Welcome back.  Did you enjoy your sleep?  I know I enjoyed your sleep.  You were finally quiet, not babbling on in self-important self-righteousness. 

It probably looks to all of you like I'm holding together well.  It may even look like I'm happy to be alone.  Alone... That word should have a whole new meaning for us now, shouldn't it?  You know what it feels like, don't you?  You're just as alone now as I am.  How are you standing it, this silent darkness where our others used to be?

I think sometimes the silence is driving me insane, perhaps more insane than my other was or appeared to be.  I keep waiting to hear his voice (and there is silence) or his mocking laughter (and there is silence) or some new plot of his to steal the Millennium Items (and there is silence) or...  There is always silence now, and I want it to go away!  I want to scream and cry and rant at the world, you, and the gods till they give me my other back!  I can't take the silence anymore!

I'm sorry.  Did that hurt?

I know what you and your friends have been saying about me.  You all think I'm better off alone.  You think I'm happier alone.  You think you're the only one with this gaping hole inside you.  Well, damn you!  You're not!  You took my other away and left me broken inside.  It's only fitting that you should have to endure the very same torment.  Until you give me back what I'm lacking, you should have to feel the same pain.

Damn you!  And damn your other too!  There isn't a curse strong enough for the hatred I feel for the two of you.  You should be glad he's gone.  In whatever secret corner of the afterlife he's hiding, he's safe from me and the revenge I've been planning.  And everyone thought I learned nothing from my other.  You never even saw me coming, did you?  Not that you ever did before.  Did you expect me to just sit back and take it?  I'm not.  I won't.  The other me never took these things lying down, and neither will I.

Damn you and your other - and your friends too!  You keep taking my other away from me.  You probably cheered as he went too.  One of your friends made me have to hunt my other's Item during Duelist Kingdom.  Do you think I enjoyed hunting through those woods in a blind panic, trying to find where the Ring landed? Do you?!

I thought not.

That hurt too?  Really?  That was nothing.

Kaiba's blimp?  Oh, when he protected me from your other, you mean.  You never knew the other me like I did.  You only saw the parts of him he wanted you to see till then.  You only saw what you wanted to see.  That's still all you see.  My other always protected me, as best he knew how.  He... just didn't always know how.

No, he never hurt me!  You thought he beat me?  Why?  What purpose would that serve?  My other never did anything without a purpose.  Any idiot should have realized that.

My arm?  Oh, in Battle City.  He did it to himself.  I never felt a thing till the duel with the other you.  So that I felt any pain was entirely your other's fault.

What do you mean 'was I helping him'?  Of course!  He was my other.  He helped me, so why shouldn't I help him get his revenge against the ones who were responsible for his family's death?  Didn't your other tell you about Kuru Elna and the ninety-nine people sacrificed to make the Items?  We were going to get all the Millennium Items together and release all souls still imprisoned within them, even the priests.  We just weren't counting on Zork.

And now, of course, the Millennium Items are gone, fallen into endless darkness, and probably destroyed.  Do you think those souls are free now though, or are they just wandering spirits?  Hmm, well, you're an optimist.  I think the only souls that made it to the Underworld are those priests of your other - and of course, your other himself.

I can't even go get my other back this time!  I'd spend days - weeks! months! whatever it takes! - in Pegasus' damn forest looking if it meant escaping this silence.  I hate it!  I hate it!  And I hate you!  Why did you have to take him away from me?  Why couldn't you have just destroyed Zork but left me my other?  And if you were so anxious to get rid of the other you, did you have to fix it so the other me can't come back too?  It's not fair!  I never asked for my other to be taken away again!  I'm still waiting in the silence to hear him say 'yadonushi' again!  The silence... Always the silence!

Am I going to kill you?  No, no, of course not.  It wouldn't accomplish anything, even making me feel better.  You wouldn't have to keep feeling the same emptiness that I do if you're dead.  You wouldn't get to taste that same despair I breathe in every day if you're dead.

Besides, did you always say I'm the good one, Yuugi-kun?

:: Owari ::

01 February 2005

Whee, it's fun to break poor Ryou! 

Seriously, this just came to me out of the blue. It's dark and a little twisted - and if you guessed he's torturing Yuugi while he's saying all this, you would be correct.