Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Forgiveness ❯ Ease ( Chapter 16 )

Disclaimer: If I owned Yu-gi-oh, there would be shonen-ai at least!

I am writing till 1. Lets see how much I get done. I will finish this at least.

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Tea finally broke the silence. "What is he lying to you about?" She remembered. She remembered… Yami saving her from the convict, the fake psychic, Shadi, the bomber (when she'd been in love with that mysterious presence that filled her best friend), that rapist…

She didn't really know what to think about any of this. But… Yugi, her best friend, not giving someone a second chance… it wasn't like him. It was wrong. He wasn't acting like himself.

The innocent was forcing himself to turn into a fanatic. And part of him was resisting, and it was tearing him apart.

She had to do something.

"He…" Yugi would tell her, even if he wouldn't tell anyone else. "He… when he came to let me take over, after he mur…" HE took a deep breath. "Killed Pegasus, he kissed me. Said he'd killed him because he loved me, to protect me. Said he'd let me destroy the puzzle, so I wouldn't have to be afraid of him taking me over again, to kill you. That's why…" Yugi took another deep breath. Was…. Was he fighting back tears? "That's why I wouldn't let him take over to duel you, Mai. Because, in the duel with Kaiba… he'd been willing to let Seto jump off a battlement, rather than lose. And I stopped him, but…"

Yugi took another deep breath. "He wasn't sorry. Not at all. I could tell. He only regretted losing. He didn't care that he had almost let Seto die. I was afraid… if he could do that to Seto, what about you, Mai? Or you, Joey? Or anyone I faced in the finals? I knew… he had magic. What if he started to lose against one of you, and decided to stop your heart? What if he didn't let me take over again? What if I'd only been able to stop him that last time because he was shocked I wouldn't obey him. He was shocked. Shocked I stopped him. He…" Yugi started to laugh, quietly. "He didn't understand. Didn't understand that it was wrong, what he wanted to do. He thought it was the right decision."

"I was so scared then, of what was inside of me. I… I'd thought he was kind, my protector, but so cold-blooded a killer… what if he really was a demon? What had happened to those who threatened me before? I never heard from them again, after he took over, except Seto and Mokuba, and Ushio… he drove Ushio insane."

They remembered.

Yugi cowering in the aftermath of the battle. Gasping out, terrified, how afraid he was of the spirit inside of him, how it had been willing to kill Kaiba.

How their brave little buddy had refused to duel again.

Tea remembered ferociously defending her best friend against Kaiba, using bitter words but barely paying attention to what fell from her lips. Screw Kaiba. What was important was Yugi, afraid, broken.

Had she done the right thing, in crying out to Yugi to spare Kaiba? But she had been right. It wasn't him doing it. It was something he should never do.

But did that matter, when the result was this?

In those moments, she'd come dangerously close to wishing she'd stayed silent, and let Kaiba go off the edge.

He wasn't worth this pain in her friend's heart.

Joey remembered hauling Yugi in front of the door to the castle, enraged. Just enraged. How could… Yugi was so close! Just a few feet away, just through those doors, Yugi had had the chance to save his grandfather, like Joey knew inside he couldn't save Serenity.

Everyone had always known he was worthless. His father, his teachers… his mom had left him behind, hadn't she? Serenity hadn't made very much effort to come visit him, either. He hadn't seen her in years. And then she only sent that tape.

But Yugi… Yugi could do this. And it was wrong. Wrong to see him waste it, like that complete moron Kaiba was wasting what he had, torturing his brother with Death-T, then letting him get kidnapped. They both, Kaiba and Yugi, had come so close, closer than he would ever be.

And they were throwing it away, and he couldn't find the words to get through to them that they were making the biggest mistake of their lives, before it was too late.

And God Damn it, but it made him so angry he wanted to scream at the sky…

And Tristan remembered what Bakura had said, how Yugi had another spirit. Like his.

Like Bakura's.

He remembered the other Bakura.

Remembered death and sadistic laughter and darkness and wondered.

Wondered what this was all about.

What was this other Yugi? He'd thought he was all right, a decent guy, he'd helped them out, but…

Why?

Why help out them? They were nothing special. Well… except Yugi. Everyone could tell Yugi was special.

But the rest of them? The phrase, `puny mortals,' came to mind.

Yugi, refusing to duel, to give someone another chance… it was completely unlike him. A complete one-eighty.

People don't do things they don't normally do, that are counter to all their beliefs, without damn good reason.

Mai remembered Joey shaking Yugi. Herself ridiculing Yugi for taking one loss so hard, but knowing as soon as she said it that that wasn't it. Not it at all.

But… trying to break him out of it. Because it was wrong. The little guy… he shouldn't be this way.

And everyone defending him like that…

She had had an idea, that there was something major going on. And now…

Yugi… he'd been nice to her, after she'd been a vindictive bitch to Joey. He'd wanted to spare Kaiba, and from the rumors she'd heard about how he'd acquired those Blue-Eyes White Dragons…

Yami had given her that honorable duel she'd wanted. He couldn't… he couldn't be all bad.

Right?

He'd seemed to regret… what he'd done, in the game just now.

Yugi had been so shell-shocked. So scared. So determined to not let… what had ended up happening, happen.

So… it looked like Yugi was a good judge of character. Yami had killed, like Yugi had been afraid he would.

"He… he drove Ushio insane, just for threatening me. I… I visit him, sometimes. He… he seems happy. So… I forgave him." Yugi was hiccupping now. "When Seto stopped me… I wanted to be argued out of it. I wanted to forgive him. Like I wanted to forgive him for almost killing Seto. When… at what point do I stop forgiving? I want to forgive him. I… I just want him back! You can't know what it's like, you can't! It's like, like… someone cut away the left side of my body, I try to take a step and I fall over. He… he became part of me. Oh god, I can't live like this! I ache…"

He was straight-out crying now, his head hanging down. Tea opened her arms and he fell into them. She rubbed circles on his back soothingly.

"What did he do to me? Why do I need him like this? I crave him, I ache…" He was crying so hard he couldn't speak for a while.

Finally, "I… I knew, if I waited… I wouldn't be able to get up the will to destroy him. Wouldn't be able to stop myself from doing anything, forgiving anything, just to get him back. So… when Seto brought the Puzzle to school… I saw him, apart from me for only the second time. The first time, he kissed me. The second time, I wanted to kiss him. And he pled and I just wanted him back… but I wasn't going to give in. I wasn't going to be the slave to a murderer for the rest of my life. So… I was going to smash it. But… he told Kaiba not to hand it over. And… I knew. He'd said he was going to let me end it, be free. But Seto stopped it. And… it might have just been gratitude. But now… he had been lying. He wasn't willing to let me be free, wanted to survive and wait for me to break…"

Tea pried Yugi's fingers away from his palms. His nails had dug in so hard they had drawn blood. He hadn't even noticed.

"And… after I left… he kissed Seto. He must have… seduced him, like he tried to do to me. And that's when I came to you guys, and asked you to help me get the puzzle. I knew then… he was just using him to survive. Like he had been using me. All this time…" Sobbing. "Just… just using me. And I know this, and I still… I still want to forgive him. I want to do whatever it takes, just to get him back… he's controlling me. He must be. That… that bastard…"

Yugi was on his knees now, hugging himself and rocking back and forth.

"I… I like Seto. I'm going nuts, I know it. I know I'll get better if I just give in and let him take me over again, but I won't…. I won't just be used. I thought he really cared! Why…" He collapsed, his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking so hard… "I don't want Seto to end up like me, I'll die if Yami does, I know it! I want to free him, so he can survive this!"

Joey and Tea were holding him, as Mai watched in horror and Tristan moved forward to join them.

"And now… being around him, not able to focus on destroying him… him pretending to want to help Seto, and maybe he did want to help him, like he helped me all those times, but why? Was it just that you needed a body?!" Yugi screamed at the sky. "You beg, like you don't know that if you ordered, if you told me that everything would be fine, that I'd crack, just do whatever you want again?! You… you bastard. You murdering bastard. And I can't fight you. I can't fight you anymore. If you touch me I'll break, I'll give in and you'll win, like you always win, except once to Pegasus, and is that why you killed him, and once because of me, and is all this your revenge?"

Everyone was touching him now, at least holding him by the shoulder. It seemed… that he was falling apart, falling away, and needed some sort of anchor, something to hold him here…

"Are you making me go through this to punish me for disobeying you, and entrapping Seto to punish him for defying you, fighting you, so many times? Tell me!" He screamed at the roof. "Tell me! Let me know, beyond a shadow of a doubt! Don't torture me, don't let me torture myself anymore, wanting to forgive you, wanting to find some excuse to forgive you what you're doing and have done to me and Seto and Pegasus and Ushio and everyone else who's ever fought you!" He pounded his fists on the floor and screamed and screamed and sobbed and sobbed and whimpered, finally. His cries of pain not stopping, but simply becoming inaudible as everyone stared in horror and compassion and Anzu held his face and tried to speak, everyone tried finally to get through to him but he wasn't there, he was pounding on the wall where a door marked with the eye that was on the Puzzle had been.

And finally he looked up, eyes blank, and Joey and Anzu and everyone walked him home, and his Grandpa put him to bed, but he couldn't sleep, he just lay in bed waiting for tomorrow, when he would go to school and he didn't know what he'd do.

Smash the puzzle and die and free Seto?

Or give in, just give in and quit fighting and maybe Yami would punish him for disobeying, but the ache would stop, and maybe he could pretend Yami really did love him.

It would be easy.

So, so easy.

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Get that? This is why Yugi is so convinced that Yami is evil. Remember how Yami is feeling bad because of not being connected to his other half? Well, he had it easy because he knows what's going on and he had Seto and winning back Yugi to focus on. And he wanted to die to get Yugi to quit hating him, and get the torment to stop.

Yugi only knows that he's feeling awful because Yami isn't there. And, given that he doesn't know about the bond, and the other-half thing, the only logical explanation is that this torment is happening because of something Yami did to him. For all he knows, Yami is psychologically torturing him to get him to submit. And, Yugi's unconscious just wants to be complete, and is telling the Yugi-conscious to just give in and get Yami back before he goes nuts. So there is an urge to submit, which is more evidence of tampering.

So, we have very, very strong circumstantial evidence here, that Yami is a complete bastard who is willing to do horrible things to Yugi. And Yugi is far enough gone he can't differentiate between "Hey, wait a minute, there could be another explanation/ let's give people a second chance." Which is a natural part of his personality, and "Just find some excuse to give in!" Which in his view is basically enslavement brainwashing.

God, I feel awful torturing him like this.

My new motto: Don't torture characters, torture plotbunnies!