Title: Placing Blame
Characters: Rei, Martin||Ship: N/A
Chapters: 1-1Word Count: 1,500
Genre: Friendship||Rated: G
Challenges: Diversity Writing, C30, explores guilt; Character Diversity Boot Camp, #21, regret (Rei); Include The Word Boot Camp, #4, watch
Notes: This is set during the time Juudai & others are in Dark World, but back in the human world.
Summary: Rei comes to talk to Martin and learns more than she thought she would.

Rei cracked the door open and carefully tilted her head around it, covering her eyes with one hand at the same time.

"Maruchi?" She called out. "Are you – awake?"

She stayed tense until she heard him answer a few breaths later. "You can come in, Rei-chan."

At once Rei dropped her hand and entered the room. Most people in Ra Yellow had grown to expect her regular visits ever since their return from Sand World, but she always made sure to keep her eyes covered in her morning visits, at least until she knew Martin had his clothes on.

She hadn't made sure on one of her earliest visits and hadn't that been embarrassing!

But now everything was all right and Martin sat in the chair by the window, enjoying a little morning sun.

"Are you ready for class?" Rei asked, taking the chair opposite to him, as she so soften did. She came by every morning to walk with him to their first class together.

Martin nodded, but he didn't look up as he usually did. Rei's eyes narrowed. "Is something wrong?" Now that she knew him a little better, she could tell when something wasn't right. Martin didn't like to open up abut things, so she had to push to make sure he didn't keep it all to himself.

There probably weren't any other beings like Yubel around who might take advantage of his issues, but Rei didn't want to take any chances that she didn't have to. Someone had to watch over this guy and she'd appointed herself to the task.

"It's nothing wrong," Martin said at last, after she stared at him for several long minutes. "I was talking to Papa last night."

She nodded, making a little gesture to indicate she would like to hear more if he'd be willing to tell it to her. After a few seconds, he did.

"He wants to go back to Paris for a while. He said that he hasn't been able to spend enough time with me here and he wants to fix that." His lips moved, but Rei wasn't sure if that was meant to be a smile or not. "He wants to talk to Mama soon too."

Over the weeks since their return from that other world, Rei had wormed a lot out of Martin, more than enough so that she knew Napoleon and his ex-wife hadn't talked to each other without voices raisd in years. If he wanted to change that – well, she wasn't sure how much good it would do, but they were at least trying. He was at least trying.

Then what else Martin said sank in and she jerked a bit. "You're going to be leaving?" A tiny pang struck deep in her heart. Bad enough that Juudai-sama and Ryou-sama were both gone – and she hadn't had a chance to talk to either of them – but now Martin was going to leave too?

"Papa wants to wait until everyone else comes back if he can. To know that they're safe." Martin's lips now curved into a definite smile. "Of course, he can't leave until Chronos-sensei comes back anyway."

Of course he couldn't. He was covering Chronos-sensei's classes now that the senior teacher vanished as well. Rei nodded slowly, pressing her lips together. That could mean they would be here for the rest of the year. Or longer. No one knew when – or to be fair, if – those who were missing would come back.

Rei cast her eyes down for a few seconds, worrying at her lip, before she looked back towards him. "Maruchi," she murmured, "I-I should have said this before." Talking about him leaving brought up a thought she'd nurtured for a while now. "I'm sorry. I'm very sorry."

Martin stared at her. "Rei-chan?"

"What happened to you in that world – with Yubel-" Rei shivered at the memory of that creature. For a Duel Spirit Yubel wasn't that strange. Rei had definitely seen stranger ones in the cards. But to see that being standing in front of her, holding Martin's body and tossing it aside as if it were nothing more than a piece of garbage – that wasn't something that Rei ever wanted to see again. "It's because of me. If I hadn't insisted that you take me to Amon-kun's party, then we wouldn't have been there when the school got taken away. If you'd been in here," she waved a hand towards the dorm all around them, "then you would have been safe."

Martin continued to stare at her, then slowly shook his head. "Rei-chan, I don't blame you." Each word came from him slowly, with even greater confusion than the word before it.

Rei raised her head to meet his eyes. "It's true, though." She'd thought it over a lot and nothing she could come up with made it any better. There was a lot to blame on Yubel, and she still wasn't entirely sure of what to think of Amon himself, but she knew she carried her own share of guilt for what happened.

But now Martin reached out and rested a hand on her wrist. "Rei-chan, it's all right. I don't blame you." He dredged up an expression that looked a great deal like a smile. She wondered how genuine it was. "Yubel was in my head. I – don't remember everything, but I know this. Yubel would have done anything to find a way to Juudai-kun. They were – they are-" He hesitated, trying to choose his words. "Nothing's going to stop them from finding him. If it hadn't been me, then it would have been someone else. Maybe someone it would have hurt a lot more. Or someone that you couldn't help like you did me."

Rei didn't want to think about that a lot. The idea of never being able to help someone who needed it sat cold and hard in the depths of her stomach. She felt a tiny, very weary smile touching on her own lips. She wasn't sure if Martin were right but she didn't know enough to argue about it a lot.

"Are you sure?" If he didn't want to blame her, though, there wasn't much that she could do about it. She wasn't going to demand that he hate her and never want to talk to her again.

She'd just have to be careful and try not to let anything like this ever happen again – and to be the best friend that she could be to Martin while he was still there for her to be a best friend to.

Martin nodded in determination. She wasn't sure if he could have made that gesture before everything that happened. She'd heard Napoleon mention to Principal Samejima that he was so proud of Martin, that he'd grown up ever so much, and she couldn't say that he was wrong. She vividly remembered what Martin had been like at the start of the school year.

At least now he had a lot more color to himself and he wasn't quite so likely to fade into the woodwork. So many of those who'd been in that world of sand with them now went out of their way to greet him and treat him well, better than they had before. Rei wasn't sure if they did it out of genuine friendship or if they were too scared to ignore him again, in case he somehow manifested claws or a demonic aura. But they didn't ignore him and they weren't mean to him. Rei thought that was better than nothing.

"All right." She tugged her PDA out to check the time and yelped, leaping to her feet. "We're going to be late for class!"

Both of them headed out the door as fast as they could, Rei's slightly longer legs lending her an advantage, and raced for the main building. Rei thought they might be able to make it if they hurried fast enough. At least this wasn't one of the more important classes. No one knew where Satou-sensei vanished off to and a temporary teacher for his classes had been instaled until someone suitable could be hired on a more permanent basis. Most of the students treated it as a free study hall. Rei still didn't want to be late, since the teacher they did have wasn't nearly as dull as Satou-sensei and wasn't averse to handing out detentions for late students.

But at least she'd learned something today, something she found vitally important. Even though he had every reason to, Martin didn't hate her, and the idea of Martin not hating her warmed her from the inside out.

She didn't want him to go away. But if he had to, she wondered if he'd want to tale a walk on the beach one afternoon. Or do some homework together one of these days. Or even both.

If Rei picked up anything from her seniors, it was that you had to go for what you wanted.

The End

Notes: I never quite liked that Martin and Napoleon left in season 4. I think Rei would like it even less.