"It told itself, it would rather be free than caged. It received and gained a burden. "
The spirit of the Millennium Puzzle stood in the alleyway behind the school of his host. Below its feet (with one foot actually on top of said human) a man wallowed in pain. The man was much larger than Yuugi Mutou's body, which was petite. The man, who the spirit has learned to be of the name 'Ushio', grasped his hand. Blood gushed from the mark, a giant hole on the back of his palm in the perfect shape of the knife the spirit used to inflict the injury.
"It... It's MY money! MINE! ALL MINE!" Ushio shrieked, unhinged laughter bubbling between words. The spirit rolled his eyes, before lifting his foot and stamping on top of the man's back and making the man yelp in pain as the spirit's high heel dug into Ushio's back and formed a large hole that began to leak blood.
The spirit thought to himself, why leave the man here when he could take him where everyone could see? It would bring a message to the people who were thinking of trying to harm their host. The spirit lifted the hood he wore over his head, grabbed Ushio by the arm and dragged him until he reached the centre of the opening courtyard. The man, whilst there, grabbed and hogged leaves, demanding that the spirit stay away from his money.
"I have no interest in your bottomless greed."
The spirit smoothly said, kicking the body closer to the tree stump with his foot.
But how, pray to tell, did the spirit get up to his point?
A cold, dusty tomb-like room and an occasionally flickering bead of light were all the spirit saw for five thousand years. During its long sleeping sessions (where it was practically impossible for the spirit to wake up, this was how it spent most of its life at that point), the spirit had gone from being asleep to being awake many times, only awakening to a slight thumping sensation, or an image of people he didn't recognise anymore. There was a burning hole in its heart. The feeling of loneliness was something it didn't recognise either, but it knew that the longer it spent in the dark, the emptier it felt.
The spirit even thought that it had cried once or twice, but those memories were lost a long time ago.
It looked around aimlessly, this was one of the rare occasions where it was awake and fully conscious so it had to at least make some sort of mark of when it woke up. It plucked a brick from the wall that looked loose, watching it crumble in its shadowy hand. The bricks weren't the best for marking, but they wrote well enough for the spirit to use, it wrote; '158,153,040,000 seconds, awake' in the scratchiest cursive it could. Standing up, the spirit used its arm strength to chuck the piece of brick into the small bead of light that took up the centre of the room's front wall. Haunting golden eyes flickered, searching around for the other sporadic notes it had taken throughout the 158,153,040,000 seconds of being wherever it was. 'Dead', 'Inside puzzle. Artefact.', 'Memory dead.'. The notes from the beginning of its life in the room weren't the most literary, it was still remembering what language was and how to write in it. The spirit's eyes squinted a little bit, it couldn't particularly smile in this form, it didn't even have a mouth.
The spirit grabbed onto the back of the chair that sat directly in the centre (actually, it was 0.2367321cm off of the centre, the spirit had figured it out once when it had been awake, 126,144,000,000 seconds in). It slumped down onto the uncomfortable stone surface of the seat and closed its eyes. At this point, the spirit thought, there was no point in fighting the sleep. No matter how hard it tried to fight it would always end up the same - the spirit would fall asleep and wake up hundreds or even thousands of years later.
"If I am going to sleep again I might as well be comfortable." The spirit puffed out its chest as it spoke, proud that, finally, it had 'beat' the system. For the first time, the spirit would choose to fall asleep instead of being forced to.
There's no one around, ever. That's what it had thought.
I'll spend forever in the dark. That's what it had thought.
The spirit wanted to scream, but no one was around to hear it.
During the mists of slumber, images of men in backpacks and long, robe-Esque, beige clothing appeared in its mind, cutting off the ever-growing depression it felt. They sprinted over long bridgings that rested above long spikes and desperately tried to make it to the end. The spirit mused, this was interesting.
A man with very distinct hair came into the spirit's line of sight. The hair was clumped into a few large spikes that held colours of red and purple, a black parting of the hair laying in front and treating the red and purple sections like an outline. Three bunches of golden hair were in the front, framing his face and resting against his sharp jawline. He also had a bizarre-looking tuxedo on, decked out with a tie, pocket square and fancy white wrist cuffs, though the spirit didn't know the names for these articles of clothing yet. The beige-dressed men stopped running and tried to push the distinct appearance man into the spikes. The spirit scoffed, this dream was stupid. The man dangled on the edge of the path lining, watching as the two beige-dressed men got attacked by a trap and horrifically killed in a mix of blood splatters and screams of agony. The spirit laughed loudly, it would have guessed that would happen. The two men were careless, and now their heads and bodies were nowhere near each other! The last remaining man struggled for his life, gasping for air as he used his last strength to pull himself up. It looked down at the man, he looked so pitiful for being someone destined for some sort of greatness. Hesitantly, the spirit reached its hand to the man and helped him up.
"Oh thank you, I-" The man breathily said before the world cut out again and the spirit was left in the darkness. It sighed loudly. Moments passed before more images played out in the mind of the spirit, moments of a young boy with a similar haircut to the man previously seen.
"This puzzle is from Ancient Egypt!" The spirit couldn't see who said that line, but knew it was an old man by the voice. "No one has ever solved it, I doubt you could, Yuugi!"
The little boy puffed out his very pale cheeks. They flushed up, emphasising the little scrunch of his nose as he whined,
"I can!! I can solve it!! Please grandpa?? Please??"
His voice was a little high-pitched and lispy, his 's's sounding more like an F or a Th. The spirit smiled. This boy seemed nice. There was a glimpse of a pair of old man's hands as he picked up the source of the spirit's vision and handed it to the little boy.
"See these engravings? It says; 'Whoever solves me will gain dark power and knowledge. Cool, right?"
"Very!!" The little boy happily grinned, inspecting the object he was holding in excitement. The spirit got to see the little boy's eyes now. They were kind, thoughtful, and gentle. They had a pale purple colour to them, sparkling brightly underneath the heavy lighting of what looked to be a games shop of some kind. The boy also had long lashes, which danced like butterflies in spring whenever he blinked. The spirit liked this boy. He seemed caring. The spirit would soon grow attached and, eventually, realised that if the boy solved the puzzle the spirit could be free and help him in whatever way the spirit could. There was something different about this child, compared to the other dreams the spirit would see, this one felt real.
This was the spirit's light at the end of the tunnel! A chance to escape this purgatory! A chance to be free and live happily with someone nice and fun!
A chance to be alive, again.
The spirit would wake up and write everything it knew about the boy. The boy's name was Yuugi Mutou. The spirit knew his blood type - AB - and even his height and weight as he grew older and older. Yuugi's favourite food was Hamburgers at the local burger joint, but he despised onions so whenever they would be served with onions his only friend Anzu would take them out and eat them for him. The spirit could also taste the food Yuugi consumed and, while it didn't taste like anything other than grease and CO2, the spirit was happy that Yuugi was happy.
Whenever he worked on the puzzle his eyes glowed with happiness, and when he was upset or tired his nose would scrunch up cutely. At the age of 8, the boy started getting bullied for being 'small and weird', as the other children would say. Yuugi came home from school crying every day, his grandfather being able to do anything to stop it. The spirit clenched its fist. It would kill everybody who hurt its light. When Yuugi turned 10 years old he grew shy and quiet around everybody. Nobody except Anzu would talk to him for any reason other than to make fun of him in some way, the spirit would wake up and write the names of those who hurt the boy. Hundreds of names were scrawled on the wall, the handwriting slowly getting worse and worse as time progressed. At 12 years old the boy had given up on the puzzle for a little while. The spirit grew anxious.
It woke up at this point and curled up in the chair.
He noticed me. He noticed me. That's why he doesn't carry the puzzle box anymore. I will never see him again. Thoughts rushed in the spirit's mind, it couldn't think straight, it grabbed a chunk of brick and tossed it into the light again. The bouncing of the brick against something metal rang in its ears. The spirit stood up and started pacing around the room. Back, forwards, back, forwards... Twiddling its shadowy thumbs as it thought in a panic about what to do now. It is okay, he will come back... He will be back and he will save me from this hell...I know it, I know it…
The spirit grabbed onto the wall as its legs grew weaker. The very small world spun around it, the floor being swiped out from under its feet as the spirit fell into darkness once more. It would be asleep until Yuugi turned 14 when he started working on the puzzle again.
"I'm so sorry for not working on you for so long!" Yuugi smiled at the puzzle box. He pulled a few pieces together and started fiddling, " My father died... It's been hard to do anything knowing he's not there anymore..."
The boy let out a small sniffle. His tears were like diamonds, the spirit noticed. So clear, sparkly and perfect. The boy was perfect. The spirit wanted to reach out and tell the boy it was okay, but it just couldn't... Yuugi wiped his eyes with the back of his pyjama sleeve and started to work again.
"There's just something different about this puzzle." Yuugi mumbled to himself, "I need to complete this. I can't let it go unfinished."
The spirit was pleased. Even if it couldn't leave and was trapped in the puzzle forever, knowing that Yuugi would be proud of himself for completing it would be the best feeling in the entire world, no, the universe! It stopped thinking, and Yuugi continued to speak to himself.
"I read in a book I found in the attic. Some people say there's a spirit trapped inside here. I doubt it but... If there is, I hope you're a good one and not an evil spirit! Like Casper! Oh, I hope you're like Casper! If you exist, of course..."
The spirit adored hearing the boy blabber to himself about whatever he could think of. The boy didn't know there was a spirit inside the puzzle, waiting, watching and always admiring its host, its light.
A few months after Yuugi started working on the Millenium Puzzle again, he started coming home more depressed than ever. Occasionally, he would sit on his seat with his knees tucked into his chest, head looking down and eyes filled with sparkling tears. The spirit didn't know what was wrong, and couldn't know. Every time Yuugi cried, the spirit noticed it felt a similar way. Its chest ached violently, its head throbbed and its eyes, despite not being capable of crying, felt wet and teary. It was a bizarre sensation. Was this what the human felt when he was upset? The spirit hated it.
At the age of 15 Yuugi started playing a card game called Duel Monsters. At first, he wasn't the best at it but eventually, he gained a fine winning streak.
The spirit learned how to play by watching him. While the spirit was, from a strategy standpoint, far better at the game than Yuugi, it knew eventually the boy would surpass the spirit and be amazing at the game. Something clicked in the spirit's head about this game, it recognised it. One night, it was stormy and wet. Rain poured from outside Yuugi's window and thunder bellowed like an angry god. Yuugi was crying his eyes out, someone had forced him into debt and now he had to find a large amount of money from somewhere. The spirit wasn't watching Yuugi when the boy was being extorted, panicking it tried to figure out who it was. It left the 'Link' (the Link is what the spirit called his watching window to Yuugi's life, it was easier to remember) and ran through all of the names scratched into the bricks.
"No... Not Shiba, he's dead... Not Crys, they're overseas... Not Jounouchi, I saw him earlier and he did not approach my dear little light…"
The spirit went through all of the names desperately, something burned up in its chest. Overwhelming emotion it hadn't felt before.
"Whoever it is… I will kill you."
The spirit growled to itself, repeating the words; 'I will...' over and over again until it couldn't even speak properly anymore. It snatched a broken piece of brick and smashed it into the ground, shattering it into small bricky crumbs. It did it over, and over, and over until it was smashing its hand into the hard floor.
"He is the only thing in life I can even see and you... You foul vermin... Do you wish to hurt him?! You wish to hurt such a sweet angel?!" The spirit yelled loudly to nobody, "I will find you. You will never see the sun ever again...!!!"
The spirit's angry shouts morphed into uncontrollable laughter. The room echoed with the noise, loudly getting more and more until eventually, it couldn't hear anything anymore. It tried calming down, sitting itself down on the throne and deeply 'breathing' - it was more moving its chest up and down in a breathlike motion, still had the same calming effect for it though.
It closed its eyes and decided to continue looking through the link, pushing down any bubbling up emotions that arose. Yuugi was still fiddling with the puzzle. He had gotten most of the pieces in the correct place, only messing up on one or two pieces that were out of place but were half-forced in. If they were moved, Yuugi would be done. The spirit quietly told itself what pieces would go where, and, as if by magic, Yuugi started doing exactly as the spirit described it as if he could hear it speaking. Click, click, click, slide, click… The pieces soon fell into place. Just when the front face was finished, Yuugi stopped and emptily stared at the wall for a moment. He turned his head down and stared at the puzzle, turning it around carefully with his shaky, pale hands.
"I...I'm finished? This is it...?" Yuugi seemed awe-struck, "I only have one piece... "
His heart was racing. He reached out, his hand feeling around for the final piece of the puzzle…
And it wasn't there.
Yuugi shot up and desperately searched through everything. He turned over his mattress, checked every drawer and opened every book, magazine and box in the room. Shaking violently, he dropped to the ground and started looking under the bed. Stray socks… Candy wrappers... Some videotapes… Nothing. Yuugi wiped away a bead of sweat. The spirit shivered. It wished it could help, it wished it could just tell him where the final piece was and make its light feel better.
Yuugi's pain suddenly stopped. His grandfather knocked on and opened the door to his room, looking at the boy with gentle eyes. They both stared at each other awkwardly for a long, silent second.
"A blonde boy came by and wanted to give you this." The old man finally spoke. He placed a cheap, small plastic bag on the desk and smiled. "I heard about what happened."
"Hm.?" Yuugi stood himself up and approached his grandfather
"That young man, Ushio. He wants money from you?"
"Maybe..." Yuugi's face heated up in embarrassment.
The grandfather pointed to the bag, "I put the money in the bag, as well. Please, son, when these things happen just talk to me. I won't be upset, it's not your fault."
It was at that moment that the spirit snapped away from the link and quickly grabbed the nearest brick. It drafted; 'USHIO. CULPRIT. SINNER.' in deranged handwriting, It didn't recognise the name Ushio. The name wasn't written on the list of bad people, nor on any other notes scratched into the wall. The spirit felt a great manner of acrimony it couldn't explain. It felt like it was burning up inside like its insides were being turned over and replaced like soil in a farmer's field. This man, the spirit thought, was a disgusting, money-hungry mortal who was so afflicted by greed that he would extort money from a child to obtain riches. It tried to calm down, closing its eyes, perilously trying to keep its mind focused on Yuugi. Ah, Yuugi. Its human was the definition of perfection. The cute, sleepy yawn he had when he stayed up too late. The blushing of his face stained his pale skin with perfect peach tones when he talked about his childhood friend, Anzu. His small, chubby cheeks that puffed up when he was mad… The spirit imagined the human gently placing his hand on its head, telling it that things were okay as he wrapped his arms around it. Yuugi was its everything, its light, its world and its reason to even try and hope for a day where it was free and happy.
That seemed to calm the spirit down. The spirit wanted to smile but knew it couldn't.
Once it opened its eyes again, something happened that had never happened before. The usual blinking light wasn't there anymore, being replaced by an eerie metal door with delicate engravings of thorny vines. It had no doorknob and the hinges looked completely rusted over. What used to be a tall ceiling above it was now replaced with an open view, showing hundreds of doorways, staircases and paths which all carried on in a seemingly endless manner. The bricks seemed a little brighter too, changing from a greyish-red to a muted orange.
"What in the.." The spirit started before its voice trailed off. The door. Just by thinking of it, the door creaked open (leaving the spirit's ears ringing loudly for an elongated moment). It approached the for with caution, reaching its hand out shakily.
Freedom. Light. The feeling of the breeze. The spirit looked around, the area around it was bright and flat… the boy's room? It felt its form being moved by force. Oh. It realised it was simply a shadow, sewn onto Yuugi's feet like a sleeve. Yuugi looked even more beautiful in real life. The spirit (or shadow) could see how soft his skin was, it wanted to wrap its shadowy tendrils around the boy's legs and feel the soft, pale skin that it dreamed would hold the spirit in care. It wanted to stand by his face and feel his warm breath, it wanted to brush Yuugi's hair with its 'hands' and smell the scent of his shampoo.
"It's late... I should sleep.. I'll admire the puzzle in the morning.." Yuugi's sweet voice mumbled, his body weakly dropping to the bed and relaxing as soon as it came in contact with the warm. The spirit could feel a light tingling in its form, it felt soothed... Free… The host fell asleep, after a few silent moments and heavy breaths. The spirit felt bizarre like its form was contorting and twisting unwillingly. The shadow it had been for a very short moment felt like it was being blown up like a balloon and filled with spicy heat.
"What..?"
The spirit spoke. Its vision grew dark for a long, sickly moment before it felt able to open its eyes and see what was going on. A.. Ceiling? Yuugi's ceiling. It felt something move... Arms? Legs? The spirit found itself instinctively pushing itself upwards with its arms and sitting on the bed where Yuugi had laid.
It was in his place.
It was in his body, manipulating the limbs like its own.
The spirit jumped up, trying to stand. It felt itself drop quickly, no, it wasn't able to walk yet. Walking felt 'off' with real limbs, like everything had sensations of touch so vivid the spirit didn't know what to touch first.
It held onto the bed and stood up, stumbling forwards and holding itself steady with its hands against a standing mirror. It turned its head upwards, looking intensely at the reflection. Its eyes were red, not purple, and its hair was scruffy instead of neat. These weren't Yuugi's eyes, the spirit thought. These eyes were cold, empty, like a husk. They were dead.
"These aren't my Yuugi's eyes.." the spirit smoothly added to himself, going to go say something else before he was interrupted.
"Yuugi? Are you alright? I heard something fall!"
His mother. The spirit didn't know what to say. It awkwardly blurted out;
"Yes!"
Due to him not knowing what would be the appropriate response to that question.
"Why are you awake anyway? You have school in the morning, mister!"
Footsteps. The lady drew closer, the spirit didn't know what to do. It, panicking, yelled out; "H.. Homework?"
It was a word the spirit remembered Yuugi use. It seemed to be a word relating to education, a mother like the one its host had would seemingly be willing to let a mishap go for it.
"Oh. Good boy. Don't study too hard!"
Perfect. It worked. The spirit snatched the bag Yuugi's grandfather had brought, took the money and searched around for clothing other than the pyjamas the boy was wearing. A shirt, blue pants and a uniform jacket? It seemed reasonable. The spirit looked through the wardrobe filled with leather outfits, chokers, wrist bands and clunky boots until it found something that seemed as ordinary as possible.
The spirit opened the bedroom window and jumped out, landing on the roof of the extended part of the building (where the game store section was, the spirit was happy that the boy lived in a game store). It tried to keep stable, but as it stepped forward its right foot lost balance and slipped, causing its body to fall to the ground with a huge THUMP!
"I need to get used to this... Walking.."
The spirit winced, getting up and walking down the street. The cold night air made the spirit's skin prickle pleasantly, the breeze carried its hair so gently that it felt like a calm wave. Streetlamps occasionally flickered in abstract ways, almost distracting the spirit from its one goal - to find whoever hurt Yuugi.
'Come to the school at 10 PM. If you don't pay up I'll kill you.'
The spirit remembered those words from Yuugi's memory. It seemed that Yuugi's memories carried on once the spirit entered the body - a fascinating discovery indeed! The spirit stood tall (as tall as possible, considering that Yuugi was only 4'9) and confident as it walked, trying to think to itself about how everything has moved so quickly, and how exactly it was going to punish Ushio for his crimes.
As the spirit thought about this, a sense of instinct kicked in. Somehow, for some bizarre reason, it knew exactly how to get what it wanted. Challenge Ushio to a game, its mind told it, if his soul is corrupt it will be punished.
It wasn't too long before the spirit reached the school grounds, and found Ushio waiting with his arms crossed by the alley where Yuugi consistently got beaten up. The spirit looked the man up and down, taking in every detail; from the large build to the messy, greasy mullet that stuck to his neck due to sweat.
"There you are. Finally." Ushio's deep voice growled, "Pay up or I'm gonna give you another lesson, a fighting one."
"That… won't be necessary." The spirit cooly smiled, "I have the money. I even added more."
Ushio's face seemed to settle, "Good boy. Now give it to me and fuck off."
The spirit grabbed the cash notes and flicked through them casually, internally questioning why the man felt such a desperate need to collect these notes.
"That would be boring. Let's play a game for them"
Ushio, reluctantly agreed. The spirit, happily, explained.
They would place the cash notes on their palms and take turns stabbing the notes with a knife until either all the notes were gone or a player stabbed themself. The spirit had gone first to demonstrate, cautiously piercing the plasticated paper with the knife until its hand couldn't be so gentle anymore. It released the knife and let Ushio have a turn. He did a similar action, except he took more money than the spirit. This exchange continued until Ushio decided to get greedy and snapped.
"That's it! This is bullshit! You gave me a knife, I can just cut you with it!"
He screamed as he grabbed the knife and tried to slash at the spirit, only making a small incision as his aim was completely off. A small trickle of warm liquid dropped from the cut.
" I knew you couldn't handle it." The spirit couldn't contain its happiness, it took the knife from Ushio and grinned. "The doors of darkness have opened up."
Ushio fell silent. The spirit snatched his hand and stabbed the man violently, blood gushing out as it made contact. It slowly twisted the knife, making the hole bigger and bigger until the screams for mercy grew so loud the spirit couldn't even hear itself think.
"You'll be forever tortured with your greed." These words didn't feel like it's own, "That's what happens when you fuck around with my host's innocent heart."
The spirit lifted its boot and kicked it into Ushio, who had started to, while very much deranged, roll around on the ground with leaves in his hands pretending they were cash notes.
And now, as the spirit dragged the body from its spot to the middle of the courtyard as a warning to the other delinquents and rats, this is where the spirit is.
Ready to go home, and ready to finally be able to punish anyone who gets near his beautiful, perfect Yuugi.
This was how the spirit got to this point.