AN: Not going to be a long note. I just wanted to say 'thank you' to the seven awesome people who are following this story. I consider one person following to be huge, so to have seven is miraculous. You're all awesome, and I hope you're all enjoying this story.
Disclaimer: I own nothing and believe in nothing.
"Wingeweaver," Kaiba said, shocked to see the fairy card as the monster in question stood up and faced him, hovering slightly above the ground.
"So it turns out that it took my human being in this condition for you to willingly use your gift. Looking at you, I can't say that I'm overly impressed. You, a child, an insignificant speck were the human whose aid she needed. Somehow I'm not surprised you failed."
"And here I thought it was your job to protect her," Kaiba sneered. "Some soul card you are if you couldn't even do that. Perhaps before you accuse others of failing, you should look in the mirror. If you even can."
"Silence, human!" At Wingweaver's exclamation, power flared around her briefly. "It is only because we are bonded that she is not comatose or dead. I should strike you down where you stand for accusing me of failing her."
Before Kaiba could answer, a roar filled the room. Before Kaiba could wonder where the source was, one of his Blue Eyes cards appeared, smaller than when he saw the dragon as a hologram, probably so as to fit inside the room.
"Peace, fairy," the dragon growled. "I cannot allow you to harm my human."
"How the mighty have fallen to be bonded to the likes of him. We've seen his type over the millenia. Self-absorbed. Self-centered. He sees no good in anyone but himself. Cares for no one but himself. I remember when you and your kind would bond with only the noblest of humans. Yet you bond with him."
"You were present when the girl read him. You know why it is we chose him."
"I have seen none of this so-called 'devotion.' None of this alleged strength. None of his supposed courage. I see a coward. Who's too afraid of the unknown to embrace the wonderful gift we have given him! If he weren't such a coward, my human would not be fading as we stand here!"
"What of the Psychic Kappa? Surely he would lend his aid if asked." While Blue Eyes was not at all pleased to hear Wingweaver speak so coldly of Kaiba, the state of the card-speaker on the floor was the greater concern. It was also common for soul-cards, when the human that they were bonded with was in any sort of danger, to react as Wingweaver was. Their job was to protect, but they could only do so much. Blue Eyes knew without asking that if there was anything more the fairy in front of him could have done, it would have been done long before his human appeared in the room.
"The lizard tried. But nothing short of a full merge would do anything. And outside of the planes, that is impossible. The only hope my human has is the foolish boy who is little more than an infant psychically. He would not know how to transfer the needed energy. And even if he did, he is too great a coward to do so."
"He is not a coward. Humans fear the unknown. Even yours resisted you at first. We all remember her fracture, surely you, who are so close to her always, have not forgotten. And even if he could transfer energy, she would need to be conscious for it. The psychic link needs to be open on both ends, and she cannot open it."
"Would someone explain what you two are talking about?" Kaiba asked, finally losing his patience with everything happening.
Before either card could answer, the door opened and Ray entered the room, carrying something under his arm.
"Lisa..." Ray leaned what he was carrying against the wall and knelt next to his sister.
After a moment, he regained his composure and picked up the object, placing it on the desk and leaning it as straight as he could against the wall before uncovering it, revealing it to be a large mirror.
"Wingweaver. I know you don't like doing this with anyone but my sister present, but I need to speak to you. Please."
Kaiba was shocked when Wingweaver faded from his view, only to appear a moment later inside the mirror, much to Ray's relief. Glancing at the CEO, he saw shock and confusion on his face.
"A trick Wingweaver has. The teachers think it's because she's bonded to Lisa, and as such can tap into the first plane of mirror-gazers. None of her other cards can do this."
Turning back to the mirror, he asked "Wingweaver, how is she? Will she be all right?"
"You are not quite correct, Ray, when you say that only I can do this. I am just the only one who tolerates speaking to you," Wingweaver answered before turning her gaze to Lisa.
"For now she lives, but I have never felt her psychic energies so low. Your sister is fading, and there is nothing I can do about it."
Ray collapsed to his knees at this news. Wingweaver smiled sadly at him.
"There is a chance that she will pull through, but it is low."
"Can nothing be done? You're her soul-card, for goodness sake, it's your job to keep her psychically safe!"
"Inside the planes, I could merge with her. Outside of them, I can do little. I have done all I can."
"Could she not be forced inside the planes? I've done it for Anna before, and she for me."
"She would need an energy-bond for that, and she doesn't have one. If Kaiba had been here earlier for this, than perhaps. But he cannot become an energy-bond without her being conscious. The first link has to have both of them aware."
"But... they are bonded," Ray said, slowly. If he weren't so concerned for his sister, he would have laughed at the identical shocked expressions on Wingweaver and Kaiba's faces.
"What are you talking about? He never bonded with my human."
"Not in an energy-bond, no. But Tom was talking to me about it. When Kaiba's secondary awoke, it was rough. It slammed into Lisa and as he didn't know how to properly end the communication, and with Lisa unable to, she had him force her out of his mind. It left a little bit of a link that Tom couldn't fully remove. They were both fully aware at the time of it being formed. Couldn't that be used?"
"It is possible, but he would have to be willing. And I doubt that he would be." Wingweaver laughed at something that Ray could not hear, but given Kaiba's expression of annoyance, he assumed that the CEO could.
"Very well, dragon. If you feel that the human will do it, than I'll leave him to you.
"Dragon? Is the Blue Eyes here as well?"
"Yes. He claims Kaiba will do it. If only because his foolish pride won't tolerate my calling him a coward. Even as fond of him as the dragon is, he recognizes his human's faults." The amusement faded a moment later and she turned her gaze towards Kaiba. The desperation in her eyes was something that could not be faked. Neither could the fear. Looking at Lisa, Kaiba could understand why she would be so afraid. Lisa looked to be on death's door.
"I have no right to ask you to do anything for my human. But she would do this for you, and if you do this, I will owe you a debt of gratitude. And we always repay our debts."
Kaiba glared at Wingweaver, but then glanced at Lisa. He may not have liked the alleged psychic, but he also couldn't stand there and not at least try to help. In his ear, the Blue Eyes White Dragon that had appeared to his defense was telling him all that needed to be done.
Apparently all he had to do was reach out telepathically to Lisa and then force her into the planes. According to the dragon, if he got her into the first plane, her cards could bring her to the sixth. It was apparently simple.
Simple. Right.
In front of him, a card that he had only seen a few times and had disregarded for being weak appeared.
"I can help you," the psychic Kappa offered. "Enter the sixth plane and I can merge with you enough to help you through this first time of using your gifts. I may not be her soul-card, but I care for Lisa as much as Wingweaver."
Kaiba's first reaction was to say 'no' and he had even opened his mouth to do so, reaching into his pocket for his phone. He would call for an ambulance, see to it that she got proper medical care, and then wash his hands of this insanity. Why he was still here at all, and talking to these supposed monsters, he couldn't begin to fathom.
"It is too late now to deny that this is real," Wingweaver said quietly. "Once you willingly entered the fifth plane, you had embraced this. There is no other possible way that you could have done so. A hospital could do nothing for her. Not even the strongest psychics could. Without your help, she will die. And I will see to it that the rest of your short life is full of trouble and pain. When the barrier collapses, we will be able to physically manifest in your world, instead of being bound to ours. Not even your soul-card could protect you from my wrath."
Kaiba wanted to argue. He wanted to wash his hands of this insanity, pretend that he had never met Lisa, never been to her home. That his was all just some insane nightmare. But at the same time he couldn't. Wingweaver was right. Once he had decided to enter the fifth plane, he could no longer turn back. And Lisa was looking worse with every second that passed. Resigned to the fact that he could no longer deny this, he settled down onto the floor and entered the sixth plane.
Psychic Kappa was immediately there, as were the three Blue Eyes monsters. The presence of all of the cards that he could feel hit him like a tidal wave. All of them reaching out for him, offering their power. The force of it was almost enough to push him from the sixth plane, but the dragons were there, acting as a barrier between himself and the other cards. Only the Psychic Kappa was able to get to him.
Where the presence of the dragons was an uplifting force, much like people imagine flying under their own power would be, freeing and strong, the presence of the Kappa was like being submerged in a river. The Psychic Kappa's energy flowed over him gently. The merge was slow, and it was also incomplete. How Kaiba knew this, he couldn't say, but it was obvious to him that this was not a full merge. Setting that thought aside for later, he and the Kappa sought out the connection that he had with Lisa. Once they found it, they followed it to the original source that was Lisa.
Kaiba was shocked when he saw her. The one time he had seen her psychic self was in the Midway. Even though she was not immune to the 'more' that was over everything, she looked at least mostly like herself. This was more ghost than girl, pale and fading with ever second. And she wasn't the only thing fading.
Kaiba's connection with the Psychic Kappa, already weak because he had never had the card and so had never formed any sort of connection with it,was fast disappearing. As was his ability to remain in the sixth plane. There was no time to lose.
Following the whispers of the monsters, Kaiba reached out for the connection again, this time trying to find it as something physical that connected them, something that could be used to force the girl into the first plane, where the echoes of her cards were already waiting. But how could he force her into it? That part had never been fully explained.
"When you want to actually use a connection with someone, it sometimes helps to picture it as a tangible thing. Like a string." The echo of his telepathic lesson came unbidden. "For telepaths like us, we tend to picture it as those can and string phones that children use. We can see the connecting string and can picture the words traveling along that string to the other person. Every psychic uses imagery when they need to accomplish something. It's the only way our brains can make sense of what we need to do."
That gave Kaiba an idea. While a can and string phone would be useless to him, a rope would be exactly what he needed. He quickly imagined a rope being tied around Lisa, with himself holding the other end. Once the imaginary rope was secure, he imagined himself pulling her towards himself.
"Not towards you. We need to rise." The Kappa was right. Kaiba wasn't sure where they were, but it wasn't the first plane. Keeping a firm grip on the imaginary rope, he pictured himself rising, letting Lisa be dragged upwards by the rope.
"We have her!" That was the triumphant call of Divine Dragon: Ragnarok. Leaving him to the care of the Blue Eyes White Dragons, Psychic Kappa quickly joined Lisa's cards in the effort of bringing her to the sixth plane, where Wingweaver was waiting to merge with her.
With the help of his soul-card (and he couldn't believe he was willingly calling them that), Kaiba left the planes, feeling completely drained of energy. Looking at a clock, he saw that two hours had passed. He was shocked. He had thought it had only taken a few minutes.
Glancing at Lisa, he saw that, remarkably, she was looking better. She wasn't as deathly pale as she had been the last time he saw her. Feeling for a pulse, he found with relief that it was already improving. Whatever Wingweaver was doing was obviously working.
"She'll be all right now," Ray said, relief evident in his voice. "Wingweaver isn't the only one who owes you a debt, Kaiba," he added, sounding close to tears. "You saved my sister today. I won't soon forget it." He left the room, returning a moment later with food, almost the same thing that Lisa had given him after his Awakening.
He ate it half-heartedly, mind focused on other things. He could no longer deny any of what she had been saying. But now what was he going to do? And what had Wingweaver meant by physically manifesting in his world?
"You might want to finish the meal and then sleep, Kaiba," Ray said. "Lisa has a spare bedroom that she lets me use the few times I've been able to visit her. You're in no condition to go anywhere right now." Recognizing that Ray was telling the truth, he finished his meal and, after getting directions from Ray, walked to his borrowed room, falling asleep almost immediately.
AN: It occurred to me the other day that the last chapter might have been a little confusing in a couple places, so I'm gonna take a second and explain the ones that I thought of (this might be a lengthy AN, so feel free to skip it).
How Ray knew when Lisa fainted: I've explained this in a small way already, but the fact that they are both siblings (and psychics) means that, on some level, they are connected. When something major happens to one, the other knows it. It won't be for minor things like stubbing a toe, or pricking a finger, but for something like Lisa being in critical condition after draining herself psychically (the only reason she survived was because of her soul-card), the psychic backlash was enough that Ray was immediately aware of it. And this same backlash was strong enough to literally force him out of the planes and back into his own body, so to speak, and with enough force that he lost consciousness. Think of it as being similar to the 'twin sense' that you sometimes hear about with identical twins. It's that same sort of connection.
How Kaiba knew what was happening with Lisa: Remember the link that was accidentally forged when Kaiba's secondary power awoke? Well that became important in a way that I wasn't expecting. I knew that I was going to take advantage of it later in the story, but hadn't expected its relevance to appear in the way it did this early on. As Lisa said, it's the subconscious mind that controls psychic powers. While she was in the sixth plane, a small part of her subconscious reached out to Kaiba, much the way his reached out to her. It wasn't as strong as when Kaiba's subconscious reached out to Lisa because largely she was focusing on repairing the barrier. She wasn't able to call out to Kaiba, but it was enough to give him brief flashes of what was going on around her, as well as give him an echo of the pain she was in. It was her subconscious's way of trying to save her, reaching out to the only person that could help her, making for an interesting reversal of roles, actually.
Let's see... anything else from the last chapter that I should explain? The crystals that Lisa had placed around her were the spirit-strengthening ones, as well as spirit-protecting ones. She was counting on them to keep her alive and safe, at least long enough to attempt to repair the barrier. The reason that they shattered was because Lisa was tapping into them (she was doing quite a bit psychically), using them as the 'buffer' she was hoping Kaiba could be. They were resonating with her psychic energy as she tapped into them. They shattered because the psychic energy was too much for them to handle. The only reason they lasted as long as they did was because Lisa had placed quite a few around her. If she had only relied on one or two, they would have shattered in seconds and she wouldn't have lasted nearly as long as she did, even with Psychic Kappa and Wingweaver helping her.
This chapter was one of the hardest to write yet. Trying to keep someone in character who's doing something so completely out of character isn't easy. I imagine the rest of the story will be as difficult, so don't expect quick updates. And I promise that I'll try to keep Author's Notes short from now on.