Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Ways to Drive an Esper Psycho ❯ Matters of the Heart ( Chapter 5 )

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

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Must resist temptation to ask exactly what it was that makes everyone but Alex Warlorn so far seem to avoid this story like the bubonic plague when they reviewed the first chapter and said it was good and would you please continue...
*takes deep breaths* Okay. I think I'm calm now.
If any Joey fans took offense, I would like to remind them (if they haven't walked off in disgust already) that that was from Dar's point of view, and Dar isn't omniscient. Plus, he hasn't exactly been in the most rational of moods lately. And I could argue that the Rare Hunter WAS a moron, because he stuffed his deck with Exodia pieces (which, you have to admit, are completely lame individually- a Magician of Faith could beat up one of those arms or legs!) and has a big mouth! When Yugi figured out it was Exodia, he could just have denied it, you know. Nobody had binoculars aimed at his deck...
As far as I know Yugi never claimed either one of Arkana's Dark Magicians. Remember, they were tampered with.
No, Relinquished doesn't have a human form. Hikari's got angry remembering (remember, she's Curse of Dragon) because she got sucked into it in Yugi's rematch with Pegasus and got shoved in the way of Dark Magician's attack. You'd think that would be a perfectly good reason to be angry. She doesn't like Weevil because he threw Exodia overboard. Exactly when did I say she was a saint who always knows best? She doesn't even like saints. Many of them are mainly known for killing dragons.
Speaking of which, I may not have gotten Serpent Night Dragon's card description right. If I haven't, would anyone care to enlighten me?
There is some censoring of a sexually oriented word in this chapter, because I would like to keep this story at PG13 if at all possible.
*takes several more deep breaths* Okay, if any of you are still left, go on and read the story. Please?

WARNINGS: This story contains a yaoi (male/male) relationship and sexual innuendo, but no actual sex. Also some swearing.

"Um, Jade?"
"Yeah?"
"Could ya please not do dat in fronta other people?"
"Okay…"
Joey extricated himself from Jade's hug, trying to ignore the looks from those around him. Not all of them were amused ones. Some looked downright disgusted. Jade still had one arm around Joey's shoulder, and Joey decided to allow him that.
"Hey, Joey!"
He turned and waved. "Hey, Tristan."
"So. Who's your boyfriend?"
Only the fact that he was in public kept Joey from entering an unconscious state. As it was, he was struck dumb. Jade answered for him. "I'm Jay Black. Pleased ta meet ya." Joey opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out. Maybe he didn't want anything to come out.

After introductions and making replies to several questions without really answering them, Cassiel looked up his Master's telephone number. After some coaching from Miriam (who was thoroughly amused that she got to teach her big brother something for once), he called back to the apartment and got the answering machine. The moment he began to speak, Aaron's voice cut him off.
"Cassiel, where'd you go? You missed something absolutely priceless!"
"Yes? What?"
"Master really shouldn't leave that book lying around."
"Book? What book?"
"The long one that makes no sense."
Whatever Aaron's "priceless" thing was, Cassiel thought, he was glad he missed it. "Yes?"
"It had my name in it!"
Cassiel sighed. "It was probably someone else with the same name they spoke of. When I was looking for this number I found those of four people who have the name of Aaron. And I doubt any of them are you. What of it?"
"If you insist, this 'other person' could turn his staff into a serpent-"
Cassiel swallowed hard. "You didn't."
"I did."
"You turned your staff into a serpent?"
"One just as long as my staff, and the same color. It wasn't that hard at all."
"And you did this in front of Master?"
"Him? Of course. What would the point have been otherwise?" For a long while there was nothing but Aaron's laughter. Then, "You should have seen the look on his face. It was priceless! That, and his climbing onto that little table-" Pause. "I don't think you're laughing."
Miriam and Gabriel were looking completely mystified. Oh well, Cassiel thought, I can explain later. Much later. "No," he told Aaron, "I'm not laughing. What is there to laugh about?"
"Cassiel, you have absolutely no sense of humor. Or an incredibly exaggerated sense of loyalty. Probably both."
Aaron had, like he himself would say, hit the stone in just the right place to make it crumble. Cassiel didn't crumble, but it hit him hard nonetheless.
"You don't know anything." He returned the phone to its original location before Aaron could make a rejoinder and waited before turning back to Miriam and Gabriel.
Miriam was the first to speak; she descended to particulars as usual. "If what he'd done to each of you'd been switched around maybe this would make some sense."
Cassiel smiled at her; he couldn't put any joy behind it. "Too bad it's not that way."
Gabriel obviously had questions of his own, but unlike Miriam, he withheld them. "Cousin," he said, "I was wondering if you could help me plan out Geoffrey's magic lessons. You know much more about soul magic than I do…"
"I'm sorry, but- I really need to go. I apologize." He ran into the room with the tiles and performed the transportation spell before either Gabriel or Miriam could come up with a good argument as to why he should stay. There was no need to worry that he could be convinced by those arguments- he already was convinced. He just couldn't stand to listen to them.

Fluffy was the first to the door- it was fortunate that there weren't any customers at the moment, as he looked far from human. That was the only reason he hadn't come with Hikari and Tani. "Did Pegasus like the sandwiches?"
Tani shook her head in mock sorrow. "No, he didn't."
"Too bad," said Job. "I could tell they put a lot of effort into them."

Dar walked up to the door and proceeded to kick it. "Hey!" he yelled. "Let me in already! I come in peace!" Another door opened, and he turned to see-
"Um." He gulped. "Helen, right?"
Helen grinned and nodded in response, widening her emerald eyes just slightly and adjusting her wings. "Dan Blood, right?"
"Actually, Dar DelaSangre. So, um, your Master wished you?"
Helen nodded again, this time more vigorously, and flipped some strands of hair over her shoulder. "Dar…" A wink. "Oh, yes, now I remember. Pet's cousin, right?"
Job would have a conniption fit if he heard that.
But Dar wasn't Job, so he nodded and said, "Yeah, I'm Job's cousin."
"Have you seen him around lately?"
"Sorry, no."
"Are you sure?"
Before Dar could reply, something grabbed him by the back of the jacket and yanked him into the apartment. The door slammed in front of his eyes and then he was spun around to face Rigel.
"Where were you all day?" Rigel held up the same clock he'd shoved in Esper Roba's face, and Dar winced.
Four o'clock. Guess I was a lot more than "fashionably late."
"It's none of your business, but I was visiting my Master." Dar pushed Rigel's hand off his arm- it wasn't at all hard. Rigel's numbers were, after all, even lower than Brendan's. And he had sonic-blasted Brendan to pieces. Add that to the fact that Rigel was trained more in mind than matter, and you had no contest at all in a head-on match. "Any questions?"
"What do you mean, visiting your Master? Have you forgotten who your true Master is?"
Dar shrugged. "Sure I remember who my true Master is. He's the one who got me without cheating."
"Are you calling your own Master a cheater?"
"No," said Dar, "I'm calling a cheater a cheater."
"You forget, you have a new Master now. And if you call your Master a cheater one more time…" Rigel stopped there, presumably to allow Dar to consider the "or else."
Dar was unimpressed. "You know my Master's no cheater. And he's no so-called psychic either. And he didn't go around cheating people out of their rarest cards, no less."
"That's because," said Rigel, "your former Master was such a pathetic duelist he couldn't duel his way out of a district tournament. He sent that stupid Megazowler charging right into me, for crying out loud. With those skills he never had the opportunity to cheat, and even if he did he'd be such a bad cheater that-"
With that, it was Dar's turn to grab Rigel, hauling him forward so their faces couldn't be more than six inches apart. "Don't you ever slander Rex Raptor again, or you will be hearing from my Nightmare Sonic Blast. Rex is not a cheating bug and he is not a cheating fake, unlike some I could name. So stop yapping about my 'True Master' already!"
Rigel had no reply to that. Dar let him go and they stood there for a long while, looking at one another and coming to a silent understanding. Then Dar heard noises and turned his back on Rigel.
The younger Robas were gathered around the radio, listening to some popular song or another. Tom opened his mouth and removed the lollipop, presumably to start singing along, and Charlie (or was it Danny?) quickly shushed him. Dar held totally still and listened, trying to hear something over the song, some hint of Esper Roba's location, but there was nothing.
Rigel saved him the effort. "Master isn't here. He has a job." He paused to wait for Dar's sudden laughing fit to die down. "Do you think this is a laughing matter?"
Dar shrugged. "Just the name of someone I know. How old is he? Seventeen?"
"Sixteen."
Dar lifted an eyebrow. "And you mean to tell me- okay, back before, they thought you were contrarious or something if you hadn't started working by sixteen. But I know things are different now. Andrew Raptor's twenty and he still hasn't really started. Do you mean to tell me-"
"Most of them still don't work by sixteen," said Rigel. "Master's is a special case."
"Yeah!" Charlie chimed in. "If he didn't we wouldn't be here 'cause a while ago Dad didn't send money and Mom-"
"Don't tell them, Charlie," Danny cut him off. "They're just Duel Monsters. They don't need to know family business."
"Don't act so holier-than-thou," Charlie countered. "You know real well even with the job-" (Dar didn't laugh this time) "-we couldn't have stayed if it weren't for Esper winning the district. And you remember it was Rigel who did the last move."
Danny nodded, the original topic forgotten. "Yeah, it's a crime, is what it is! Esper mashed his opponent and he didn't get an invite to Duelist Kingdom! All the other district champions got invited! Even some people who didn't even come in second were invited! But they didn't invite Esper! That's no fair!"
Of course he wasn't invited. It's said the only cheater that Pegasus can tolerate is himself. Dar opened his mouth to let out that acid rejoinder, then shut it for a reason he didn't quite comprehend. The words banged down his lungs.
"Yeah, that's no fair," said Charlie in an I've-heard-this-all-before tone. "It's no fair at all."
Danny nodded vigorously. "I thought so."
Dar stuck one hand into his pocket and felt the money. There were several bills, none smaller than a five, and lots of change. Suddenly it felt way, way too heavy. He spoke. "When'll he be back?"
Tommy pointed to the clock Rigel still held. "'Bout another three hours."
Another thought came; Michael would suspect his motives, but Geoffrey would say yes, go on and do it.
He turned back to the door and opened it.
"Don't tell me you're running back to him already!" Rigel was screaming now. "Don't tell me you already can't take all this and are running back to where it's nice and safe and your last Master can get you anything you want! Well, go on and go!"
"Look," said Dar, "I'm just treating them to something, okay? Don't go off yelling and putting words in my mouth again, or I'll consider it an insult to my Master. And my previous ultimatum regarding Nightmare Sonic Blast still stands."
He dug the coupons from his pocket (it wasn't so hard- they felt different from the money. Less substantial) and held them before the eyes of the Roba brothers. "Here. Which one do you like best?"

They couldn't decide which of the final two restaurants was best. So they went to both, and Daniel Paul Roba was astounded by how casually Serpent Night Dragon (but was this Serpent Night Dragon? He didn't act evil at all) spent money, like there was a bottomless pit of it and all of it was his. He commented to Serpent Night Dragon about this; the latter laughed and said, "Once it was a lot like that, correct." And then Daniel decided now was not the time to look the figurative gift horse in the mouth.
They walked back to the apartment with their food- or rather, they ran back. Charlie chased Tommy, both of them waving their shares of what had been purchased, and the rest had to keep pace. Daniel considered himself too mature for such antics, and besides he couldn't attempt stunts with Kyosuke on his back, but he couldn't help hugging the takeout bag he had been entrusted with so tight that any living organism within would have smothered. He held it like he was trying to press it right through his shirt and into himself, into his heart and his stomach. And in a way, he guessed he was.
Reflect Bounder (Daniel knew his name was Rigel) opened the apartment door when they got back, giving Serpent Night Dragon a doubtful glance as he did.
It was the most substantial dinner they had had for over a month. And they had a Duel Monster to thank for it. Daniel had suspected this would happen, but he had always thought the Duel Monster would be Esper's Jinzo. Now, Esper's Jinzo was… no longer Esper's Jinzo, exactly.
"Thanks a lot," said Tommy, then added, "Serpent Night Dragon."
Serpent Night Dragon laughed and put his hand behind his head. "Oh please," he said, "call me Dar."

Joey heard the door slam, dropped his pencil, and ran into the living room to see Jade quite calmly locking the door. He looked to the couch and discovered it was empty. "Where'd Dad go?"
"He was acting so funny," said Jade, "that it wasn't laughing funny at all, so I don't think it would be in anyone's best interests for him to stay in the house." The door began to vibrate. "Okay, maybe it would be in the door's best interests…"
Over all the noise, it was a while before anyone heard the phone ring. Jade, being closest, picked it up. "Guy-who-had-Lava-Battleguard? Okay… Tristan then. Did I what?" Joey grabbed the phone just in time for Tristan's response.
"I said, was it good for you?"
"TRISTAN!"
"Oh- it's you. I was just asking your boyfriend if-"
"Yeah, I know. If it was good for him."
"Well, considering this is your phone-"
"You haven't been going around telling people I screwed Red Eyes Black Dragon, have you?"
"You ******* what?"
Joey winced. It was out. "Um…" He shoved the phone back to Jade. "You explain."
Jade took the phone and said, "I'm actually Red Eyes Black Dragon. What's ********, anyway? Hello? What's so funny?"
Joey's first impulse was to bang his head against the wall repeatedly until he either woke up or knocked himself out. Either way would give him an escape. But he didn't.
Instead Joey found himself staring at Black Jade, watching the play of light on dark hair and wide red eyes; then he tried to reconcile these observations with the holographic images that appeared in duels. In the end he found several similarities, but not as many as he would have thought he would find.
Apparently Tristan had finished with his definition, because Jade said, "No, he just kissed me, that's all."

Normally, Mai in her car would have outpaced Esper on foot, but that night she stopped to get gasoline, and thus she made it to the elevator at the same time he did.
"So you're the one who my brothers've been going on about."
She shrugged. "They like to see me do card tricks. That's all."
They reached for the same elevator button at the same time; Esper backed off and let Mai push it. The elevator started up and they stood in silence until the doors slid open.
"Just give me a minute to drop off my stuff, okay?"
"Okay, um-"
"Your brothers call me Val."
"All right then… Val."

Haku drew and smirked, then put down the paper. It was cut to approximate the size of a Duel Monsters card, like a child's attempt to forge them. The picture was bad- Haku had no artistic ability whatsoever. But the numbers were quite clear: 3000/2500.
Ryuunosuke sighed as he did the mental calculations taking his Life Points to zero and put down his hand, consisting of more soulless imitations.
Haku did a double take. "You had all five pieces in your hand and you didn't play them?"
A nod. "I know you love to win."
Haku frowned, but the truth in that statement was undeniable. "Just don't do something like that again."
"All right, I won't." But Haku doubted it.
Now it was his turn to sigh as he got up from the table where he had been playing a twisted version of Duel Monsters with the so-called Lord of Dragons. Master and everyone in the deck, of course, knew that Ryuunosuke was no more a Lord of Dragons than Sapphire was a Toon.
The game had been somewhat entertaining at first, but Haku always won, because Ryuunosuke flatly refused to defeat him. There wasn't even the slightest chance of loss, as the Exodia incident demonstrated. Therefore, something like that couldn't be fun for very long. It was simple as that.
He turned his attention to the computer that his Master had provided him, playing a few games of online chess. That soon lost its charm as well. It couldn't compare with chess where the opponent was right across the board, where psychology was half the game. You couldn't even try to interpret your opponent's expression in an online match. This, of course, meant that Haku was shielded in case his expression might slip, but it was a blindfold as well as a shield.
He considered a game with Chihiro, but she had long ago mastered the art of reading his expressions, and invariably thrashed him worse than Master had thrashed Joseph Wheeler. He was pounded in nine out of ten games. The tenth would usually be a draw. Sapphire had never bothered to learn.
And how, exactly how, could he go up to his Master and ask for a game?
So he went to talk to Jane.
"Please state your name."
"Haku."
"Verified. Please state your password."
"Corundum."
"Verified. Welcome back."
Haku had almost fallen in love with Jane. His computer expertise was nowhere on the level of his Master's, but he learned fast. He respected computers- they, unlike living things, were reliable. Except, of course, when they crashed- and Haku hadn't seen a computer crash yet.
"Jane, begin new search. File type: programs. Query: chess."
"One result. Run program?"
"Yes."
"Skill level?"
"Maximum."
"Black or white?"
"White."
"Please state your move."

"Hey, Esper!"
The first thing Esper saw was Tommy. The second thing he saw was the fast food wrappers sticking out of the garbage. "Tommy, what-"
"Here!" Tommy stuck out something in another wrapper. Esper opened it to find a part of a hamburger. At that moment both Charlie and Danny ran up with more wrapped things. They were duly opened to find more pieces of hamburger.
"They ought to make a whole one altogether," said Charlie. "We had a lot of other stuff, so we were really full. I think we still have some fries if you want them…"
His eyes expanded. "Where did you get this?"
Tommy looked at him like he was a big idiot. "Dar bought it for us. Did you think we stole it or something?"
Esper turned to Reflect Bounder. "I'm very sorry, Master," said Reflect Bounder, "but my name isn't Dar, it's Rigel."
"Roba," came the voice from behind him, "what's going on in there?"
"We were just explaining," said Danny, "that Dar bought us dinner and Dar isn't Reflect Bounder. And Dar isn't Jinzo either in case you were wondering, Esper, Val."
"What the-" Silence, then, "You too?"
Esper turned to admit her. "I guess. It happened to you?"
She sighed. "Yeah, but Pet- but Job AWOL-ed yesterday."
"AWOL?"
"Disappeared." She considered that statement. "Well, not disappeared exactly. We know where he is."
"And where would that be?"
"Domino, I think. Macha talked to him on the phone." She snapped her fingers. "Ah, Dar! Last name DelaSangre?"
"It might be," said Charlie. "He didn't tell us."
"Helen said she'd talked to him around four and that someone dragged him into your apartment."
"Well, who is Dar then?" Esper deliberately avoided looking at Rigel because he knew the truth that would be emblazoned on his face.
She laughed. "Well, who would've thought that Rex's Serpent Night Dragon would get your little brothers dinner?"
For precisely three seconds (but it seemed longer) Esper Roba gaped at Mai Valentine. That was how long it took for the information to be processed. At first blank shock flooded his mind. Then he began to feel very, very resentful. It was his job to take care of his brothers, not the job of some snake-dragon-thing who was "born from the soul of a wicked knight"!
"Serpent Night Dragon," he growled, "COME HERE RIGHT NOW!"