DISCLAIMER!: I do not own Yugioh, Aphrodite, or Buddha. Sorry, kiddies.
All Aglaia could really think about was the morning breath taste in her mouth as Doctor Mikuru, now off duty, came to pick her up on orders from her mother.
He apologized continually for not returning to the Kaiba Mansion, as there was fire in a downtown building that resulted in high demand for doctors, some such excuse. . . the young girl was far too drowsy to hear.
After that rippling night at the Kaiba Mansion, things returned to the expected monotony for Aglaia and her family.
Every so often, Kenichi would do or say something cheeky that would land him a detention. At school, Tea introduced a certain gorgeous Mr. Devlin as their classmate and friend who, as a CEO of his own company, had been on a business trip in Europe for the past two months.
An interesting school, indeed, she decided.
Aside from that, tedious shifts at the hospital, a project for sewing her own dress that she had taken on, and unreadable, near invisible glances from a confusing Kaiba, the strangeness in Aglaia's world subsided.
She kept her ring hidden in her drawer.
The morning that her grounding was finished, Kalliope came in with a collective stack of fashion magazines at least a foot high.
The sun became even brighter when Tea made plans for Serenity and Aglaia to go see Heavenly Forest with Aoi Miyazaki on its opening night that Sunday.
For the rest of the day, excitement for the school dance in a week became apparent throughout the class.
Joey and Tristan were intent on beating each other with finding a prettier date (based on a challenge from Duke, who had girls falling to the floor for him).
Tea had been asked several times but turned down every one.
Both Yugi and Aglaia were afraid to attend (given their similar dancing abilities), but the others wouldn't have it.
Aglaia thought that it was all she had to worry about.
Aside from stress with bills, an influenza outbreak in the hospital, and approaching crow's feet, Kalliope's life had been generally peaceful until she noticed that her daughter wasn't wearing the ring she had been given as a family heirloom.
Was it not stylish enough? But Aglaia had never been stingy with clothing before, even with her vivid interest in fashion.
As the young girl slept, her mother came into her room and went into her drawers, putting the laundry away. She found the ring tucked underneath a pile of clothing.
After storing away the folded piles, Kalliope gently slipped the the ring onto her daughter's finger and shut the door quietly behind her.
Aglaia found herself on top of a cliff, overlooking a beach at sunset. She was staring at the back of someone's head who was sitting on the sand below.
She had the aching premonition that she loved him.
Maybe she could stand up, find a way down, go see him. . .
"Foolish mortal!"
And Aglaia found herself shoved off and out of her dream.
Waking up, Aglaia found herself sleeping walking down a city sidewalk.
How she had gotten out of the house without her knowledge seemed like a good question, but she was too drowsy to answer it.
"Where am I going?" she instead asked aloud.
The people around her, watching her hunched posture and drowsy swagger, couldn't give her an answer.
Her body seemed to move on it's own accord, without any consultation from her mind or conscious judgment.
"Stop," she meekly ordered, but her legs didn't comply.
When the young girl's sentience came complete, she found herself fighting her own body. Each step she took she tried to hold back, but her body was intent.
Was this what had happened before?
Aglaia then noticed the ring on her finger.
It made sense of things, but at the same time, sense of nothing at all.
Finally, when the balls of her bare feet were nearly torn, Aglaia's independent legs turned and pressed her body against the door of shop that looked as though it sold antique figures and ancient books.
In compliance, Aglaia opened the door with her still obedient arms.
To her surprise, the skinny, wide-eyed eyed woman at the counter smiled upon her entry.
"So you return."
After numerous explanations (and even more skeptical answers), Aglaia resigned herself to believing the strange story that Aya Kohaku, the woman at the counter told her (as soon as her self-governing legs began to stomp angrily).
In the back of the empty shop (where the woman seemed to live), Aglaia twiddled her thumbs in wait of some "cure" at a table that seemed to once have a design etched into it.
Maybe her judgment wasn't at its peak, but she really had no other clue what to do.
From under a veil to an ominously candlelit room, Aya came out with a dusty purple cloth.
"Y-you-- can help get this-- thing-- out of me?" Aglaia rebellious foot again stomped in anger.
"We'll see."
This answer deeply dissatisfied the possessed young girl.
Sitting down beside her, Aya took the purple cloth off of its package to reveal an age-stained vanity mirror.
"Look deeply into this," the old woman ordered.
Obeying, Aglaia saw her frazzled bed head waves and baggy sleeping shirt. Then, to her shock, her visage began to transform.
"I've found this to have certain mystical properties, primarily for meditation. But it should work in this situation. . . Have you ever seen your own soul?" the old woman flippantly inquired.
Her unsure pout became a lip glossed smirk, and her t-shirt became an orange halter top that fitted too well for her to believe.
"Well?" the visage spoke confidently, phlegmatically. "You can see me, can't you? Doesn't that make me real?"
"Wha-- what?"
Aglaia would have dropped the mirror if Aya hadn't taken it from her.
"Now, try this." Aya aimed the mirror at the girls obstinately restless legs.
The reflection soon became the unmistakable picture of the goddess Aphrodite.
"Release me, you rotten imp!"
"There you are, goddess," Aya greeted, as though speaking with an old friend.
"Ah, woman! You can surely reason with this child. If she had her way, I'd be locked away for the rest of eternity!"
"I-- I don't understand!" Aglaia fretted. It was all becoming too much for her.
"Please listen to me, Aglaia." Aya's huge black eyes bore deeply into Aglaia's strangely brown and purple ones. "This may seem very odd to you, but I assure, there are oddities such as these. It's sad that a young girl like you is caught in the midst of one like this, but it seems that you don't have a choice. You must accept it and allow me to help you."
"But-- why would you want to?"
Old woman Kohaku surprised Aglaia by chuckling.
"I specialize in abnormal things such as these. And I'm no longer in my golden years. This kind of adventure might be all I have left."
The mere child slowly nodded.
"Do not ignore me, insolent mortals! I will not stand for this!"
"Calm yourself, Aphrodite," Aya instructed.
"How dare you try and order me around! I have had enough of this disrespect!"
Aglaia began to think that yelling was all that was within the goddess's capability.
"I will help you if you cooperate with me."
A momentary silence passed.
"I am listening."
With a repressed smile, Aya went to a counter in the corner began fishing through shelves.
After a long while, she came out with a shiny silver ring.
"Wha. . ." Aglaia began, but her voice fell out.
Comfortably seating herself next to Aglaia, as though they would be there for a while, Aya finally began to explain her tiny trinket.
"This," she spoke, "is the Lotus Sutra Ring of Meditation."
Silence followed, but then, Aya really didn't expect her to know what that was.
"It was said to have been used Siddartha Gautama, the first incarnation of Buddha, for separation of entities in one's soul. It was once used for meditation, to separate the spiritual dark and light, but I've thought over this while you were gone. It seems that it would adequately separate Aphrodite from your consciousness."
The connected two remained silent, for neither could fathom the meaning of such a thing.
Aya slowly slipped the ring onto Aglaia's pinky ring, right beside the ring of Aphrodite.
Aglaia closed her eyes, expecting to be engulfed, but nothing happened.
She opened her eyes to see Aya's lips pursed.
"Well. . . I suppose that meditation is necessary."
"Meditation? How?"
"Come in here." The old shop owner went again behind the curtain veil.
It was around 1:30 A.M. when Aglaia gave up on finding her "inner peace".
Whatever that meant.
After Aya supplied her with many chamomile teas, smelling salts, and entrancing music, Aglaia still found that she was plagued with worries of her mother finding her gone, of the dance that she would surely embarrass herself at, and of the fact that an ancient divine entity made its home in her body.
Rubbing her wrinkled temples as though they were infected with poison ivy, Aya was out of ideas.
"Just. . . try to find your happy place," she suggested in resignation.
In compliance, Aglaia closed her eyes (intent on silencing the shouts that would surely come from the love goddess as soon as she recovered control).
What did she want in life? What would make her truly happy? It was a question that she had not asked herself before.
She imagined herself as the confident girl in the orange halter she had seen in the mirror.
Her name is Aglaia Atsuko and she is a revered icon in the fashion world. All of her sketches are world-famous lines, and at least ten shops in the Shibuya 109 building are for her various design labels.
A trance fell over her as she indulged all of her desires.
Many companies ask her to model, but she sticks to designing. . . she attends the most prestigious dinners and dances with grace before covetous billionaires. . . she is married to her dream man. . .
Then the question came to her, what was her dream man?
He's--
Aglaia was awakened by powerful presence and opened her eyes to see the translucent image of the goddess Aphrodite.
"I have my own form!" she rejoiced.
"It worked, Ms. Kohaku!" Aglaia relished to the half-asleep store owner.
"What?" she woke with a start.
"Don't you see her?"
Aphrodite turned to Aya and demanded that she see her, but the elderly woman could not.
"I think. . . I think that I understand," Aya mused. "The Siddartha Buddha was said to have seen an image of Mara, the Hindu devil, after long meditation to find a way to destroy his demons. It might be that the Lotus Sutra is meant to the portray the divided soul for only the divider to see."
Though this made no sense to Aglaia (or Aphrodite, for that matter), the two decided to accept it, as they could clearly see each other.
"Now, girl, allow me the use of your body."
After thinking it over with a pouting countenance, Aglaia nodded and put it in her mind. It was bound to happen.
It was as soon as her eyes closed that she found herself feeling specifically light.
Aglaia looked at her hands and saw through them to the floor.
"It's worked!" Aphrodite shouted as she looked at her fleshy hands.
Aglaia then scanned her own body, to see some very distinct changes. For one, she was taller, and her proportions seemed far more desirable. Her (or rather, Aphrodite's) hair seemed to shine, and fall in tame waves.
"Look at me!" Aphrodite shouted to the mirror on the wall as she admired herself. "I have my form again!" She sounded very much like a post-pregnant woman after two weeks of pilates.
"Now, it is my duty to bring love back to this wholly mortal love!"
"Aph--" Aglaia began, but froze when the fiercely present goddess turned to her.
"What is it, child?" the goddess demanded, upset that her joy was disrupted.
Old woman Aya seemed very much to be enjoying the show.
"Aph-- Aph-- Aph-- Aphro--"
"Speak up, girl!" Aphrodite demanded. She followed this with a reminiscent slap across the cheek, which was strangely painful. Her patience wouldn't survive five minutes, let alone five centuries.
It seemed that to be translucent, Aglaia wouldn't feel the slap, but then, the two were connected at the soul.
Aglaia might have thought about this, but she was consumed in passion that was uncharacteristic of her.
"G-give me my body back!"
"What!!?"
Aya should have been grateful not to hear such a scream.
Before she could rant robustly over how she had waited centuries to return to her love and repair the loveless world, Aglaia cut her off.
"You-- You can do that later, but if I-- if we don't return home soon then my parents ground me again! You-- You can fix the world tomorrow!"
Needless to say, Aphrodite was more than reluctant to again surrender her embodiment.
After many arguments (that seemed to be one-sided from the outside), Aphrodite's passion subsided and decided to work in the morning would be more convenient (as logic was not her strong point and she could only surrender to such a thing).
Taking control of her conscious, Aglaia found herself nearly losing it again to exhaustion.
She prayed to God on the car ride home that Aya gave her that her parents hadn't checked on her empty bed.
She was still a Christian, however conflicted her beliefs had become.
As Ms. Kohaku dropped her off in the alleyway by the back of her apartment, Aglaia thought about how brave she had been to confront the ages old goddess.
It was unlike her, she realized.
Maybe it's that girl from the mirror, she mused as she drifted into a sweaty, much needed sleep.
I want to be like her.
[Love it or hate it? I honestly found this chapter boring to write, but it was necessary to elaborate on the plot (that will come together fell, I promise). It'll all be worth it, soon. I promise. In the meantime, I wanna know: what do you want? Mokuba/Aglaia friendship? Kaiba fluff(sooner rather than later)? Aglaia to realize her potential? Aphrodite to diva out again? Or maybe Aphrodite could learn to be humble and understand love for what it is? For me to make sense of the religious themes? Let me know. :D Oh, and in case you're wondering, there is no such thing as the Lotus Sutra ring. That's a temple. Means "blossoming love", or something along those lines. Ironic, eh?"]