Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Do You Dream of Me? ❯ Chapter 59

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-gi-oh.

 

This gift-chapter is for KagomeGirl021, who wrote the 2500th review I have on ff . net. She requested a chapter with Jou learning about duel monsters and magic from Yugi and Yami.

 

For more of that, check out Angel's Nocturne's official sequel to DYDOM, Do You Dream of Me?: Duelist.

 

I hope everyone enjoys what will probably be the second-to-last chapter of DYDOM. There should be another kiriban coming up.

 

-

 

Thinking about Death-T made him so mad. He tried not to hold it against Kaiba, the Kaiba they knew now wasn't the same guy that had done it. Not that Kaiba Seto was Mister Friendly Sunshine and Cute Fluffy Animals now. That would have been creepy, Yami messing with somebody's head like that. That would have made him reconsider, maybe even resurrect his old suspicions about him.

 

Besides that, well, he'd seen monsters other times. Yugi loved that Kuriboh and had summoned a few others to show them. That had been cool and all, but Jou had been put off the game.

 

Yami's magic was all about games. A real game about real creatures? That was playing with fire. What would the people in America that Sugoroku talked about, who wanted to ban the game, say to that? They'd think they were right.

 

Yugi had wanted him to pick up the game, but well…

 

Those dragons, though… Kaiba's dragons, really, though Sugoroku had one. Before it got ripped up. And man Jou felt sorry for him, because those dragons were… they'd look cooler in black, though. Yeah.

 

And he'd felt alive during Death-T, during the thing where Bakura put their souls in dolls. Like he had during fights, back in the old days.

 

He wasn't as insane about it as Kaiba, but he did love to compete. He just didn't mind someone else being tougher than him. It was good to have someone at your back to handle the things you couldn't. Sparring with his old buddy… but they weren't buddies anymore.

 

Yugi had Yami, but with the Items and everything… so he'd bought a few cards from Sugoroku. You were connected to your cards, so Jou tried to pick out the ones that would fight for him. Warriors. The player guarded their monsters, the monsters guarded him, that was good. Warriors would know how it worked, wouldn't be afraid in a fight. Veterans. There was one card, the Flame Swordsman, that he just knew had to go in his deck.

 

He didn't like traps. People should fight like men. And magic… warriors were what he felt, what he was. Magic was part of their lives now, though. Leaving it behind would mean leaving behind Yugi. That just wasn't an option.

 

Puzzle thing had the power of friendship, Yugi had told them once. He didn't want to think that maybe this was fake. He'd started being buddies with Yugi when the Puzzle was completed.

 

He'd have been worried about Yami before then, but the Puzzle couldn't do anything in pieces, right? And he'd wanted to help Yugi be a man even before then. He'd brought the piece back for him. When he'd found out about Yami he'd almost regretted it, but it had turned out okay. At least he hoped it would turn out okay.

 

Yugi said Yami said Jou was a true gamer, whatever that meant. Sure, he loved games, even if he hadn't been as nuts about them as Yugi. He'd spent money he could ill afford on arcade games. Missed a lot of lunches.

 

But magic? Sure, Yami had done some cool stuff, but magic had turned the professor into a zombie. All that stuff Shadi had done, and Bakura too.

 

That grated on him, that he'd been helpless. Sure, both times he had fought, but he hadn't been able to really do anything. If it weren't for Yami he would have been helpless.

 

He hated being helpless. He was helpless to help Shizuka, and man he hated it.

 

There was… healing magic, right? Though he doubted he'd have that. Fighting magic, yeah. He could take punches, he didn't need that power. Though Yami had helped heal him before.

 

Recently, Yugi had been talking about training him. In magic and stuff. Jou had sidestepped the suggestions, not really saying yes or not to it.

 

He was Jou. Just ordinary Jounouchi Katsuya. A punk brawler. He wasn't some grey-bearded wizard or anything. He couldn't memorize to save his life, so spells? Still, the idea had caught his imagination.

 

Power. Control. He'd always had to fight to control his life. Power corrupted, and he didn't want to end up like Kaiba or the guy who had once been his best friend, but he could envision himself as someone like Yami.

 

Laying down a card, challenging someone to a game, certain of victory but still in for a wild fight. Exciting. Fighting for a purpose, too, to protect Yugi. That Zorc thing was scary. Weren't big evil things usually after the world? So he'd be protecting his sister.

 

Jounouchi Katsuya, hero. He shuffled his deck idly, the paper feeling somehow right in his hands.

 

Magic, though… Yami was great, Seth was probably great, he wasn't going to trust so soon, but Bakura, the Items and Zorc were just plain evil. Well, Bakura had been messed with in the head. He should give him a chance since Kaiba was getting one.

 

Jou knew somehow that if he did this he would be strong. Now he knew, he could almost reach out and taste it. A trickster power with a skein of laughter woven through it, luck and victory all his for the taking. Quick and strong.

 

Promising sweetness if he used it. He'd flipped a coin, and gotten twenty-five heads until he stopped and put it away. He wasn't sure he was up to winning the lottery yet, but if he took Yugi and Yami up on their offer of training, then he might. Yugi had told him about professional duelists. That would be a wonderful way to spend his life. Winning the game show money had been easy.

 

He knew practically nothing about the game, though. He'd held back because he didn't want anything to happen.

 

Magic was dangerous.

 

Jou had become a dangerous person young. He'd almost killed a guy, one of his first few fights, before he'd learned how to do it right. To restrain the rage and the desire for victory.

 

He was dangerous right now.

 

Or was he rationalizing the fact he wanted to be trained not to know how to restrain this power but to use it?

 

Yugi. He'd talk to Yugi tomorrow, after school.

 

It ended up being after games, after the others left to do homework.

 

“That's great, Jou!” Yugi smiled at him. “It'll be great to have someone to practice with! You can start playing duel monsters, Anzu's learning too.”

 

“Not just Duel Monsters, Yugi. I want to learn about the kind of stuff Yami does.” He didn't quite want to say magic.

 

“This kind of stuff?” Yugi raised his hand and it glowed.

 

“Cool. Can I do that?”

 

“It's really easy for me because I'm light. You're chaos.” Yugi shook his head. “I could do it right away but you'd have to learn for a while. You might create radiation instead of visible light by mistake, or all sorts of things, Yami says.” Yugi frowned and told Yami to get out here, he wasn't going to pass on messages.

 

Jou wondered when someone appearing out of nowhere had become so normal. “Hi, Yami.”

 

Yami bowed slightly. “Hello, Jou.”

 

“Don't be so formal. You were like a Pharaoh, and I'm just a punk.”

 

“You are Yugi's friend.” And that was that. “Mine as well.”

 

“Yeah.” Jou smiled. “So? Chaos doesn't sound good.”

 

“It is,” Yami frowned. “The uncertainty principle? I need to learn more about modern physics.”

 

Yugi groaned. “We're going to the library again?”

 

“I know how to face chaos magic, not how to train it. So we must see what we can learn to help him.”

 

“Hey, don't go to all that trouble for me.”

 

“You're our friend, Jou.”

 

“Chaos magic is closely related to the magic of seers. Chaos mages can influence the future, and make predictions, sense patterns… Feel the right thing to do.”

 

“Hey, maybe I should try guessing all the answers on my next test.” Jou grinned.

 

“It can't hurt,” Yugi told him impishly.

 

“Hey, you need to bring your grades up too. You're the genius here, not me.”

 

“Yami's making me study.”

 

“It is for your future.”

 

Yugi shrugged. That was if they had a future. He didn't care about anything but Yami and his friends.

 

“Anyway, what should I be doing?”

 

“You could train by making predictions and trying to make them come true. If an opponent's will is weaker than yours, or they make decisions on impulse, you can even predict what moves they will make before they consciously decide,” Yami suggested.

 

“I'm guessing that wouldn't work on you?”

 

“No. But it would work on Yugi until he learns how to not be influenced. You should duel me, and often, so you do not come to rely on your abilities. Kaiba would also be immune.”

 

“Kaiba? Figures. And he's learning magic too, right?”

 

“His strength is in his emotions. He feels so deeply that his heart gives him much power to draw on, though he is still weaker than Yugi. He will be a stronger opponent now his heart is not corrupted.” Yami smiled at the thought. “When Seth has trained him, they will duel me. I look forward to facing them with Yugi.”

 

“That'll be something to see all right.” Jou nodded. “Watching you duel Seth was really impressive, even if I didn't understand what you guys were doing, really.”

 

“The rules are not too complicated, though there are secret tricks used when experts play that are not written on the cards,” Yami told him. “Those you will have to study, though many are common sense.”

 

“They're really cool,” Yugi assured him.

 

“Great. More studying. So okay, I should practice.” Control his opponents, control the future? He grinned.

 

Yami's deck appeared in his hand and he asked, “What will I draw?”

 

“Kuriboh.” That was easy to guess. The cards' feelings mattered and the little guy really loved Yami and Yugi.

 

Yami drew and showed him the card. “That doesn't really count,” Jou told him. “It was an educated guess. An' no cracks about me not being educated.”

 

“I was not influencing the deck. That made the odds one in forty. Your power, not mine.” Yami showed his approval. “The other… simple thing to do with chaos magic is to shield.”

 

“Huh? Aren't shields solid?”

 

“A different kind of shield. Think of it as dodging randomly. Coupled with the ability to predict attacks, I was taught chaos mages were very difficult to cast spells on if they did not want those spells to be cast.”

 

“Bakura didn't have any problems.”

 

“Bakura is very experienced, and he was acting within a game. The game itself gave him power, and you are untrained.”

 

“Okay, not getting hit is good. How do I do it?”

 

“That I do not know.”

 

“Terrific.”

 

“But since it comes naturally to the power, the power may show you. One thing I can do is raise your power, so you can feel it and learn to call it.”

 

“Is that safe?”

 

“With me here. Do not do it on your own. In fact, I should do it now so you know what not to do.” Yami held out his hand.

 

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” Jou took it.

 

And laughed. This was it, this was what he had been afraid to bury himself in, because it would be so easy to become addicted. Power and confidence. Luck and good fortune, all his. He reached out, and there was Yami, shadows and protection. Safety. Yugi was light and joy, innocent power that also felt so warm. His friends.

 

He'd never felt so alive, not even in a fight. What would it be like to fight with this power? With friends beside him, in his cards and at his back.

 

Yami winced, Jou was holding on to his hand so tight. He should stop now, but he'd let it go another second, another… Jou was influencing him. He overshadowed Jou's power, suppressing it.

 

Jou let go of Yami's hand and took a deep breath. “Whoa.”

 

“Isn't it great?”

 

“Yeah, Yugi. Yeah.” Incredibly so.