(Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh GX does not belong me to me. Thank you.)

Pain Barrier

The day before he died, Zane wished that Syrus would phone him.

He stepped into his empty apartment after his latest travesty of a duel and waited for the phone to ring. He wanted to hear his brother's soft voice saying things like, 'Are you all right?' and, 'I'm sure you'll win the next match!' or even, 'It will all work out.'

Which was a shameful thing to wish for, as older brother it was his responsibility to be strong. He was the one who bore the burden of the family name, who carried the pride of Truesdale, not his brother. (And a good thing that is, because Syrus is weak and, in darker moments, Zane hates him for that almost as much as he envies him also.)

It is those kind of wishes and desires that were a sign of the sort of pitiful vulnerability that was Old Zane all over. The sort of weak cowardice new Zane has now all but obliterated within himself.

He doesn't think of it like that though. It's not so much 'old' or 'new.' Because such divisions imply and enforce the concepts that others are deluding themselves with. That the 'Old' Zane is still there, waiting to be set free. That this is some sort of psychological break, yet another case of Multiple Personality Disorder in a game that is famed for it.

It is not.

They say he's a different person to the boy who left Duel Academy last year and this he cannot argue with. Of course he's a different person but isn't that to be expected? It's called growing up

When he was a child he spoke as a child, thought as a child, played as a child. Now he is a man and he has put away childish things. His old uniform, his old cards, his old respect, his old compassion.

How could a boy play in the realm of adults anyway? How could he ever have wished to advance further when he held onto such insipid concepts? Such stupid insecurities and such pathetic fears only held him back. These things made his defeat by Aester Phoenix purely inevitable.

It wasn't the failure itself that broke him though. Failure isn't as dreadful as death, and death isn't as dreadful as shame.

It was the shame that decimated him. The dishonour of loosing before all those people and the utter humiliation of the losses that came after. In the past, Truesdales have committed sepaku for less.

He understands what caused it now. It was fear. The fear of further shame, the doubt in his own ability, in his own cards, in all those things he thought safe and stable.

When a duellist's heart holds such things, how can it ever hope to prevail?

Like a serpent eating biting its own tail, failure lead to failure, consuming itself inwards until there was almost nothing but a small ball of dull darkness.

It's ironic really… Alexis, Atticus, Syrus, all the others speak of him as lost in his own darkness, and perhaps he once was, but that is far from the case now. Now he walks in fire now, walks in life and vitality. He walks in pain.

That pain is good though, that's the pain that reminds him he's alive, that he's strong, that he has won. It is an echo of his death in the underground arena.

That was the place the young, broken bundle of dark despair that was Zane Truesdale died and was reborn as the man, Hell Kaiser.

And that's the important thing; the boy died there. He is gone forever, or else metamorphosised beyond recognition or reversal.

There is nothing left of that boy except for those parts that rot in the memories of others.

Sometimes he feels that, feels the numbness that is the recollection of death, as only those that are born from death can.

On such nights he takes out one of his old cards and, lighting a candle, slowly burns it.

He likes to watch the small flame lick away at the edges, imagining (or perhaps hearing,) the screams of the monsters within. This is for their betrayal of him. This is for their failure. This is for the shame they brought him. This is for leaving him alone in the darkness.

When it is done he takes the candle and pours the wax onto his skin, slowly and with much reverence, drinking in the agony like ambrosia.

This is him. This is pain. This is life. This is strength.

It's self harm of course and he knows what people would say about it, if they find out. He does not care.

It's the pain barrier, you see. Push beyond it and there is a rush of endorphins to the brain, the body's natural drug relinquishing a unique high. It's that which spurs runners on to amazing feats of speed and stamina. It's this that Zane owes so much to, as he pushes beyond the pain, beyond the darkness and the despair and emerge into ecstasy. Pushes himself into anger and passion and victory and all those things that lie beyond the pain barrier.

He needs a bit of it every day, a little bit of agony to remind him he's alive. It's not about depression though, or inferiority. At least… not on a surface level…

He's so far beyond those emotions it's just not funny. But sometimes he feels those echoes, the reverberations of the memories of shame and the numbness of dejection. The pain pushes him beyond that and reminds him of the good things he has, the good place he is in now. The pain brings joy.

That is what the others don't (can't!) understand. Pain is about growth, about victory, about withstanding the real world and overcoming it. Torture isn't a punishment or a sin, it's merely another lesson.

The others don't understand it, they're still children. But they'll learn, even his little brother will learn when they are thrown into the darkness to struggle on alone. Then they will feel the pain and learn to push through it, or else they will fade away.

It's ironic really. He was always seen as the dependable one, the stable one, the duellist that had it all. Then he lost it all, then shame and darkness took him and no one cared. No one tried to rescue him except Mr Shroud who taught him pain, pulled him out of the shadows and into the light, into the fire of the future.

And now they wish to 'save' him?

If they had wished to lead him from darkness they should have been there at the lowest point in his career, should have been there for his shame.

If his brother had truly wanted to save him, he should have phoned.