Konnichiwa! I know I'm meant to be typing up chapters for the Traces Through Time series, and redoing Siren's Honour, but this plot bunny has been bouncing around in my head for awhile. So I thought, ah, what the heck! Just type it and post it up.

In exchange though, I'll be deleting my Rurouni Kenshin fiction. No matter how much I liked the style of writing I used there, I've simply lost the essence of the characters I'm writing about. Though it saddens me, I refuse to type a completely OOC story. Sorry those who've read it and want it to continue.

This story begins a little before Season Zero, where you're introduced to my OC. (Yes, this story has yet another OC, if you don't like OCs, don't read this story.) This story is inspired by a manga I recently read, Land of the Blindfolded. It's cute and it's good, people who like school life and romance will like it!

Just to clarify several things with story:

I use minimal Japanese terms. In this chapter, I use 'sensei' to refer to a teacher, simply because I find it strange to use Mr. or Mrs. I've used those terms with parents and family members though. I've also used the Japanese names of the Yu-Gi-Oh characters, but I haven't actually watched all of the Jap episodes of YGO. Therefore, forgive me if the dialogue I write in this story varies between the Japanese and English version anime dialogue.

I'm absolutely hopeless at writing duels. I've never even played the game, period. So there will be no duel scenes, unless they are necessary. Probably Jonouchi's duel with Esper Roba will be left out, etc. Sorry for those folks who like duelling.

Disclaimer for all of this story (so I don't have to keep repeating it)-I don't own YGO, or Land of the Blindfolded! I own the OC in this story however. ^_^

That's it, I think! Better stop talking now.

When the Blindfold Slips

Chp 1: Girl With a Defective Blindfold

What's the meaning of seeing? Seeing physically, or figuratively?

What if figuratively, the whole world couldn't see? That people somehow went about their daily lives with a 'blindfold' around their eyes, only being able to see the present, and only able to imagine the near future?

Sometimes though, some people have 'defective blindfolds'. They stumble; bump into someone else, and their blindfold slips, for just a moment.

Suddenly the person sees more than others. They see one of the unsteady roads ahead of someone, and then the 'blindfold' slips back into place.

Precognition is like a defective blindfold-unsteady, unexpected and unreliable. Nevertheless, some people have this 'defective blindfold'. It is up to the person what to do with the information they accidentally get.

"Well, as usual Shira dear-" The weekly attempt to get close, through nick name.

"Shiragiku, please, sensei." The same weekly rejection.

"Alright. As usual, Shiragiku, meet in my office next week. Maybe we'll make more progress next counselling session." The same hopeful words offered each week by Domino High's school counsellor.

"Maybe." The same cool reply given by the reluctant student in counselling.

Within a comfortably furnished office in Domino High School, the school counsellor and the counselled student sat across from one another, separated by a tidy desk. The counsellor, Ranau-sensei, was a tall, mildly pregnant middle-aged lady with tan skin, dark hair knotted into a professional bun, and kind green-hazel eyes that spoke of gentleness and understanding.

In contrast to the open kindness, the student, Tsukuba Shiragiku, owned a hidden, quiet and emotionless aura that showed even in physical appearance. Soft, expressionless grey eyes peeked out from behind a curtain of mildly wavy, mousy brown hair that reached her shoulders. Her build was small, slightly curved around the hips, and very slight female chest attributes that fashion-crazed girls would scorn for the busty-less-ness. All in all, she was the type of person a Domino High student would know as a vague acquaintance, and no more. No one special.

"So may I go now, Ranau-sensei?"

"Yes, you may. Here's your hall pass. Dismissed. Try and be more social Shiragiku. It isn't healthy to isolate yourself."

"…no sensei, maybe not."

Shiragiku reached out to take the hall pass. Briefly, their fingers brushed each other.

Ranau-sensei walked past, reaching the top of a stairwell just outside her office. Smiling, she turned around slightly to wave to someone behind her, and as she did so, her foot slipped on the first stair. With a cry, she tumbled halfway down the stairwell, jolted, and fell the rest of the halfway straight to the floor. A loud 'thump!' sounded as she landed on her stomach-her pregnant stomach.

An ensuing 'crack' indicated she either broke a bone, or cracked her head or jaw against the floor.

Silence reigned for a few moments in the area as passer-by students froze, gaping. Then the screams and shouts began.

"Somebody get the nurse!"

A trickle of blood ran from Ranau-sensei's mouth down her chin.

Ranau-sensei looked down at her hand, startled by the sudden extra hand gripping it none too gently. "Shiragiku?"

The rounded, rather childish hand retracted hastily, and Ranau-sensei looked up into a pair of panicked grey eyes, completely unlike Shiragiku's normal expressionless exterior. The girl blinked, and suddenly her panic vanished, as if it had never been there. She was calm once more.

"Sorry. I just thought of something a bit startling. Goodbye, sensei." Shiragiku walked towards the office door, and suddenly stopped. She turned back around.

"Please be careful at the stairs closest to your office sensei. I think I spotted something slippery there before, maybe oil. Just a warning beforehand…"

"Thank you Shiragiku," Ranau-sensei said confusedly, and watched as the girl left abruptly.

One minute emotionless, the next minute as panicked as a high schooler before final exams, and then back to emotionless…no, she wasn't bipolar, the counsellor was sure of that. Whatever problem the student had, or whatever she had suffered to make her so anti-social today, was her job to find out.

Good thing she was patient. Shiragiku didn't look as if she would open up any painful events or problems anytime soon.

The school bell rang, indicating the end of a period. Ranau-sensei gathered the files on her desk and put them away before walking out of her office towards the staffroom. She toddled carefully towards the stairs closest to her office. The short way to the staffroom was using the stairs, while the long way involved a winding ramp she didn't have the patience to waddle down.

Carefully she checked the stairs for any slippery substance. Funny, she couldn't see any. All the same, she should still be careful…

"Hi Ranau-sensei!" a group of girls chorused behind her. Startled, Ranau-sensei hastily spun around to greet them with a smile-

-and her foot slipped.

For a frightening moment, the falling counsellor had an oncoming image of a stair edge rising up to meet her.

The next moment, someone had grabbed her wrist and a fistful of the back of her shirt, pulling her backwards mightily. With a gasp, Ranau-sensei fell backwards instead of forwards, landing on top of someone on her backside.

"…are you alright, Ranau-sensei?"

The embarrassed and shaky counsellor scrambled off whichever poor person she was squashing with her pregnant weight-and her green-flecked eyes met with calm grey ones. Shiragiku sat up from her sprawled position on the floor, previously cushioning the teacher's backward fall, and stood up, offering a hand to the kneeling teacher. Stunned, the counsellor took it, standing up.

"Ranau-sensei?" Concern faintly flared in Shiragiku's eyes, and Ranau-sensei vaguely noted that the girl was showing more emotion now than in any of their counselling sessions together.

"Y-yes, I'm fine Shiragiku. Thank you for pulling me back there…that was dangerous…" Ranau-sensei answered dazedly.

"It's fine. You must have missed that slippery stuff on the floor. You don't think your baby is hurt do you? At least you're okay."

"No. My baby should be fine. Once again, thank you-for both helping me and my baby, and for your concern," the counsellor answered. The concern in Shiragiku's eyes faded and her eyes became as mild and emotionless as they usually were.

"No problem. Excuse me…" the girl murmured, and turned, ignoring the staring eyes of passer-by students.

"Shiragiku!" The girl stopped at the counsellor's sudden call. "You're not as emotionless as you act out to be! Under that mask on your face, you are very caring! I know-I saw concern in your eyes just earlier, and before that, panic!"

"…perhaps, Ranau-sensei," the girl replied, and walked away.

"That girl has no opinion," Shiragiku overheard one girl mutter. "All she answers with is something along the lines of 'perhaps' or 'maybe'. Nothing special or interesting at all about herself. A bit boring…"

"If she were nothing special, why is she seeing the councillor?" the gossiper's friend replied.

"Shiragiku?"

Said girl turned around at the sound of her name, wryly thinking 'I'm very popular today.'

The person who called her name just then was a pale-skinned boy so short he was shorter than her, and she was known to have a bit of a height problem-nothing high heels couldn't fix, if she bothered to wear some. His hair spiked up quite a bit, coloured violet-tipped black, with meek jagged blonde bangs. His eyes were round, pale shining violet and child-like. Mutou Yugi, Shiragiku recalled vaguely. He was in the same year as her. Beside him, Mazaki Anzu stood, his best friend and reputed protector against bullies. She was the only friend Yugi had, really. If Shiragiku bothered to involve herself in the lives of other people, she might have almost pitied him for being every bully's target in Domino High.

She didn't involve herself in other's lives if she could help it though, and most of the school knew that. This was why most students knew her as an acquaintance, and no further.

"Yes?" Shiragiku answered Yugi's call, so coolly that he flinched, and his loyal friend tensed angrily beside him. Shiragiku's warning was clear-he wasn't to associate herself too closely with her.

"A-are you alright Shiragiku?" he asked timidly. "After all, you did get fallen on by a teacher…"

Something changed in Shiragiku's expression. The change could be compared to a layer of frost on glass melting away. Whatever it was, it made Yugi relax, and some of his shyness abated.

"Thank you for your concern, but I'm fine. Goodbye, Yugi, Anzu," she nodded, and walked away.

"That girl is either emotionless or cold, yet she still manages to be polite…it's honestly a little scary, how she usually only fluctuates between those three qualities," Anzu murmured.

"But I think the counsellor's right," Yugi said. "I think under all that, she's really a kind person. When Ranau-sensei slipped, I could have sworn Shiragiku looked a bit frightened."

"She's not superhuman or special among others," Anzu said. "Of course she would have been a little frightened for Ranau-sensei. Sensei could have been seriously injured."

Shiragiku overheard those words. Behind her curtain of hair, a grim smile twisted her lips.

She was nothing special to her peers. Hopefully they would stay with that opinion. As long as she kept her distance, they wouldn't think of her as any more than a rather strange acquaintance. They wouldn't know…

…her secret.

Shiragiku entered her house quietly, locking the door behind her. She glanced around, noting that her parents weren't home, and checked her family's spacious, two-storey house.

On the lower floor, the kitchen was immaculately clean and tidy, and smelled of bleach. The stylish, red-schemed living room was also tidy, the cushions arranged artfully on the couch, everything dusted and all bits of furniture, right down to the TV remote, in place or put away. The games room and downstairs bathroom were in similar pristine condition. House perfection at its best and most stylish-typical of her parents, she thought bitterly. They always wanted perfection around them always-surrounded themselves with it, in every aspect of their lives. Since they were somewhat rich, maids were hired to clean the downstairs floor everyday.

In her parents' lives, she was the only imperfect thing they couldn't fix.

Upstairs, where all the bedrooms were, Shiragiku only checked her room and the bathroom attached to it. Contrary to the other checked rooms in her house, her bedroom was slightly messed. Here and there were scattered clothes, and books were set in a messy pile on her desk. Her private bathroom was in the same condition-not messy, but not perfectly tidy like the rest of the house. This part of her house was her domain, and the family house's shame for not being as tidily perfect as the rest of the house.

Similar to how Shiragiku was the bane of her parents' existence.

Her stomach growled, reminding Shiragiku that she needed to venture out of her domain to that infuriatingly tidy kitchen she was almost scared to step in, for fear of leaving dirt traces in there. She did so gingerly, and, opening the fridge, took out an apple to eat.

The phone rang suddenly, a monotonous, even tune, and the tune echoed through the empty house eerily. Shiragiku, long used to the strangeness of a cold, lonely house, let it-probably the call was for one of her parents anyway.

The phone stopped ringing, and the message taker beeped.

"Hi, this is Ranau Tsubame from Domino High School, the counsellor there. I just wanted to again thank Shiragiku for helping me today…she possibly saved my baby from dying, and me from being seriously injured. I must say, Mr. and Mrs Tsukuba, you have a wonderful daughter despite her anti-social tendency. That really is all I have to say, so I'm sorry to bother you about this small thing. Goodbye." The message taker beeped again, indicating the end of the message.

"Shiragiku!" A wince flashed across Shiragiku's face, before it blanked, and she turned around.

A woman stood in the kitchen doorway, hands clasped together. Long, smooth black hair, tied in a low ponytail, reached the woman's back. Thickly lashed, dark brown eyes gazed out from a delicately pale, finely structured face. Pink lips pursed lightly and frowned, yet the frown just made her look even more refined. This woman was so beautiful; she could have passed for a model.

This beautiful woman was the wife of a moderately successful businessman. She was also Shiragiku's mother, and, matched number one with someone else on her list of people she disliked. The one she matched being her dad.

"Mum. You're back," was all Shiragiku said.

"What's this about saving a baby at school today?" her mother demanded.

"The counsellor-she's pregnant-slipped at the top of a staircase today. I was nearby, and stopped her from falling down the stairs. That's all," Shiragiku shrugged.

Her mother eyed her warily, and fear tinged her beautiful eyes. "You used your…power today, didn't you?"

"Power? What power?"

"Don't act stupid with me! You know what I mean!"

"Mum, in the mental world you and dad have created in your head, you either don't have a daughter, or have a child who doesn't have any abnormalities. I know you two enough to know that. I'm not acting stupid. Just playing along."

"You talk as if I'm playing a game. Which I'm not," her mother said coldly.

"Ninety-nine percent of the time you pretend everything in your life is fine and perfect. You might as well be playing a game."

"How dare you!" Her mother's voice shook with suppressed rage. "You don't know what I feel like; having a daughter who-who-who's like you! You, who could predict someone's death at any time-"predict my death at any time-"who can predict tragedies, or know enough information about someone's future movements, to look like a stalker! You don't know what it feels like to have a fre-an abnormality of a daughter!"

Slowly, the corners of Shiragiku's lips curled into a sarcastic smile. Her eyes gazed emotionlessly at her mother, however.

"Please, finish the word you were going to say before changing it," she requested, still wearing that sarcastic smile. "You were going to say a 'freak of a daughter' weren't you? I'm amazed you've been even slightly honest with yourself, and admitted aloud your daughter isn't normal. Let's get straight to the heart of the matter, shall we?" She took a step closer to her mother, who stiffened.

"You're angry with having a 'freak' of a daughter because I'm not perfect. Because in your perfect life; having wealth, beauty and a rich husband; you end up having a completely average looking daughter with a strange ability. I'm the only imperfect thing in your life."

Shiragiku took a few more steps forward, until she was an arms length away from her mother. She raised a hand and slowly reached for her mother's arm. Instinctively, the older (and taller) woman shrank away and quivered.

"What do you feel mum?" Shiragiku asked tonelessly. Her eyes continued to stay emotionless as she bore into her mum's eyes. "What do you feel during the moments you think I'm going to touch you, accidentally or not? I'll tell you my guess. You're afraid." She let her hovering hand, which was an inch away from her mum's arm, drop to her side. "You're afraid of what I can do. When I'm in the room, that's all you think about. How scary my abilities are, and to stay as far away from me as possible." She tilted her head slightly. "Am I right?"

Shiragiku's mother fought through her fear, grasping for her voice. "Go to your room," she commanded hoarsely. "Right now. Don't you dare leave it for the rest of the night. A maid will bring you your dinner."

Without a word, Shiragiku turned and went upstairs. Her mother dropped onto a kitchen chair and leant her head on the table.

That was how her husband-a man who matched his wife's beauty with his own refined handsomeness-found her, hours later. Not finding his wife in the foyer, where she normally greeted him, he wandered into the kitchen to find her silently crying. Even if he was a businessman, he did genuinely care about his wife, just like his wife genuinely cared about him, behind all the fortune they had. Maybe love was too strong a word…just a steady relationship where they could support each other when one partner needed it, and go about their lives independently when both didn't. For this reason they married.

Convenience seemed the best word to describe it. And a good deal of tolerance.

"What happened?" he asked his wife. His wife raised her head to him, revealing a weary, tearful face.

"Shiragiku."

That name was all he needed to hear to understand why she was upset. He strode forward and clasped her into a cool, impersonal hug. A mocking imitation of a man comforting his wife, but neither cared. "Did she use her…abilities today?" he asked carefully.

"I think so," his wife replied. "But that's not the reason why I'm in pieces right now. She…she knows us perfectly well. Both of us. Knows…we're scared of her."

"We're not scared of her exactly," he soothed, patiently. Tolerance. "Just wary of her…abilities."

"No!" she cried. "We're scared, and we both know it. We both know the reason too. Well, at least I know mine. I can't be sure, when Shiragiku looks at me, whether she's honestly seeing me, or seeing my future."

"She needs to touch you to do so."

"If she's seen it before though, I doubt she would tell us. She could see us die one day. If she ever sees that, I don't know whether she would tell us, in that toneless, distantly uncaring voice of hers, or whether she would just keep silent, staring at us grimly with those blank eyes! It's the possibilities of what she sees…the freakishness of her ability altogether…that makes us scared."

He couldn't refute what she said. In his mind, he knew she was right. They both feared what their daughter could see, and her ability altogether. It wasn't-wasn't natural!

Upstairs, leaning on the staircase banner, Shiragiku listened to her mother's wailing confessions, and her father's cool reassurances. She bowed her head, letting her hair hide eyes. She shouldn't let her words get to them, she told herself. She had known long ago how her parents felt about her abilities, about their fear for her. She had accepted that she would be spurned by them, and she didn't blame them. Her abilities would be creepy to others who didn't have it. She accepted her parents' reasons for…disliking her.

All the same…

From shadowed, emotionless grey eyes, a tear slid down her cheek.

Tsukuba Shiragiku: a fifteen year old girl who is known as a mere acquaintance by most of her grade peers at school.

Tsukuba Shiragiku: a mysterious, reclusive girl who is known as a caring girl beneath her impassive exterior by the school councillor.

Tsukuba Shiragiku: the dark spot of her parents' otherwise perfect existence.

Tsukuba Shiragiku: a lonely girl who accepts her lot in life, and tries to hide her secret.

…

Tsukuba Shiragiku: a girl with a 'defective blindfold'.

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