Confiteor

Genres: Horror, Tragedy

Summary: Distrust makes way for caution, and caution makes way for desperation, but still he waits, with one thumb on the reset button. / Many-Worlds AU, Gangshipping Jonouchi x Hirutani

A/N: Written for round nine of the YGO Fanfiction Contest, Season 10, with the newly-minted pairing of Gangshipping (Hirutani x Jonouchi), although this story also contains hints of Hirutani x Shizuka. This is very much an AU, but it still draws some inspiration from canon. I've always wanted to write a many-worlds story, so here it is! Warnings for some dark themes. I hope you enjoy.

They black out in an instant, one by one, falling over to crumple against the cracked cement. Someone knocks over a candle, and the flame, burning so hot he can feel it from where he sits, gives one last triumphant burst before fizzing out into coils of thick, winding smoke.

On his right, Nezumi faints and slumps against Jonouchi, already sprawled out on the ground. They are all unconscious now, except for him.

When his turn comes, the darkness rushes to greet him so quickly that any terror is gone, swept away by anticipation.

His last thought is that their ritual must have been a success.

Confiteor

Hirutani wakes to blinding light, blinking at the suddenness of it. Is it still Halloween or not? He does not know, and a quick glance around the circle tells him that he is the first to awaken.

Something settles uneasily deep within his stomach, but it takes him a moment to place it. The trappings of their ritual are gone. The chalk lines, the sacrificial blood, the remnants of a fire—all have disappeared, leaving the small, open lot as if they had never existed at all.

He knows this to be impossible. Bloodstains alone are not so easily removed, and the longer he sits, silently, just listening to the sounds of his comrades breathing and the dull, muted noise from the street behind the abandoned tenement buildings to their backs, the more he feels like he has attained some kind of preliminary enlightenment.

He tastes the air. It is heavy, like after a rainstorm, and as he reaches a hand to scratch at an itch at the back of his head he sees the armband fastened to his left wrist.

It was not there before. He would never wear something in such poor taste—the band of it was leather, embossed with various scrolls and symbols, connected in an unbroken circle, shrunken to fit close to the skin. Turning his arm, he sees a circular medallion set into it on the back, beneath his palm. He grazes it with the fingertips of his other hand; it is warmer than he expects. Perhaps it is his body heat that was keeping it warm. It is tighter than he expects, to the point where it is almost painful, but the pain is dull enough that he can ignore it.

Without disturbing Nezumi, he lifts one of the other man's arms. No armband; many of the others wear long sleeves that make it difficult to check, but he is confident that the only one with this new possession is himself.

He had wished for power as he lit the match to start the fire. The better the power, the stronger the sacrifice—he had learned as much in a similar ritual years earlier, when he could still be called a child in age if not in deed, as they threw precious things into the fire. His yo-yos had gone in, and after the fire had burned down they had been tarnished by heat and smoke, but as he picked them out of the ash he knew they had received some strange, new power from his efforts. If power could be called into such a physical object, the same should be true for a human body, and a sacrifice in blood should yield something truly remarkable.

Remarkable the armband is not, but he realizes there must be more to it than he can see. The power in his yo-yos had vanished when he had snapped the string, and he does not want to risk voiding the armband by cutting the circle and removing it to examine it closer.

His thumb traces the medallion again, and he hears a faint click as he presses it down—

—With a sharpness that makes his head spin, he is no longer sitting in the lot but standing in the parking lot of Rintama High School, leaning against a streetlamp. He pulls his hands from his pocket and stares at them; the armband remains on his right wrist, and he tugs the sleeve of his jacket down farther over his arm to cover it.

The sun is still bright, and his head spins trying to make sense of what has happened.

"Yo, Hirutani!" Shouji calls, Nezumi trailing behind him; Shouji clasps Hirutani's hand in greeting, accompanying the handshake with a thump on the back.

Suddenly, he knows what is different about this place.

"Have the school uniforms always been red?" Hirutani asks, careful to put the right kind of casual unconcern into the question to avoid suspicion.

"Yeah." Shouji tugs at his collar, popping the top button on his shirt. "Why'd ya ask?"

"They haven't ever been…green? I think they'd look good in green."

"Naw, some other school wears green," he answers. "So, are we going to J'z or what?"

"Yeah." He needs to know what else might have changed. He needs to know just what this thing has done and just what it might be capable of doing. "Let's go."

The makeup of his gang is different. There are two faces he has never seen before, and Jonouchi is gone. They're at an even number now; he preferred it at thirteen.

Their usual table sits beneath a retro clock and a large sign with the cafe's name in bright neon. They like that it's tucked into the back of the cafe, where they can keep an eye on everything and everyone who walks inside. The waitress takes their orders and leaves them alone.

Half of the people seated at his table have a beer in front of them, but Hirutani swirls a straw around a cola instead. Wanting full clarity of mind does not mean that he has to sacrifice comfort, so he sends one of the new faces to buy him some cigarettes.

He intersperses conversation with a few simple questions, hoping to gather more information. Nothing is helpful—it seems very little has changed beyond a few physical details. Several hours are lost to his memory, and while it is the day after Halloween Hirutani had apparently been alone the previous night, leaving the others to steal some candy and smash some pumpkins.

None of these things seem connected, but he is stopped from thinking about it too closely when Shouji trips over the leg of his chair, sending his drink toppling to spill all over Hirutani's shirt.

The room falls silent save for the intermittent clicking of the limply spinning overhead fan. Hirutani stands.

"Clean this mess up," he orders, and stalks off to the restroom. Too late he catches sight of New Face walking through the door with a convenience bag, and his fingers itch to hold a cigarette.

The restroom is filthy and the mirrors are cracked, but the running water is clear and cold, and he rolls up his sleeves to try and rinse the worst of it off without getting his entire shirt wet. He considers asking Shouji for his own shirt to wear, but it would be a little too tight in the shoulders. J'z didn't seem to care about things like inspections or cleanliness standards, but they might throw him out if he walked around shirtless.

The rolled-up edge of his sleeve exposes the edge of the armband. He stares at it for a moment, considering another possibility.

Perhaps he was not clear enough about what he wanted to change? If it could alter Rintama's uniforms to a completely different color, perhaps it could evaporate the beer Shouji had spilled on him.

He presses the button—

—Hirutani's hands move to grip the edge of the sink tightly, taking deep breaths through his mouth. His surroundings do not change, but one look at his shirt and it is dry, if just as wrinkled as it ever was. He pushes his sleeves back down to hide the armband and exits the restroom. New Face is still there, but the other unknown is gone. Jonouchi sits in their place, an open chair at their right. Hirutani settles into it, his grin widening.

Such power for the cost of only a few liters of spilled blood from an animal no one would even miss. He thinks this world could be one he could get used to.

Hirutani gets used to the red blazers and learns that New Face prefers to go by the name Naoto.

They do not question the changes in his behavior, or the strangeness of his orders, even after he stops Shouji from killing a spider he saw climbing up their classroom wall early that morning and throws away all of his red pens.

He ignores them and resists the urge to tug at his sleeve, even if just to reassure himself that the armband is still there should he ever need to use it. Distrust makes way for caution, and still he waits, holding himself back when the simplest of solutions could be applied to a situation so inconsequential he forgets there was ever a problem a day later. Hesitation becomes routine; as long as he has it, he convinces himself, he is invincible, regardless of how much use it sees.

In the pocket of an old jacket he finds twenty dollars he thought he'd spent. The milk in his refrigerator is expired, so he makes plans to visit the nearby convenience store to get more. A favorite CD of his will no longer play, the back of it covered in thin scratches from overuse. Although he had filled up the week before, his motorcycle is out of gas, so he makes the long walk to J'z from his house.

Changes like these are too small to miss. In the neon-lit interior of J'z it is easy to lose himself in a cloud of smoke and laughter, to talk about the other schools and the kids who aren't nearly as tough as they are. Hirutani is all swagger and bravado, claiming that only a dead man would think about taking them on, and for the rest of the evening their morale is high from his words and the drinks he buys them with his extra money.

When they stagger out of their chairs to part ways, most of them leave on motorcycles. Hirutani turns to Jonouchi.

"You walking home?" he asks.

"Yeah."

"That's on the way to my place," he says. "Walk with me."

The air is heavy from a recent rain, and as they pick their way across the cracked sidewalks and gridded streets of their neighborhood.

Hirutani breaks their momentary silence. "How is your sister? Shizu—"

"She's fine."

Jonouchi's wince as Hirutani speaks the name does not go unnoticed.

"She has never met me, has she?" His musing is directed more at himself than Jonouchi, and the other scowls, sticking his hands in his jacket pockets and picking up his pace. "I'd like to meet her one day. Perhaps today will be that day?"

"It's safer for her if she knows nothing about any of this." It's a safe answer, one designed neither to displease Hirutani nor oppose him; it presents neither answer nor approval.

It's a bit of a thrill, putting Jonouchi on edge. He only really feels that he knows his comrades when he can speak to them one-on-one, find out what makes them emotional and push at those points to get a reaction. Knowing what makes them angry, and knowing what they'll do when they're angry—that's the real way to measure a person. He wishes he knew the rest of the members of his gang half as well as he thinks he knows Jonouchi. Jonouchi's lovely sister was enough of a reason to recruit him, but it has been nearly impossible to gain an official introduction, or anything more than a few quick glances when he picks her up from her school and walks her home. Jonouchi himself is nothing like the others who make up his gang, and he imagines Shizuka to be nothing like the girls he usually involves himself with.

"C'mon, let's take a shortcut," he says, turning left and heading out across an open lot. "It looks like it's going to start raining again soon."

Jonouchi follows a few steps behind; there is a low retaining wall of wood that borders the lot, itself full of thin, patchy grass and the odd tree sapling. Beyond the lot, they're forced to take a narrow walkway between two office buildings.

A raindrop falls to land on his nose; before long more are falling to pepper the ground and darken spots on the shoulders of his jacket. Hirutani walks uncaring through the mud; the slope of their path means that he can do little about the water in their way, and while the coldness of the rain is irritating it is nothing that a roof and a few hours cannot fix.

"Aw, man,"Jonouchi said, scraping the edge of his foot against the metal walkway to clear it of mud. "These are new shoes! I saved for these for over a month!"

"That's too bad." Hirutani slows down until Jonouchi is walking beside him again.

Jonouchi's modest apartment rises to a gated front door on uneven stairs; each of the windowpanes are dirty and small. Still, it is better than the place where he lives.

The curtain in the front window rustles a moment before the door opens and Shizuka appears, unlocking the secondary door of security bars to hold both open for Jonouchi. Her movements still when she turns towards Hirutani.

"Would you like to invite your friend inside?" she asks him. "He can wait out the rain."

"No—"

"Yes," Hirutani answers smoothly. "Just for a minute."

"Only a minute," Jonouchi says. The rain picks up harder, and Shizuka holds the door open just a little wider.

"I'll get some tea." She leads the way, and the next second he can hear cups and plates clanging in what must be their kitchen, followed by the beeping of a microwave. Jonouchi wishes they had an electric kettle, something to fill the room with noise and smoke to drown out their senses, to give them something to concentrate on other than the pervasive, heavy awkwardness.

Hirutani pulled one of the chairs around the table to sit beside Jonouchi, his back to the kitchen door.

"Nice place," he comments. "Homey."

"Don't lie to me." Jonouchi leans his elbows on the table, as dominant as he can be after Hirutani manipulated the situation so well to his favor. More clattering of dishes, and the microwave beeps.

"Just a minute!" Shizuka calls.

"I'm not, and I never would or will." Hirutani matches his posture, leaning forward on his elbows. "I may have a dining table, but I certainly don't have a whole room dedicated to it."

"Tea is ready!" Shizuka pushes open the door with a hip, a saucer in each hand. She places the first before Jonouchi, and as she moves towards the other side of the table her foot catches on the edge of Hirutani's chair, askew from its original position. The cup falls, but Shizuka catches herself on the back of his chair, stumbling to regain her footing, her free hand fumbling. When she finds the wall, she breathes a sigh of relief.

For the first time, Hirutani understands. He did not think her eyesight was that bad, but she must have known the house well enough to get around regardless, and when the consistency she depended on changed she had been helpless. Had she ever looked at him in the eyes?

"I'll get it." Jonouchi volunteers instantly, standing and gathering the fallen china cup. The saucer is still mostly intact; only a corner is chipped, but the cup is smashed beyond repair, and the floor is littered with slivers of it. It is difficult to see against the crisscross pattern of the linoleum.

"Shizuka, don't step over here until I clean this up, okay? I wouldn't want you to get hurt." The emphasis in his last sentence is for Hirutani's benefit, he knows.

"I'm sorry about your cup," he says. "Please excuse me."

He follows Jonouchi past the kitchen and into a hallway, where he is searching a closet for the broom that matches the dustpan clenched in one fist.

"We made a promise, you and I," he says, and Hirutani's complete attention is caught as he wonders just what type of arrangement they could have made. "If I joined you, you would get me the money to pay for her operations."

Hirutani nods, going along with it. "And did I?"

"I don't want to become indebted to you even more. I'll find another way. Her condition—" He has to stop to swallow, his fists bunching in the untucked fabric of his shirt. "It's worsening. These operations are riskier than the disease. She could die."

It was not a disease, not always—not to his knowledge. Automatically, his fingers reach for his left wrist.

She's lovely, and he thinks he'd like to save her.

He asks where the bathroom is, and Jonouchi points towards an open door down the hall. "And then you can see yourself out," he says.

Hirutani closes the door behind him and slides up his left sleeve. Grasping the armband, he closes his eyes and presses the button without hesitation, just wanting her eyesight fixed—

—When he opens his eyes again, he is still standing in Jonouchi's bathroom. He washes his hands, straightens his sleeves, and leaves, intent on discovering if it worked or not. He finds Jonouchi in the kitchen, washing a white china cup.

"You sure took your time." Jonouchi reaches for a dish towel, drying the cup.

"How is Shizuka?" he asks, and Jonouchi's forehead furrows at the question.

"She's fine. Why do you care? She gets her bandages off tomorrow, so I won't have time to hang out."

"That's good to hear." He ignores the funny look Jonouchi gives him. "I'll…see myself out. Bye. Hope everything goes well for your sister."

Not three seconds after he closes the door he hears Jonouchi locking it behind him. He chuckles and heads down the street, his arms dangling loosely by his sides.

It's stopped raining. There isn't a cloud in the sky.

He's sitting in J'z the next day, enjoying a smoke and feeling good about himself. He insists that the chair to his left be kept open for Jonouchi, even though he knows he won't be there. The next day he is gone, too, and still the chair sits vacant. When four days pass without a word, Hirutani makes the trip back to Jonouchi's apartment and bangs on the door. The security gate rattles with each knock.

The Jonouchi that opens the door looks like a stranger to him. His hair is matted and limp, no gel to keep it up, and the circles under his eyes look dark enough to be bruises.

"What the hell happened to you, man?" he asks, and makes to take a step forward, but Jonouchi blocks the way.

"If only it happened to me. Me, and not her."

It takes him a few seconds to hear the words, and another few to begin to process them. "…What are you talking about?"

"Shizuka's eyes," he says. "Sure, they were healed up, but she couldn't handle brightness well. It's been so bright out, but she wanted to take a walk. Wanted to get out and see the world, she said."

"Jonouchi…"

"She walked into the street." He swallows. "Right in front of traffic."

It is like a punch to the gut, and he can only imagine what Jonouchi must feel. "No way. No. That's impossible."

The look Jonouchi shoots him is dirty. "What do you care? You didn't know her."

"I wanted to." He gets an even dirtier look for his troubles. "This isn't right. This wasn't supposed to happen."

"I don't have anything to say to you." Jonouchi closes the door in his face, and Hirutani's legs give out and he collapses to the steps, fumbling for his left arm. A shaking thumb skirts over the button, and on the second try he pushes it, lingering over the medallion, trying to regain some of its warmth into his body—

—He is standing on a bridge, blocking the narrow pedestrian walkway. Bells chime and he moves out of the way of a bicycle.

Panic fills him as he realizes he has no idea what else could be waiting for him in this new world. If only it is a world where Shizuka Jonouchi exists and her brother never has cause to look at him with those eyes again, he thinks he could live in it. He tries to remember what he was thinking when he pressed the button the last time, and comes up with nothing beyond as long as she does not die this way.

First, he reaches in his pocket for his phone. He replays a few messages, but most are boring, ordinary things—a few he even remembers—but when he searches his contact list, Jonouchi's name is nowhere on it. He can only remember the first few digits of the number, so he heads for the closest phone booth, hoping to look up his number.

A Katsuya Jonouchi is listed in the phone-book, but both the phone number and address are different than he remembers. He pulls the phone from the wall and listens to the dial tone for a minute before hanging it back up, deciding that a phone conversation puts him at a disadvantage when Hirutani does not know what could have happened to him.

Instead, he rips out the corner of a page with advertisements in it from the back and scribbles the address down in the margins with the attached pen. He knows that street, and lucky for him it's on a bus line.

The listed address puts him at the door of a slightly more modest apartment in a moderately nice neighborhood, adjoining a park. He takes the steps—the paint is chipped, but at least they are level—and rings the doorbell. Several minutes pass and no one answers, so he rings it again.

He'll wait all night if he has to, but he figures someone might call the police if he loiters too long, and heads for the park with plans to try again in an hour, wishing he'd stolen the phone-book pen so he could write a note just in case.

He settles down onto a bench, idly watching the runners and dog-walkers. He yawns into one hand; the bench is actually pretty comfortable, compared to some of the other ones in the city. He could even take a nap.

Someone sits down beside him, one of the runners. It takes him a moment to realize that it is Jonouchi, in a faded t-shirt and athletic shorts. He reaches down and fiddles with his sneakers—white, brand-new looking and so familiar it almost hurts to see him wearing them—and he catches Hirutani staring.

From the look in his eyes, it is clear that Jonouchi does not recognize him.

"Do I know you from somewhere?" He says it to be polite.

"No. I just have one of those faces."

Jonouchi shrugs, and moves back to his shoes—the laces are all knotted and tangled, a mess that he struggles to undo, muttering under his breath.

"Having trouble?"

He cannot just sit here beside Jonouchi and not say anything. Not when he wants to know so badly just what has happened to him.

"Yeah." He admits it sheepishly, and turns the knot around to study it from the other side, locating one of the loose ends and trying to pull on the point where it disappears into the knot. "I'll figure it out, though."

This Jonouchi is leaner and more subdued; there's none of the fierceness he associates with the Jonouchi he knows. It's like this version has had it all sucked out of him, and Hirutani wonders just what it has been replaced with.

"I'm very good with knots," Hirutani offers. "Would you mind?"

"Would I…what?"

Hirutani reaches with both hands. "Give me your foot."

Jonouchi sits with his back to the far armrest, one leg pulled up and the other straight out so that Hirutani can work on the knot. He twists and turns it methodically, pulling on it in places to loosen it. When he frees one, he gestures for the other.

"So…how'd you get so good at this, anyway?" Jonouchi asks.

"I used to have a yo-yo," he finds himself saying. "The strings would knot constantly. I got very good at untangling them."

"Used to? Why'd you stop?"

"It broke. I had no use for a toy that wouldn't work." This knot is worse than the other; he wonders just what Jonouchi had been doing to get them so bad.

"That knot is impossible," Jonouchi says, as if reading his mind. "You'll never get it. I should just cut it out."

"If you cut it, you'll lose some of the string," Hirutani says, thinking of the pocketknife in his pocket that would be more than up to such a task. "There is no perfect solution." His fingers pause over the laces, but he picks up again, tugging one end to loosen the knot.

"I bet you tie your knots with one loop." Such idle conversation is safer and easier than what is really on his mind. "And double-knot with the loose end. And I bet you just throw your shoes on and off without untying or retying these knots."

"So?"

He feels nothing but satisfaction when he sees two free shoelaces dangling together, but the feeling is empty when he looks back in Jonouchi's eyes. "There's your problem."

Hirutani leaves Jonouchi to tie his own shoelaces. He reforms them into two serviceable looped knots later, and flexes his feet within the shoes. "Hey, thanks. I didn't catch your name…?"

"It's Hirutani." He decides to take a gamble. "You're Katsuya Jonouchi, right? I knew your sister."

"My sister?" Something in his face changes. "Oh, yes, Shizuka. It's been so many years since I've heard someone else speak her name."

"Years?"

"I wonder what she would have been like if she hadn't died so young. I think about it all the time."

He was wrong—this Jonouchi, this defeated Jonouchi, is worse than any he has seen so far.

"Hey, do you live around here?" He swings his feet back down to the ground. "We could go get some coffee and catch up?"

"I'm sorry, I don't live around here," he says. "Maybe another time."

"Oh. Sure. I've got to get back to my jog anyway." He stands and moves a few steps before turning back. "It was nice to meet you, Hirutani."

The calmness that had overcome him when he worked with the knots is gone, replaced once again by an almost frantic desire to fix what went wrong. He thinks he can get it right this time. A world where Shizuka is alive and well.

Caution makes way for desperation. He leans back against the bench and reaches for his arm—

—For good measure that day he checks the phone book again for records of the Jonouchi household and finds the name listed back where it belongs.

He has a missed call from Shouji; he wants to know why Hirutani hasn't been at J'z or at school for the past couple days. He texts back something vague, that it has to do with business.

As he walks down the street he looks over at the empty lot beside him. He remembers a few young sapling trees used to border it. Great big trees stand in their place.

He runs the rest of the way.

Hirutani knocks on the door until there is an answer. Shizuka stands before him; he does not expect her to recognize him, and it is obvious she does not.

"Can I help you?"

"Is your brother here?" he asks. "I'd like to see him."

She lets him inside. "Yes, of course. Right this way."

She leads him to the living room, and stands awkwardly in the doorway. "I'll give you a moment, if you need it."

He is about to ask more, but then he catches sight of the framed photo of Jonouchi over the mantelpiece. He's dressed nicely, but his expression is one Hirutani knows.

He cannot look at the urn below the mantel for long before turning back to Shizuka. "How…"

He doesn't know what to ask. How did it happen or How long ago, both he needs to know but both he cannot bring himself to ask. If she were anyone else he would order his way to the truth, find out as much as he could and then go after the person responsible to exact vengeance only the way a gang like his could.

"He was involved with a gang," she says. "He was fighting constantly—I asked him to stop, and he quit for my sake. But that didn't mean the others stopped coming after him."

Each word is worse than the last, and sinks heavier and heavier within his chest.

"Were you his friend? You're the only one who's come to visit him," she says. "You're welcome back anytime."

"This cannot be true. It's impossible." He remembers speaking similar words to Jonouchi himself, in another world. In another time. "I want it to go back! Change it back the way it was!"

"What are you talking about?"

He doesn't realize he had been screaming.

Any other time her concern would have been touching. "Mister, are you okay?"

He has to get out of here. He cannot be in the same room as those ashes, not when he has just realized that every single change he has ever made has put him further and further from where he started. That world is lost to him now.

He should have known power like this would not come without a heavy price. It can take whatever it likes, but not this. Not Jonouchi. He wonders if there is a world at all, any world, where both Jonouchi and Shizuka are alive and well.

If he had to choose one, he would choose Jonouchi.

With that in mind, he presses the button—

"—Like I was saying," Jonouchi says, and Hirutani immediately takes in his surroundings—the street a few blocks from J'z, startlingly close to where they had performed that damned ritual in the first place.

"I'm not gonna take your offer. I can't, not with Shizuka in her condition. You'll have to find someone else to join your gang."

"No-!" He growls it out, grabbing Jonouchi by the collar of his jacket and getting so close to his face that their noses touch. "You will join me. This is non-negotiable. You have no options. Join me"—or die, some part of him thinks bitterly—"or I cannot be responsible for your fate."

"What is that supposed to mean? Is that a threat?"

"No. I told you once I would never lie to you." And the only way he knows how to keep him safe is to keep him close. Even if it means making Jonouchi hate him.

"When did you say that?" Jonouchi shakes himself loose and straightens his jacket. "Listen, family comes first. Get that through your thick skull."

"She served you tea first. She'll always serve you first. Who do you serve, Jonouchi?"

"You would have me serve you." Jonouchi crosses his arms, focusing on a spot above Hirutani's shoulders instead of looking him in the eye. "You're really that jealous, are you? You have a half-dozen men at least who would do anything you say, do anything for you, and that's not enough. You've got to be first in my life, too? Well, you're not. Face it, and get over it."

"Have you ever wondered who is first in mine?" The way he says it is so wistful it catches Jonouchi by surprise, but when he moves to answer Hirutani shrugs. "Forget I said anything."

"Whatever. Just listen to me when I say there is nothing you can do. I won't join you."

"Are you sure about that?" he asks.

"There's nothing you could offer me. Not money, not power. There isn't enough of it in the world."

"It's funny you should say that." Suddenly he is weary, too tired of running a race that ultimately ends up in a circle. There is no winning this.

"Fine," he says. "Leave. Go and die. Let your sister die. I will not stop you. I will no longer stop you."

Jonouchi turns on his heel and leaves, his steps quickened by the rolling thunder overhead. When it storms, the rain all but pours in buckets over the city. It is the sort of sudden rain that might flood the bridge he'll need to take to make his way home.

He reaches the bridge, soaked completely through, to see the bridge closed off, its surface covered by a deceptively thin layer of water. He snarls something at the sky, and leans against the closest lamppost, staring down through a fringe of rain-heavy hair at his left arm.

He supposes this is as good as it is going to get. He cannot ask for more than that.

Hirutani reaches for his pocketknife and flicks it open with his thumb. Still in his pocket, the piece of paper with Jonouchi's address sticks to his wet skin and he flicks it away, Jonouchi's name circled three times in red pen visible before rain pelts the newsprint to the ground. The rain makes it difficult to see, so he raises both hands close to his face and blinks away the rain.

He slips one edge of the knife beneath the armband and starts to saw through the leather. It cuts easier than he expects, and it breaks completely he lets it fall to the ground, to sink beneath a puddle forming on the roadway.

He flexes his fingers, but what he sees nearly makes his heart stop.

Tattooed over his skin are thick black lines that echo the exact curve and shape of the armband. They curve and scroll where the medallion would be, and he nearly screams when he feels how warm the center of it is.

He drops the knife, staggering against the lamppost, blinking through the rain to try and clear his vision, desperately hoping that he will look again and the abomination on his arm will have disappeared.

But it remains, and the rainwater washes over his feet, carrying both the knife and the leather band far away.

Almost on instinct, he reaches once more for his arm, his mouth stretched into a smile. There is one last place he can go, he thinks. The world he searches for must exist. This time he will get it right.

He presses down and feels the button move against his pulse, and something flashes bright before his eyes—

—His fingers grip the edge of the roof and scrabble for a better grip. His feet flail in the emptiness; he was certainly not expecting this, and as he tries to climb he finds his fingers, slick with rainwater, slipping.

A pair of feet stand next to his fingers. He recognizes those shoes, clean and new. The laces are tied perfectly.

"Jonouchi…"

Jonouchi holds a yo-yo in one hand. The distinctive, tarnished end of it flashes in the moonlight, and he recognizes that, too.

"You're going to die, you know."

"Oh, yes," he says. "Go on, then. Do it."

The yo-yo descends, spinning perfectly on its unbroken string, rolling across the rim of the ledge. Jonouchi has perfect control of it, and when he sends it skittering across Hirutani's hands he can no longer hold on.

He falls, his fingers grasping nothing but air, reaching out not for the ledge but for Jonouchi.

His last thought is that this world must have been a success—

End.

Notes:

1) Confiteor is the name of a Catholic prayer that admits guilt and wrongdoing. Confiteor means "I confess" in Latin; I take inspiration from a lot of the words ("I confess to almighty God / and to you, my brothers and sisters / that I have greatly sinned / in my thoughts and in my words / in what I have done and in what I have failed to do / through my fault, through my fault / through my most grievous fault").

2) Some of the things referenced in the story have to do with good or bad luck (numbers, red pens, killing spiders in the morning brings bad luck).

3) While this is an AU, the last scene was meant to take place in canon. I fully admit I have very little experience with the manga, but in creating Hirutani's character I wanted to make him more than just a criminal, someone who could be a gangster and a gentleman and an actor all in one, who leads not only by force and intimidation but because the people around him want him to lead them and they respect him. But of course, different decisions could have played out different ways, and the original Hirutani in each "world" without his interference could have been a completely different person.

3) Thank you for reading! I would appreciate and value your reviews.

~Jess