fell behind her as the pure pain gripped her mind. A wrestler had her brain in a headlock. A steal compressor was reforming her mind's shape. A thousand metaphors shot through her, all of them more painful than the last.
"Aglaia? Aglaia! Stop that, what's the matter with you?"
Aglaia looked up at Ikeda looking down on her.
"May-- May I be excused-- please? I-- my head--"
"Yes, yes. Go," she shooed the girl away and, running out of the room and down the hallway, the sound of her footsteps faded into the sound of inaudible voice like a radio unsure of which station it was on.
Reality was obscured with the figurative buzzing of blurred thoughts. Her legs beneath her became the only thing she saw and it completely evaded her that she had no idea where the clinic was.
In Another Classroom
Seto Kaiba was a courteous man.
He knew he was leagues more intelligent than his calculus teacher, however advanced he claimed his class to be, and he kindly humored the man with liver spots. He attended class like a good boy, as the law mandated.
In the back of the class room, his Kaiba Corp all purpose cell phone that would turn the Blackberry green with envy softly vibrated in his pocket.
The text message read something that actually managed to put emotion into Seto Kaiba's stolid face.
Mr. Kaiba: Your deck has been stolen.
And without a word, Seto was gone.
The teacher was courteous enough not to say a thing.
In The Hallway
Seto was turning a corner when a girl in uniform-- the girl from before-- ran into him and fell back onto the floor without so much as a stumble from him.
"Just great." Seto Kaiba was faced with the pressing dilemma of whether he should save a damsel in distress. That damsel being a thick haired girl on the hallway floor with her skirt flipped over and her glasses flown off.
Sighing with his natural fear of law suits, he picked her up with her chunky glasses in hand and walked briskly down the hall.
In The Infirmary
Nurse Sasaki was chewing her pencil in blank monotony when she heard a thump and three loud bangs on the door.
Jumping from her seat, she opened it and the body of an unconscious girl fell on her legs. Looking around and seeing no one, she lifted the girl with her glasses held loosely in her hands onto the bed and set the glasses down on the table beside her.
Sasaki Tora noticed that her forehead was peculiarly warm and set a cool towel on it but failed to note that the ring on her finger was burning even hotter.
? ? ?
The floor below her, as black as the oblivion above her, was the only thing that Aglaia could hold onto.
Never had she seen such darkness, but oddly enough, she could see her own skin. It seemed to glow.
Could it be a dream? No-- it was too real to be a dream. It was as though she had been pulled into a sheer back flash in a Korean drama.
And then the voice-- the same muffled voice from before-- came into earshot. Aglaia looked around but saw no one approaching.
"Why I've never been so insulted! The nerve of that ugly woman! Just she wait until I get out of here, I'll break her heart so many times that there won't be anything but dust left of it! She should be bowing at my temple if she wants any kind of fortune! Just she wait--"
Then, as though an apparition, the ghostly depiction of the goddess Aphrodite came into being, first as a cloud, then as an exact portrait.
Aglaia stared for a moment at the ranting woman, pacing around and shouting, and decided wholeheartedly that this was a dream.
Finally, the woman turned and looked at Aglaia.
"Well? What are you doing, standing around? Bow!"
"Wha-- What?"
"Need I introduce myself?! I am Aphrodite, holder of the key to eternal beauty and the sole knower of love's formula! Now fall down and praise me!"
Aglaia continued to stare and pinched herself, surprised at the slight sting that it produced.
"Have I been gone from the mortal plain so long that I've lost my respect?! Well, if you weren't my body, I'd doom you and all of your descendants to lifelong loneliness!"
The woman mumbled to herself, "I hope Eros has been doing his job, lest man kind return to complete animal state. . ."
Aglaia suddenly felt the need to convince this vision that it was what she wanted it to be.
"You-- you're a dream. You're not real." Aglaia eyes were wide and staring.
"What? Of course I'm real, you silly mortal! Don't you see me? Am I not here? And surely you've seen the other gods. Where are they? I will need more energy to conquer this vessel."
"Wha-- What? No-- this is a dream!" Aglaia's arms waved around in front of her.
"Dream?" Aphrodite walked straight in front of Aglaia and slapped her across her face. "Does that feel like a dream?"
Aglaia's eye twitched as confusion and realization swirled inside of her. Her mind was playing tricks on her, wasn't it? Wasn't it?
"Or this?" Slap. "Or this?" Slap. "Or this?"
"Okay, okay! I-- I get it! Stop slapping me!" Aglaia tried to step away from the woman but she grabbed her by her wrists.
"You're looking at your soul," she said as she lifted the girl's hands to her face. "Your mind's-soul, at least. It's all quite hard to explain to a mortal like you. I'd tell you about it if I had the time, but right now we have very many pressing matters at hand!"
"Wha-- Wha-- Wha--" A thought tornado was clouding her judgement and Aglaia began to believe that this was no dream (not a regular one, at least) and her sore cheeks concurred.
"Don't be stupid, girl! Pay attention to me now. I need this body."
"What? No!"
"I don't intend to kill you! I just need to take over this vessel so that I can find my Seth and we can be together. Then you can have your body back."
"What? You're not making sense! Slow-- slow down! What?!"
Aphrodite slapped her again and out of fury unlike her nature, she tried to slap the woman back but her wrist was caught before she could.
"Listen to me! Our souls have been fused. Can't you see? It's all quite obvious, but I suppose a mortal's judgement is not as clever as my own."
"What?"
"Our minds! They are one. It is the ring that makes us this way. I don't know why it has taken so long but finally I have been awakened, and thus, you are my vessel. Is that simple enough for you?"
"Wha. . ." Aglaia looked downward as though there were something to look at. "If I were a-- a vessel, what would I do?"
"You would be my body while I seek out my Seth! And you will be."
"Who is Seth?"
"He is my love, my true love." Error seemed to strike Aglaia as the supposed goddess swooned.
"Wait a minute. I know a lot about Greek mythology and Aph--"
"Mythology? Mythology?! Am I but lore to you?!! All we gods, we have form! We exist and we rule your world! How are you so stupid!?" Aphrodite pulled her hand back to slap but Aglaia spoke first.
"But they don't! They don't rule the world like in the stories! They're just myths!"
Aphrodite scoffed. "They are not!"
"They are, too! And when you see the world you will know!"
Aphrodite stared at her.
"And even in the stories, Aphrodite was never in love with a 'Seth'."
"Pity, pity . . ." The woman mumbled to herself and Aglaia became confused. "For our love story would have been the greatest of them all!" And if it were in her character, Aglaia would have face-palmed.
But as for Aphrodite's character, it certainly fit. The dramatics, the fierceness, the self-righteousness. . . and of course, the strange nature of real, physical pain in a dream.
Aglaia thought, knowing that it was against all logic, that it might be her, the real Aphrodite.
"Well, of course it's me, stupid girl!"
"How-- How--"
"Didn't I tell you? We share minds! I know what you know, but I know more!" She seemed rather proud of it, too.
"Well-- well, what do you need?"
"I already said what I needed! I need your body to be my vessel while I seek out my Seth. Together we will find his incarnation, as well, and then I will be with him."
"How-- How--"
Aphrodite slapped Aglaia. Again.
"Stop stuttering so stupidly! Speak with confidence and prowess or no good man will ever court you."
"Well, what will we do when we find your-- your Seth?"
"That bridge will be crossed when we arrive at it. Now, give me your mind."
"What-- my mind?"
"Did I stutter? Yes, your mind. Give it to me."
"No-- No!" Aglaia grabbed her head and tried to scream. Not from her soul, or her mind's-soul, or whatever it was, but from her real, true mouth.
"Didn't your mother ever tell you not upset a goddess?!"
Darkness became light and Aglaia saw nothing, but felt like a blind man playing tug-of-war.
Waking up to the white light of a clinic, she found that she had won this round.