Disclaimer: In a way, readers or viewers are co-creators of a story through the work of their imaginations, right? Still . . . in the eyes of the law, I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh.
Title: Love is little, love is low
Rating: PG
Category: Angst/Romance
Pairings: Yuugi/Yami no Yuugi
Summary: Unthinkable but true: Yami no Yuugi lost the duel with Raphael-- but Yuugi takes his place in the Seal of Orichalcos. What does Yuugi think of life as a disembodied soul? Doom Arc. One-shot. Warnings: Shounen-ai undertones.
Spoilers: Partway through Doom Arc.
Love is little, love is low
Love will make my spirit grow
Grow in peace, grow in light
Love will do the thing that's right
--"Love Is Little": Shaker song, South Union, Kentucky, ca. 1834
I doubt many Japanese teenagers are connoisseurs of out-of-body experiences.
I'm an exception to the rule.
I've gotten so familiar with them, I could easily write an essay on the kinds I've encountered. Easily, that is, if I were back in my body. Or even back in the Puzzle. Looping in and out of that Puzzle has come to seem almost normal to me. In fact, it's come to be . . . like home. A shared home, with an unusual housemate.
But I won't think about him. Not yet.
The time I spent in the Shadow Realm during Duelist Kingdom was--not quite so comfortable as the Puzzle. Truth to tell, it was terrifying. But I've brushed against it a bunch of times since then, and in spite of everything, I've built up a weird affection for it. At its most horrible, it still reminds me of DuelMonsters--well, the darker side of DuelMonsters, like the cards Bakura-kun favors.
Besides: it carries a whiff of something, something like smoke.
You'd think that would turn me off it altogether, after the whole warehouse thing with Bandit Keith. But it's not that kind of smoke, and it's not the stink of cigarettes. No, it's a ceremonial smell, like incense.
It's the smell that always--ever so faintly--clings to him when I stand next to him in the Puzzle, or even when his presence hovers near me in the outside world, though I don't think anyone catches it but me. The smell of mystery, of wonderment, of Pharaoh.
I'm still not thinking of him.
. . . And then, there's the current out-of-body experience--the Seal of Orichalcos.
It's nothing like the other two.
It is--just that. Nothing. Nothingness. I can't see, can't feel, can't taste, can't smell anything here. But then, there is no here. Nothing but my thoughts. And feelings, if I allow them.
Would I have chosen this if I had known?
Yes.
What I don't know is why.
Why would it have been the end of my world if I had let him be sealed? It was his fault.
We'd been through so much together, during and since Duelist Kingdom. We had come to know each other, we had learned to rely on the bond between us. That's what I thought. Yet, after all that time--all that time he'd called me partner--when it came to choosing between our link and his desire to win . . .
He shook me off. I was an annoyance, a petty distraction.
The Seal rose between us, parted me from my own body--from the Puzzle--from his mind and heart. I pounded on that shield, watched in agony, shouted silently. No good: he fell completely into Raphael's trap.
When the wall fell, when that green noose slid tight around his hunched form, I hurled myself at him, calling. And at last he heard me, turned--
--And, caught off balance, he fell outside the circle. As I intended.
It made sense for me to do it. From a strategic standpoint, there's no question he's the more powerful Duelist. A weakling like me couldn't beat Doom--even all of us together couldn't do it without him. But if he's there, I have faith that they can succeed.
But that's not why I did it.
I couldn't bear for him to leave the world defeated. I wanted him to have the chance to make things right.
A chance at redemption. One more chance at life.
Even if I can never go back--I made the right choice.
At least . . . I still am. My being able to think is proof I exist. Seems I learned something in philosophy class!
But just what am I? Stripped of a physical form, removed from the world as I know it?
For so much of my life, I've been defined by the people and places around me. I've defined myself in terms of those others--measured myself against them, usually found myself wanting.
Inevitably, that's what I did with him. For him, after all, most everything's a competition. And he knows and I know that in any normal game between us, he'd come out the winner.
And yet, there was that time once--the time on the docks, with Jounouchi- kun mind-controlled by Malik. I asked my other if I could take over the duel. And--however reluctantly--he stepped back and let me.
That time, I took off the puzzle so he'd have no chance to intervene. I didn't trust him. Didn't trust him not to wrest control away from me. I was afraid he might choose to sacrifice Jounouchi-kun in order to save our shared body. Worse, I was afraid he might do it in order to win.
I admit it surprised me when, duel over, he said quietly through our link: /You made me experience strength hidden in tenderness. Someday you'll surpass me./
I couldn't make out his tone.
Theoretically, it could have been sarcasm. I deserved his resentment for basically shoving him aside--endangering him even, by entrusting the puzzle to Jounouchi-kun.
But it wasn't that. Nor was it any kind of distress.
Certainly not mockery.
Was it respect? Was it . . . pride?
Grandpa would laugh if I said this to him, but I think I've gained wisdom over the past year or so. It's the kind that comes from finding out how much you don't know, from learning that you've been walking around all the days of your life with pieces missing.
The moment the spirit sent that message to me--at that moment my heart grabbed hold of his words, changed them into something else entirely.
. . . When my dad died, he wasn't so very much older than the age my other self seems to be. Of course, the two don't look at all alike. The photos I have of Mutou Susumu(1) show a tallish, skinny young man with brown-black hair, a narrow face. His main resemblance to Grandpa and me is his goofy grin and the color of his eyes.
I have no memory of him to hold onto. My whole life, it's been Grandpa who took me to the doctor's when Mom was at work, who came with her to admire my artwork and compositions at school Open House nights, who frowned me into doing hated chores.
Really, I never needed a father. The blanket of caring that Mom and Grandpa wrapped me in kept me happier than lots of kids from more "normal" households. My family life was pretty complete.
At least that's what I used to think. Before I was seized by this yearning for guidance, for praise, from a mentor who still inspires fear in me. For the respect and affection of someone I'm desperately afraid I'll lose before I fully know him.
Into nowhere comes--sensation. Several at once--
It's as though I'm reenacting Creation: my particles spinning together, clumping, forming mass. And at the same time all these bits of me perform this little dance, the whole whirl is being sucked in one particular direction. All around me there is now . . . light? Not the green glare of Orichalcos, but an orange-gray-yellow-brown, like the glow of a dying star.
Then suddenly this whole mess of me-becoming-me fetches up against something else. The sepia-toned light is bisected by a shaft of bright green. "I" slam into it again, flotsam against a dam.
For an endless moment, I'm pressed between the soft force of the yellowish light and the hard wall of green, wondering if it's possible to suffocate when you're mostly disembodied. And then it's as though a hand reaches through from the other side of Orichalcos, grasps my very center and pulls me through . . .
Only passing through Orichalcos is like passing through a sieve, the neighboring particles are ripped away from each other and it hurts and I wonder if all that came before was just an opening act for true Death--
Then I'm on the other side of the barrier, my particles zoom back towards each other in happy reunion, and my "nose" catches a scent, a sweet familiar sand-and-ash smell dancing toward me on the breeze.
I open my eyes on an alien landscape, a canyon perhaps, barren and deep. Though I've never before seen this circle of stones which rings me, I sense what sort of place it is. Countless fragments of human souls blow around me like tumbleweed, clutch at your coat and hair, gibber at us both.
You.
Tentatively, I reach through the link--but find emptiness. I can only read you by the strange look in your eyes. It's raw, endlessly deep; it is need. Out of place entirely on your proud face.
"Other me?" My voice comes out rusty.
"Partner!" you cry. "Partner--" you surge towards me. Your arms are out as though to seize me, draw me into you.
Only you pass right through.
As your form moves through me, I feel all the bits of my soul yearning towards our body, toward the Puzzle. Then they bounce back, denied entry.
But with this "contact," something has come awake in this false form of mine.
All spiritual matter in this stone circle strains towards the scent of life on you. We hover like a swarm of insects, about to settle on you, suck every drop of blood out.
Yes, me too.
My body, the body you wear, has become a foreign presence to me. It has become . . . meat.
What possessed you to find this place? What possessed you to call me here? To put yourself in this danger?
Over my shoulder, I ask, "Why are you here?"
"I wanted to see you no matter what."
I close my eyes. "See me in this empty shell?"
Your deep voice flows around me from behind. "Partner, I no longer know what to do. I don't know what is bad or good. When you are with me I can sense the heart of tenderness and forgiveness to others naturally. To me right now empty is empty; even if I keep dueling I can only hurt people. Just like--just like what Raphael said. There is a huge dark power that sleeps in my heart. I am even afraid of getting my own memory back."
It takes most of my willpower not to turn to look at you, and the rest to silence a sudden, despicable feeling of triumph. Like it or not, you do need me, don't you?
You've never been so open with me, spoken with such pain. It's not supposed to be this way--you're the decisive one, the leader; I'm your supporter.
And yet part of me longs to hear you say those words again: "When you are with me . . ."
My soul trembles. I breathe the buzzing air: in, out, in. Then I reach into the writhing emotions, and grab hold of the one thing I'm sure of.
I open my eyes, strip all gentleness from my voice. "Other me, did you come to see me just for these weak words?"
"Partner!"
I've cut deep. No turning back.
Louder, I say: "Are you here to say something demoralized so my soul will revive?" I walk past you.
"Partner!"
I extend my arm and watch a duel disk materialize above my wrist. My tone is distant, reflective. "I knew this day would come sooner or later, I knew I'd duel with you sooner or later. That day is now."
Your look of hurt turns to horror. "Wait--"
I continue, ruthlessly keeping you off-balance. "If the dark in your heart has already taken over, then I'll beat you here. Your dueling ability is indeed stronger than mine, but I'll defeat you absolutely. I'll beat you and take it as a goodbye between you and me."
Surely you won't swallow that...
You do. "Partner," you say, helplessly.
Another breath. "Okay, get ready quick...Nameless Pharaoh!"
For a moment, you gaze transfixed at the duel disk which has appeared on your arm. Then you look up at me.
I won't let myself be lost in those eyes.
"Duel!"
END
(1) This is the name (and physical description) I made up for Yuugi's dad after a fruitless search for any Takahashi-certified details on him.
Postscript: Quotes in honor of Yuugi (From Delicious Laughter: Rambunctious Teaching Stories from the Mathnawi of Jelaluddin Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks (Athens, GA: Maypop, 1990))
Brother, stand the pain. Escape the poison of your impulses. The sky will bow to your beauty, if you do....
What is it to praise? Make yourself particles.
What is it to know something of God? Burn inside that Presence. Burn up.
Copper melts in the healing elixir. So melt your self in the Mixture That Sustains Existence.
You tighten your two hands together, determined not to give up saying 'I' and 'we.' This tightening blocks you.
--p. 101 (Mathnawi, I, 2981-3021)
Whatever a human being truly sees, he or she becomes. That's the nature of this existence....
One way of seeing sees only a road. Another sees a home. It's always Home.
The former is dualistic, gauging who's ahead and who's behind. The latter sees everything at once, and reversed, so that being last is winning, and dying is living, as well as dying.
You have to experience this Truth to know what it is.
p. 105 (Mathnawi, VI, 806-821)
Author's Note: I loved Yuugi's fierceness during his Orichalcos duel with Yami no Yuugi. How did he work up that degree of anger and confidence? This story's my take on the matter. The title comes from a Shaker song that, to me, embodies Yuugi's personality. The quotes at the end also seem to capture his essence, at least at this point in the YGO plot. . .
FEEDBACK REQUEST: I'd welcome suggestions for ways to make this story stronger. I had some tangled thoughts that would have extended the story as far as the end of the duel, and hinted at why YnY is able to cradle Yuugi's "body," where before his hands pass right through his partner.