WIP: Divine Assistance: 4/20

[higuchimon]

One moment Shun alone was in his tiny room, with Yuuri doing who knew what elsewhere. The next, Vesta stood there, looking around casually after taking a swift measuring glance at Shun himself.

Shun closed his eyes again and breathed, trying to get his head into something resembling order. He wasn’t all that good at it. Yuuri liked him unbalanced; it made directing his actions so that they pleased Yuuri that much easier.

But then a hand brushed against his hair, little more than the ghost of a wind, and Shun opened his eyes to see Vesta standing next to him, a worried look in his eyes.

Shun almost wished he would allow himself to talk. A few words, however stuttered and broken after this time of silence, could have held him together even more.

Then Vesta smiled, and for the first time in his life, Shun understood what was meant by such an expression lighting up the universe.

“I told you. You don’t have to talk. Let me read your mind and that’s all that you need. Or that I need.”

Shun let himself relax, at least a tiny fraction. Doing so wasn’t recommended here, not in his opinion. But the more time he spent in Vesta’s company, the more he thought he could.

Yuuri came back.

“I noticed. I can feel him two rooms away.” Vesta cast a glance toward the door then turned back to Shun. “What is he, anyway? I can’t tell.”

Shun tilted his head back, rolling his eyes a touch. You’re not much of a god. He couldn’t have said if he meant Vesta to hear that. The idea of someone reading his mind, especially without any real effort, wasn’t easy to get used to.

“Told you, I’m from out of town,” Vesta said, tossing another quick grin his way and answering the question on if he heard Shun’s thoughts. “This is as strange to me as my place would be to you.”

If it let him have Ruri, Yuuto, and his freedom back, Shun wouldn’t have minded checking out Vesta's world. It had to be better than living with Yuuri. Though he wasn’t entirely certain of what wouldn’t be better than living with Yuuri.

He considered the question for a few moments. Thinking about his captor wasn’t one of his favorite pastimes and he had to do it too much as it was. He lifted one shoulder in a mild shrug.

He’s a monster. He takes pleasure in hurting people. Shun suspected he liked hurting Shun himself more than anyone else. Everything that happened to him since the moment he’d first met Yuuri involved pain and Yuuri smiled throughout all of it.

Vesta perched on what Shun guessed was a chair made out of air. Or at least he sat down and it wasn’t on anything Shun could see.

“We have people like him back home, too. People who hurt other people just for the fun of it.”

Shun didn’t think Vesta approved of those people. Not if that flicker of distaste was anything to judge by.

The god tilted his head back, staring up at the ceiling. He said nothing else for a few moments. Shun almost expected something about how people like that were punished eventually and Yuuri would be as well. He wasn’t all that certain he believed in a life after death, even if he was having a conversation of sorts with a god.

If this was a god. Shun still hadn’t made his mind up on that.

“I don’t know how long it will take me to find a way home or to get you out of here,” Vesta said at long last. “It could be a long time.”

Shun didn’t twitch an eyelash at that. What else could he expect? He wanted out of there, he wanted to believe that he would find a way to escape Yuuri, but he refused to think for a moment that it would be an easy escape or that Yuuri would just let him go.

Find me my sister and a way to get to her and that’s all. He would like to escape but if he had Ruri he could deal with anything else going on.

Vesta glanced back to him. “What does she look like?”

For a moment Shun’s hand twitched. Once he’d carried a picture of her. It gave him something to look at, to remember the old days before the invasion and the war. It remained among those things Yuuri took from him.

Vesta must have noticed the twitch. Or something. He offered another smile fit to banish every depressing thought in Shun’s mind.

“Just think about her. That’s all.”

As if he didn’t do that whenever he could anyway. He tried not to when Yuuri lurked around, not wanting his captor to taint those thoughts with connections of pain and wretchedness. But now he let the images boil up.

The first faintest whispers of memories, of seeing his little sister for the first time, settled into a cradle. Murmurs from his parents that he was a big brother now and he had to protect her until she could protect herself.

The passage of time in a single heartbeat. Ruri getting bigger. He got bigger. Ruri’s hair growing long and full and beautiful. Ruri learning to duel by watching him.

The day they both met Yuuto for the first time. Staring into eyes like storm-clouds.

Seeing Ruri stare at Yuuto and both of them having a look he would have called recognition if he didn’t know they’d never met before.
Ruri, always there, as close as his shadow, as close as Yuuto grew to be, part of him that he’d never thought he would have to do without.

Chaos. Destruction. Terror. Fear.

The war.

The invasion.

Monsters he’d only seen wielded by fair and honorable opponents, or never before creatures that chased their prey down and snapped and slavered at them.

He didn’t know if his parents lived or were carded or what. Plenty of people died without being cards. Car crashes, airplane crashes, bus crashes: vehicles of every kind. Buildings destroyed by the Fusion army’s monsters.

Three horrifying days on his own, refusing to trust anyone he didn’t know personally, until he finally found Ruri again, saw her with Yuuto, who looked more terrified than he’d ever seen his friend in his life, before or since.

He hadn’t found out then what terrified Yuuto. There hadn’t been time to ask and there were far more important things to worry about, such as finding food and safe shelter and companions they could trust. There were plenty of reasons for anyone to be scared then and he’d chalked it up then to the invasion itself.

Now that he’d met Yuuri he wasn’t so certain. But he couldn’t, didn’t, know anything for certain.

Thinking of Ruri inevitably led to Yuuto. They were part and parcel of one another to him. Part of him, part of them, one and the same.
He tried to think of just Ruri again. Of how she fit into the Resistance, helping those who needed it, teaching those who had to learn to duel on the battlefield, guiding those who had no talent for dueling to those vanishingly rare safe places, fighting on the front lines with Shun and Yuuto and everyone else.

And then she wasn’t there anymore. Gone out once, to search for supplies, against Shun’s advice - orders - to not go alone and never came back. Not a glimpse of her since. Only a few mocking words from the shadows and images that Shun knew now were Yuuri’s lies.

Something touched his hand and he opened his eyes. He hadn’t even realized that he’d closed them in the first place.

Vesta stood there, hand on his, and Shun tried to remember how to breathe. All the love he’d ever felt for Ruri and Yuuto - and his parents too - welled up from a place deep within he’d all but forgotten existed. The invasion and the war hadn’t made him forget; all this time with Yuuri had. And now Vesta’s kind eyes brought it all back.

He had to forget again. Had to seal it up where no one could tell it was there, had to remember only the need to survive and the need to escape.

He moved away from Vesta, holding himself as still as he could. He couldn’t even jerk the way he wanted to; the collar and leash prevented that. Vesta’s eyes flicked to his neck then to the wall, then back to Shun.

“I could take that off you.”

Shun wanted little more. But he shook his head, a negation so tiny that no one who wasn’t close would have seen it.

Only Yuuri can take it off.

“God, remember?”

Again Shun had to shake his head, a little more this time.

If it just vanished off me, Yuuri would put it back. Or worse.

He didn’t know what ‘worse’ would be. If anyone knew, it was Yuuri. And Yuuri would come up with worse all on his own soon enough anyway. No need to hurry it along.

Vesta let out a very annoyed sigh. “I haven’t even been here a full day yet and I don’t like this place. Or most of the people in it.”

This is Fusion. No one likes it here. He didn’t count the people who lived there. He didn’t even count Yuuri as people to start with.

The side of Vesta’s mouth quirked up. “I can see that.” He lounged back again. “You’ve got some good memories of your sister. I’ll see what I can do to find her.” He fell silent for a heartbeat or two. “That other guy, the one who looks like Yuuri? Who is he?”

Shun didn’t believe for a moment that a god, supposed or otherwise, could have read his mind well enough to know who Ruri was and not know about Yuuto as well. But he answered. He guessed asking was something like being courteous for a mind-reader.

Yuuto. My best friend. Perhaps it wasn’t fully accurate to think of Yuuto as only a friend. He didn’t know what else to think of him as or what else he could be. Yuuto was Yuuto.

Vesta seemed to pick up on that. “Do you know where I could find him?”

Shun didn’t make noise. He refused to let a sound slide by his lips that Yuuri didn’t force out of him. But he would have laughed, under other circumstances.

In XYZ. That’s all I know. He would be with the other Resistance members.

And he would likely have a few sharp words for Shun having gone out and gotten himself captured as well. He’d tried to tell Shun to stay safe. But where Ruri was concerned, Shun hadn’t ever listened very well.

“All right. You should get some rest. I’ll come back later.”

A thought occurred to Shun. You don’t know what our dueling is, do you?

“It’s got something to do with those cards, doesn’t it?”

That’s right. Yuuri wants to duel me tomorrow. If you watch then, you’ll see what it’s like. He flicked his gaze to the ceiling behind Vesta. You’ll see what Yuuri’s dueling is like. It won’t be what dueling was at home, before all of this.

Vesta nodded, curiosity now burning bright within. “I’ll be here, then.”

And then he wasn’t, vanished between one breath and the next. Shun stared at the empty space, still not entirely convinced that isolation and torment hadn’t unbalanced him in some way so he was seeing things. But why would he see a being that claimed to be a god, and one so damned attractive at that?

---

Yuuri stared harder at the monitor screens. Something wasn’t right still. It was just like before; Kurosaki stared at something that he couldn’t see. He even reacted in small ways, shakes and nods of his head, flickers of emotions caused by nothing.

Once he’d even looked happy, as if he saw something he’d never thought he could have.

That all by itself annoyed Yuuri. The only time Kurosaki should look happy, especially that happy, should be if Yuuri granted him the right to be.

And I haven’t. That disturbed Yuuri and he loathed being disturbed, especially by things he didn’t anticipate. Especially things that involved his favorite toy.

He didn’t think he’d pushed Kurosaki to the extent of hallucinating. He did his best to keep his toy from going down that route. Dependent on him for everything, obedient to his wishes, yes, of course. What any good master would want from their possession.

He rose and stalked toward the door that opened onto his common area, looking out there. Nothing. Silence.

And at the same time, he could feel a faint hint of something, as if he were being watched, crawling down his spine.

People didn’t watch him. They avoided him whenever they could. Even those members of Obelisk Force he occasionally commanded in the field refused to watch him save for orders.

So who would dare to watch him? And who could watch him that he couldn’t see?

No one. No one could do that. Even if his captive was seeing things, then he wasn’t and he made up his mind to crush Kurosaki twice as hard in their duel the next day.

I should just go ahead and card him. It was what would make sense. But he couldn’t just bring himself to do it. Toying with Kurosaki’s hopes and wishes and his burning desire to see his sister again - and how he would do anything to see that sister - was simply too much fun to give up.

Dennis. Dennis wouldn’t leave for another day or so. He would check with him to find out if anyone thought they could spy on Yuuri and get away with it. They would quickly learn better.

Even faster if anyone thought they could spy on Yuuri and take away his toy. Carding them would be the work of a thought.

---

Ryuu refused to touch Yuuri’s mind until he knew exactly what the guy really was. The more time he spent close to him, the slightly better of a sense of him he developed, and what he could guess right now confused him.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think he only had part of a soul. He’d never encountered anything like that in all of his life. He didn’t think it was possible: at least not in his world. In this world, he didn’t know everything that was possible and what wasn’t.

He didn’t go far when he left Kurosaki Shun; just to the main room. He wanted to think for a few moments and the idea of leaving the only person he would allow to see him right now wasn’t very attractive. Especially not when the sense of Yuuri’s presence remained so strong.

When the door to that room opened and Yuuri glared out, for the first few seconds Ryuu thought that he actually saw him. Then he noticed the mad violet eyes hadn’t focused on him, but swept over the room, passing by him without so much as a blink.

He still didn’t move a hair until Yuuri closed the door and returned to whatever pleasures he had that weren’t tormenting his slave.

Ryuu did not want to know what those were. He didn’t think Yuuri was a demon, not like he knew demons, but he would be as at home in the Abyss as Ryuu was in the Heavenly City. It was entirely likely he’d become a Demon Lord in no time, and love every second of it.

When he’d touched Shun’s mind to get the feel of what his sister was like, he’d not just picked up images of her but of Yuuri as well. That wasn’t a surprise; Yuuri featured strongly in Shun’s recent experience, and his mysterious resemblance to Shun’s friend Yuuto linked it all together as well. Exactly what those links could lead to, Ryuu didn’t know. All he could work with was what Shun knew, and that wasn’t enough.

Maybe if I find this Yuuto guy I can pick up more. He might even appear to him and explain where Shun was. Surely if he knew, he’d come for his friend.

But all of this dimensional chatter confused him. The longer he spent there the sooner he’d figure it all out, but until then he wasn’t sure what he could do to put it all right.

Learn more about Yuuri, he decided, and about this world and this war in general. This was a school. It had to have history books somewhere.

As long as they didn’t put him to sleep.

To Be Continued