like that of his father the sungod Atum who conceived him.
._._.
Although he had known it was where the Titan of Marsh resided, Yuugi hadn’t expected the place to be so... residential. He had walked into a rather spacious parlor-slash-sitting room, the wheels of the roll cart lurching in the transition of flooring to soft carpet. Photographs of children, elderly individuals, and a smattering of similar-looking smiling young adults hung on every wall and sat upon most of the flat surfaces in the room, from the side tables to the bookshelves, windowsill and fireplace mantle; every frame matched.
The arrangements of not quite perfectly maintained flowers and the almost haphazard aligning of pillows reminded Yuugi of his own home, though in Domino there had been a lot less coziness and a lot more card games.
“Other me,” Yuugi whispered, barely letting sound escape his lips, “can you sense anyone else here?”
The other Yuugi, currently bound to Yuugi’s shadow and pinned to his feet, began stretching in size and spinning around Yuugi like the needle of a radar. In one such pass, the shadow left a trail of words: no footsteps, but something approaches.
How can something approach without footsteps? Yuugi thought privately, his eyes taking in all the possible entrances into the room. Besides the door through which Yuugi had so recently passed, there were two closed doors on the far end of the left-hand wall before an open entryway to a section of the flat Yuugi couldn’t see due to the fireplace-bearing wall opposite him. There was a matching entryway on the right of the opposite wall, perpendicular to a dark entrance to another possible hallway.
Yuugi, his confidence from solving the coded doorway fading, carefully pushed the cart forward into the room. Looking behind him, Yuugi only saw the titanium-enforced door closed flush with the wall and a matching flat-panel screen, nothing more, but the sudden squeal of rubber on hardwood snapped Yuugi’s attention to the right-hand entryway.
From her wheelchair, the woman frowned at Yuugi. “You,” she said, her voice a tempered soprano of a professional matron with a tongue clicking in displeasure, “are not my kitchen boy, nor did I call for anything from the kitchen.”
Yuugi, startled, slowly nodded and began unbuttoning his white kitchen overcoat.
“I came to see the Titan of Marsh,” Yuugi said as he tried to dramatically fling the white coat onto the rolling cart with moderate success, “I was told this was the place to go.”
The elderly woman rolled her chair closer to Yuugi (though he wondered, if this woman lived here, why the carpet hadn’t been replaced with something more amicable to wheels?), still frowning. She reminded Yuugi of a very prideful bird, like a falcon or an eagle.
“And who, pray tell, taught you the trick of the door?”
“There was a trick?” Yuugi asked, surprised. “I mean, other than just solving the code?”
The frown and befuddlement on the woman’s face deepened, etching further into the regal lines of her face. “You solved the door.”
“Yes,” Yuugi affirmed as the woman simply rolled past him to a matching panel on this side of the door, punching a few buttons. “But it doesn’t seem like it should be that surprising with twelve chances—”
“It’s designed to kill people after six,” she replied shortly, spinning back to face him. Yuugi, for his part, was taking the fact that he had been two bad guesses away from certain death very well.
Actually, it was the other Yuugi taking the possibility well – Yuugi himself had, understandably, decided that he need to have a nice nervous breakdown, and the other Yuugi was quite suddenly thrust into control while Yuugi tried figuring out what deities he had offended that his life was made to constantly go so horribly, horribly wrong.
Though being suddenly thrust into the forefront was momentarily jarring to the other Yuugi, so it took him a moment to get his bearings in the physical realm once more.
“I’m... glad I solved it in five, then,” said the other Yuugi, assessing the probable Titan. Her aura of personality, her tone, and essence had struck Yuugi as being grandmotherly: stern and traditional. The other Yuugi knew she perceived herself as a Queen.
“Hm. I have little time for cheeky attempts at wit,” said the woman. “Tell me why I shouldn’t have you killed?”
The other Yuugi smirked. “I opened your door and brought you some sandwiches. Surely you will lose nothing from hearing a small request?” The woman’s hands stilled on the wheels, and the other Yuugi had to suppress a victorious chuckle. She did not even turn her neck to acknowledge him.
“Come to the office.” It was not a request. “And bring the sandwiches.”
Moving the coat, the other Yuugi quickly balanced the two covered sandwich-laden platters on his flat palms and followed the woman (who was likely the Titan) down a surprising number of passageways until he was led into an extravagant office.
All of the furniture was metal and glass, sharp lines and hard surfaces. The other Yuugi slid the platters onto the large glass desk, pushing them each to a separate side so as to frame the center of the desk for the pending conversation that would soon take place. The woman easily maneuvered around the obviously custom-built desk, uncovering the platters in quick controlled movements that displayed her obvious arm strength. A smattering of open-faced sandwiches greeted them – tuna and basil on soft egg bread, tomatoes and cheese on stiff crostinis, cucumbers and watercress topped with dill on perfectly cut equilateral triangles of bread. The woman noshed upon one such crostini, giving no indication for the other Yuugi to partake or to even sit. That was all right; he preferred standing.
In the back of their mind, Yuugi watched the proceedings silently, having both calmed down and expressing no desire to actively face the Titan right now.
That was all right with the other Yuugi too – the implicit trust was more satisfying than any finger sandwich the Titan could offer.
“Your request, ignorant code-breaker?” He crossed his arms under the lanyard of the Puzzle, drawing attention to both the item’s material worth and the amount of blood staining its surface. Him having been predominantly behind the roll cart in the other room, the Titan had probably not even seen the item until this point. The other Yuugi did not miss the way her eyes had focused on the jewelry with an interest more than just mere greed.
Interesting.
“I want passage to the continent on a boat. You control the boats.”
The woman, her regal gray hair releasing one slightly curled lock to gravity, merely took up another sandwich, averting her gaze from the Pyramid.
“Seems like a simple enough problem to have solved with the knife in your belt,” she said before crunching into the cucumber.
The other Yuugi said nothing. A third sandwich was consumed.
“For what reason should I help you?”
The other Yuugi smiled. “Want to play a game for the favor?” he asked pleasantly.
The Titan visibly recoiled, nearly fumbling her fourth sandwich. “You have nothing I want,” she said brusquely, but the other Yuugi merely stepped closer to the desk, his grin unwavering.
“If you win, you can have this Puzzle. I’ve seen the desire in your eyes for it.” The grin on his face broadened at her gaze of outright fear, and though he felt Yuugi push at him in worry, he did not relent. “You can even kill me if you like.”
Although bound by a wheelchair, this was the first that the two Yuugis saw her in a moment of weakness. It passed quickly.
“I have no desire to play a Dark Game when I am assured failure,” she spat, her eyes darting once more to the God Pyramid, and her voice almost instantly snapped back to its prior prim, upper-class boredom. “But there is someone you can play that would... benefit me enough to allow you free passage through my territory.”
The other Yuugi gave only a small nod of acknowledgment, pleased by both the success of his bluff (he knew Yuugi would certainly not approve of a Dark Game being played against a crippled old woman when she had done nothing to provoke it, even if it would make everything much simpler) and that the woman no longer even noticed the sandwiches. Though there was something about her denial that nagged him...
“Have you ever played ‘Duel Monsters’?”
The other Yuugi gave a derisive chuckle. “I’ve never lost,” he said, ignoring the fact that he had only played once: Yuugi never lost either, so it counted.
“Of course not,” she said, but her tone was too... too serious, too confident for someone who had only just met either Yuugi.
This woman was more than just acquainted with the Dark Games, he realized, and with how she had stared in fear at the Millennium Puzzle – did she know of its mastery over the Games?
Who was this woman?
“There’s a young man currently holed up in the loft fifty... three floors below me. He’s not a native, but he is a thief, and I believe he may have stolen something of value from... someone for whom I still feel a great deal of affection. Retrieve this, and I’ll get you whatever you want.”
“What am I trying to retrieve?”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” she said, her gaze once more falling upon the Puzzle before returning her attention to the sandwiches, “and the door code will be the same when you come back through.”
The other Yuugi stood patiently as the Titan finished another cucumber sandwich. After a moment she waved her hand, dismissing him.
“You don’t need me to show you out,” she said, her aged and pinched-skin fingers snatching up another piece of lemon-yellow bread covered in a tuna spread that looked markedly like scrambled brains, “why haven’t you left yet?”
The other Yuugi did not shrug, but the way his neck gave out a little and let gravity alter his skull-spine alignment served the purpose just as well.
“You haven’t told me my opponent,” he said, and even though the words were said with kindness the Yuugi in the back felt the censure and impatience. So, it seemed, did the unexpected granny of a Titan, for she recoiled and turned away, staring at some innocent speck of lint with all the fury of forcibly bottled vengeance.
“He’s on the twenty-first floor,” more hate was directed at the number, whose past was only two foolish choices less innocent than the lint on the floor, but even those crimes didn’t warrant such treatment from the Titan. In comparison, that hatred was similar to the unexpected joy of re-encountering an estranged friend in a foreign country when held up to the sheer vitriol in her voice as she continued. Demons would cower under such a tone of voice. “And he’s the President of the Kaiba Corporation.”
._._.
Kaiba Seto did not live in Titan. Like Yuugi, his home was and probably always would be the city of Domino, with its plethora of arcades and game designers and sheer lack of ‘notable’ crime or notable authority figures. Kaiba, like Yuugi, was only in Titan for a short while.
They were not planning on traveling to the same destination, let alone together, but things have a tendency to change in unexpected ways like that.
Once in the elevator, Yuugi had been shuffled out to the metaphorical stage that was control of his body, and the other Yuugi was back in the metaphoric green room. Like being on a stage, Yuugi thought the lights were too bright and he still could barely focus; the world was too quiet, and he really wanted to go cower in the wings and send out the understudy instead.
As he walked through a much less secure flat, Yuugi’s hands cradled the Pyramid of God. Sure, Kaiba might not initially recognize Yuugi with his altered hairstyle, but just one glance at the Puzzle and Kaiba would not only instantly identify Yuugi, but there was the possibility that he might immediately have Yuugi arrested.
And the other Yuugi? He was “demonstrating his faith” in Yuugi by letting him face Kaiba himself.
The joys and wonders of having another tenant in one’s mind. Yuugi examined another room – completely empty, white as far as the eye could see. What was the point of renting out all this space if he wasn’t going to use it?
Other me, can’t you find him? Make another shadow-pass? asked Yuugi after crossing three more unfinished rooms. This is getting ridiculous.
I’ve already done three passes, and I haven’t felt or heard anything, admitted the other. If he’s here, he’s not moving.
Yuugi fell against a wall and tried to stop the bubbling worry and panic. They’d been roaming this floor for at least half an hour now, moving from one unfurnished empty room to a room of slightly different proportions but with equal amounts of detail, being none. They might have been going in circles, or they could have not yet retraced a step, it was impossible to tell. Yuugi had no idea how to even get back to the elevator at this point, and none of the rooms had windows that weren’t covered with sheets of renovator’s paper, so he couldn’t even orient himself based on the outside world. They would probably have better luck finding another Blue Eyes White Dragon than—
Realization started dawning in Yuugi’s mind with brilliant clarity. Ever since that day on the rooftop, Kaiba had started missing days so often the administration at school had assumed he’d dropped out of classes. Kaiba had been desperate enough to get grandfather’s Blue Eyes that he’d stolen the card and given Yuugi a counterfeit. Kaiba had been possessed by a near madness for that card from the moment he had laid eyes upon it. There were a total of four of those cards in print; with a fortune like Kaiba’s, it would be simple to track down the other three and buy the owners off, or steal the cards.
The woman, the Titan of Marsh, had specifically mentioned the card game before going on about how Kaiba might have stolen something. Could he possibly have gathered two, even all three of the remaining Dragons? Would he try going after grandpa’s Blue Eyes again?
What would Kaiba do, knowing that the kid who had humiliated him with defeat had disappeared with the final Blue Eyes White Dragon?
Realization was a bright, mid-morning sun, and it bore down on Yuugi until his eyes watered in the brightness of it.
Aibou? What’s wrong?
Yuugi clenched his eyes closed against those metaphorical bright rays, calming down. We have to find Kaiba, he replied, even his inner voice tight.
Yes, aibou, but it doesn’t seem—
No, other me! We have to find him! If... if I’m right, then he’s... he’s done some terrible things. He might have even hurt grandpa while I’ve been off playing shell games! Yuugi slammed his elbow into the wall behind him, letting out a growl of frustration.
He felt the very distinctive tingle of the other Yuugi’s almost solid, almost ghostly hands upon Yuugi’s own (and the matching tingle of hands under Yuugi’s).
“Aibou. I’ve played Kaiba in a Dark Game. He’s not the same person who stole Grandpa’s precious card.” A soft finger tilted up Yuugi’s chin (and a chin moved at Yuugi’s phantom touch), and Yuugi stared into the other’s concerned, half-visible mien. “No one escapes a Dark Game unscathed. Not even victors.”
As comforting and morbid as the words were, Yuugi remembered the look in Kaiba’s eyes as he punched Yuugi for trying to reclaim the card: there was no goodness behind those eyes, more empty and soulless than any of the bullies Yuugi had ever seen before.
“... but what if he got worse?”
Even at such close proximity, Yuugi could not identify the thought behind the stare he received, but the hand on his chin slid down, and very slowly the other Yuugi leaned forward, until his and Yuugi’s—
“Aibou,” the voice was rasped, forced, a struggle against that painful sensory bliss of forehead against forehead on forehead pressed against forehead touching— “Aibou.”
“Ye... yeah?” It was hard to focus on anything but the feel of those thousand soft stretches of skin over sinew and skull.
“Grandfather... is fine. He’s fine. Fine...” their breathing was synchronized in opposition, and ragged – every shaking breath Yuugi pushed out, the other Yuugi drank down as the last water in the desert heat. They breathed like the fearful and exhausted, like running from Marathon to Athens, but were they running from Marathon? Or to Athens? Yuugi wasn’t sure.
“You sure?” he asked, and the other Yuugi smiled the laugh of the giddy. Yuugi mimicked.
“You... do you think I’d... leave our precious... precious ones behind and... and hope nothing... nothing will hurt them?”
“Nothing will hurt them?” It was getting easier to speak, and to listen, but actual concentration was shot to all hell.
“Yeah,” said the other, “nothing will hurt them.”
Yuugi laughed – when had he done that last? It didn’t matter; it couldn’t have been as wonderful as even that tiny press of skin on skin flush with skin against—
“That’s... that’s good, but—” there was a but, Yuugi knew, something he needed to do, to find, something meant to be done in Kaiba’s Tower flat— “but Kaiba... we have to find... or else... get out—”
“ ‘s okay,” murmured the other Yuugi, his breathing still ragged but slowing, deeper, some other kind of exhaustion plaguing his lungs, “he’s coming... to us.”
Yuugi tried to respond, he really did, he should have gotten a medal for participation for having tried so hard, but the other Yuugi had pressed against him harder, like he was trying to push his skull into Yuugi’s, to touch their brains together in a sensory feedback nirvana.
Yuugi tried to respond. He’d gotten his mouth open. He even expelled air. But whatever it was that he’d tried so hard to say was lost in a medley of syllables that made no sense. It was not a moan of any kind – there were multiple syllables and garbled bits of implied punctuation involved.
The other Yuugi, though – he moaned.
Maybe it was that low noise that did it, or the thudding approaching footfalls to Yuugi’s left that seemed to echo doom, doom, doom, but somehow Yuugi found his hands on the other Yuugi’s shoulders, and somehow he managed to push the other Yuugi enough that a scant centimeter of air cut their billions of foreheads down to two.
“ ‘zat him?” Yuugi asked quietly, tilting his head towards the sound of approaching doom, doom, doom; the other Yuugi leaned back some, enough so that he could turn to the door without bumping noses with Yuugi.
He nodded, and carefully grabbing Yuugi’s elbows, he hauled them both to standing. The other Yuugi flushed with what was likely embarrassment.
“Er, sorry,” he said, contrite, “I just wanted to cheer you up a bit. I didn’t mean to push it so far...”
Yuugi smiled, but wary of the doom that had halted on the opposite side of the door, replied with a very soft whisper. “Don’t be sorry, it worked. And with you here...” Though the door opened with two men pointing guns and Kaiba Seto standing behind them, the other Yuugi did not vanish into the Puzzle.
“Yuugi-kun? Mutou Yuugi?”
I can face anyone.
._._.
“Idiots! Lower your weapons!” Kaiba pushed through the worried barricade of his two guards, and both men shrank back in something like professionally dignified fear. Kaiba himself seemed torn between the glee of a cat catching a canary, and the confusion of a very intelligent cat wondering why there was a canary in a room without trees in the first place. The other Yuugi, in his most physical form, held tight to Yuugi’s hand, left in right.
“Hello, Kaiba-kun,” Yuugi whispered, hoping that none of the other people would notice the awkward positioning of his hand, holding the other Yuugi’s invisible one.
“Yuugi... what happened to you? I almost didn’t recognize you without the crazy starfish hair.” The other Yuugi bristled at the condescending tone Kaiba used, and in that instant Yuugi could tell that the other was not pleased with the amount of progress Kaiba had made after battling the Penalty Game.
“It’s Saikoro now,” Yuugi said, watching the two guards. If they had any features that separated them into individual people, Yuugi was ashamed to admit he could not see them past the mirrored sunglasses, rippling muscles under business suits, and trim shaved heads.
One of the two bodyguards shifted slightly, fiddling with a black coil of wire emerging from his ear. “Kaiba-sama—”
“Go to the Titan of the Wasteland, tell him an unexpected guest has me delayed.”
“But Kaiba-sama—”
“Did I stutter?” he snapped out, like a tortoise and a cobra wrapped up in one venomous and irritable package. The guards didn’t stand a chance.
“No, Kaiba-sama—”
“Were my orders in any way unclear?”
“No, but—”
“Then WHY,” he demanded, acid and fire and pestilence flying from his lips, “haven’t you gone scurrying to do as I said when I SAID it?” Both men fumbled through their bows, nearly vomiting their apologies – yes, Kaiba-sama, sorry Kaiba-sama, never again Kaiba-sama.
They were abused puppies locked in the bodies of vicious dogs. The other Yuugi was quite irate.
The guards vanished into the labyrinth of white. Kaiba gave Yuugi a smile of whitewash and spite.
“Saikoro-kun, ne? I guess it’s comparable in meaning,” said Kaiba, leading Yuugi further into the maze, “and without the crazy hair you’re rather unremarkable in appearance.”
The other Yuugi glowered. “Oh, yes, so unremarkable, says the two-toned peach tree.”
The rooms and hallways of the labyrinth of white continued, but Yuugi was sure that Kaiba was just leading them around in circles. It was a tactic of intimidation, to make escape seem futile, to set Yuugi off balance.
No matter. Yuugi held tightly to the hand of his other self, more real than anything else in the room.
Finally they crossed into a room of color, an office of chill, icy blue. Large computer screens adorned the walls as though they were tall glass windows; some showed security feeds from other rooms, some displayed line after line of technical English garbage wherein the letters formed things that looked like no words Yuugi recognized; at least three of the small monitors were muted news broadcasts with quickly streaming subtitles Yuugi could not quite make out.
“I’ve been looking for you, Yuugi,” said Kaiba, slipping into one of the sleek throne-like leather armchairs, gesturing for Yuugi to take the one opposite him with a small glass table between them. Without releasing the other’s hand, Yuugi sat down, his back pressed flush with that of the chair, and the other Yuugi following to seemingly perch on the armrest. If Kaiba noticed the awkward way Yuugi’s left hand rested, he did not comment and kept such notice to himself.
“Saikoro. You were looking for me?” replied Yuugi, allowing the smooth, calming circles the other Yuugi was tracing on his hand with the other’s thumb to distract him from fear.
“He’s probably after the bounty for our capture,” growled the other Yuugi, “or else he may still be after grandpa’s precious Blue Eyes White Dragon.”
“I was... displeased at the sudden turnabout of our last duel,” said Kaiba dully, “and I knew that if authorities caught you before we had a chance to settle the score, I never would...”
Yuugi snuck a glance at his other self, the semi-transparent boy who was glaring very fiercely at Kaiba. Yuugi was still rather confused. “Never would...?”
“You’re the only person who has ever defeated me in Duel Monsters,” Kaiba said angrily, “and I want to prove that it was just a fluke that you... when you turned my Blue Eyes against me.”
“It was never your dragon, Kaiba-kun,” Yuugi said sternly, angrily, “it will always be my grandfather’s, no matter if he’s not the one playing the card!”
“You never would have beaten me without that dark magic you used to display the monsters,” Kaiba replied; “that’s how you destroyed the Blue Eyes.”
Anger surged through Yuugi, burning and burning away the distance between the two of him.
“Are you calling me a cheat?” He no longer held the other Yuugi’s hand, for they both had risen to their feet and both had slammed hands upon the ice-cold glass table separating the two from Kaiba, and both had roared with one question through one throat.
Kaiba did not recoil. He smirked.
“Ah, are you the other Yuugi that I faced that night?”
Yuugi felt the anger bottle up within him, though he was still in control, and he let his hands remain pressed against the table. “Saikoro. You want a rematch? No ‘tricks’, no ‘magic’?”
Kaiba nodded, only slightly, but it was enough. Had it been anyone else other than Yuugi, the deck would have been slapped against the table; even in his anger, Yuugi only placed the cards upon the glass. Kaiba’s eyes narrowed.
“I... want to duel you in Domino,” he said, his gaze flicking from Yuugi to the deck, but Yuugi shook his head.
“I can’t go back to Domino, Kaiba-kun. Wanted for triple homicide, remember? I won’t go back when I know just stepping foot there will get me executed, never mind the fact minors aren’t supposed to get the death penalty. No.” Yuugi felt the arms wrap around his torso, and the weight of a chest against his back, and a chin on his shoulder (a shoulder under his chin, a tense back against his chest, a coiled and rigid chest with an erratic heartbeat under his arms). “I’m leaving Japan. I’m starting over.”
“You’re running away.”
“So what if I am?” Yuugi yelled, not going to cry under that stare, cold as a hopeless winter day, calm as the blizzard’s stillness. “I refuse to let that bitch kill me too!”
Jounouchi’s face swam in his vision, living and dead, smiling and bloody and laughing with dead eyes.
“You’re pathetic,” Kaiba whispered. Who was in control? Yuugi couldn’t tell – he was holding and being held, but Yuugi was crying and weak and the voice that answered was angry and strong. Yuugi buried his face in the solid shoulder of the other Yuugi, his fingers clutching at his shirt and the Puzzle’s cord.
“You are trespassing in dangerous areas, Kaiba.” The voice rumbled into Yuugi’s fingertips and he held on tighter and felt the phantom hold on him tighten without.
“You’re running away. You’re quitting. Failure is the same thing as death,” Kaiba shot back, standing, glaring into Yuugi’s eyes, “Yuugi’s already dead, pathetic, and a loser. The Mutou Yuugi who fought me for the Blue Eyes White Dragon is already gone!”
Hikari’s laughter, the gunshots, the sight of blood on his hands, the pictures in the newspaper – it wasn’t true! She couldn’t have...
“You lie!” shouted the other Yuugi, and both of them were shaking, shaking with rage and fear and oh god what was wrong with them? “I will destroy you if you do not cease this trespass upon the realm of Yuugi’s heart.”
“You cannot deny it!” Kaiba shouted, the sudden crash of glass at his feet of the overturned table shattering on the marble floor, cutting through the argument, slicing to the bone. “The true Yuugi died the second he was cast aside for you, Saikoro-kun.”
The shattering of the table was nothing. At the sneer, it was Yuugi who was shattered, broken and wounded and not whole on the marble floor. He held not the other Yuugi, no other Yuugi held him. He was screaming, crying, bleeding on the marble floor. Where was the other – his other – the spirit – the Puzzle – Sai—
It was fire and it burned him, his face and fingers and organs it cut and burned and froze but why?! He was breathing glass and it cut his lips and lungs. Above him, two solid bodies still stood.
“You destroyed his loser friend, broke his pathetic family, stole his face, and ran away. You changed him, wrecked him, lost him somewhere in your fear.” Kaiba was not shouting, but every word was a kick-cut-burn to the Yuugi who writhed upon the shattered glass, “Probably when you lost the starfish hair. The Mutou Yuugi anyone knew, the one I dueled, he’s dead, and you killed him. ‘Saikoro’ killed Yuugi’s oh so precious heart and stole his body. Saikoro trespasses on a dead man’s land.”
Why did everything hurt so much? He wished it were true, he wished he was dead—
“You talk about ‘the bitch’ not winning, how she wouldn’t kill you too? Yuugi would have won. Saikoro made him forfeit. To lose is to die.”
There were footsteps crunching on the glass and walking through Yuugi, through his skull and chest and soul until the crunching stopped.
“When Yuugi comes back,” said Kaiba in a voice that was quiet and calm and like the boy Yuugi had known before the whole mess with the Blue Eyes White Dragon, “when you’re willing to play and to win, and to be Yuugi again... I’ll be waiting.”
A door slid closed, and Yuugi was standing, facing an empty armchair, standing near but not on broken glass, standing and not cut or bleeding or feeling pain.
Well, that was mostly true, but not entirely: Yuugi’s hand was cramped and tense around his grandfather’s deck. Yuugi stared at the cards, and consciously relaxed his grip, though when he saw the floor he nearly dropped the precious cards in the puddle of blood.
Dropping to his knees on the broken glass and instinctively shoving the cards into the case on his belt, Yuugi reached over to cradle the semi-transparent head of— of— of— of the red-headed boy on the ground.
“Hey, hey,” said Yuugi, shaking the boy, “hey, wake up! I’m here, I’m here!”
The ghost of a boy didn’t look cut or injured, but where had all the blood come from? Yuugi slapped the phantom’s cheeks. “Come on, wake up!”
Slowly his lids struggled open, bloodshot eyes glazed as they stared up. “Ai-aibou? Yu-yuugi?” asked the other – his other – the other boy, and Yuugi nodded.
“Yes, I’m right here. What happened to you? To us?”
Yuugi slipped an arm under the boy’s back and raised him up, and he didn’t wince. That was good, but Yuugi couldn’t feel the weight of that back on his arm anymore, though the body stayed steady. The... the boy shook with sobs.
“He... he gave me a name! He named me!” His eyes closed, and Yuugi pulled the boy up into an embrace, holding him as tight as he could until his arms couldn’t draw the semi-transparent form closer, but he still couldn’t feel it. “He-he-he named me and you were dying and I’m not meant to take a name! Aibou!” the other started hiccuping with sobs, but Yuugi couldn’t feel the way the body shook against him, and the other couldn’t seem to hear Yuugi’s words of comfort, but he had at least ceased murmuring.
The night in the holding cell bubbled up in Yuugi’s memory, softly, but he pushed the thought away.
Yuugi looped his other arm under the ghost-boy’s legs and without feeling the weight or the floor or the doors he kicked open, Yuugi carried the boy that was invisible to everyone else through the Tower, through the streets of Titan, back to their motel room under the forgiving cover of night. He couldn’t even feel his room key as he spent five minutes trying to peel it from his matter-less pocket, but finally Yuugi laid the other boy upon the bed and crawled up next to him, unable to feel anything.
Unable to share their grief anymore, two boys wept for the things lost and gained in Kaiba’s flat.
Eventually, the two grieved into sleep; one vanished completely.
The one that remained on the bed had his eyes closed, and his features were indistinct: it was impossible to tell who slept on that bed – Yuugi or Saikoro.
._._.
