Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ HOUNDS ❯ Yami Nagisawa ( Chapter 5 )

For once, Sweets actually did a bit of research before she started a story, and didn’t just make up words to cover concepts. I was surfing reference.com when I came across this paragraph, so HappyDragon, here is your answer to the therianthrope question:

“In folklore, Lycanthropy is the ability or power of a human being to undergo transformation into a wolf. The term comes from ancient Greek lykanthropos (ëõêÜíèñïðï&ograv e;): lykos ("wolf") + anthropos ("man"). The word lycanthropy is often used generically for any transformation of a human into animal form, though the precise term for that is technically therianthropy.

Therianthropy is a generic term for any transformation of a human into an animal form, either as a part of mythology or as a spiritual concept. The word is derived from Greek therion, meaning "wild animal," and anthrôpos, meaning "man."

-Reference.com.”



~

HOUNDS. Yami Nagisawa

~By Sweetdeily.

“A closed mouth gathers no feet.”
~Unknown.

~

Mr. Phillip didn’t answer his phone. It could have meant a whole number of things, but Jounouchi choose to assume that his phone was simply dead- arms dealers never turned their phones ‘off’ but sometimes the battery ran out. The blonde assumed this for two reasons. One; his brain kept shutting down every time Seto Kaiba opened his mouth. And two; the possibility that Mr. Phillip was dead was a grim one indeed.

Jounouchi was no stranger to death- he’d even killed in the cage. But the accidental deaths in the fights and the death of a man to hide a sin were two very different things to Jounouchi. That and the deaths in the cage were never recorded or noticed. People went into the cage half-expecting this fight to be their last. And there was a whole lack of legal action. No one cared if a werewolf got himself wasted in a stupid little dominance battle. It didn’t ‘count’ in the books. The cage manager had a way of making bodies vanish.

But still. The cage was one thing. Jounouchi had been brought up to think of the cage as an almost other world. It wasn’t really killing another living person if it was in the cage. Even though there was a finality to a kill, and a pain in his chest that screamed at him ‘murderer.’ But the cage absorbed these kills and they were never noted down or recorded. Jounouchi might have well as had a clean slate. Which was good, because the first time he had panicked and gotten really drunk, worrying that he’d just ruined all hopes of getting into the HOUNDS. It was almost a month before he finally got over this worry.

But no questions; no inquires. Nothing. It still made Jounouchi sick to think about; that a human life meant nothing more than a blown shot at getting a position in HOUNDS to him.

There was no logical reason for him to believe that Mr. Phillips was dead. But that said- Jounouchi knew that guns made people crazy. And crazy people tended to kill one another. The blonde theiranthrope’s biggest concern was that the operation was shutting down due to the investigations. That was bad. Or, worse yet, that the operation had gone big time.

Either way, if Mr. Phillips was dead, they would lose a chance at finding a bigger fish. It wasn’t to say that they would lose all their chances, just the easiest one.

Or maybe Jounouchi just wanted him to be dead so Seto Kaiba would hang around more. If the blonde proved invaluable- he could take the HOUNDS exam as an SR. Being a Situational Resource wasn’t the most honorable of ranks- but it was a damn good chance.

“Still no pick-up?” The brunette asked; he’d driven the Porshe around the backstreets a few times, eyes glancing at the streets as he went.

Jounouchi had almost said something when they’d gone in and out of gang-lands, but thought it best not to alarm the man. Or maybe the damn cat had his tongue. Or the werewolf… no, he was not following that thought through to its conclusion.

“Nope. It’s probably just off.” But he bit his lip anyway.

“Well is there anything else we can do until we get through?”

“I can try and talk to a few people.” Jounouchi spoke. Unfortunately, he would have to get in touch with friends of friend’s. Most of Jounouchi’s regulars weren’t into carrying guns. They were ‘weak’.

“Well?” Seto prompted after a few minutes of silence.

Jounouchi rubbed his eyes tiredly. “I’m trying to think of people that –might- know someone who might know someone who might, just might, be connected.”

“Too many people?”

“Too few. My crowd of regulars are fighting wolves- they don’t have anything to do with the teenager gangs or human trade. It’s the tattoos and full moon hunting for them.” Jounouchi looked out the porshe window, hoping it was tinted.

“I could try talking to the Moutoh. But it’s better if I stay off their radar right now.”

“Why?”

Jounouchi made a vague waving motion. “The youngest son has only recently taken control of the clan. And they’re having power struggles. I’m a small fish and if they think it would be a good example- I might end up swimming with cement shoes.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No… which is why I don’t want to try it. Teenaged kids are scary.” Jounouchi had heard a rumor about the young Yugi Moutoh. A rumor or two that were a little freaky. Like the guy that had smiled at Yugi’s grandfather’s funeral and how his lips had been cut off and mailed to him the next day.

And the story about the fish…

Jounouchi got the willies just thinking about it.

“Well then what else shall we do today?”

Jounouchi ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “Honestly? Not a clue. I need to phone a few people and set up meetings. Get in touch with a few more guys. Maybe pump Yami for some information.”

Maybe just pump Yami…

“Alright, so we’re calling it a day?”

Jounouchi nodded. The lycanthrope almost sounded… disappointed. This made Jounouchi feel like a woman with menopause getting a hot flash.

“Where do I turn to get back to your… apartment?”

Jounouchi glanced at the street sign they were passing and felt a cold chill run down his spine. “Oh shit… you didn’t just drive us into Claire Street, did you?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been driving aimlessly for a while now.”

“Oh fuck. Chuck a u-turn! Now!” Jounouchi looked around at the nice, not-quite so-run-down buildings that were on Claire Street. Claire Street was the base of the Lock Jaws. No one –dared- mess the houses up on this street. There was a small, quaint two storey house at the end of the street that was the Moutoh residence and a cluster of people out the front were watching the Porsche.

Jounouchi stopped wondering if the windows were tinted or not and ducked below the seat. “Jesus Mary and Joseph! Chuck a fucking u-turn!”

The car smoothly turned and drove out of the street. Jounouchi was worried he’d been spotted. He was fucked now.

“What was that all about?” Seto asked, mild disinterest in his voice.

Jounouchi slowly sat back up. “Jesus Christ! You can’t just go driving around gang-lands willy nilly! That was Lock Jaw’s home street! You don’t go up that street unless you’re part of the gang or suicidal. Fuck… I hope they didn’t see me…”

“The windows are tinted.” Seto spoke calmly, turning up a different street.

Jounouchi let all the air escape his body and started to direct the lycanthrope back to his apartment.

~

He was too young to remember time before the Wei family. His memory seemed to start one night; it must have been raining, because he remembered standing there, shivering so violently that he could barely stand. He remembered staring at the woman’s mouth while she spoke to him, but he didn’t understand what she was saying. They huddled in a small, waterlogged entrance, the thatched roof was leaking icy cold water onto his shoulders and the ground felt muddy and disgusting between his toes.

“Okaasan wa doko da?”

He remembered her hand when she slapped him for talking. But he never understood why until much later.

The language was different to his language, and he quickly learnt to be quiet and listen before he tried to speak it.

Slowly it was explained to him that he had been bought by their family as a companion for their son. His family had sold him for money because they were poor. He belonged to the Wei family’s eldest son, Wei Li.

Wei Li was ten years older than him, and at first, he wanted the slave boy to tell him all about the place that he came from. Yami, however, didn’t remember much of it. It was always green, or always white in his memory, and there was a wooden pole constantly clicking in the garden as it gathered water and released it.

Wei Li quickly grew bored of Yami’s inability to explain these things and moved on to games and school. It was Yami’s job to carry Wei Li’s books to school and wait for Wei Li to come home so he could carry the books back again as well. While Wei Li was at school, Yami was supposed to just stand by the door with all the other boys waiting on their masters or elder brothers, but he found that the teasing and beatings they gave him for being a foreigner were too harsh- so he started to wander.

He met the old man then; the man that sat on the corner, begging the people passing by for a few small coins to get some food with. The old man was missing a few teeth and always smelt funny, and he yelled at Yami a lot at first, but eventually he let Yami sit next to him and talked to the small boy. He jabbered on a lot, and it was hard to understand most of what he said; he talked about his forest goddess, and how one night his father had laid with her, and he had been born the next day and had left her to go and search for his father’s people. But he had stayed so long that he’d forgotten where the forest was, and could never return now.

Yami loved listening to the old man’s stories and snuck some of his bread to the old man.

The years passed slowly. The old man moved corners occasionally, and sometimes people did toss money into his cup. Most of the time, he went hungry.

The incident that changed Yami’s young life forever was caused by Wei Li’s curiosity and foolishness.

By that time Yami was six and and Wei Li was sixteen. The age gap between them was immense and Yami was unable to do most of the tasks that Wei Li wanted from him. Except for one task. Wei Li had probably been denied by one of the boys at school, and he was in a foul mood. He dragged his servant into his room and locked the door behind him.

“Take off your clothes.” Wei Li had demanded.

Yami shook his little head; he didn’t want to lose his only set of clothing. But his response had been the wrong one and Wei Li had flown at him and beaten him until the little slave cried and screamed. Gagging the six year old, Wei Li had pulled down his pants and violently taken the young boy.

Wei Li had dressed himself but left the paining slave to die, bleeding on his bed. As soon as Yami was alone, the small child pulled his clothes back on and ran away to the old man.

If the old man had not have grown attached to the little boy, what happened next would not have occurred and this tale would have ended with the boy’s natural life-cycle.

Unfortunately, all those born to greatness are surrounded by tragedy. The old man took Yami gently into his arms and soothed the hysterical child; he kissed away the little boy’s tears and took the young child out into the forest where they made love for hours on end. Somewhere during those first blissful hours of Yami’s life he contracted what some call a sexually transmitted disease and others call a gift.

After that night Yami never saw the old man again, he sent the small slave home and disappeared into the night.

Naturally Yami was beaten, once by the family for running away and a second time by Li for being with another man.

The injuries he sustained would have crippled a normal child for the rest of their life; both his legs were broken and he was beaten well past unconsciousness. But Yami healed the broken bones within a week. And by a second week, he was back to carrying books and doing silly, menial tasks.

Shortly after, the changes started. He kept it secret from the family by pretending to be their pet tiger and lying around the house most days as the animal. But then they sold the tiger and Yami didn’t find out until the Wei mother tried to kill him in animal form.

In order to save his life he was forced to reveal himself as a shape-shifter.

He was thrown out into the streets like yesterday’s trash.

Shape-shifters have never been respected in any society. They are people who are neither human nor animal. Long, long ago a few select shifters were worshipped as gods- but times had long since changed. Yami’s life had been hard and painful before the change, but now it was an effort to simply get a coin to buy a bowl of rice gruel. He had better luck getting fed in animal form, and it wasn’t long before he quickly discovered that being an animal had more advantages this way.

Dignity as a human was something that a slave never learnt- and Yami easily gave this up and remained a were-tiger for almost three years, becoming a rich family’s pet and lazing about their house. They cut his claws down to the whites, but were-animals heal at amazingly fast rates and Yami learnt to give up trying to avoid having his nails butchered. It was a small price in exchange for a roof over his head and food every day.

But animals that can open doors for their owners are few and far between, and being a tiger constantly gave him a headache, so his life as a pet was usually brought to a quick, brutal ending when someone connected the dots together and he was thrown onto the streets, or forced to run away in the face of death.

Years passed quickly in this manner, and it wasn’t long before his sixteenth birthday came around.

He had stolen some money from a wealthy family before running away and was eating a vegetable stew like it was the water of life. People rarely gave pets vegetables. He didn’t see the lady sit down beside him, but he felt it.

She came into his brain, every movement like a ripple through his sub consciousness.

He remembered dropping the bowl with his stew and turning to look at her.

She was dressed in plain, clean pants and a shirt. They were nothing fancy, and the fit made her look a little big in the hips. She looked to be in her forties and the hand that gave him a full coin was weathered and felt like velvet under his fingers. Her eyes were green and focused solely on his face. Her dark hair had traces of gray running through it.

“Hello.” She greeted him.

Yami nodded dumbly and loudly ordered two more bowls of vegetable stew.

“I’m looking for someone.” She spoke again, never looking away from Yami’s face.

The street tiger shook his head and hunched his shoulders. He didn’t want to know.

But the woman continued. “Since I see you, you must have known him.”

And she held up a hand full of coins.

“Who?” Yami finally asked, snatching for the coins.

The woman moved surprisingly fast then, and he found himself grasping at thin air. “Now, now, kitten. You can’t get everything for free.”

He frowned at her and sat back on his stool, burying his head in his bowl and loudly slurping up the vegetables.

“He is my son, but he has no name.” She started again.

Yami shook his head. “Don’t know anyone.”

“Yes you do.” The woman insisted, and the hand with the coins drifted under his nose.

Yami tried to snatch them again, but she laughed and pulled them back. “Impatience does not bring the kill down, kitten.”

The boy growled and decided to ignore her for good this time. “Leave me alone crazy woman.”

“Do you know where he is or not?”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about!” Yami snapped.

The woman laughed and placed a hand on Yami’s shoulder. It was like a warm pulse rushed through his body and Yami found himself choking on his stew.

She smiled again, and this time he saw a flash of a tiger race across her face.

Yami whimpered and jumped off his seat. “I don’t know!”

“You must!” She insisted.

He shook his head. “I looked for him and he never came back after that night.”

The boy wanted to stay and eat his stew, but the woman made him uncomfortable.

She looked crestfallen now, and she slowly slid off her stool. “So he just left?”

Yami nodded.

And the woman tossed the coins at him and walked away.

Yami wasn’t entirely sure if he’d said what she’d wanted to hear, but he had enough money to buy gruel for three months. Quickly the were-tiger grabbed the money out of the mud and shoved it into his jacket. He went back to eating.

The woman found him again the next day, he was lying in a nice warm spot in the sun, watching some children play a ball game.

“You’re my only family now.” She said.

Yami got to his feet and walked away. “I don’t know you.”

“Why are you so afraid of me?”

“I am not!” Yami shot out hotly, crossing the street and avoiding a rick-shaw as it raced past him.

The woman just suddenly appeared in front of him. “Yes you are. Is it because I am a woman?”

“Yes. And women are silly.” He snapped. He tried to move around her but she swayed with him, blocking his way.

“Since you are my grandchild, I think I’ll give you a birthday present.”

“Money?” He stopped trying to get around her then. If the crazy weird woman wanted to give him money- he would take it.

“No.”

He snorted and turned, ready to go back the other way. “Then I don’t want it.”

“But it can make you money.” She called out.

He stopped. “How?”

The woman approached him and placed her hands on his shoulders. “It is luck. Lots of luck.”

“I don’t want any luck.” He snorted.

Her fingers tightened around his shoulders and that warmth from the day before started flooding into him. “I didn’t say you got to keep it. But some of it can be for you. All you have to do is give up on falling in love for three thousand years.”

“Why would I want love at all?”

She smiled at him. “You’ve lead a hard life where emotions are a fancy. But when I give you this gift, all that will change. Sooner or later, you’ll want to fall in love. And people will fall in love with you. It will break your insides knowing that you cannot love them in return.”

Yami snorted again. “Sounds like stupid things.”

The hands on his shoulders finally released him and the were-tiger found his knees giving out.

“You won’t get to keep most of it, but the love in three thousand years will be just for you.”

“People don’t live that long…” He was having trouble breathing now. He gasped and tried to inhale more air, but it wasn’t going into his lungs.

“You will. And all I ask in return for this gift… is you give someone else the gift that my son gave you. I don’t want you to be the last of my family. I love children.”

And she kissed him gently on the forehead before he blacked out.

What the tiger goddess had said came true. Someone found him lying on the street and took him home. A young man that wanted to become a doctor. They slept together and the young man became a physician to the emperor.

Money slowly became less and less of a problem to Yami, everyone he met and anyone who helped him or was kind to him became rich and powerful, and they all gave him credit- even though most of it seemed like their own talents.

He went to school and learnt how to count and write, he was able to wear nice clothing and although people never gave him his own power or position because of his genetics, he never really minded.

In return for the gift, he made many more were-tigers. Every once in a while he’d find a man or woman and give them the gift that had destroyed and remade his life.

Time passed. So much time that Yami never realized that he was over two hundred years old until people would ask him when he was born.

Sometimes, Yami’s luck gave him something. One such incident was with the emperor himself one day. Yami had been giving the emperor mixed signals for the better part of a week, wooing the man with shy glances and soft smiles, he was standing on the path, watching as the emperor ascended to his castle when he gave a small wave of greeting. The Emperor had taken a step toward Yami- a step that saved his life, for the arrow of a would-be assassin missed his heart and tore the sleeve of his robe instead.

The emperor attributed his life to the were-tiger and had small ‘lucky cat’ statues made of Yami.

The nick-name never left the cat.

Anyone he dealt with was immensely successful in whatever they wanted to be later in life. Those he slept with had happy and successful lives.

Yami slowly acquired enough money to buy most of the world from itself.

But luck is one thing… love, love was something he began to get desperate about. His romances became famous and tragic. No matter how hard he tried, he could not fall in love. He could like someone until the end of the earth. But love was like a fruit that simply refused to ripen.

It can rip you apart from the inside out, waiting for that one person to come along that will pluck the apple of your heart.

The years slowly saw his professions change and his happiness dwindle. For two hundred years he retired from the public world and lived alone in a monastery.

But the Lucky Cat couldn’t stay hidden forever. People hunted him down and demanded to romance him. Others treated him like an object.

And slowly, over the centuries, the years counted down until the time came that he knew he would be allowed to fall in love. Finally.

He found himself in America. Playing with an addiction to catnip and selling his body for the fun of it, he found a young therianthrope of a confused kind. Thinking that perhaps this was either his next Tolkien or Ming emperor he took the boy under wing. When nothing happened for the longest time- he began to wonder if this was the person he would fall in love with.

How odd fate is.

~

Yami was catnapping when they broke into the apartment. He was completely doped up on catnip, or he might have woken, but it wasn’t until someone pulled on his tail that he realized someone was in the room that didn’t smell right.

With a hiss the were-tiger got to his paws and turned on the person that had invaded the apartment.

There were two of them, and as soon as he was awake a white cloth smothered his mouth.

The were-tiger hissed and pulled back, swiping at the hand with the cloth, claws raking through flesh and bone.

Yami staggered backwards, knocking his catnip onto the floor, red eyes rolling and nose twitching.

Chloroform!

“Fuck! I thought he was supposed to be a gentle tiger!” The injured man groaned.

“Just shut up and drench him.” The second man growled.

And too late, Yami saw the liquid flying through the air. It slapped against his face and drenched his whiskers.

He tried not to, but with wet whiskers he was disorientated anyway- he licked his whiskers and tasted the chloroform.

With a sigh the cat collapsed into a human body, hitting the floor head-first.

~To Be continued…

Sweet notes: Yami’s history took longer than I thought it would.

Yami: Ahhh, so that’s what’s up with me.

Jou: Damnit!!! Why won’t anyone tell me!?! Godfuckingdamnit!!!

Seto: Actually that’s kind of funny. You know, technically you having sex with Yami is shotacon…

Jou: How so?

Yami: I’m three thousand years older than you.

Jou: Ewww… gross. *pushes Yami away* get off me old man!

Yugi: *grabs the Yami plate* I don’t mind older men. ^.^

Bakura: Yes but you’re a-

Yugi: A what? *glare*

Bakura: really nice little boy… *backs away*

Marik: Speaking of me…

Seto: We weren’t.

Marik: When am I appearing?

Ryuji: Or me for that matter?

Sweets: hush, I don’t want to spoil anything too much. Reviews? And congratulations, Seto has not joined a monastery. Yayyyy!