Chapter 35

He hadn't wanted to stay with Joey; he'd wanted to go with Seto. She'd only made him stay out of spite, he knew that. Just because he couldn't remember much, didn't mean he was stupid; Seto understood that so why didn't she? Moodily he sat down beside the table and leant back against it.

'Do you remember anything about yourself at all?' Joey casually took up a position next to him.

He grunted, but didn't reply. He had no interest in talking to her.

'You know, before rich boy got his claws into you, we used to be best friends,' she awkwardly sat down beside him. 'It used to be me, you, Yugi and Téa.'

'Really?' His voice was as dry and uninterested as he could make it.

'Yeah,' she nodded, 'we were all really close. But then I became a Silkoneon and things got a little… complicated.'

'Really?' He shifted his gaze away as deliberately as possible; he didn't want her to think he was interested.

'Yeah, really,' she laughed, 'for a start, the leader of my people turned out to have a real dark side and I ended up as the host for the First Mistress of Light. Things kind of escalated from there I guess.'

'Does your story have some kind of point?'

'No, I just…' she hesitated. 'I just wanted you to know that I'm your friend too.'

'If you were really my friend you wouldn't have made me stay here, you'd have let me go with Seto.'

'Actually it was because I wanted to stay your friend that I didn't let you go with him,' she placed a hand on his shoulder. 'He's got too much control over you as it is.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' He shrugged her hand off.

'It means...' Joey sighed again, 'it means I know how much you care about him, hell that much is obvious to anyone with half a brain cell, and I think Kaiba uses that fact to his advantage; especially when you're like this. Because it means he gets to appease the Pure's desire to have you around without actually having to deal with you.'

'You make it sound like he doesn't care about me,' he glared at her.

'He doesn't,' Joey's voice was mute, 'not like me, Téa and Yugi do at any rate. The Pure's the one who wants to keep you around and after what happened before... I think he'd do just about anything to keep her happy and stop her from taking over again. Even if it means pretending to be committed to a friendship he doesn't want and has no real desire to be in.'

'Liar.'

'I'm not lying. The only person Kaiba is actually capable of caring about is himself. Everyone else, even his own brother, are just things he feels he needs to keep around and because of that he's too selfish to share them with anyone else.'

'That's not true. You're only saying that because you don't like him.'

'No I'm only saying that because I've no evidence to the contrary,' Joey rolled her eyes. 'I've seen the way he treats you and Mokuba, like your responsibilities he can't get rid of. Heck he stopped showing you any kind of affection full stop the second he regained his own memory, don't think I didn't notice that. I think even a blind man would see that as evidence he doesn't care about you.'

'You're wrong, he does care about me, I know he cares about me, he told me so.'

'Yeah, back when he was still thinking he was you,' she rolled her eyes again, 'because, like I said before, you care about him. But trust me when I say this, it doesn't work both ways.'

'You're wrong,' he was starting to feel really angry now, 'he does care about me. He loves me.'

'No, you love him,' she shook her head, 'there's a huge difference there.'

'No, he loves me,' he met and held her gaze defiantly. 'He told me so, when we were in our challenge and then again after when we were waiting for you all to return. He told me he loves me so I know it's true.'

For a long couple of minutes Joey just sat there staring at him in silence. There was something about the look on her face which suggested she wasn't totally sure what to think.

'He really told you he loves you,' when Joey eventually spoke his voice was strangely muted. 'As in him, not the Pure or him thinking he was you, but Kaiba actually told you that he loves you?'

'Yes.'

'And he actually meant it?'

'Why wouldn't he mean it?'

'Well this makes things complicated,' Joey gave an exasperated sounding sigh and shifted his gaze away. 'I was hoping, really hoping, this was one sided; that way there was no actual chance of you or the Pure getting hurt. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do now.'

'You're not supposed to do anything but let me and Seto be together,' he folded his arms, 'that's what a good friend would do.'

'It's not that easy though, is it?' She shook her head. 'I told you, him actually having feelings for you makes things complicated and it could lead to both you and the Pure getting hurt.'

'Why? Why would it lead to anyone getting hurt?'

'Because relationships are complicated enough as it is without throwing the emotions of higher beings in on top of it; I'm worried this is too much for either of you to handle.'

'But that's not your decision to make,' he stared at her, 'it's ours.'

'I wish you weren't so naive right now,' Joey shifted her gaze away, 'then maybe you'd understand why I'm so worried about this. And why, when this whole mess we're in now's over, I'm going to have to have some serious words with your boyfriend.'

'Glamouring doesn't create a person, does it?' Catilin's voice was high and curious as they made their way back to the table, cog in hand.

'No, of course not, Glamouring is just a surface change,' Yugi shook his head. 'I would say it was only skin deep, but it's not even that.'

'But a Flip and an Assume do create people, right?'

'Well... yeah, with the Assume the creation is literal and from the very beginning too,' Yugi tilted his head to one side. 'Assume is also the only one of our disguising techniques which can be used to literally separate out consciousness.'

'Like when the First set the Nameless free,' Catilin's face filled with a thoughtful expression.

'Right, the Assume is also exclusive to the First.'

'I know, like Glamour is yours and the Flip is the Pure's,' she grinned, 'I do know some stuff. So if they're people, can the Pure communicate with her Flips in the same way the First communicates with the Nameless?'

'Yes and no,' Yugi tilted his head to one side. 'She can communicate with her Flips in the same way I assume she and Kaiba normally communicate; through telepathic projection.'

'Why do you think they normally communicate like that?'

'Because the Pure is a telepath and she will use any opportunity she can get to utilise her unique ability. Why do you think the First and the Face of Friendship had to learn to block her?'

'I guess that makes sense,' she giggled. 'So the Flip can genetically alter anything, right? Even gender?'

'Yeah, even gender,' Yugi shifted uncomfortably, 'although of all the Flips she's capable of that has to be the most painful.'

'Why?' Catilin blinked at him.

'Flipping the colour of your hair or eyes or skin or height or build or... whatever, only involves altering the sequences of genes which control those factors. Even if several things are being Flipped at once each change is counted as a limited Flip. Flipping genders means altering your genes at a chromosomal level; it affects more than just the coding. Plus there are actual... organs involves,' he squirmed.

'Organs involved,' Catilin rolled the words around her mouth for a moment, 'you mean if the Pure Flipped gender she'd exchange her girly parts for boy parts?' She laughed. 'Does that mean she could be a daddy if she wanted to?'

'Wow, you are much more direct about this than I was,' Yugi blinked at her. 'If the Face of Friendship wasn't an empath I don't think I would know the answer to that question.'

'So what is the answer to that question?' Catilin's eyes filled with an excited look.

'Yeah, if the Pure wanted to she could use the Flip to father a child. Although now she's actually in Kaiba's body she doesn't exactly need to use the Flip to do that.'

'That's true,' she pressed her lips together. 'Win should have the Flip ability too, right? I mean, he has all your exclusive powers as well as your shared ones, doesn't he?'

'Yeah, he does, although if the ability is split up amongst the Win parts I doubt any of you would be capable of it.'

'Why not?' Catilin looked almost disappointed.

'Unlike Glamouring, the Assume and the Flip take a greater level of skill and power concentration. They are also more limited as an ability to begin with, so unless one of you has the full version of either then I doubt any of you will be able to use them.'

'What are the chances of one of us having the full of either?'

'Honestly, I don't know,' Yugi shook his head, 'but from what I've seen from the way the powers have been divided up so far, I'd say it was pretty slim; none of you have the full amount of anything we know about.'

'Hmm.'

'Why all the questions about this anyway?'

'Duke has Piper's deck and I'm trying to figure out why,' Catilin turned her head thoughtfully up towards the sky. 'Piper is definitely a person and not a Glamour, so she has to be a Flip or an Assume and since Duke is really Mokuba right now...'

'I see what you're getting at, but there's a chance Piper could still be an onchasen, right? Even if she isn't Téa's. And people aren't always aware they have onchasen so...'

'Mm, I had thought about that, but... I still keep coming back to the same though and I really don't think it's the right one.'

For a few long moments the pair of them fell silent. A part of Yugi felt as though he could guess what though Catilin kept coming back to, but he knew if he acknowledged it it would become his own sticking point. It wasn't a thought he really wanted to be contemplating unless he had to and he didn't seriously think he would ever have to.

'Catilin, can I ask you something?' Yugi forced himself to break the silence in order to keep his mind off of his own train of thoughts.

'Mm?'

'I know you can't exactly remember what you did, but… do you ever feel guilty about… you know…'

'Murdering Jay's father,' she completed his sentence as though it were the easiest thing in the world. 'I don't know. I know it makes me feel bad when I think about it, but I don't really remember what I did. It's not like all that stuff I did as Re, I can remember that and that makes me feel really guilty. It makes me think of my parents too.'

'Your parents?' Yugi frowned.

'Mm, they always made me feel like I was going to be a bad person, just because they didn't know what to do with me. It's why they took me to all those doctors. They really wanted one of those doctors to say I was dangerous so they wouldn't have to deal with me anymore. Instead all they got was something called respite, where I was sent away from them for a couple of weeks.'

'Did they send you away a lot?'

In response Catilin shrugged, but said nothing.

'I guess it must be hard picking out exact details when you don't really remember your own childhood,' Yugi sighed.

'Mm, but why are we talking about this when you want to talk about Téa?'

'I thought I was the empath here,' he gave a nervous laugh, 'how do you know I want to talk about Téa?'

'I can feel it,' she shrugged again, 'the air may not be talking to me anymore, but... I still feel I know what you're feeling.' Her eyes studied him for a moment. 'Maybe it's because I am you.'

'Err... yeah; I guess I didn't think about that. You know, I'm really glad I don't see the world the way you do normally, I've had a headache ever since I arrived here,' he pulled a face.

'I like seeing the world like that, it's how the world should be,' she gave an informative nod. 'And you're still not talking about Téa.'

'You noticed that, huh?'

'Pretty hard not to when I know it's what you want to talk about,' her face filled with a serious look. 'I can listen if you want to talk.'

'But that's just it, I'm not sure I want to talk,' Yugi shifted his gaze away from her, 'in all honesty I'm not sure what I want.'