WHAT I COULDN'T SAY

And so begins a journey of knowing, of passion, of redemption. Of love, hate, life, and death.

Basically, a set of short drabbles and vignettes about the relationship between Anzu and Yami Yuugi/Atemu. (Perhaps, if I feel brave enough, I'll test the waters with other characters, too.) Ranging from AU to canon to speculative future-fics, I hope to satisfy all you readers out there and improve my writing skills, as well.

I do realize I'm probably jumping on the bandwagon with this but oh well. It's something to get my rusty mind going. Oh, before I forget…

Disclaimer: I do NOT own anything Kazuki Takahashi owns. That includes Yu-Gi-Oh.

Title: I Won't Let You Disappear.
Timeline: DOMA period, right after Yuugi was taken via the Orichalcos.
Pairings: None. Hint of one-sided Anzu&Yami. You might have to squint.
Rating: K
Word count: 707

A ghost.

That's how Anzu saw him when he returned. She swore she almost saw him fade into oblivion when Rebecca had brazenly threw her arms around him. Was that what he was, underneath the regality, the larger-than-life persona? The young brunette closed her eyes and shook her head in fear. When she opened them again, she found him looking at her… No, that wasn't right. He was looking through her, as if she wasn't there at all. His eyes, usually a deep amethyst and so full of confidence and determination, now looked hollow, grim, and… dead.

Anzu vaguely remembered trying to comfort Rebecca, all the while looking at Yuugi -- no, not Yuugi, but his other self. Even then, that wasn't right either. What she was looking at was the shell of the man Anzu had come to admire and care about very deeply.

He was strong, reliable, loyal, all the things Anzu could only hope to be. Not that Yuugi or the rest of the group did not have the same attributes, but she had always felt a strange pull towards the Nameless Pharaoh. Something told her that he needed her. Logically, in her mind, that made some sense. Jounouchi was often too brash, Honda was not nearly as assertive, Bakura was almost never present, and Otogi didn't share as much history with them. And Yuugi… Well, Yuugi was his other half.

What do you do when your other half is missing? She had never felt so helpless in her life. She couldn't rely on her words to uplift his spirit, not when half of it was taken away and the other half so deep in self-pity that it could hardly count as being there at all. But she kept trying anyway, making a point of sitting next to him on the train en route to the airport. She tried flashing him one of her (she hoped) dazzling smiles but it was futile for his eyes only saw that moment where Yuugi pushed him out of the Orichalcos seal. She even attempted one of her small pep talks, trying to get a response, anything to let her know that he was still… alive.

She was rewarded with a small, "I'm sorry," and his abrupt departure. Minutes later, she heard a small thud and she swore she could feel his heart breaking. She saw Jounouchi and Honda look at her and she knew as well as they did that if Mazaki Anzu, the cheerleader, the preacher of friendship, could not rekindle the other Yuugi's hope, then nothing could.

Ironically, it was the duel with Haga on top of the train that lit that flame. If the Pharaoh won, then he would tell him where Yuugi was being kept. She saw a faint glimmer in the Pharaoh's eyes, fueled by that small hope. She was glad, albeit a little jealous that, once again, she had been outshone by a card game. But when she saw him draw card after card, calling out attack after every heart-wrenching attack on Haga, even after he had already lost, that small fire of hope dying in his eyes, Anzu did the only thing she knew how to do.

She held onto him. Grabbing his arm, she begged him to stop, afraid that he would revert back to being a cold, empty, lifeless shell. And when he jerked his arm and ordered her to let him go, it came to her then, that she could not, would not, let him succumb to the darkness, to the abyss of hopelessness she knew he would never return from if she didn't do something about it.

And, at this point, she was the only one who could. She may not know how to duel to save her life but she was one of the most stubborn people you'd ever meet. Heaven forbid she give up on Yuugi and if she wasn't allowed to surrender, then neither was he. She was not going to let him turn into a ghost, she promised.

It was the least she could do, for both Yuugi's.

So she held on, for dear life, grasping for whatever was left of his spirit, hoping that it would be enough to save him.

I hope this wasn't bad for my first shot at an introspective view of Anzu and Yami. When I first watched the English dub, my initial feelings of Anzu was of annoyance. I mean, we have a girl who can't even duel, which is the center of this show. But as I watched her character more and learned about her background via canon, then I came to appreciate what she had done for Yami. It must be hard being the odd one out, being the only female and not being able to duel. But when most people would have given up and left, she stuck around, doing what she knew how to do - hold on, NOT give in, and remind her friends that having some hope is way better than having none.