Yuma walks around the city for a while, keeping himself distracted from his task until night falls. That's when he makes his way to the park to look for Shing.
In the trees, Shing notices Yuma walking around the park and wonders why he's here. In any case, she shies away from him. She doesn't want to hurt him, even in her state. Instead, she keeps luring unsuspecting victims in her domain.
Yuma hears whispering in the wind. He looks in the direction of the whisper and notices a man walking away from who the boy presumed to be his wife into the dense trees. She's gotta be in here then. So he walks over to her while she's distracted and waits, watching as she takes the man's hand. A whisper promptly says that he'll die by midnight.
Right after that the man looks faint. He walks away from Shing and back to his wife as though in a daze. Yuma checks the time on his duel gaze; it's barely nine at night. That man would have a long night of suffering if it's painful.
"Shing," Yuma calls the moment he is close.
The girl quickly turns to Yuma with a gasp. Her dead eyes show some recognition, and along with that recognition is fear. Whether it is fear from the scare or fear of touching Yuma is unknown. Maybe it's a mix of both.
"What are you doing here Yuma?" She asks, her face once again dead-looking. Her body language is more defensive than before though. Her hands are interlocked.
"I'm here to help," Yuma replies softly. "You can't keep living like this."
"Just leave me alone, I don't want to hurt you."
Yuma just keeps walking forward. The girl steps back until her back hits a tree. She makes no move to run though. "Shing you're my friend, and I try to do everything possible to help my friends. I didn't want it to come down to this, but…it has to. There's no other way."
He reaches out to her, but she draws her hands to her chest defensively. Yuma pulls his hand back until she relaxes. Then he extends his hand again.
"I want to help you," he repeats. "You're my friend."
"I'm… your friend?"
"Of course you're my friend."
Shing, distracted by this statement , doesn't notice the hand on her chest until it falls away from her. The color returns to her face , and her emotions are no longer locked. She catches Yuma before he can fall, her chest welling with despair.
"Yuma!" she calls, shaking him. "Please don't leave me!"
Yuma gasps, the pain in his chest is so excruciating that he has trouble even talking. "Sh-Shing…" he breathes. "I…I want you t-to ge…get along with everyone…" He smiles weakly at her. "You…and Astral…get along…please…"
Shing can only nod. She doesn't trust her voice.
"Make some friends," are his last words before the curse finally takes him three hours before midnight.
~.The Next Morning.~
Dark goes out into the city to look for Shing. He puts the task upon himself because he's bored and the others are still asleep. Plus, he can't stand looking at the haunted look of his brother. It is best to get away for a while before they both have a breakdown. Powerful emotions usually pass between the both of them whether one had a reason to feel it or not, and Dark doesn't feel like crying over the boy who hurt Astral emotionally.
For half the morning, he searches the city for any sign of Shing. It's only when he enters the park that Yuma and his friends frequented that he hears the sound of crying. Knowing exactly who it is, Dark just rolls his eyes and floats in that direction, taking his sweet time. Finally though, he makes it to the edge of the forest that covers one side of the park. There he sees Shing holding the corpse of Yuma close and sobbing.
Scrunching his nose in disgust, Dark approaches the girl and knocks on her head. "Hey girlie," he calls. "Time to go home and bury the corpse."
The girl doesn't answer. She just pulls the body closer to her. Dark rolls his eyes and grabs the body from her with force.
"We don't have time for this if we don't want this thing to rot and stink up the place." Though looking at the body up close, it doesn't look even remotely rotten. In fact, if he didn't know any better, Dark would have thought that Yuma is just sleeping. He isn't even stiff. Is this how the curse worked?
"Don't take him from me!" Shing suddenly shrieks and lunges at Dark with surprising speed. He is faster though, and immediately dodges.
"Let's go back. There are people here to see you." Staying a good distance above her, Dark slings the body over his shoulder and makes his way back home. He occasionally checks behind him to see if Shing is following, which she is. She has her head bent and her hands grip her arms. But she doesn't look like she's going to hurt herself. She's just crying a lot.
Finally when Dark thinks he'll go absolutely crazy from all her crying, they make it back to the house. They both take the window route so that no one knows that Yuma is dead yet. They don't need anyone freaking out just yet.
Yuri stops pacing when Shing climbs through the window after Dark. "My queen!" he exclaims, holding her up when she nearly falls to her knees in despair. "Are you alright? How are you feeling? Do you feel any lasting effects from the curse?"
"Give her some space." the spellcaster Astral says, helping Yuri to lower her down to the ground. "She needs time to recover. Dark Mist check her over."
Dark Mist touches her forehead and sighs in relief. "She's clear. Let's go tell GG."
They open a portal that leads back to their world and go in. Yuri stays behind to watch over Shing.
Dark would have just dropped the body if it wasn't for the risk of someone hearing. So instead, he settles for lying the body on the ground gently. Astral, who's on the ground, curls into himself flinching when the corpse hits the ground in front of him. "What do we do now?"
"We hold a funeral." Yuri replies.
"No!" Shing immediately exclaims. "I can't have him taken away from me forever! I don't want him to leave me!"
"Girl you have a major obsession over a corpse ," Dark points out in disgust
"But he was mine! You can't take him from me!"
Astral speaks up from where he is on the ground. "He belongs to no one," he nearly growls. "Stop acting like he was some kind of possession , you greedy child!"
Shing looks at Astral with a look of disbelief. "Greedy? You're calling me greedy? I never asked for anything in my life! I never asked for any of this, and you have the nerve to call me greedy?!"
"Greedy may have been the wrong word. Spoiled is more like it.
"If you even cared about Yuma, then you wouldn't have allowed him to go and do that!"
Astral flinches. "If you adored him as much as you say, you wouldn't do something as inhumane as denying him a proper burial," he chokes through fresh tears.
"That's enough you two," Yuri says harshly. "You're both upset. Arguing won't help anyone."
Astral clearly has trouble keeping himself from saying anything more, but in the end he slumps back against the wall. Shing just storms out of the room. Yuri rubs his temples and looks through Yuma's contacts in his duel gazer.
This is going to be a long day.