Retelling the tale of the original Dark Magician was an enlightening tale for everyone at the table. As well as comforting for Ryu was who able to focus on something other than the deaths of Jounouchi's duel spirits. Everyone sat in a semi entranced state as they were told about an Egyptian Magician who managed to fuse his human soul with his duel spirit, or Ka Beast, and become well.. Him.
There was also a point of horror to it as well. Ryu had tried to be politically correct about it, but it was clearly a form of self willed slavery. Yet...
"So Yugi created the Duel Spirit world, but he existed three thousand years ago, while the EarthBound Gods existed five thousand years ago?" Crow asked, confusion clear in his voice as he sat there. "I guess maybe its ok cuz he's outside of time, what's stopping him from going to the beginning..."
But even as he said that there was this feeling of his brain kind of falling apart from the magnitude of what it meant.
"So where is Mr. Mahaado? Is he with them?" Ruka asked, she had seen various younger and even older versions of the Dark Magician. It was fascinating to know the name of the original spirit from which all the others arose from.
"With Uncle Kaiba and the others, summoning 'him' specifically requires a connection between people that no one really has to him that's here. From what I understand Uncle Kaiba could summon Uncle Mahaado, but they're both with Uncle Yugi anyway so," Ryu explained.
"So in Egypt they were sealing parts of human souls in tablets and, relatively speaking, 'recently' Yugi moved those tablets. Placing them in the Duel Spirit world... But where? Whoever attacked the Tenjoin siblings and the rest... Could they be after the tablets?" Yusei theorized as he sat pondering. 'The ability to seal the souls of spirits into tablets and make them into forced servants of the summoner? I can see how Pegasus used that to create the game. But could whoever be using that to try and take over the Duel Spirit world?'
"I... don't know... Father wasn't with Uncle when he created the world. All Father said was that the original tablets served as the 'pillars of the world'. So that could be metaphorical and they're on the surface or literally buried in the ground." Ryu explained even as he picked apart his memories of the tales his father told.
"Strange to think the runt that I went to school with was apparently a god of a world," Ushio noted almost whimsical in his tone.
"Tell me about it," Mikage agreed with a rueful smile as she shook her head. "I'll go see if the family is with Ms. Tenjoin, I'll be right back." The chair scraped as she pushed it back before standing. Everyone watched her with various degrees of acknowledgment before she walked out the room. Fresh air was the first thing that washed over her, the pure oddity of how the same cycled air and yet it felt differently.
The weight of the room was lifted here, or rather replaced with a different type of weight. Inside was sadness, frustration, confusion, while out here it was trepidation, anxiety, pain different yet weighted. Bright white paint, sharp white lights, it was more an interrogation building as it attempted to find out what was hurting the people who walked in. Broken bones, illness, accidents, a hospital was its own Security station. Making empathy feel all the more harder to reach, which was probably why most hospitals included gardens to help encourage healing, comfort and calm.
'But I'm not here for that... What am I even doing here?' Mikage asked herself as she walked down the hallway, the clip of her heels a comforting rhythm. Godwin had influenced Security with his power and wealth and now... Without that influence Mikage could see herself expected to take in Yusei and his group as being responsible for what happened to the victims.
But the very nature of the Dragons had been put into part of Security's structure, and now she was going to have to juggle. Try to validate what the Tenjoins had experienced, while at the same time enforce that this wasn't something to be broadcasted.
The Dragons weren't meant to be 'world' champions or heroes, they were meant to deal with the EarthBound Gods and that was 'it'.
'And they're kids.' Mikage thought to herself as she pressed the button to get the elevator to come down to her. 'I understand they are not expected to do 'everything' and it makes sense. But what are we supposed to do in situations like this? We can't go to this 'Duel Spirit World' and we can't explain this to the casual civilian like its nothing. These people are 'parents' they deserve the truth and I... can't give them that...' She could say they would keep up with the teens, but it would be a hollow comfort if they couldn't nail down what happened.
She stepped inside the elevator and felt the eternal tug of gravity as she rose up, the elevator paused to take on more passengers. She moved to the side, giving them access to the control panel while she kept her gaze on the floor number. As the elevator slid close she found her thoughts, once distracted by the pause in motion, resuming.
Because it was interesting, curious even, that Crow would bring up the Original King of Games. Mouto, Yugi had been missing for years. Missing ever since the sky turned black... so how could they have seen Yugi? Did he come out of hiding? Was he involved or able to help? Did he know where the elder Kaiba was? It sounded very much like he was aware of these things when she cross referenced what young Kaiba said with what Crow had spoken of.
'But little birds love to talk, crows too huh?' she mused to herself and it was amusing to her. The elevator stopped at her floor and she stepped out and was greeted with another floor of stern white walls and cool overhead lights. Nurses in their clean uniforms and the occasional family member huddled to the side talking on the phone. 'At least its not ICU or CCU,' she thought, thankful for that small miracle.
Down a hallway she could see several officers including the one who had come to alert her. They stood next to various doors, though not at attention which was a silent signal to her. While the younger Tenjoin was awake, the families 'had' arrived to the other rooms and were with their kin.
Once the officers noticed her approach they turned towards her in acknowledgment, saluting once she was in range. Nodding at them she went to the patients' door and let herself in with a brief knock to alert them.
The family was understandable distraught, Mrs. Tenjoins' eyes were so red and puffy that Mikage had to wonder if the woman could even see her. While Mr. Tenjoin was hovering protectively between his children, wife and door. Both Tenjoin children were in their own respective beds,with the curtains pulled back to show them both.
Asuka was awake and her bed had been raised up so she could see and interact with visitors and for the most part she didn't look horrible. The injuries were there yes, hidden under bandages that covered her arms and one that was dangerously wide around her neck and shoulder. But her eyes were showing more spirit than Mikage would have expected.
"Mr. and Mrs. Tenjoin, Asuka..." Mikage greeted. "I'm sorry to have to interrupt you during such a time. I realize this is hard," she began. Only to feel the floundering frustration over how to proceed with this. "I need to talk to your daughter about what she experienced and it might be better if we spoke privately.."
"This isn't tied into why Fubuki was gone is it?" Mrs. Tenjoin asked reaching over she grabbed her daughters' hands.
"Mom..." Asuka murmured and tried her hardest to squeeze her mom's hand more tightly to reassure her. But there was little she could offer at the moment. Coming too from unconsciousness to the sound of her mom begging the two of them not to die. That was going to haunt Asuka for a long time, if not forever. 'I didn't mean to scare you like this mom, dad...' this had to be something close to how her brother felt when he came home. When mom kept plying his plate with more and more of his favorite things.
Trying to bribe her son into not disappearing again...
"Can't one of us stay?" Mr. Tenjoin asked, Fubuki clearly got his eyes from his father, though Asuka got his hair color, and those eyes were haunted.
"Yes, please..." Mrs. Tenjoins' voice broke with worry while she clung to Asukas' hand.
"Its ok, mom, dad, I'll be ok," Asuka tried in an attempt to coax her parents to step out of the room. It took a little more encouragement before the pair finally stepped out of the room leaving Asuka with Mikage.
Beeping was a soft sound that gave the room something other than the silence between the pair. Finally Asuka broke the silence herself with an apologetic smile, "I'm sorry, they've gone through a lot..."
"Oh I understand, do not worry," Mikage replied with a faint professional smile as she approached the bed. "Aki and the others are here," Mikage began and watched Asukas' expression light up with more life. "They were able to tell me how they found you, and even Young Master Kaiba is here. However; I would like to know from your prospective about what happened yesterday."
"I don't know..." Asuka answered as she looked over at the wall across from her where a television was mounted out of the way above them. "I haven't had time to sort it out.. Yusuke wasn't Yusuke..." She sighed as she laid there and shut her eyes trying to reconstruct what had happened. Her body ached, and she found herself seriously pondering if Duel Spirits felt like this when they were sent to the graveyard.
It sure wasn't pleasant.
Yusuke? Not Yusuke? He didn't want to be there, he started getting agitated the longer they stayed. "We were going to look for a duel spirit, a particular one that was originally associated with Judai. But.. this guy... spirit? I don't know he looked like Yusuke from the nose down because he was wearing this mask that covered the rest of his face. He called Yusuke 'Honest'... I guess you know Aki so its safe to talk about this... About Duel Spirits..." Her expression thoughtful and comforted by Mikage's nod.
"It was a nice little trip, got to hang out with my Duel Spirits, man whatever or whoever that guy was he sent them all to the graveyard. Maybe they can explain what happened better. I hope Aki doesn't mind, but I really am going to need her to bring them out so I can apol..." Asuka blinked as she saw the way Mikages' expression fairly fell the moment she said 'bring them out'. "What? Is something the matter?"
Mikage grimaced before she slowly answered, "there are no duel spirits..."
"Oh I know, it weirded me out too at first. But its really special, they're people that you kind of develop as you bond with your card. When you use them, the thrill of a duel, talking to them, they're people, but they're kind of like your kids in a way. Because their growth is dependent on you... what?" Asuka felt this ugly pit form in the bottom of her stomach as Mikage's face became tight, her smile was more a straight line, and her expression was more professional than before. "Can I see Aki? Maybe if you talked to her it would help?
'Why did she have to liken it to having kids?' Mikage thought as she stood there, "I'll have her come up then. I'll let the group come up here, but for now just tell me from your perspective about what happened...
Asuka nodded slowly, timidly as Mikage answered by going to the door. She could hear the older woman give a series of instructions to a person outside. 'You're worrying too much, everyone is worried about you, its going to be fine. Tutu, Blader and the others are fine, Aki can call them, spirits can't die after all, they're just beings of energy. Which energy can't be destroyed it can only be transformed SO, cheer up and... "Is Yusuke here too? Is he with us?" She asked finally settling on a rather big question as Mikage approached the bed again.
"No, and from what Aki has said, Yusuke was a Duel Spirit, though we didn't get deep into that discussion."
"A... duel spirit?"
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"We need to go. We shouldn't be here." Yusuke was on pins and needles, he fairly was jumping at every sound. Making it much harder to just enjoy the trip to the Duel Spirit world, though Judai was fairly oblivious to the anxiety that Yusuke was showing.
"What's gotten into you Yusuke? You were fine until we crossed the border into Yami territory." Momoe asked in concern as she walked over to him. Sky Scout followed her, but his gaze was on perpetual surveillance as he looked around.
It was a concern that got Asuka to look over at them, Angel resting in her arms. Not that it was easy to look past all her spirits, and Mr. Jounouchi's spirits, and Ryo's and just everyone. She almost felt like she was at school with the number of spirits now hanging out with them. Kazu and Queen Dragun were casually chatting or rather Queen was giving him a piece of her mind. But the way he smiled told her that it wasn't a bad thing.
'And Judai is making this happen? Its strange that he can't do this in the human world, but if CyberPhoenix said it was true... It must have been.' Asuka thought as she fell back to join the pair. "If its because you don't have any spirits yet, don't worry Yusuke..."
"Yeah, we'll look out for you!" Momoe gave a small fist pump cheer for which Yusuke answered with a smile of his own, meek and shy with a hint of embarrassment.
"And I'm glad for it Momoe, but... Something feels wrong here... Don't you feel it?" Yusuke asked, as he gestured around them.
Which if Asuka was going to be honest, was understandable. Yami was rather dark and spooky with very strange trees that looked full of leaves, only there was no light. Sunlight stopped at the border and there was this strange moss that provided light outside of those of their spirits who were naturally generating light.
"I mean he's not wrong..." Graceful Dice noted before flinging out its dice only for it to come up snake eyes. "really not wrong..."
Devil Dice looked at the roll, looked at the dice he had and noped out on those odds.
"We're not really far in... Hey kid, what are the odds your Spirit would want to come here?" Devil asked as he flew after Judai, moving about all the Heroes' that Judai had.
"A lot actually," Judai admitted as he looked about further into the territory. "Yubel was a Dark themed Spirit..."
"I've never heard of a 'Yubel'," CyberBlader noted.
"Same, is it like the other very rare spirits that only had one manufactured in the human world?" Cyber Harpy followed up with the question.
"And you sent it to 'space'?!" Junko blurted out, startling Ryo into backing up from her in amusement. "What's 'wrong' with you! How could you do that to them?" Junko fairly flung her arms around Cyber Harpy's waist and gave a glare from under the startled spirits' feathers. "What did you do to them?"
Judai actually looked embarrassed and lowered his head in response. "I... well I was a kid back then and she was acting out... Um I think she was acting out cuz my friends were getting hurt a lot..."
"Yeah, I remember you mentioning the trips to the hospital," Kazu admitted thoughtfully as he walked along. Casting a glance up at Queen before looking over at Judai, "But … what am I saying? I mean its not like we knew duel spirits were real until recently. What I'm trying to say is 'maybe you should have talked to her', but that's not fair to Judai huh?"
"You have a point there," Ryo acknowledged with a slight nod. Cyber Phoenix had opted to shrink itself down so it could ride on his shoulder, while his dragons were slithering behind him over the ground without making much of a sound. Yami was like that too, somehow it was so quiet even though there was ground. No sounds of grass or sand...
"He knew... he ALWAYS knew..."