Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Ways to Drive an Esper Psycho ❯ Helper of Dragons ( Chapter 8 )

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

AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Fire Pendant: Well, the current Chapter Eleven of Crisis of Faith is so sappy it would make Téa hurl. Until I can think of a better ending... sorry, but it's going to stay like that for a while.
JaguarKitty2006: Well, I think Hibiki Ryouga and Tendou Akane from Ranma 1/2 would make a cute couple, but, alas, like Chihiro and Ryuunosuke, it is not to be. Sorry to disappoint you. I'll put up some pairings now, just to avoid further disappointments.

ALEX WARLORN: If you couldn't find it in the dictionary... *sighs* A taboo is something forbidden. Or something like that. But I'm no dictionary. I do believe we have slightly different versions of the Tiamat story. According to mine, she was seeking revenge because one of the early gods killed her husband. Of course Chihiro's the older twin, and Haku knows it. If you recall, he called her "older sister" in Chapter One. But they're twins, after all, so it's possible their ages could get mixed up. Haku just does it on purpose. He likes to think of himself as an annoying older brother, not an annoying younger brother.

CURRENT PAIRINGS: Chihiro/Cassiel (Blue Eyes White Dragon/Red Dark Magician)
Joey/Black Jade (Red Eyes Black Dragon)
Michael/Elaine (Gaia the Fierce Knight/Lady of Faith)
Hikari/Job(Curse of Dragon/Harpy's Pet Dragon).
I'm considering another yaoi pairing- read and see if you can guess what it is. If there's enough support for it, I might turn it into something. But only if you review, OK?

WARNINGS: This fic contains yaoi/slash/shounen ai (nothing explicit), some bad language, bad chess references, an un-totally-evil Yami Bakura, bad haiku, bad Japanese, a somewhat homicidal knight, a nosy Seto Kaiba, and probably a bunch of other stuff I forgot.

The doorbell rang.
Cassiel hurried to the door and opened it just the slightest bit. "Yes?"
"Is Derek Arkana in?"
He knew that voice. "Why do you want to see him?"
"I want to clobber him over the head with Ryuunosuke's flute." She laughed. "I think Hikari Kenshin's violent tendencies are rubbing off."
"No, really, why?"
"Why don't you come out for a minute?"
Cassiel pushed the door open, after looking backward at Aaron, who smiled and gave him a sign with his thumb (yes, Aaron had learned quite a few new things) and stepped out into the hall.
"I apologize for my Master's reaction."
"It was all right. It could have been worse." Cassiel looked down, avoiding her eyes.
"'Could have been worse' is not synonymous with 'acceptable.'"
"All right. All right. Was there anything else you came for?"
"How long have you been with him?"
Cassiel decided after only a minute of mental deliberation that he would answer; after another minute he decided what his answer would be. In between, he was certain, he looked like a gaping idiot. "… a long time. Why do you ask?"
"How did he get you?"
"How do you mean?" She reminded him of Aaron- she was steering him toward something he didn't want to see. Only she didn't come out and say it, like Aaron did.
"Did he buy one of those little packs and your card was in it? Did he win you, like what happens in Battle City? Or did he steal you, like Pegasus did to Sapphire?"
"He did not! Steal me, I mean." Cassiel had heard many things about a Pegasus- none of them were good things. In his mind he began trying to untangle fact from fiction.
As he did, she sighed. "Barring an extreme change of circumstances, I'm not going to clobber him. I would like to do it to Pegasus, but- do you watch the news?"
"Where would I watch it? On one of those new things?"
"Yes, one of those that looks kind of like a box, a large one-" She gestured with her hands, presumably showing him the approximate size "-and the front is dark unless you press a-"
"Yes, I think Master has one of those. We didn't know what to do with it."
"Someone attacked Pegasus yesterday."
He blinked. "Attacked?"
"Walked in and punched him, then ran. They haven't found who did it yet. Apparently security has been high ever since. Too high for convenience."
Cassiel shuddered and closed his eyes. His Master hadn't felt like waiting to draw an equip card to raise Cassiel's power enough to take out the defense monster. Too inconvenient. So he had instead used a "convenient" magic card…
"Excuse me?" He opened his eyes and hastily apologized. "Oh, it's all right. Sapphire and Ryuunosuke do that sometimes, and I like them well enough. I like Gabriel well enough." She leaned against the wall, and Cassiel instinctively joined her. "I wouldn't know about Gabriel doing it, though. The last I saw of him was when that thing made me attack him. Sapphire got him the time when my true Master was dueling."
"Sapphire-?"
"My younger brother. You've never heard of him?"
"He's another Blue Eyes White Dragon?"
"Exactly. How perceptive." She obviously saw his expression. "I didn't mean it to come across as sarcastic. How did you know who I was?"
"Your hair, eyes, teeth, and Master."
"Ah. That makes sense."

Dar saw them when he was aimlessly wandering around Lantern City, several hours after taking his leave of Job and Hikari and Bakenrenef.
The bullies- they reminded him of some of the hacks in this year's regional championships that Rex had had the pleasure of steamrollering. He would probably have recalled last year's regional championships (that was the time Rex had won them all, according to Ran and Sora), but he hadn't come to Rex until after then. That was the first thing he saw.
Charlie and Danny Roba, holding unwieldy book bags, looking like they wanted to fall through a convenient hole in the sidewalk. That was the second thing.
Finally, these two things were arranged in his mind, and he realized that the bullies were on either side of the Roba brothers, as well as blocking the entrance to the nearest building, which was an echo of the Domino schools. Their only escape route was across the street to Dar, and that path was gradually closing as well. That was the third thing.
I wish that Serpent Night Dragon were real so the bullies won't bother us.
Dar smiled grimly as he felt something stirring in the back of his mind. He was sure his eyes were changing color right around now.
Well, you got your wish.

"Hey. Back off."
Daniel gasped and held his book bag even tighter.
Dar had just sprinted across the street and was now standing there quite casually, arms at his sides, smiling as if the situation was completely different. "Who started the party without me?"
"Oh, look, some idiot's playing hero!"
Daniel didn't look around frantically for an escape route, which would show weakness. Instead he looked straight ahead, at Dar, who smiled even wider and winked.
And then Dar's eyes went… funny. They turned bright purple, and then from purple came blue like his favorite crayon color. His smile went funny, too. It had more of an edge to it.
"Well? You are obstructing the sidewalk. I suggest that you move."
From the angry murmurs, Daniel concluded they didn't like that idea.
"Oh," someone yelled, "you wanna save the little freaks? Then you'll have to go through us first!"
Well, Daniel thought, someone's been watching too much TV.

"If you insist… but do remember that you brought this on yourself."
Daniel noted that the bullies were all eighth-graders. The oldest one was fourteen or so. And Dar looked more like he was in his late teens. The bullies seemed to notice this too, as they paled and began to back away.
Then one broke the backward trend, ran forward, and punched Dar. Soon they were all running forward. Like lemmings off a cliff, though the teacher had said that wasn't really what lemmings did, it was just something made up.
Dar smiled and flung out his hands. Dark spheres were glowing in his palms. "Don't say I didn't warn you. NIGHTMARE SONIC BLAST!"
Daniel dove for cover, yanking Charlie with him, and not a moment too soon.

"Hey, Esper!"
He nodded in response. "They didn't notice, did they?"
Tommy grinned. "No, they didn't. They're stupid."
"Why don't we go get the twins now." It wasn't a question. Esper knew the way from day after day of following it, so he permitted his body to run on autopilot while he engaged in mental activity.
They weren't quite as stupid as Tommy claimed they were; some of their ignorance was definitely owed to his machinations. He had always managed to finagle his way out of any situation where any of the many adults whose jobs put them in contact with the Roba brothers wanted to meet Zachary Senior. They had all managed to maintain good grades, so there was no reason for suspicion. And if food was sometimes scarce, it wasn't so much to make it obvious to the casual observer.
The thing with Ms. Malloy regarding his job and taking care of Kyosuke had been arranged before things fell apart. Mom had tried to dissuade him from the job, saying that they didn't need the money, and what about school? But his grades had remained stellar, so she had acquiesced. The month after that…
Ms. Malloy had continued to take care of Kyosuke during school hours, though how she did it while running the store, Esper had no clue. Maybe she shunted him off to a relative. Anyway, she too didn't know. His father was out (that was technically true), he said to any callers, visiting the cemetery, at his job, off getting drunk, anywhere but at the apartment.
Once, in desperation, all his excuses seeming impossibly stale, he had managed to deepen his voice enough to approximate his father's, and claimed to be in a hurry. He still used this gimmick, but he used it rarely.
Tommy's yelp yanked him out of his automatic pace.
"Charlie! Danny! Are you okay?"
Charlie pulled himself up and gave them a shaky grin. "Never been better!"
Esper's eyes expanded as he looked at the people sprawled around in front of the school. "They aren't… are they?"
Danny, too, was on his feet. He shook his head. "No, they're still breathing, see? I think we'd better be going, don't you?"
Esper considered the extreme likelihood of police interest in this incident, and nodded.

Rigel opened the door. "He was very good today," he said. "I thought I was dreaming."
"Kyosuke, you mean?" A nod. "I'd like to thank you for helping the twins today…"
Rigel blinked. "Twins? I apologize, Master. I do not know what you refer to."
"Well, something had to have done that to the bullies, and I thought-"
"Whoever it was, it wasn't me, Master."
"Then…" Esper blinked. "It was Cyber Raider? Fiend Megacyber? Maybe… Jinzo?" Sure, Jinzo was currently in Joey Wheeler's deck (if he wasn't a coaster), but he could hope, couldn't he? "Was it Jinzo?"
"No," said Charlie, "It was Dar. You know, Serpent Night Dragon?"
Open mouth. Insert foot.

Haku leaned back and surveyed the results of his work. It was as simple as requesting the opening of a file. All the passwords in the world wouldn't protect you if you forgot to log off. Haku knew what he was doing was technically wrong; he knew he should at least tell Ryuunosuke.
But that could be done later. Anyway, he'd always wanted to know what Ryuunosuke did when he thought no one was looking.

I don't know why I'm doing this, exactly. Maybe just to have something that's all my own. My name is Ryuunosuke. I might have had another one, but that was a long time ago. Back when still sometimes they called Chihiro Tiamat.
Not many people know she has got three names, Chihiro and Tiamat and Snow. I couldn't say Tiamat so I called her Chihiro which was the name her mother gave her. Soon her brothers started doing it too- her mother already did, and by the time I came to them their father had gone. They never said what happened to him. Maybe they didn't know.
But enough about that…

The rest of the document was blank.
"Sneaky, aren't you?"
Haku nearly fell out of the chair. "Um… hello, Jane." He should have guessed she could tell the difference between his voice and Ryuunosuke's.
"So, now that you've had a preview, I think I should warn you that the rest of the document has another level of security. I think he meant to lock the entire thing, but he hasn't quite got the hang of it yet. But this is harmless enough, wouldn't you say?"
Haku didn't answer for a moment. He'd bet his own card that he knew exactly what Ryuunosuke's secondary password would be. And for some reason, he wished it were his own name Ryuunosuke would whisper. "Yes, I guess so."
"Now, why don't you get out of his files and into more salutary material. How about a nice relaxing game of chess? White, right?"
It actually scared him for a moment but then again she'd probably kept track of how many times he accessed the program. "Yes, that would be good. Thank you, Jane."

"And, in other news, a group of eighth-graders were found unconscious outside a Lantern City middle school. They are all in stable condition at Domino Medical Center. Doctors have found nothing that suggests a possible cause for this unusual occurrence."
Angela looked from the TV. "Ma- Téa?" she called. "I saw it."
Téa looked up from her algebra. "Hm?"
"On the news- the teenagers?"
Téa reached for a can of soda. "What about them?"
"Serpent Night Dragon did it."
Coke nearly spewed all over the couch. As it was, Téa only started to gag and clapped her hand over her mouth. Any fugitive liquid wound up on her fingers. She swallowed and turned to face Angela. "You're kidding. That creepy dragon Rex Raptor sent out against Joey? That's impossible!"
Angela shook her head. "No, I saw him do it to them. He reached out his hands, like this-" she demonstrated. "-and then-"
"Serpent Night Dragon doesn't have hands!"
"He was in human form, like me." Angela sighed. "-and then he said the name of his attack. And then he attacked."
Téa growled. "It figures someone like that would do something like that to those kids. He probably just did it for kicks."

"Black Jade? I've got it."
Jade hastily took the paper and set down the pocket Japanese dictionary he had been browsing through. "Um… arigatou, Kenshin-hime? Is that right?"
"No," she said, "not 'hime.' That means 'lady.' You'd be better off using it for Elaine. Then again, she probably wouldn't understand…"
"Ah. Is it Kenshin-sama, then?"
"Now that's overdoing it a bit."
"Okay, then, should I just stick with Kari?"
"Yeah, Kari's fine with me. Oh, and I can't vouch for Bakenrenef's current reliability. As a result, ethics force me to not ask for payment."
Jade grinned. "And Mikey says you have no ethics."
"'Mikey' is an idiot."
"If you say so." Jade looked over the paper. "Hey," he yelled, "Yuge! Yu-uge! Requestin' permission to go somewhere-"

"Hello, Turtle Game Shop, how can I help you?"
"Yugi? This is Mai."
"Yes?"
"I was wondering… Job DelaSangre's living with you?"
"I'm sorry, he's not here right now. He's taking Hikari on a date."
"…"
"Mai? Are you there?"
"Oh, forget it! Just forget it!"

"Hello?"
"Hey, Dan."
"Black Jade?"
"Yeah, that would be me. Ya know that poetry stuff?"
"Yes…"
"Do ya know how to write it?"

"Well, that was an interesting conversation. Should I visit again sometime?"
Cassiel nodded. "If it's all right with Aaron…"
Aaron folded his arms. "Of course it's all right with me, you idiot." To Chihiro, "Come back or the next time Cassiel has nightmares I'll use the Duplicating Sleep on you."
"I understand. Good night."

But enough about that…
Chihiro's brothers- there were three of them. I guess I should tell about them, first. Save the best for last.
Jewel came between Haku and Sapphire. His name and Sapphire's were picked by their father since their mother got to name the twins. At least that was what Sapphire told me. But then again he named Chihiro too. He named her Tiamat after someone he traced the Snow name back to; but it went back so long (the first Tiamat lived so long ago you see) I never could remember exactly how they were related. It doesn't matter. Everyone calls her Chihiro.
But I'll talk about Jewel before I talk about Chihiro. I think he deserves some kind of significance, after all. I'd better get this out of the way first: Our Master went and stole Jewel's card from Jewel's Master. Then he ripped it up…

Ryuunosuke's fingers stopped and he gaped at what he had just typed.
It was a taboo subject. Oh, nobody had forbidden it outright, but it was that way. It just was and no use arguing. Not even Chihiro and her brothers- especially not Chihiro and her brothers- mentioned it, made even the vaguest reference. They had come to the unspoken collective understanding that it was better to pretend Jewel Snow had never existed.
He pressed the Delete key.
Nothing happened.
"I happen to like what you just did," said Jane, "so I'm putting it in read-only mode. Just in case you get second thoughts."
Ryuunosuke sighed and continued to type, one letter at a time.

Then he ripped it up… we never heard from Jewel again. Haku tried to say it was for the best, said Master only did it so Jewel would never have to fight them. But really even Haku knew Master did it so Jewel would never be able to fight him. So we just didn't talk about it. I hardly remember what he was like any more.
Sapphire's the youngest. I think he's about as old as Master's brother, not counting all the time we didn't age a second because we were shut up. But he's already grown up by dragon standards. He's tall as Chihiro and Haku, anyway. I saw him the time Master sent out Obelisk. But he's afraid. He didn't use to be. You see after Jewel's card was ripped he was scared. He said if Master did it to Jewel what would stop him from doing it to us? Of course by us he meant him and the twins. Not me. There's more than four cards just like mine around being used by different Masters. They're not the exact same as me but the Masters consider them the same.
Then later on- when that Thing took Master's deck, he wasn't afraid then, he was just angry because he was made to attack and Chihiro managed to not do it. But after Master dueled Pegasus he got really afraid.
It was all because of some card Pegasus used called Toonworld. I don't know what it does. Sapphire and Chihiro wouldn't tell me. But it must have done something awful.

"Joey?"
Joey looked up. "Yeah, what is it, Sandy?"
Sandy held out an envelope. "Someone put it in the mail thing. I was going to go out and see who it was but, see, I had to go keep Ken from making Geoffrey completely deranged so when I got back…"
Joey looked it over. At first he suspected it was from Ryou, but then he realized that the writing wasn't the cursive (which in itself was a work of art) adorning the lines of the paper on which Ryou Bakura inscribed the notes he sometimes lent to Joey. It was a bit like when Joey attempted elegance with his own scrawl- it was superficially similar to Ryou's, but when you looked close the reality was obvious.
He got it open, nearly shredding it in the process. Inside was a card- not a Duel Monsters card, the special-occasions kind. Not the kind you got in stores, but paper folded in quarters (like he had done valentines in second-third grade, decorating them with thick marker and once he had gotten his mom to attach little things of candy to each of them).
On the front, drawn in the kind of pens that came in tremendous sets and only art freaks ever used them all, was an okay picture of Flame Swordsman (AKA Brendan), sword held before him. Joey opened it up, a hypothesis regarding the sender already in his mind.
The writing started out the same as on the envelope, but the author apparently gave up and printed like Joey had always done before the teachers insisted they write cursive.

The heart of my card
Was on fire. It was that way
Ever since you kissed it.

I called and got Brendan; he told me how to do this one because I wasn't quite sure how to write this kind of stuff and Kari didn't know either. Kari doesn't like this kind of stuff, said it was more Elaine's thing. I didn't know how to talk to Elaine and Mikey won't talk to me. I think this one's called a hiku (sp?) but I could be wrong.
Love ya forever,
Black Jade

Joey groaned and let the card fall to the floor. Geoffrey quickly retrieved it and pressed it back into Joey's hand. "Why does everythin' blow up in my face?"
"Time Wizard didn't blow up when you dueled Dar's Master," said Geoffrey, "don't you remember?"
"Yeah, and look what that got me!" Joey threw out an arm. "I never considered he might look at me like that!"
"Well," said Sandy, "if Time Wizard had blown up you would've been off the island for sure, considering you bet both your chips on that one. And anyway you shouldn't kiss people unless you really mean it."
"Okay, okay, okay! I get it already!" Joey flung his school things around the room (to be hastily picked up the following morning) and headed for his bedroom. He flopped out on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "But come to think of it…" He groaned and whacked himself on the forehead. "What is the matter with me?"
Joey had never liked to-do lists. They implied bad memory/a Kaiba mentality. But now he started one, with a random scrap of paper left over from ripping up a mediocre returned homework. One side was still blank, and he wrote on that side, printing: Tell Black Jade not to hug me like that anymore so I don't get bawled out for having PDAs.

Seto Kaiba looked over the file directories. He felt a little guilty for not telling them about this, but then again, perhaps it was kinder to let them think the security made any difference, let them think he trusted them just because he held their cards. Seto's status (the "God Status" he had named it) had most all the abilities he would ever want- creating files, deleting files, modifying files, accessing files, changing passwords. Not to mention looking up passwords and overriding Jane's voice analysis technology.
Haku had created a crude program to select random numbers and names, for what purpose Seto had no idea. The names entered included "Gabriel", "Jewel", and "Michael Gaia"; from this last Seto could guess that they were other Duel Monsters. The access records for the original chess program showed he had accessed it repeatedly. Seto called up the win/loss records and nodded before moving on to Chihiro's files.
She had created none- she was smarter, more cautious than he had given her credit for, he had to admit. She at least did not blindly trust. Just what he would expect from a Blue Eyes White Dragon. Especially one who had gone unaccounted for until several hours after he returned from school, and then deftly avoided all his questions.
Seto checked her access records. They were completely blank, obviously tampered with. He frowned and ran a restore program on high power. Only a few garbled letters and one word materialized scattered around the screen. That word was "Dark."
Cautious was one thing, but this was going too far for his liking. He growled, resolving to confront her about it later.
Seto was about to log off and shut off Jane, but he noticed another directory. Another user. Ryuunosuke. It was a moment before he placed the name. Seto struck a few keys and the directory opened, revealing one file. His fingers danced as he began to access that file.
A window popped up. "Excuse me," said Jane. "Secondary password, please?"
If Seto Kaiba's personality had been at all different he would have fallen out of the chair from sheer surprise. "What do you mean, secondary password?"
"Look, he has written some stuff that is definitely not meant for the public. Or the private, for that matter. But I'll give you a shot. Secondary password, please?"
After a minute of contemplation Seto made a wild guess. "… flute?"
"Sorry, that's not the password. Thank you and good night."
When Seto came back to his senses he had grabbed the monitor and was staring at the black screen.

Ryuunosuke hurriedly retreated to the room designated as his own. He removed his armor, then slid under the blanket and pulled it up over his head. He remained like that for some time, waiting for what he was positive was sure to come, and then he was asleep.

Jade burst in through the door of the Game Shop and spent the rest of the night seated on the couch, next to Ailill who was learning how to spell the plural of potato, dreaming.

In Lantern City, on Clarion Street, in an apartment building, in the elevator Dar DelaSangre pressed the button marked 21.
Well, was that a step up from smashing bugs?
I can't believe you are such a pacifist. You actually did that for them, didn't you? Not just to accommodate me, you did it for those little freaks?
Says the knight whose body got taken over by a dragon. Compared to that, off-color hair isn't so strange.
Why you- worthless usurping idiot! You are no part of me! You never were part of me!
Of course not. I'm me. And you'd better get used to it.
Dar knocked on the door and prepared to face the knight.