Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Dead to the World ❯ Bless the Child ( Chapter 5 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

First of all, thanks a lot to all who have reviewed this. I’m sure you know how great it is to get comments. ^~

Secondly: You’ve been warned. This is where this gets strange. Strange enough so that I don’t really understand what’s going on anymore.

This chapter also contains many flashbacks… I hope they don’t confuse you too much. Some of them take place during the first chapter (if you now remember anything of it anymore…)

Yes, and the song for this chapter is Bless the Child, by Nightwish as always. You can listen to a sample of this song here: http://www.nightwish.com/en/files/audio

Chapter 5: The Child Bless Thee…

There’s water falling.

Drops in the air, sparkling with light, with colors…

Beautiful.

Beautiful colors…

Something familiar in them…

Something… I can almost remember…

~*~*~

Pouring down, glittering in the light, splashing all over… There’s light, beautiful light and colors and drops… Drops playing, pretty drops, falling down down down, always down, new drops, splashing, splashing… sparkling… More drops, falling down down down down… sparkling, glittering… pretty…

“Come.”

Down… more drops pouring down, down, down, bouncing up, up, up, beautiful drops…

“Come.”

No. Playing with the drops, beautiful drops, beautiful colors…

“Come, now.”

Water pouring over me, all around me, beautiful colors sparkling in the light. Pretty. Don’t want to leave…

A sigh. “Come, child.”

I step out of the water. I can hear {hear? Hear...} it splatter behind me. I feel… strange. And the realization that I feel feels even stranger… Suddenly everything gets dark, only for a short moment, though. What…? Again, it happened again. Something covered my… sight? I reach for that something, and I see an arm. {Arm...} My arm. I wave it back and forth, and it obeys. My arm. I blink. {Blink?} Yes, blink, slowly… First dark, then the light is back. Strange. There was never dark in the water.

“It is time for you to begin your journey, child.”

I realize I blinked again. “Who…”

“It does not matter… You will not remember me anyway, not before you are back here. Now you must go. Do not be afraid, you are truly blessed.”

“I don’t want to go.” I glance at the waterfall behind me. It is really beautiful.

“It is your time.”

I fall. I don’t want to fall like this, I want to fall with the water, I want to be part of the water again, don’t want to fall to the darkness, don’t want to…

I was born amidst the purple waterfalls.

I was weak, yet not unblessed.

Dead to the world. Alive for the journey.

I blink at the colorless sky above me. Drops of water fall on my face.

A waterfall… Beautiful waterfall, just like…

I sit up and look behind me. There’s a waterfall there, a high and beautiful waterfall, and I know it.

You will not remember me anyway, not until you are back here.

Back where? Back from where? I close my eyes, searching for memories.

I would like to trust them, but I don’t dare to. They smile at me, but so did those men. The men who killed my mother and sister. I walk towards them, as if I was going to go to them, but as I pass the door I suddenly turn around and run out of the inn. I hear them shouting after me, but I ignore them as I run away as fast as I can.

I slow down when I get too tired to run, and continue my way walking. I don’t know where I’m going to, but there’s nothing new in that.

It’s sad, how often a smile is used to hide malicious purposes.

Like those men, months ago… They said they would help us, but all they were interested about were my mother’s jewels. I was lucky to escape… I wish father hadn’t left us alone. He knew that there would likely be a war, but still he had to leave to Cairo to ‘replenish his stocks’. I guess all merchants are like that.

I wonder if he has come back home yet… There’s no way I can get back home from here, not with the war still going on.

It’s cold. The night is getting darker and it’s cold. I should find a place to spend the night…

“This isn’t a good district for sleepwalking.”

I give a start when I hear the voice. Someone is standing on the other side of the street, someone white-haired like me, and… with a start I realize he looks remarkably much like me. That’s strange… I can’t help staring at him.

“Are you dumb or something?” he asks when I don’t say anything.

“No sir,” I answer meekly. Then I gather up my courage. “Do you know a place where I could sleep, sir?”

He stares at me coldly, and turns then around. “Follow me.” And I follow. I don’t know why I trust him, but I’m sure he’s not planning to harm me anyway.

Maybe it’s because he didn’t smile.

Loneliness. That’s the first thing that came to my mind… When I lived on the streets I was alone, and even with him I was often lonely.

I remember… He was so cold, and cruel in some ways… Through the years he seemed only to turn colder, and… darker, I don’t know any other word to describe it. Like a white rose, turning gradually to black… I think I loved him, kind of… That’s why I followed him, and did not return home when the war ended. I didn’t even know if I had a home to return to anymore…

And then I died, there on the mountains… Did I come here after that?

One night I dreamt, a white rose withering,

A newborn drowning, a lifetime loneliness

I sit on a rock beside the waterfall, frowning a little. It doesn’t feel right… I’m sure that there is also something else happened… something… but I can’t remember what. And it feels as if I had been here sometimes earlier too… as if I had been here many times, actually…

Last thing I remember is he bending over me on those rocks.

Damn you, twerp. Why didn’t you hide from them?

He looked… sad. Almost crushed, if I dared to use that word of him. I wouldn’t have believed he’d ever be sad because of me.

I frown again. Did he have something in his hand? Some kind of a golden pendant…

– THE MILLENNIUM RING –

Suddenly it all comes back, all the memories at the same time, and they make me to fall down from the rock. Duelist Kingdom, my friends, the Puzzle, other items, my yami…

I hear sobbing and it takes me some time to realize that I’m the one making the sound.

My yami.

Gradually I calm down, and for some time I just kneel by the rock, eyes closed, remembering him. My wolf…

He left me, and now I’m dead. I’ll never know if he ever came back to me… if he… I wonder what happened to him when I died. I hope he was able to go on living, but I doubt that…

And now I’m here again. I think this is where I came when I died the first time too… Or was it the first time? I’m sure I’ve been here many times, but I can’t remember… So what is my future going to be? Will I just wait here, until it’s time for me to be born again? Then live my life, not remembering anything that has happened, die again, come here, and…

I’m starting to understand why the Buddhists want to be liberated from rebirth, reach their Nirvana.

I dreamt all my future. Relived my past.

And witnessed the beauty of the beast

“Are you there?” I shout, remembering the voice that once spoke to me here, but no one answers me. Figures. Am I supposed to spend my time here alone? Just watching that waterfall… Watching the waterfall and thinking back to my life. Or lives.

I sigh. I feel so empty here. So alone… I try to think about him again, but somehow… I don’t find the energy for that. He is like a dream from the past, and so are my feelings… I know I love him, or loved at least, but now… I don’t know.

I watch the waterfall, reach toward the sparkling drops with my hand.

It is beautiful.

Where have all the feelings gone?

Why has all the laughter ceased?

As time passes I wonder if he misses me.

If my father misses me…

He was always gone, anyway. We were together so seldom, to him nothing has changed.

I wonder if he loves me now that I’m gone. I know he loved me when I was a child… when Mom and Amane still lived, and everything was well. At that time he used to spend more time home. I guess it was too much for him when they both were dead… so he ran away and left me to face it alone.

At least he gave me my Darkness.

…I wonder if he loves me now. No one ever loved me when I was with them, so maybe they do now that I’m gone…

Why am I loved only when I'm gone?

Gone back in time to bless the Child

So empty. I wonder if I’m ever going to feel anything again. I’m not sure if I even want to.

I know that they will make me to feel again, though, whoever ‘they’ are. Someday they’ll send me back to the world, without my memories. Maybe I’ll meet him again… that’s actually quite probable. And then I’ll fall in love with him, and this will start all over again…

I think I’d rather be here in this emptiness. I close my eyes and try to empty my mind, try to dream of nothing.

How can I ever feel again?

Given the chance would I return?

Everything was so different when I was a child…

“Ryou! Come here, we are going now!”

Mommy’s calling, got to go to her.

“Bye bunnies!”

They bounce away. Bounce, bounce, bounce. I giggle. Bouuuunce.

“Mommy look! I’m a bunny!”

Mommy laughs. It’s a nice sound, and I laugh too. “Bounce into the car then,” she says and I obey.

“Did you like the bunnies, Amane?”

She nods, eating something.

“Daddy! Amane has candy! I want too!”

Dad sits on the driver’s seat and looks at me over his shoulder. “How do you ask nicely, Ryou?” he asks.

“Could I have candy too, please?”

He smiles and reaches out his hand to ruffle my hair. I laugh and grab it. “Now, Ryou, if you don’t let go I can’t give you candy…” I let go quickly. “Here you are.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Candy’s good. I watch the cars as they drive past us and eat my candies. They’re good…

Why am I loved only when I'm gone?

Gone back in time to bless the Child

I wish I were a child again. That child in that life. I wonder if other people too go to places like this when they die, or if I’m somehow special. I don’t feel very special, anyway…

For some reason my thoughts return to him again, although I’d rather not think about him… or anything, for that matter. Would he have liked me when I was a child? Maybe if we had met earlier… I don’t believe he would have been that cruel to a little child. Maybe he would have learned really to love me…

Now… I wonder if he even remembers me anymore.

Think of me long enough to make a memory

Come bless the Child one more time

I remember that I was lonely in my first live… and I used to be lonely in my last life too, before I met Yuugi and others. But this place… Here I can understand what loneliness really means. Loneliness which creeps deep into me like a poison…

I remember someone saying that in death we are all alone, although I doubt that this was what he meant.

There’s nothing to do here. Sure, the waterfall is beautiful, but I’m getting bored of watching it.

Nothing to do… I lay down beside the waterfall, staring at it.

I've never felt so alone in my life

As I drank from a cup which was counting my time

There's a poison drop in this cup of Man

To drink it is to follow the left hand path

Why can’t I feel anything anymore?

Why can I only remember my love, not feel it?

Is it true what some people say, that love like ours isn’t true love at all, that it’s just some sickness… That boys love girls and girls love boys, and that’s it.

But why? How could love ever be wrong?

I wish I could feel my love, maybe it would fill this emptiness…

Where have all the feelings gone?

Why is it the deadliest sin - to love as I loved you?

Did that… whoever it was who spoke to me then really say that I am blessed?

Blessed in what sense? If I am blessed I really don’t want to meet someone who’s cursed… Or maybe I was blessed then, but not anymore, maybe I’ve done things wrong in my live, and that’s why I’m stuck here…

I want to get away from this place, back to my home. To my father, to him, although I very well know that it’s impossible.

Now unblessed, homesick in time…

I wonder how long I’ve been here? Can’t have been that long… If this short time has already made me to lose my feelings, what’s going to happen to me if I have to be here… say, three millennia?

I wonder how I survived the last three millennia…

I wonder lots of things lately.

Soon to be freed from care, from human pain

So this was all I got. I still remember my dreams too… Everything I wanted to do. I think that I’m almost feeling something now…

Bitterness.

I guess even that’s better than to be empty inside.

There were so many things I wanted to do, so many things I could have done even if he hadn’t ever returned to me.

And this is all I get: my body a grave, and my soul a… sparkling waterfall.

My tale is the most bitter truth:

Time pays us but with earth and dust, and a dark, silent grave.

The bitterness inside my chest grows to something stronger.

”Why?!” I spring to my feet.

“Damn you, answer me! I know you hear me! Why am I here? WHY?!”

Silence. Then:

“Calm down, child.”

The voice is gentle, as I remember it to have been, but also commanding, and I have to obey.

“You are here, because you have not finished yet what you were sent to do.”

“And what was I sent to do?”

“I cannot tell you that.”

I open my mouth to protest, but the voice continues.

“Just rest, child. Cherish your innocence. It is your dearest treasure, and your most potent weapon. Don’t lose it, don’t lose the Child inside you. You will need it.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, but the voice remains silent.

Remember, my child: Without innocence the cross is only iron,

Hope is only an illusion, and Ocean Soul's nothing but a name...

I sigh and sit down again. Cherish my innocence… I sigh again, deeper. Damn you.

The Child bless thee and keep thee forever...

A/N: Well. I did say it was weird, didn’t I? In the next chapter we’ll return to Bakura.