Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Duelists of the Elemental Spirits ❯ Chapter 6: Birth of Light ( Chapter 6 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Suma Muto- Yami/Yugi
Amane, Taro, and Mana Bakura- Ryou/Tama
Yasu and Ammon Khalid- Bakura/Yume
Zahur and Liam, Ophelia, and Salim Ishtar- Malik/Ashling
Ryan and Matsu Ishtar- Mariku/Holly
Chizu and YukioKaiba- Seto/Serenity
Jono, Maiko, and Seth and Kevin Wheeler- Joey/Mai

Shiro: Apparently the chart has decided to stay, so who am I to argue with it?

Disclaimer: I still don't own Yu-Gi-Oh. Oh, I also don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!GX. I do own all OC's in this fanfiction. (and boy, are there alot of them!)

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“Salim, hurry!” Ophelia yells at her younger brother’s bedroom door. “We’re going to be late again if you don’t hurry!”

Today Ophelia’s sandy blonde hair has been tied back at the nape of her neck and she’s wearing the blue and pink uniform for Domino Elementary. For the first time she’s embracing her Egyptian heritage and so she now has kohl lining her eyes. She’s also wearing gold earrings that are shaped like ankhs and several gold wrist and arm bands. Her skin is also more tan than usual because she’s been spending time helping her Aunt Ishizu in the garden.

Salim cracks open the door to his bedroom and peers out with the most pathetic expression he can muster. “I don’t feel so good, Lia.”

Ophelia frowns and roughly shoves open the door. In a simple maneuver she keeps her brother from moving away and places her hand on his forehead. “You’re fine.” She tells him.

“Salim! Ophelia! It’s time to go!” Ashling yells from the door where she’s holding up the bus.

“Come on.” Ophelia growls. She grabs her younger brother’s arm and drags him down the hall, heading to the front door.

“But, Lia, I don’t want to- ow!” Salim cringes when Ophelia tightens her grip slight and pulls him quickly to the front door.

Seeing the look of pain on her youngest child’s face, Ashling makes Ophelia let go and go get on the bus. When she’s gone, Ashling pulls back Salim’s sleeve and her eyes widen when she catches sight of a bruise.

“Salim, what happened?” She demands.

Salim looks away. “I fell. That’s all. I fell and banged my wrist.”

Ashling frowns having noticed the way the bruise is shaped. ‘That’s not an I-fell-and-banged-my-wrist bruise. It was deliberate.’ She sighs and tugs off her blue wristband and hands it to him. “Here, wear this until it heals up.”

Salim takes the wristband and slips it on. Then he smiles gratefully at his mom. With a simple, “Thank you” and a hug, he’s gone off to get on the bus.

Ashing sighs heavily as she closes the door, the stress of the day already catching up with her. ‘It’s been a rough week… first Liam and Zahur go off to Duel Academy to seal a hole in the barrier, then Ophelia starts acting oddly, and now I find out that Salim’s being bullied at school- at a place where he’s suppose to be safe. If only I could do something…’ For a moment she entertains herself with the thought of sending Salim to school with one of the big cats she works with. ‘No… I’d probably make things worse.’ Ashling sighs once again and glances at the golden furred kitten who’s napping in a sunbeam pouring through a window. ‘I’m calling Malik. He should be at the museum by now.’

Salim silently steps off the bus, ignoring the laughing and happily chatting kids, and looks around worriedly. When he doesn’t see what he was dreading he relaxes visibly and starts heading toward the school building.

“Here’s our little buddy! Trying to sneak off, already.”

Salim’s blue eyes go wide and he shakes slightly as he turns around to face what haunts most of his nightmares. “Hi- Hiroji.” He stutters.

The dark brown haired boy smirks and grabs a hold of Salim. “How’s my favorite little punching bag?”

Salim’s heart skips a beat when he’s lifted off the ground and he tightly squeezes his eyes shut. ‘Somebody please help me! Please, anybody!’ He prays.

/Hold on, child of the light. I’m coming./

The next thing Salim knows, his entire body grows warm and pulses with some unknown energy. A bright light then shines from somewhere and he feels like he’s floating in the air before he hit’s the ground.

“SALIM!” A voice yells.

The dark haired and skinned boy opens his blue eyes and rolls over onto his stomach before getting up. His vision blurs at first, but then focuses on the approaching forms.

The first to reach Salim is his eight-year-old cousin Mana Bakura. She has shoulder length red hair with black highlights and has brown eyes. Like her name sake, she’s extremely cheerful and easily goofs up on the spells the original Mana is teaching her.

Next comes Taro Bakura and Yukio Kaiba, both of whom are ten-years-old and nearly inseparable.

Taro has the classic Bakura family white hair, but he has golden-blonde strands that run through it. He also has brown eyes.

Yukio has brown hair a shade lighter than his dad’s and has light brown eyes.

The last to arrive are Matsu Ishtar, Ophelia, and Kevin.

Matsu is Mariku and Holly’s only daughter and is twelve-years-old. She has sandy blonde hair with brown bangs framing her face and dark lilac eyes. She’s possibly the sanest of all the Larks.

Kevin has been mentioned before, but never described. He has bright red hair and emerald green eyes and looks nothing like anyone else in his family. Of course, he is adopted so it makes sense.

“What happened?” Salim quietly asks, glancing nervously around. ‘Where’d Hiroji go?’

“I was about to ask you that.” Ophelia tells him. “All I saw was a flash of white light and the next thing I know you’re on the ground.”

The others nod or make some noise of agreement. Then Mana gasps and grabs his arm, having sensed something there. She quickly tugs off his wristband and traces her finger over the symbol for ‘light’ that is now on his wrist.

“Salim’s ‘light’?” Matsu questions. “Who’d have guessed? All of us Ishtars could possibly be classified as insane.” She tilts her head sideways slightly. “Of course, out of all of us Salim is the best to be chosen for ‘light’. He’s the innocent one.”

“But… what does this mean?” Salim asks, tearfully. He has no idea what the heck is going on at this point. “How am I going to control this? I don’t want to hurt anyone!”

Taro smiles. “That’s easy, Salim. My mom and dad and your dad and Uncle Yugi and Uncle Malik can help you. We’ll all help you. As for what it means; it just means that you’re going to have some degree of control over light and will always be referred to as the pure one in the group.”

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Later that evening Ophelia rushes over to the Wheeler’s house so she can talk to Kevin about something. Ashling smiles when she notices the guitar in her daughter’s hand. She already has an idea about what the two are up to.

“Hey, where’s Ophelia?” Malik asks while he wraps his arms about Ashling’s waist from behind.

Ashling smiles. “She’s over at the Wheeler’s house talking to Kevin about something. She promised to be home by six.” She chuckles when Malik grumbles something under his breath. “What was that?”

“I don’t like her hanging out with him all the time.” Malik tells her.

Ashling turns around and kisses him on the cheek. “They’re only eleven, dear. We have a while before Ophelia will even be interested in dating. Besides, would you rather it be Kevin, who we’ve known since the Wheeler’s adopted him, or some boy who you’ve never met?” She leaves him with this thought while she goes off to start on dinner.

Malik sighs and runs a hand through his hair, idly making a note to trim his hair. ‘I hate it when she’s right.’

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Mokuba lets out a small sigh as he stares blankly at the ceiling. ‘Where did I go wrong? I had everything planned out! It was perfect! I was a gentleman and asked her opinions and everything!’ Now he heavily sighs, which causes the pencil he’s been balancing on his nose to fall to the floor with a clatter.

“Mokuba-san,” Frank says, stepping into the office. “do- is something wrong?”

“No. Everything. Is. Perfect.” The darker haired man allows his head to fall against his desk with a dull clunk. “What do you need, Frank-kun?”

Frank ignores the question, more worried about his boss than what they’ll be having for lunch. “I’m guessing your date didn’t go so well, huh? Just out of curiosity, where did you take her?”

Mokuba lifts his head off the desk and dully begins to tell Frank about where he took Rose. “… I don’t understand where I went wrong. Everything was perfect.”

Frank sighs. “There’s something you’ve got to understand about Rose. She has always felt uncomfortable when she’s at some fancy, expensive place. I’ve seen her turn away a lot of guys because they insist on treating her like royalty and doing absolutely everything for her. I’ve never really given any of the guys interested in her any advice before either.”

Mokuba looks at Frank in surprise. “So why are you telling me?”

“Because you’re a nice guy and I’ve seen how down-to-earth you can be.” Frank says. “You’re not afraid to work hard and you know when to give help and when not to. Just remember what I said before and you’ll be fine.”

Mokuba smiles gratefully. “Thanks, Frank-kun. Hey, do you think she’s like to go to the fair I’ve been hearing about? Her little sister could come with us.”

“I think she’d like that.”

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“I love Fridays!” Ryan shouts to the sky, making Chizu laugh and the others either sigh or chuckle.

If you having guessed by Ryan’s exclamation, it’s Friday evening. They’ve all just gotten out of Crowler’s class and couldn’t be happier. In fact, they’re planning a celebration for surviving their first week.

At this moment they’re walking in little groups and in those groups they’re discussing their plans for tonight. The groups are Ryan, Chizu, Seth, and Jono; Suma, Yasu, Zahur, and Maiko; and Amane, Ammon, and Liam.

“So Chizu, do you have it? Do you?” Ryan eagerly asks, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Please tell me you have it!”

Chizu grins. “Of course I have it. I love them just as much as you do!”

“Love what?” Jono and Seth ask at the same time.

“Not telling!” Ryan and Chizu reply in singing voices.

With the next group…

“Oh, come on! It’ll be fun!” Suma exclaims. “Don’t you think so, Maiko?”

Maiko holds up her hands defensively and backs away slightly. “Don’t go dragging me into this, Fireball.”

Suma pouts. “Aww, you’re not fun.”

Yasu sighs. “Suma, there is no way that we’re going to glue my brother to a rocket powered skateboard. Do you remember the rocket powered roller skates incident? How about when Ryan, Liam, and Seth made rocket powered ice skates? It was a complete and utter disaster.”

“I know, I know. It was just a thought.” Suma says. She looks a little disappointed, but that only lasts a few seconds. “Hey, you think Ryan-”

“NO!” Yasu and Maiko shout at the same time.

Zahur chuckles and pats Suma on the shoulder. “You’re fighting a loosing battle, cousin.”

And with the final group…

Silence. None of them are talking at all surprisingly. Of course, that won’t last too long as a certain member of this group seems to highly dislike silence.

“I don’t like silence.” Ammon announces. “One of you please talk to me. Please? Prety please?” He begs when neither Amane nor Liam say a word. “Come on guys! Say anything! Anything at all!”

Amane giggles. “Relax, Ammon. We’re just thinking is all.”

Liam mock gasps in surprise. “We were? I didn’t know we even know how to think!”

Ammon and Amane laugh, remembering the full version of that joke. They made it up several years ago.

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Hours later the Larks are over by the woods setting up their campsite. The three Ishtars are setting up the tents for those who want them. Suma, Chizu, Yasu, and Maiko are off looking for firewood, Amane and Seth are rolling out sleeping bags and rummaging up food, and Ammon and Jono are sitting there doing nothing. Well, Jono’s doing nothing and Ammon is entertaining himself by making shapes with the shadows.

“We have returned!” Suma announces, stepping back into the clearing with an armload of firewood. “After braving the many dangers of the forest, like the killer squirrels, the demon rabbits, and the infamous man-eating tree’s we have man-”

“Suma, just get the firewood over here and put it in the pile.” Maiko interrupts. She and Chizu have already put theirs in a pile and Chizu’s now selecting the wood they’ll start with first.

Yelling can be heard from the direction the others are putting up the tents as Yasu comes out of the forest. “It sounds like one of the tents collapsed on them.” The violet eyed girl comments.

A little while later they finally have everything all set up and are setting down around the fire to cook hot dogs. While they’re waiting for their dinner to cook, the triplets start a duel against the three Ishtar boys.

About halfway through the duel, a loud voice cuts through the night.

“See! I told you there was a duel going on!” Jaden shouts to whoever it is that’s behind him.

All of the Larks look up from the game or the fire to see who the newcomers are.

Behind Jaden are Syrus, Chumley, Bastian, and Alexis. The usual crew.

“What’s going on here?” Alexis asks, looking at the set-up.

Jaden, of course, immediately spots the cards laying on the ground and takes a seat to watch the end part of the duel. Chizu meanwhile, takes this time to explain what they’re doing and that they have permission. During the explanation the triplets pull off their best chain reaction combo attack only to be foiled by Zahur and beaten by Ryan and Liam’s combo attack.

“Cure thee! To have defeated the invincible triple-team duelists! You must have cheat-”

“Oh, put a sock in it, Seth.” Maiko interrupts. “They won fair and square.”

Seth pouts. “I know. And you know that I couldn’t resist saying something!”

The two siblings bicker back and forth for a while with the other Larks jumping in now and then. The other DA students sit there somewhat quietly, looking a little confused. Particularly Syrus.

“I thought you said you sensed something weird, Jay.” Syrus whispers. “There’s nothing weird here.”

Jaden glances at the Larks for a moment. “I did, but it’s gone now.”

A clear whistle pierces the air, getting everyone’s attention. Everyone looks over at Chizu to see the younger girl holding a bag of marshmallows.

“I LOVE YOU!” Ryan squeals, glomping Chizu and nuzzling her neck.

Chizu giggles, Liam snorts, Zahur rolls his eyes, and everyone else sweat drops.

Seconds later Ryan has plopped down about three feet from the fire with Chizu in his lap and a stick and marshmallow bag in one hand. When Ammon inches toward him in hopes of getting a marshmallow Ryan growls and holds Chizu and the marshmallows close to him.

“Mine.”

Whether he means the marshmallows or Chizu or both, nobody can tell for sure.

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Night comes to find the Larks, Alexis, Jaden, Syrus, Chumley, and Bastian playing Truth or Dare while eating hotdogs and, in Chizu and Ryan’s case, eating marshmallows.

“Chizu, truth or dare?” Suma asks. She had just been dared to try and do a handstand while eating a hot dog. She succeeded.

Chizu quickly chews and swallows the marshmallow that Ryan has stuck into her mouth and then she answers. “Truth.”

“Do you like Ryan?”

Chizu smiles. “Of course!” Then she happily kisses him on the cheek and turns to face Alexis. “Alexis, truth or dare?”

Alexis thinks for a moment. “Dare.”

Chizu immediately grins, already knowing the perfect dare for Alexis. “Goodie! I dare you to go on a date with Jaden.”

Several people promptly choke on their food while Alexis turns slightly red and Jaden looks a little confused.

“A date?” Alexis asks in disbelief.

“That’s right!” Chizu replies, sticking a few marshmallows onto the end of the stick so Ryan can roast more. “A date arranged by myself and Ryan.”

At this point Yasu leans over to Alexis and whispers. “I’d run. It’s never a good sign when those two decide to play matchmaker.”

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“Picture time!” Maiko announces after a few rounds of truth or dare. A large photo album covered with pictures of Duel Monsters soon finds its way onto her lap.

“Ooooo!” Liam exclaims. He drops the wood he’s getting from the pile and in his excitement he jumps over a large rock to get back to the group. “I can’t believe you even thought to bring it! This is great!”

Maiko rolls her eyes while Zahur jerks his twin down into a sitting position and hisses, “Stop it! You’re making a fool out of yourself!”

“That looks so cool!” Jaden has discovered the Duel Monster pictures and is admiring them. “What is it?”

Maiko passes the photo album over to Suma, who is the apparent “leader” of the Larks. The others are already making their way over to the young Muto.

“This is our official travel-album.” Suma explains. “Maiko had it since she, her younger brother, and her mom went on a trip before we all left to come here. I’m glad she brought it! Now we can introduce you all to the rest of the family by picture.” She tells the five non-Larks.

Soon they’re all laughing over several embarrassing family pictures. Most of them come from the end result of a prank gone wrong.

“Here’s one from the time Yukio and Taro put super glue in Ophelia and Kevin’s chairs.” Suma says, immediately launching into a funny story in which the sandy-haired Ishtar and red-haired Wheeler got the better of the two best friends.

“What happened there?” Bastian asks, pointing to a picture of a battered and bruised Ryan, Liam, and Seth.

Yasu rolls her eyes. “That’s the result of those three goofing off with experimental rocket powered roller skates. You don’t want to go there, trust me.”

The non-Larks sweat drop.

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Shiro: Hmm... not extremely happy with the way this chapter turned out. I had a little trouble writing some of the scenes and the only one I'm really happy with is the marshmallow scene. Who thinks Ryan and Chizu are cute together?

Kaze: It's not like the readers can actually see them, idiot.

Shiro: (glares) They have imaginations, Kaze. Unlike you, obviously.

Kaze: (ignoring Shiro)

Shiro: Oi! Are you ignoring me?!

Bast: (sighs as Shiro continues yelling at Kaze) Well, that's it for this chapter, everyone. Shiro hopes you liked it.

Damian: Hey Shiro, when am I coming back?

Shiro: Later. (turns back to face Kaze)

Kaze: (gone)

Shiro: Dammit!

Keitaro: Cookie! (stuffs cookie in Shiro's mouth) Is it good?

Shiro: (nods)

Keitaro: Yay! I made it just for you with lots of love! (huggles)

Bast: O-o Okay... you'd think I would seriously be used to that by now.

Damian: (shrugs) Well, it was kinda random. I want a hug.

Bast: (inches away from Damian)

Damian: Can I have a hug? Somebody? Please? (gets pounced on by Shiro and Keitaro)

Shiro and Keitaro: HUG!

Bast: (sweatdrops) When things get weirder... that should be the title for our little endnote here today.


NEXT CHAPTER- Chapter 7: Operation- Hidden Blue