Summary: The demons came out at midnight. And, she was afraid of the dark. Welcome to her personal hell.

Notes: Ok, so I wrote this chapter up and then... I didn't like it. It didn't explain everything the way I thought it should be explained so this is the rewritten one. It hasn't been beta-ed so if you catch any mistake, please please please tell me. As always, enjoy and leave a review.

Disclaimer: I so own Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's... that MAY have been sarcasm... yeah...

Mental Manifestations

This was her penance for her sins.

She would watch daily as all the people she had hurt and all the people that she had made feel pain filed slowly past her, glaring at her with accusing eyes. Almost all of them made motions of pain; wincing was common and limping was found on just about everyone.

But the real hurt on her soul came with the last person. Yusei. He was always the last, even when new people were added to the lineup he always was last. It was a constant, just like the real Yusei that lay beside her. He was always warm, and he was always last to glare at her. He was always kind and he had a smile for her always. He was always last in line. He was always going to have cobalt blue eyes that could break down her walls in seconds; he was always going to be the last set of eyes.

She resisted the urge to glance over at the clock; resisted the urge to see just how many seconds had passed since midnight had struck and how many more she had to endure.

Then, finally, the part that she always dreaded. Yusei stopped at the end of her bed. He stood there, and he opened his mouth and she knew the word that would come out of his mouth. She had heard it so many times, "Why?", that she could probably repeat it exactly as he said it. The same pitch and the same length of time, she would be able to copy it exactly.

That word haunted her existence.

She breathed in deeply as his mouth opened.

"Aki."

She gasped and froze as the word rolled across her skin, its intonation warm and not cold. She sobbed as she felt Yusei sit up and wind his arms around her from behind, his chest pressed flush against her back. His breath was on her neck, then her check against his cheek. He rubbed his face against hers soothingly, his stubble catching against her smooth skin, and he whispered again. "Aki." She bit her lip and glanced over at the clock. 12.01.03.

"Why hasn't he gone away?" She sobbed, her legs involuntarily being drawn up against her chest as she hugged them to herself. She kept staring at the corporal form of her beloved as the real Yusei (the warm Yusei, the real, living, breathing Yusei) moved closer to her. She shuddered.

"Aki, why do you do this?" The question was soft and the breath it took disturbed a lock of her hair. She drew in ragged breaths, panic spreading through her veins. Her heart pounded in her ears, and it took all of Aki's mental focus to listen to Yusei. Glancing over again the clock now read 12.01.15.

"You can see them?"

"Yes."

She choked back a sob, a meaningless effort. It would escape anyhow. "It's my fault," she whimpered as his arms tightened around her. "My fault, always my fault," she babbled uselessly, sobs ripping themselves from her throat, trying to explain herself, "They're in pain and I caused it!"

His hands came up to her cheeks and wiped tears away. He shuffled their bodies so they were facing each other. Their foreheads touched. "They are not real, Aki."

She nodded. "Yes they are, Yusei. I see them every night! I feel them in the day; I see them in the day! They braid my hair in the mornings! You've seen it!" She was openly sobbing now, clutching his now soaked with tears shirt.

"You feel guilty, Aki. But they are not real."

"Do not say I am imagining it, Yusei! I see them, you see them-"

"Your powers," he interrupted, "your powers, Aki. You are a psychic; and with your powers you connect your mind with the living world. Your powers thrive off of your emotion. Your guilt is so burdensome it's forcing your powers to try to make you relieve that feeling by projecting into the real world."

He had known as soon as he had seen his body, battered, beaten, broken, and defeated standing at the end of the bed. He didn't know why he hadn't noticed before but the room tingled with power, tingled with the unnerving sense that most people usually got when they faced psychic powers. He had felt it for the first time when he had dueled Aki, and the image of him broken, after the match, was what triggered the reasoning of his mind.

Aki was using her powers and people had started showing up in his room. It didn't take a brain surgeon to figure it out.

She was sobbing and shuddering in his arms, and his heart clenched and twisted and it hurt dammit but he had to ignore it for now. Aki needed this. "It is not your fault." He whispered again and again, hugging her and never once loosening his grip. "It isn't." He cooed, running his hands over her back, trying to put some warmth back into her suddenly cold body.

"No!" Aki yelled out, but her voice shook and wavered. "No..."

"Aki, think," Yusei commanded, rocking her back and forth now. "It all fits."

"And midnight?" She intoned lowly, tears running down her cheeks and staining his shirt. "Why midnight?"

"The Witching Hour. The supposed weakening between worlds, the world of the living and the world of the other people not living."

"My hair." Aki stated wealy, trying to find a way out of the logical path that her mind now saw. "I hate my hair in braids, why would I do that? And don't say my powers."

"I won't say it but its still true," Yusei fired back calmly, pitching his voice lower trying to calm her down. His answer, though, only brought a new wave of tears, sobs, and pain for the young girl in his arms.

Corporeal Yusei dissipated, smiling at the two of them which neither noticed. Yusei pulled her down to the mattress and pulled the blankets over their heads, distancing them from the outside world. It took a very long time for Aki to finally calm down, enough so she could actually talk regularly. Through her own devices, with no prompting from Yusei, she started speaking of her past. She started at the very first person in line and moved on from there. They didn't make it through half of the line before she started to drift off. For the first time, Aki fell asleep before Yusei, content with his eyes on her and his arms around her. She fell asleep to the softly crooned lullaby of, "It's not your fault, it's not your fault, Aki."

Against her instincts, she started to believe his words.