Atemu Fanfiction

Title: False Accusation
Author: Shadowesque13
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Mystery/Horror
Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! is © Kazuki Takahashi. Any books, movies, television shows, etc. mentioned belong to their respective owners.

A small storm had apparently brewed up. Yugi could hear the rain splatter onto the windows and the gale winds blowing. It was like the other day with that storm that kept the gang inside for a while. A few far-off flashes of light, some distant thunder, and Yugi still went into room after room looking for something out of place. So far, everything was tidy and clean, just as everything should be.

Yugi was about to leave this office space and turn the light out when the whole place was illuminated, followed quickly by a booming rumble that he could feel through the floor. He jumped as high as his body would let him as the power cut off.
“Oh, lovely, just what I needed, a power outage.”
He turned on the flashlight and looked around. Eerie shadows seemed to almost creep up on him. He shuddered. The lights came back on as the backup generator kicked in.
“Thank god for technology,” he muttered before flipping this light off and going to the next room.

The extensive second floor was finished and ended Yugi’s scrutinizing examination. Still nothing. He ran through the house, trying to see if there were any rooms he missed, or just hoping for a clue to run into him. There had been more locked rooms then the basement one.

What they held inside, what they were hiding, he couldn’t know, was not allowed to know. He trudged down the stairs in a zombie like fashion.
“In almost the entire mansion,” he breathed, “we found a whopping zero clues. Why can’t we find anything?”

The nearly pitch-black view outside did nothing to brighten his mood. For a while now it had been merely dripping outside, the thunderstorm having parted.

“So we didn’t discover anything today,” said Yami with a shrug. “We can see if the killer came back tomorrow.” He glanced out the window. “Do you have any idea how long we’ve been here?”
“Last working clock I saw upstairs,” said Yugi quickly, not caring, “said about midnight.”
“We’ve been here more than 12 hours, Yugi. Do you think this is healthy for you?”
Yugi shook his head. “I don’t care; I’m going to figure this out.” He threw the flashlight into the backpack. “Argh! I just couldn’t find anything!”
Yami tried to calm the erratic boy. “Maybe there was nothing to be found! The killer doesn’t have to live by your schedule. Look, I know you’re tired. Let’s go home, get a bite to eat, hope your grandfather’s not too infuriated with us, and take another sick day off of school.”
“Maybe I’ll just wait here until he comes.”
“Yugi, see reason here! For your own good, I’ll take control and take us home.”
“I won’t let you, and you know it.” He sighed. “Fine. Whatever. We’re going home empty handed tonight.”
“And,” warned Yami, “if this keeps happening…”
Yugi rolled his eyes. “I’ll admit that this is unexplainable.” He lifted his backpack and turned out this room’s lights. “You know, you’re like a mother who thinks her son’s too forgetful.”
“I’m just trying to be the best long lost ancient spirit I can be,” he laughed as the two went out the large wooden doors together.

Yugi reached the game shop soaking wet. The sheet rope was still hanging from his bedroom window, but the downstairs lights of the first floor were on, which wasn’t a good sign for Yugi.
He wondered if he should climb up the rope back up to his room or alleviate his grandfather’s worries sooner rather than later. He took a breath and opened the front door as quietly as he could. ‘As quietly as he could’ didn’t quite do the trick, however, as the familiar, weary, old voice came along with the body.
“Yugi? Is that you?” His face brightened. “Are you all right? You’re soaking wet! I was about to call the police for you. Where-”

Yugi smiled weakly but his face turned dark again. As much as he was glad that his grandfather was happy, he was still brooding over the failed expedition. He nodded slightly before, on his way to his room, saying “Just…leave me alone. I don’t want to talk about it.”
As if he’d tell him the truth anyway. The saturated pack thudded to the floor, the thankfully waterproof flashlight rolling out. He stripped off his damp clothes and dried himself off with a towel.
“Looks like I won’t need a shower tonight.” He glanced at the pile of schoolbooks and assorted papers on his desk.
“Eh, okay, Yami, another ‘sick’ day sound nice.” The towel dropped to the carpet on top of his growing pile of wet clothing, and he slipped into his pajamas.

Before jumping into bed, he gave the backpack a mighty kick of his foot to vent the last of his frustration before he became too tired to do anything of the sort. It wasn’t the smartest idea, making his foot cold and slightly damp as he crawled under the covers, new covers, by the way, after he had also added the soaked bed sheet rope to the pile. He stared at the ceiling for who knows how long before sleep eventually took him and sent him into a deep unconsciousness.

His grandfather must have figured that he would stay home because his alarm clock didn’t go off at its normal time and was not woken up. It was a quarter past 9 when he opened his eyes.
A groan escaped his lips. He’d have to face his grandfather eventually; he couldn’t stay in bed all day. He remembered that the backpack he had taken yesterday to carry anything he found back was just as empty as when he had come back.

The next time he saw his friends, he’d probably have to explain some things. After talking to Bakura, even though he felt terrible about it, he wasn’t going to take back his accusation. Bakura was still suspect numero uno on Yugi’s list. Even if he went back to sleep, his unsettled and empty as his pack stomach probably wouldn’t let him rest peacefully for long.

“I can tell,” he said, nearly falling out of bed into a bright sun and partly cloudy day, “that this is going to be quite a wonderful day.”
Yami looked grim. “Did you expect something different, maybe?”
“Yeah, I expected to have the murderer locked away.” He looked through a few drawers before finding a whole clean outfit he could wear.
Yami raised and eyebrow. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Miami Vice-” Yugi could hardly stifle a laugh of wonder and absurdity. “—you are not a professional. You are just 16 with your own normal teenage problems and so much more than anyone else should have to deal with. This person might be just teasing you or stringing you along. This, frankly, doesn’t concern you. And are you planning on going somewhere?”

Yugi grabbed a belt from the pile of drying clothes and put it on. “Miami Vice, that’s good. But you don’t know the Hardy Boys?”
“I’m being quite serious, Yugi.”
“I’m going back there. And, might I add, this has everything to do with me. A friend who obviously also has—I mean, had—an ancient past just inexplicably died a week ago. And after all I’ve done lately, how are we not involved now?”
Yami sighed and tried to get him to see his side of the story. He began a list of reasons why he shouldn’t go and just drop the whole subject.
“If people who have been doing police and forensic work for years couldn’t deduce anything, how would you be any different? You’re tired, you’re hungry, you’re probably about to get grounded for, oh, I don’t know, fleeing from your room and spending 13 hours combing a mansion for clues that might not have ever been there in the first place, and you seem obsessed, almost to the point of this being a fetish.” He tried to keep his voice level and calm. “Just leave it be for another day, please.”
Yugi flopped onto the floor in a mix of many emotions. “I’m sorry…”
Yami sat beside him. “I know you are,” he replied in a condescending tone. He was only a child who needn’t bear any of the enormous weight. “So, how about we go downstairs, get some breakfast, and tell grandpa what happened.”
He seemed to agree at first, but then shook his head. “No, no, no, I can’t tell him.”
“Okay, don’t tell him. Don’t tell anyone for that matter. I guess that is a rather good idea. We can make something up. Or just act secluded and such, people will leave us alone for a while without too much question.”

Yugi got up. Walking to the door, he said, “I could eat a horse. Or two. Made of pancakes.”
“That’s the spirit.” Yami went back into the Puzzle.
“No, you’re the spirit, I’m the body,” retorted Yugi quietly, getting in the last word.
Yugi’s feet dragged with small clunks as he traversed the wooded stairway. He yawned once more and popped his neck, which made him rub it some. No customers yet. That didn’t surprise him much. About the only time when this place was buzzing was when parents came around birthdays and the holidays to buy Duel Monsters gifts for their little duelists to be.

Gee, I must really be out of it to miss that, he chuckled tiredly when he realized a ‘closed’ sign was up.
No, the shop didn’t open until 10 on Wednesdays. He looked around and saw his grandfather’s eyes staring at him from over the top of this morning’s newspaper. The Kaiba story had left the front page a few days after the cause of death was declared, now replaced by “Economic Trouble on the Horizon”. As if he cared, or even understood for that matter, about an article about the economy.

The two said nothing to each other; his grandfather just vaguely motioned to a large stack of, good news for Yugi, pancakes while he went back to reading the paper. Yugi sat opposite of him and ate slowly, digging through four pancakes before his stomach declared him full.

He sat there, wondering if and when his grandfather would either finished or to put aside the news articles to talk to him about yesterday, but that moment never came, no matter how long Yugi sat tensely. He got up to head back to his room.
“I called the school and told them you were still sick,” his grandfather finally said.
Yugi wasn’t sure if he should reply to that, so he nodded and waited a moment to see if he would say anymore. He didn’t, so Yugi slipped up to his room where he planning to spend the entirety of the day. This worried Yugi slightly, but when he remembered what and how he said to him that night, he could understand why his normally jovial father of his father was not in a particularly talkative mood. He was either throwing this back at Yugi, or he was hurt. Or just respecting his “wishes”.

Perhaps a combination of all three. He walked into his room and stepped around the still wet area of the room the damp assortment of clothes were. He moved his backpack under his desk, where he sat, and put the flashlight away into its proper place. He leaned back in the chair and sighed, laying his head back and linking his hands together behind his head. At least this gave him some alone time to think some more.

That was the only plus Yugi saw in this whole situation he had gotten himself into. On a spur of the moment decision, he figured he would get out of the house right after supper, or maybe as soon as after lunch if he could get past the watching eyes of his grandfather, and go back up to the mansion. In the meantime, he would recover his strength.

“Yugi…” Yami was about to argue, but stopped and shrugged, knowing that there was almost no way the boy’s mind was going to be changed.
All of his arguments seemed to fall onto deaf ears and not impact his decisions. And Yugi was still tired; maybe he’d change his mind about all of this later in the day. He didn’t continue; he only nodded in approval and stood beside the corporeal boy.

His day was going fantastically so far. That is, if fantastic means awful, horrible, and disastrous. He sighed again and closed his eyes.
I need to go back there, he reminded himself. And I need to find out who’s behind this.
He must have dozed off because the next time he opened his eyes, the first thing he heard was the school bell blocks away, ringing to signal the start of lunch. He blinked a few times, trying to focus. He sat up straight.

“Not the best position to sleep in, Yugi,” he said to himself. He saw Yami standing beside him to his right.
“Hello there, Sleeping Beauty.”
Yugi stoop up slowly. “I don’t need any comments from the peanut gallery right now, thank you very much,” he grumbled. “And if I could hit you, I probably would.” He flashed his teeth in a genuine smile. “But you hold yourself up in your Soul Room all the time, and you know I’m not going to try my hand at that labyrinth of yours for a long while.”
“It’s true I spend much of my time looking through my many secretive doors. But I think you’re exaggerating some.”

Yugi raised his eyebrows. “Oh, really now?”
Yami smirked. “Yes. If you want to see me, all you have to do is say so.” The smirk faded a little. “But you never do. You haven’t for a while.”
The smaller’s eyes gave complete roll. “Aw, and we were having so much fun, too. Must you always be so utterly serious all the time? Live a little.”
“You do see the irony in what you just said, right?”
“Well, you can at least have some form of life through me. But you know what I mean!”
“You can’t help me from being worried about you all the time.”
Yugi went over to the window and glanced out at partially empty streets. “Why, because without me, you’d still be just a lost spirit inhabiting dozens of pieces of an undiscovered puzzle?”
“More than that, Yugi, I think of you as more than a body!” He crossed his arms. “I think you of all people should know better than anyone else how I feel. I would protect you and your friends until the end.”
Yugi’s gaze didn’t change, but if Yami could have seen them, he would have seen them almost near tears.
“Why am I so twisted inside?” he asked quietly. “So tied up and focused on this?”

Yami nodded. “I was wondering when you’d ask such a question. It’s a bit more than pure human curiosity, more than the fact that a friend has been lost. At that funeral, you felt like you made a promise to Kaiba. You may not have said it, but you think you would be letting him down if you quit.”
He put a hand on his shoulder. Yugi always found it odd that he could feel it whenever they touched, but he’d grown used to it.
“And I admire that. It’s a reason all of your friends admire you, too.”
“You might be right.” Yugi looked up at him, adjusting his body slightly to do so. “How’d you ever get so insightful?”
Yami snickered. “It takes just a little more to be a world-saving, destiny-creating pharaoh than just a royal bloodline.”
“You always know what to say. The right thing to say. And I think I’ll be able to appreciate that a little more than ever when this all said and done.”
“I’m glad I could be of service,” Yami laughed.
“Oh, are we back to the funny business again?”
“Perhaps.” He winked. “Perhaps not.”
“I will never get you,” sighed Yugi. “You make no sense sometimes.”
“At least I make more sense than anything about the murder.” Yami’s imaged disappeared. “Well….maybe that’s an exaggeration as well.”
Yugi shook his head in amazement. “I’ll never get you…”

Yugi, in a far better mood than previously, bounded down the stairs to see his grandfather doing business with a customer. He smiled and nodded to the kitchen as he haggled with the man over the price of certain cards. Yugi took this as a good sign that his grandfather had forgiven him, or at the very least was on the way to forgiving him.

On the table, he found a plate of fresh ham and eggs, done just the way he loved them. A large, cold glass of soda along with a bag of chips was there also. Yugi internally drooled. He ate very well as he heard his grandfather and the customer finish and close the deal. The gray haired old man walked in and collapsed into the chair opposite of Yugi.

“The man wanted to pay $5 each for a Red Eyes Black Dragon and a Time Wizard card, the cheap snake.” He laughed. “For a Time Wizard I could accept, but really, a powerful and rare card like Red Eyes? Can you believe it?”
“Not really, grandpa. What did you ask for it?”
“$7 or $8. Maybe even $10. And I know you don’t think it’s a lot, but I find my prices to be low! So I tell him, I said, ‘You might be better off busying the cheap packs of cards until you get them!’ If people are going to finish collections card by card like that, they’d better be willing to shell out some money.”
Yugi, though another mouthful of ham, inquired, “So what did you do? I heard a little of it from out here, but…”
“Well, he argued that since Time Wizard wasn’t worth $5—at which point I began to laugh, I tell you—he said that would be enough to cover the extra expense of the Red Eyes.”
Yugi scoffed. “That guy must be new at collecting.”
“That’s what I thought, but of course, I’m too kind to actually say anything like that to him. So he left with the Time Wizard. $5, but I was very nearly about to raise the price to show him a point. I offered him a few cheaper cards in the display, but he took the Time Wizard.” His grandfather smirked. “I think for tomorrow I’ll jack up the price of the Red Eyes to $12.”

“To show the guy another point? I doubt he’ll be coming back anytime soon.”
His grandfather shrugged. He then changed the subject. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen the paper today, have you?”
Yugi shook his head.
“Mokuba Kaiba’s apparently gone to a little villa of his to think things through. Honestly, I think they should leave the poor child alone; he just lost his older brother and is expected to practically run an empire.”
The gray bangs, shaped much like Yugi’s (or was it vice versa?), bounced when his head then gave a sad, slow shake of disgust. “The media today…who do they think they are?”
Yugi finished off his eggs and popped open the bag of potato chips. “It is good to know where he is, though. We’ve all been really worried about him.”
“I doubt he’ll ever the same. Maybe he’ll end up being like his brother, rest his soul.”
And I doubt his soul’s at much rest, Yugi thought. “Yeah, anyway…anything else interesting going on in the world today?”
“Well, there’s an interesting local occurrence,” his grandfather said slyly.
“Oh? And what’s that?”
“A young boy keeps disappearing from his room and coming home at ungodly hours in the morning!” he replied with a grin.
“Uh…” Yugi sank back into his chair. Come on, earth, swallow me up right now, his sarcastic and snarky inner voice said. “Yeah…I was wondering when we’d have this conversation.”
“Where on earth were you? When I went up into your room at around lunchtime to see if you could eat anything, if you were felling up to it, all I found was an open window with your bed sheets all tied together hanging out the window!”
“I just needed to get away for a while.”
“I guess you weren’t that sick after all,” he replied smugly.
“No, not really. I mean, let’s see a sick person climb down 20 feet and run away before anyone notices.”
“It’s really not that funny; I was worried about you. I know you haven’t quite been feeling like yourself lately, but you could have said something.” He sighed.
“Thankfully for you, I trusted you enough to come back, and so business went on as usual. But do you have any idea how empty this place can be when there’s only one person occupying it?”

Yugi rolled his eyes. “I spend so much time in my room all day that you should be used to that feeling by now.”
“True. You’re lucky I didn’t take a flashlight to go out looking for you in that storm. And, as you know, I was willing to stay up all night long until you finally came back home.”
“Pretty late.”
“Nearing 1. And pretty wet. If you weren’t sick then, I wouldn’t be surprised if you caught a terrible cold. It was Mop City down here. Did you put those damp clothes of your in the hamper yet?”
“No, grandpa, not yet.”
“Well, next time you go upstairs, do so. I don’t want the place to start smelling and the like.”
Yugi shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “How in trouble am I? Talking to trouble? Grounded kind of trouble? Extra chores trouble?”
His grandfather shook his head. “No, you’re not in trouble.” He added, holing a finger up to get the point across, “Yet. If you want, maybe you can take the rest of the week off sick. It’s been very hard for you lately. I can understand a bit of what might be going on. So no trouble.”
“Yet.”
“That a boy. Now go on.” He motioned to Yugi to leave. “Get up to that room or yours and put those clothed away. Then if you’re good, you can help me around the store,” he said, smiling.

“…That last part, I’m going to end up doing it no matter what, right?”
“That’s the general idea.”
“Gee, I’ll be sure to brush after this meal and make my bed while I’m at it.”
“That would be appreciated.” An amused glint showed in his grandfather’s eyes.
Yugi rolled his eyes yet again and put his things into the sink before dealing with his clothes, towels, and sheets that most likely were still a little wet and soaking the carpeting and floor.
“I’m glad grandpa sees it my way.”
“Not exactly your way, just a way that suits your needs.” Yami paused. “And it’s true in it’s own sense. You’ve not been feeling well, but he doesn’t know about the mansion and where you’ve been heading to on your little detours and escape trips.”
Yugi tossed the wrinkled socks into the hamper. “You make it sound like I’m on a road trip that my friends and I went off on and stole my dad’s car without his knowing.”
Yami raised an eyebrow. “Your analogies are very detailed.”
“That’s what I get for having a wild imagination and paying attention in school.”
He stuffed all of the sheets into the hamper being filled up quickly. “You know,” he said, grasping the Puzzle, “I should clean this. Wax it or something. I mean, after all that rain, it’s probably a bit dirty.”

In went the shirt and jacket, pants and underwear soon after. He lifted up his shoes and shrugged, putting them under his bed.
“They’ll dry out eventually,” he reasoned.
“Hey, that’s a pretty good idea. I mean, I’m not sure if the Puzzle’s really dirty or anything, but you can get that chain a good scrubbing, too. If you keep going out in such rain, it’ll rust right off.”
“Oh, as if the storm was all my fault.”
Yami rolled his eyes. “Anyway, so, what are you going to do now that you’ve got the rest of the week off from school? Finish that old homework? Go out for some ice cream?”
“Neither. Well…the latter sounds pretty good to me, but that’s besides the point.”

“Yugi, must you really go today?” Yami pointed outside. “You’ve got all week. And I doubt grandpa will let you off so easy next time he catches you…”
“Yami,” Yugi said, “I’m not in any sort of trouble. I haven’t been grounded, so I can still go out wherever and whenever I feel like it. Plus, since he thinks I’m really out of it-”
“Which you are,” added Yami, making sure he realized this.
“—it’s a nice cover for a reason for me to go out.” He used an old shirt hanging in the back of his closet and dried up the wet spot on the floor as best he could. The shirt soon flew into the hamper as well.
“In fact, it’s so nice out today, I might go for a walk for some fresh air. Get my head cleared up a little.”
“Good idea. But I think your grandpa wants you to help out.”
Yugi shrugged. “I’m sure he won’t mind.”
“Yugi…” Yami’s tone of voice rather insisted.
“Fine, alright…” Yugi answered, holding up his hands in defense and defeat. “Nag, nag, nag, you are just like a mother hen…”
“If it keeps you from trouble and harm, then I’ll be taking that as a compliment,” smiled Yami.