Timeline
II, Alternative Universe: Domino City, Japan
With his last
strength, Jounouchi rang the doorbell. There was someone at home as
several windows were lit; Jounouchi would even settle for talking to
Yuugi’s grandfather, if only they were let into the house.
The door was
opened, and Yuugi looked up in surprised at his visitors.
“Jounouchi-kun!
What…”
“Quick,
let us in!”
“Of
course, come in! What happened? Who is…?”
“This
is my sister, Shizuka,” Jounouchi said, almost pushing Yuugi
out of the way in his haste to get inside. Yuugi stepped aside, staring
after Jounouchi.
“Close
the door!”
Baffled, Yuugi
did as he was told, his mind racing. “Jounouchi-kun, would
you mind telling me…”
“Who
are these late guests, Yuugi-chan?”
Yuugi cringed
from his mother’s voice as she used the terribly affectionate
suffix for his name, but neither Jounouchi nor Shizuka paid any
attention to it.
“Jounouchi-kun
and his sister,” he said. “I think something
happened…”
“I
think so too,” the woman nodded, putting her hand on
Shizuka’s shoulder. The girl flinched and started to cry all
over again. “She’s clearly upset, the poor
thing…come with me, I’ll get you some
tea.”
She
didn’t even protest as Yuugi’s mother calmly talked
to her, soothing her shot nerves, and gently leading her to the warm
kitchen for the aforementioned tea. Jounouchi in the meantime had
regained his breath, and the look he threw at Yuugi was almost
accusatory.
“Would
you mind telling me what’s going on?” Yuugi asked.
“You look like you’ve been running from
ghosts…”
“Not
ghosts, murderers,” he said, keeping his voice low, then
forcefully bit his own lip. He was not going to cry
himself - for watching Otogi die, for endangering his sister, for doing
everything wrong. He raked a hand through his hair, obviously at his
wit’s end.
“Let’s
go upstairs too,” Yuugi said. “Kaa-san and
Shizuka-chan are in the kitchen, and jii-chan is in the living
room…we can talk in my room.”
Jounouchi
wordlessly agreed and followed Yuugi up the stairs, to his bedroom in
the attic. It was a rather spacious room, painted in sky blue and light
gray colors, two bookcases full with games, a bed and a desk with a
chair. Yuugi flopped on the bed, leaving the only chair in the room for
Jounouchi to sit on, and he pulled it towards him to sit down.
“What
happened?”
“Otogi
was killed right in front of my eyes,” Jounouchi mumbled.
“Otogi?
Otogi Ryuuji? How…that’s horrible! Were you
robbed? Who attacked you?”
“Bakura
and some guy named Malik,” Jounouchi said. He shook his head
as if he could straighten out his jumbled thoughts that way. He should
be at the police station, reporting the murder, describing Bakura,
having him arrested…but this hadn’t been his
classmate. This had been someone else, a monster, a demon, a devil.
“No.
The Master of Shadows.”
“Holy
crap!” Jounouchi fell from his chair, totally taken by
surprise as he saw Mahaado standing in front of him, Mana on his left
side. The girl looked disturbed, her face pale and blank.
“I’m
sorry Jounouchi-kun,” Yuugi said a little sheepishly.
“I tried to catch your attention, but you were so lost in
thought and mumbling out loud that you didn’t notice
them…”
“This
won’t end!” Jounouchi cried out loud.
“What the hell’s going on? I can’t take
it anymore! My sister…”
“Apprentice,”
Mahaado said and the girl nodded, leaving the room immediately. The
tall man sat down on the bed, Yuugi looking up at him as if he was
welcoming an old friend back. Mahaado carefully arranged his flowing
robes, ironing out the folds.
“The
Master of Shadows,” Jounouchi repeated. “What fun,
he’s a classmate of mine.”
“Bakura
of Darkness is not your classmate. What you saw was the parasite in his
body, the entity leeching off his energy and strength. Without his
Host, Bakura of Darkness is nothing.”
“He
said something about Master Host…he and that other creepy
guy.”
“Other
creepy guy? Jounouchi, you should go to the
police…”
“Police?”
Jounouchi repeated, his voice shrill. “Do you really think
they’d believe me?”
Mahaado shook
his head. “There is no force able to stop Bakura of Darkness
but the Pharaoh,” he said. “It was his fate to meet
him and defeat him.”
“The
Pharaoh…the Puzzle dude?”
“Please
refer to him as…well, it does not matter anymore.”
Mahaado folded his hands. "Bakura of Darkness has manifested himself,
along with Malik of Darkness. I had hoped there was more time, but fate
has turned itself against this world. I was able to save you from both,
Jounouchi, by summoning my spirit monster - but soon enough, even my
strongest magic will not be able to do anything against the darkness
those two will bring onto this world.”
“Mahaado,”
Yuugi said, voice pleading. “There must be something we can
do. I called the school janitor, and he told me he’d never
found something as the missing puzzle piece during his cleaning of the
swimming pool, but there’s someone else who would.”
“And
who would that be?”
Yuugi turned
red, lowering his head. “Ushio.”
As Jounouchi
visibly swallowed and shifted nervously around on his seat, Mahaado
quirked his eyebrow.
“Who
is this Ushio? He seems to provoke a rather…stressful
reaction.”
“Ushio
is one of the hall monitors at school,” Jounouchi explained,
feeling sick to his stomach. “He makes all the rules, and
even the teachers are too afraid to stand up against him.”
“And
how exactly would he be the one knowing about the missing piece of the
Puzzle?”
“He
knows about everything that’s going around school,”
Jounouchi muttered. “He’s a veritable
tyrant.”
“I…I could simply call him and ask if he’d ever seen something like the missing piece,”
Yuugi offered,
though his voice lacked any enthusiasm. Jounouchi shivered, not only
from the thought of Ushio. Otogi dying, being killed in front of him,
his panicked sister…he would never be able to shake these
images for the rest of his life.
“What
the hell is going on…” he whispered.
“Just what the hell is going on?”
“This
world is coming to an end,” Mahaado answered after a few
minutes of silence. “The forces of Shadow are already at
work, and there is no counterbalance to their power. You alone are not
able to defeat it. We need the Pharaoh, only he is capable of stopping
them.”
“Isn’t
there any other way to…call him?” Yuugi asked.
“No,
his soul is trapped within the Sennen Puzzle, and only solving the
Puzzle will release it to join with yours, Prince,” Mahaado
said. “I am very sorry. This timeline is too greatly
disrupted to be a part of the Great Timeline anymore. It cannot be
restored.”
“Now
wait a minute,” Jounouchi hissed. “That
can’t be all my fault! Just because of such a little puzzle
piece?”
“There
are many forces at work,” Mahaado answered him calmly.
“You eliminated the force that was supposed to counterattack
it, and yes, simply because of such a little puzzle piece. If you had
never thrown it away, Prince had been able to solve the Puzzle, thus
releasing the Pharaoh’s soul.”
“Wait,
wait,” Yuugi said. “What if I call Ushio now and
ask him about it? If he has the missing piece and I complete the Puzzle
still?”
“It
is too late,” Mahaado gravely spoke. “Malik of
Darkness already arrived. He is another key figure in the battle that
should have awaited the Pharaoh - but with him missing, the darkness
inside Malik Ishtar has become his dominant personality, just like
Bakura.”
“You
mean…there are more of these Master Host things?”
The tall man
pursed his lips, a momentary look of pity on his face, before he
resumed talking.
“It
is too complicated to explain right now, and it defeats the purpose.
With the death of Pegasus J. Crawford, Duelist Kingdom never came to
pass, and now the Battle City tournament will never be organized,
because the preceding events never took place.”
“Duelist
Kingdom…tournament…I don’t
understand…”
“Prince,
you would have understood if the events had unfolded in the right
chronology,” Mahaado said and stood up from the bed.
“There is no point in explaining now. Like I said before,
this timeline is too far disrupted to be restored. I am sorry. There is
nothing I can do for you now.”
“Master,”
said a soft voice close to the door.
“I
know, Apprentice.”
“Where
are you going to?” Jounouchi shot up from his seat as Mahaado
turned to leave. The door widened, and Shizuka entered, holding
Mana’s hand.
“Onii-chan,”
she whispered. She looked calmed down and he closed the distance
between them, taking his sister into his arms. She’d been in
the shower; her hair was still damp, and she wore a different dress
than before. Her cheeks were a little rosy and she trembled a little.
“Sit
down,” Jounouchi coaxed her, and she meekly sat down, her
eyes staring at Yuugi, whose reddened cheeks seem to color even more.
He didn’t know about her disability and thought she was
simply staring at him, averting his head a little.
Mana had taken
Mahaado’s side, standing on his right, compassion on her
face. Her eyes ware far too old for a girl looking this young; had she
seen more worlds end like this? It just simply couldn’t end
like this…
“Where
are you going to?” Jounouchi asked again, voice less
demanding. Shizuka tightened her grip on his arm.
“There
is nothing we can do,” Mahaado answered him. “We
leave. We have other timelines to restore - timelines who do have a
chance to fit into the Great Timeline. This is hopeless.”
“You
can’t leave like this, please,” Shizuka suddenly
spoke up, her voice pleading. Jounouchi was surprised by her words -
judging from the way she spoke, she knew everything. He assumed Mana
had told her, and his guilt almost ate him up alive. It all had started
with him taking that piece of the Puzzle away…
“I
am very sorry,” Mahaado repeated. “You all have my
deepest sympathies, but that is not much of a consolation. This world
is doomed.”
“You
have magic powers,” Shizuka insisted. “You both
travel through worlds and timelines, you see what
happens…”
“Yes,”
Jounouchi said. “Yes, you travel through timelines! Take us
with you!”
“It
does not work that way,” Mahaado refused. “We
cannot bring you to another world. Not only can I not provide enough
magic to open a portal to you all, we’d also bring foreign
elements in another timeline, thereby distorting events and causing
damage. We are here to repair and restore, not to shift around elements
and endanger other timelines.”
“Please,
take at least my sister with you,” Jounouchi said. He
couldn’t care less about himself. He wanted to make up for
the guilt eating at him, gnawing at his heart and soul.
If Shizuka is safe, not everything is lost.
“I
am sorry. Even though your sister does not contribute to the timeline,
bringing her into another timeline would set events off that could have
unforeseen consequences. I am not going to take that risk.”
“What…I
don’t contribute to the timeline?” Shizuka looked
confused and hurt for a moment. “But
onii-chan…”
“Are
you telling me my sister is expendable?” Jounouchi all but
yelled. Mahaado narrowed his eyes, this time looking impatient.
“You
are all expendable,” he said, raising his
voice. “The Puzzle came to Domino as it was supposed to. That
means that all the events in Ancient Egypt, where the
Pharaoh’s soul had to be sealed into the Item, have taken
place according to the Great Timeline. It got disrupted in Domino,
right here, when the Puzzle was not completed. Now that the
Pharaoh’s soul has not been released, he is unable to protect
you from what is to come. His task was to save this world from darkness
and destruction. Even if you were able to complete the Puzzle now, you
would be too late.”
“It’s
never too late!” Yuugi protested. “Please, we can
do something to make it stop!”
“This
world is doomed,” Mahaado repeated. “The process
cannot be reversed. I bid you farewell. We cannot uphold our presence
that much longer.”
“What
is going to happen next?” Shizuka said, her voice wavering.
Mana looked up at her Master as well, her eyes betraying that she
already knew the answer.
“I
will not let this world fall to darkness,” Mahaado replied.
“I will end this timeline before the forces of the shadows
will obtain full power.”
“Murderer,”
Jounouchi hissed.
“Onii-chan…is
he going to…?”
“As
little consolation as it is…I know how you feel.”
Mahaado didn’t elaborate, but nodded at Jounouchi.
“You will know no pain or despair.”
“Wow,
great!” Jounouchi yelled after him as the magician went
through the door, not even waiting for Mana. The girl looked at Yuugi
and then made a curtsy for him. She was out of the room before anyone
of them could say a thing. Shizuka turned her head towards Jounouchi,
her lips parted in an unasked question.
“They
just leave like that,” he said, baffled. Yuugi slid off of
his bed, putting on his house slippers. “What are you
going to do?”
“We
can try to find the missing piece of the Puzzle,” Yuugi said,
frowning. His face was set in determination. “I’ll
call Ushio right now. You just wait here.”
“Heh,
as if we have somewhere to go to,” Jounouchi replied. He
moved his hand up to brush a few wayward strands out of
Shizuka’s hair.
“What
about kaa-san and tou-san…”
“If
this timeline truly ends…”
“Onii-chan…”
“Hm?”
Again that
unasked question, and he knew what she wanted to ask but
didn’t say out loud. Why the fucking hell did you
throw that piece away?
He knew why she didn’t ask it out loud. She already knew that
he didn’t have an answer to it, and any answer would be a
moot point anyway.
No matter how
late it was, almost close to midnight, Yuugi had insisted he could do
this alone. “You and your sister have been through too much
already,” he’d said when Jounouchi overheard him
talking to Ushio on the phone. Apparently the hall monitor had seen the
missing piece of the Puzzle - more so, he had it into his
possession, and no, he didn’t think it was strange
that Yuugi was all but desperate to come see it, even at this time of
night.
“I
don’t want you to go alone,” Jounouchi had
insisted. He knew he was too late in making up for everything
he’d done, but he didn’t want to watch idly how
this world was coming to an end, and how even more people were going to
end up hurt because of him. He asked Yuugi’s permission to
call his friend Honda, and Shizuka had insisted on going with him.
“We don’t know how much more time we
have,” she said. “I don’t want to be
another second away from you, onii-chan.”
As they were
on their way to Ushio’s house, Honda was completely brought
up-to-date on the situation, balling his fists as he heard about Otogi.
“Damn!
These guys deserve to be punished, the murderers!”
“They
will be,” Yuugi answered. “When Mahaado ends this
timeline, they will cease to exist too.”
“How
can you be so calm about this?” Honda exclaimed.
“There’s
nothing more we can do but to complete the Puzzle and see what
happens,” Yuugi said, pointing at the object dangling from a
rope around his neck. “Mahaado was quite adamant about it
being too late, but maybe we can reverse the event before…it
really is too late. I’m sure that when the Puzzle is
completed, we have more chance of succeeding.”
“Hm,”
was all that Honda said. He was holding Shizuka’s hand while
she held onto Jounouchi’s. He didn’t know where her
cane was and he assumed that she had lost it during their confrontation
with Bakura and Malik. As long as he warned her in time for any
irregularities on the pavement, she went along with them just fine,
even though fatigue showed on her face. It all didn’t matter
much anymore. It all didn’t matter much anymore.
Jounouchi didn’t even try anymore to squelch his feelings of
guilt and misery.
“Damn
that Ushio,” Honda shivered. He and Jounouchi had bumped into
the immensely tall hall monitor before, and barely survived to tell
about it. The guy was a freak; everybody knew he carried a knife around
because of all the enemies he’d made, even though no one
dared to stand up against him.
“I
wonder why he doesn’t mind seeing us,” Jounouchi
muttered. “He won’t be giving us the piece back
from the goodness of his heart.”
“Maybe
if he hears our story, he’ll give it to us,” Yuugi
said good-naturedly. Jounouchi would have howled with laughter before
at this kind of comment, but for some reason Yuugi’s optimism
was comforting.
“Yeah,
maybe he will,” he even said and fell silent as they
approached the building where Ushio was living. Yuugi rang the bell,
and the door to the building was buzzed open.
“Fourth
floor,” he said and they used the elevator for the way up,
Shizuka tucked in between Honda and Jounouchi, leaning on the latter.
The building
was quite neat and well-maintained, and Yuugi pushed the door open to
the large hallway. Ushio was waiting for them already, lifting up his
hand at the door of his apartment.
“Way
too friendly,” Jounouchi whispered before they reached Ushio,
who was wearing a wide grin. Honda gritted his teeth. If he hated
something, it was being helpless, or even more, dependent - Ushio knew
exactly that he held a major advantage and the best stakes of the
negotiations.
“Come
in, come in,” he practically sing-songed. “Yuugi,
so good to see you. It was a sad day when you left the school. Bullies
are such a big problem! But oh - what do I see here? You are with
your bullies? Tsk, tsk!”
“Ushio-san,
please,” Yuugi asked. “We’ve come here to
see the piece of the Puzzle…do you have it,
please?”
“Of
course I do!” Ushio’s eyes traveled over Shizuka,
not understanding why the girl was here, but dismissed her from his
thoughts the next second. “I always oversee the cleaning of
the school’s swimming pool. You never know how lazy those
pool boys are until you see them
‘work’…and I can’t have my
fellow students swim around in an unhygienic pool now, can I?”
“Ushio-san…”
Yuugi said again.
“My
my…all right, here you are.” Ushio opened his
large left hand, showing the center piece of the Sennen Puzzle, the
all-too-familiar eye showing up front. Yuugi clasped his hands
together, heaving a loud sigh of relief. Then, he reached for the
piece…to which Ushio immediately closed his hand and
withdrew it, out of Yuugi’s reach.
“Two
hundred thousand yen.”
“Wh…what?”
“Two
hundred thousand yen.” Ushio showed a cunning grin.
“Nothing in life comes for free, little Yuugi. I’ve
done such a good job of watching after this priceless piece. I knew
someone would come for it sooner or later, so I took great care of it.
You wouldn’t want my efforts go without a reward, now do
you?”
“Ushio-san,
it’s important we have the piece now! You can get your money
later!” Yuugi pleaded.
“It’s
important, Ushio! The end of the world depends on it!”
Jounouchi blurted out.
“Ushio-san,
please!” Shizuka followed suit.
He bursted out
laughing. “Oh, but this is great! This is excellent!”
The next second, he lashed out, punching Yuugi square in the stomach.
“What kind of fool do you think I am? I want to see the money
first!”
“Bastard!”
Jounouchi saw Yuugi flying through the living room, the force of the
punch throwing him a meter away, grunting in pain.
Honda balled
his fists. “That piece is important, man! We’ll
bring you your money later!”
“Two
hundred thousand yen, and not a moment sooner,” Ushio barked.
“You
don’t understand - there’s no time
for that! Give up the piece!” Jounouchi lunged for Ushio,
hands outstretched to grab the other’s hand.
“Jounouchi-kun!”
Yuugi coughed, trying to get up again. Honda installed Shizuka in a
chair first before following his friend, attacking the hall monitor
with both his fists balled.
They proved to
be hardly a match, and it was purely their willpower to attack Ushio
again and again, as the other used his sheer physical force to throw
them away from him, hitting and punching. Yuugi still lied on the
floor, recovering from the earlier blows. He hated how powerless he
was, unable to do anything against Ushio’s strength, and his
eyes fell on the incomplete Puzzle. This world is doomed. As
if Mahaado was standing next to him and repeating it again. It
can’t be! It really can’t be…
Jounouchi hung
on Ushio’s arm, mustering up all his courage and strength and
bit him on the hand, teeth sinking in the flesh. As he cried out in
pain, the hall monitor opened his hand, and Jounouchi pried the golden
piece from his fingers, chucking it towards Yuugi.
“Here!
Catch!”
Enraged, Ushio
threw him to the floor, sending Honda in a heap next to him, using both
his feet and hands to beat them mercilessly. Shizuka, unable to do
anything, called for her brother and for Honda, panicked.
Yuugi
didn’t catch the piece, but it was thrown in his direction
and it fell to the floor in front of him. Groaning from the pain, Yuugi
dragged himself over the floor to grab the piece, his fingers closing
around it.
“Please.
Please!” He thought to himself as he
pressed it in the Puzzle, hearing a loud ‘click’.
A bright light
emitted and he closed his eyes, a wave of nausea engulfing him, his
head seeming to split in two, pain and more pain, and he
wasn’t himself anymore, he saw darkness and light and he felt
anger and comfort at the same time and then there was nothing more.
When Yuugi
opened his eyes again, he saw Ushio lying on the floor, his hands
furiously rummaging through a bag of garbage, throwing everything
around himself. He was in the greatest ecstasy as Yuugi had ever seen
someone before; he kept yelling “Money! This is great!
There’s money everywhere!”
“Ushio-san?”
“Don’t
bother, Yuugi,” Jounouchi said. He looked horrible, he knew
it - his eyes were half closed, his cheek was swollen, and he tasted
blood in his mouth. Honda didn’t look any better, but he had
a content grin on his face as he looked at the hall monitor reduced to
child-like glee while he dug in the trash.
“What…what
happened?” Yuugi finally got up from the floor, blinking a
few times. He really couldn’t recall the last few minutes,
and Ushio had been his brutal, beating self before he blacked out.
“We
saw the Pharaoh,” Jounouchi said while he forced himself to
get back on his feet as well, using Honda as support before offering
him a helping hand. “He played a game with dear Ushio over
there. A batsu game, and Ushio lost. He was
punished.”
“Eh?
You saw…” Yuugi looked down at his completed
Puzzle and suddenly smiled. “So Mahaado was right!”
“Right
all the way,” Honda said, turning around to lift Shizuka up
and wrapped and arm around her as she clung to Jounouchi, keeping the
girl comfortably close in-between the two of them.
Chapter 11 | Chapter 13