Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Reflections on Shattered Lives ❯ Reflections ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
Reflections of Shattered Lives

by WSJ

WSJ: Oo;; Inspired by reading too many GW death-fics. Oi... falls over and twitches

Disclaimer: Don't own YGO. :p Um, duh?

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"Are you ready?"

Yami glared at the grave as he held his aibou close to him. Poor Yuugi was crying and couldn't stop, and there was nothing Yami could do about it, just glare unmercifully toward that gravestone, the earth under it so recently filled in. Even in death, the owners continued to torment him and his hikari, even if they didn't know it.

"Why?" Yuugi sobbed into Yami's shirt for about the fiftieth time. "Yami, why would they do something like that!"

Yami kneeled down so that he was eye to eye with his light and brushed the damp blond bangs out of Yuugi's eyes. The usually cheerful violet orbs were red and blood-shot, and silently Yami again cursed the ones who had driven his aibou to this. "Sometimes Yuugi," he paused, searching for the right words to say. "Sometimes people think that their lives are so bad they can never get better. Usually if they just hold off and wait, things will look better in the morning. But sometimes, sometimes, sometimes people make rash decisions and do stupid things. Especially if someone else is there to encourage them."

Yuugi shook the tears out of his eyes and glared defiantly at his Yami. "They weren't stupid! I understand! Oh God Yami, I understand! Before I found you nothing could ever cheer me up, and I did think about... about..." Yuugi couldn't finish and collapsed back into Yami's arms. The ancient pharoah could only hold him and rub his back and glare at the grave, trying to keep his own tears from sliding down his face.

"Yes, I'm ready. Just do it quick."

Jou shivered slightly as he and Honda and Anzu made their way through the graveyard. "Man... Even in broad daylight this place creeps me out..."

Honda looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "You and your stupid fear. If it wasn't for that we could have come with Yami and Yuugi last night and been over and done with this already."

Anzu looked slightly worried as she clutched a small bouquet of white roses to her chest. "Guys, Yami told me over the phone this morning that Yuugi collapsed last night. He won't eat and refuses to get out of bed. Ojii-san and Yami are really worried."

Jou frowned at that as the trio came to stand in front of the fresh grave that Yami and Yuugi had been visiting last night. "Poor Yuugi. We'll have to go visit him when we're done here. Maybe we can cheer him up."

Honda and Anzu nodded, and for a moment they stood silent. Then Honda spoke up, rubbing the toe of his boot into the grass. "I dunno why we're even here. It's not like they were our friends or anything..."

Anzu sniffled, surprising both Jou and Honda. "That's why we are here." she said, wiping her eyes in a vain attempt to hide the sudden rush of emotion. "What if we'd been kinder to them? What if we'd included them more? Would they still have... you know..."

"Aw, Anzu-chan, you can't think like that." Jou told her, putting a hand on her arm. "They were crazy anyway. I don't think anything could have stopped them from killing themselves."

"Don't say that!" Anzu yelled, rounding on him suddenly, her eyes blazing even as tears rolled down her cheeks. "Jou, don't say such things! I have to wonder, have to hope, that maybe..."

"Maybe doesn't get you anywhere Anzu-chan," Honda said softly, putting an arm around her shoulders to lead her away from the grave. Jou started to follow, then looked back once and shook his head sadly.

"I wonder... nah."

"I will, I promise."

Seto Kaiba glanced around furtively, as if he didn't want anyone to know he was actually lowering his dignaty enough to visit the dead. Many would assume he was going to see his parents or his adoptive father (ha! Yeah right...) but that wasn't the reason. Today he was here on Mokuba's request, since the kid was too scared and shaken to go himself. Seto didn't know why in the world the kid would care, but what Mokuba wanted Mokuba got.

As he approached the grave he saw someone was already kneeling there. Relieved that he was let off the hook, he'd turned and was just about to leave again when he became aware of two things. The first was the fact that it was a woman he knew, and the second was that she was crying. Not that Seto cared, but he did feel a small stirring of pity. He could understand why she was so sad.

Without really thinking about it or knowing why, Seto went and kneeled next to her, putting an arm around her shoulder. She looked up at him through swollen and red eyes, and he was struck by how vulnerable she looked. Usually she had a stone mask in place, an omnipresent expression of indifference much like his own. But now that mask was gone, and Seto could see the pain in her eyes as clearly as the mascara running in trickles down her cheeks.

Dispite the fact that he was an almost complete stranger, really not much more then an acquaintance, she all but threw herself against him, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing as if she was afraid he would disappear too. "Oh Kaiba-san!" she sobbed, burying her head in his chest. "I - I don't know what to doooo!"

Caught off guard by her "attack", Seto stiffened, his back arching almost of his own violation. Frowning he forced himself to relax and hesitantly put his arms around her, looking over her head at the gravestone that had caused her so much pain. He had no idea what to say to comfort her, but in the end he didn't have to. Somehow, just holding her was enough.

So there Seto Kaiba crouched, his feet falling asleep under him, as Isis Ishtar cried into his shirt.

"...Malik?"
"Yeah Ryou?"

That night it began to rain. Kaiba and Isis were long gone of course, in fact Seto had taken Isis back to his mansion under the excuse that there was no possible way she could be expected to go back to the Ishtar apartment so soon.

But rain it did, and out of the rain came two more visitors to the lonely grave. Both were hooded and cloaked, and all that could be seen were two pairs of narrow eyes shining out from the shadowed hoods, gazing down at the same little headstone of the double grave. They stood in silence for a long time, the rain beating down on their heads. Neither one seemed to notice.

After what seemed to be several hours but could have been just a few minutes, the one on the left with the peircing brown eyes spoke. It wasn't loud, just enugh for his companion to hear, although he was speaking to the occupants of the grave. "Damn you..."

The one with lavendar eyes nodded in agreement, and the brown eyed one continued on his tirade, his hands bunching into fists. "Damn you! How could you be so selfish as to leave me behind! You left me alone again! This is what you wanted, isn't it, for me to suffer? Damn you Ryou!" He fell to his knees and clutched at his head, his shoulders shaking with surpressed sobs. The hood fell away to reveil long white-gray hair that was quickly plastered down by the rain.

After a moment the lavendar eyed one kneeled down beside his friend, pulling his own hood down to show sharp spikes of blond hair that were instantly washed down to slide around his shoulders. Weeping in his own quiet way, Ishtar put his arm around Bakura as they mourned silently for their hikaris.

"We should have been there for them..." Bakura whispered into the rain. "We should have been all they needed."

"We weren't," Ishtar stated the obvious. "We never will be again."

"I'm scared."
"Me too."

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WSJ: ; I kill off my fav charas way too often...

God bless minna-san!