middleofsomewhere | Memory Cave

"It was bad at the time," Conan says absently. "I passed out from the blood loss not long after this. But the kids managed to get me out of there." If there was anything in his tone here, it was pride. The kids had figured out how to escape the criminals and navigate the cave all on their own.

He winces a little as Ayumi screams, and he has to corral them into following his instructions. He could have maybe been a little easier on them. But at the time, he'd needed to get them to listen to him as he tried to give them every chance he could.

It was a dangerous time. A matter of life or death- of course he was being 'harsh', Katsuya thinks, they were going to die.

He tries to distract himself from the memory. Think about other things, don't focus on this. He can't though. If anything distraction makes him think of when he'd had to do something similar just to get someone else out of a mess.

...well. "They did good," he says numbly, his voice tight. If he thinks about it he supposes most of his serious messes were his own doing ultimately.

"They did," Conan says firmly. "They're good kids,and they're going to be great detectives some day."

He'd nearly died that day. He'd come closer than any other time he could remember,except possibly the apotoxin. And he still carried the scar from that on his stomach.

But... for all the darkness of that day, he was still so proud of how well they had held it together.

But as the memory ends it fades, and they find themselves in some new place. Another Jounouchi, laughing desperately. A corpse of some strange creature, and a darkening arena, filling with some dark tar-like substance that somehow still had the feel of blood.

Conan looks around at their surroundings with confusion. "What is this place?"

"Oh no."

That's all Conan's answer is. It doesn't take long to find out where he is after all. To see his desperately hopeful laughter from that day, but from a distance instead of simply giving it himself. Motor Omega had finally cut through the Eraser, and they had a chance, a CHANCE, a-!

Keith is the one to laugh next as his own in the memory fades, and as Omega goes down the monster shouts- "ERASER'S EFFECT!"

"Kh- No-!"

Tar pulls down on everything. Fills everything. Covers everything as Keith laughs a manic and suicidal sound, the cries of a dead-man walking. As Katsuya's past version of himself gasps and chokes and curls and sets a card to lean against, the stone ripping up from the business room's ground to create a wall in the darkness.

The vision doubles.

"NHG-"

They're seeing two things at once.

Conan stumbles back and squeezes his eyes shut as he attempts to deal with the doubled vision, even as he tells himself that this is just a dream. They're not really choking on tar.

What was even happening here?

"Jounouchi! What is this?"

Unfortunately, Katsuya has checked out.

"Not again not again not again," he's muttering, and while the language being spoken in this alarmingly clear vision of the 'past' isn't Japanese, it's plenty understandable. They're speaking of rituals. Of things 'for one's own good'. Of-

The boy that Is but Isn't Katsuya screams. He screams, and screams, and screams as if he's dying, and-

And the vision is no longer doubled.

In the tar-like darkness, monsters appear- attacking yet not, pulling the prior Katsuya out from his stupor.

Conan takes a considering look at Jounouchi, and promptly kicks the side of his foot. It wasn't going to do anyone any kind of good if he got lost in a panic attack.

That.

Does not actually help. Katsuya- the real one- Holds his arms close. He stares unblinkingly, breathing heavily as he swallows. The memory is only clear for so long. Long enough for the duel to subside. Long enough for Katsuya-in-the-past to pull himself up, win, and walk to his opponent.

"It's going....to get....worse," he manages hoarsely, his prior counterpart entirely unaware. Focused- focused on the shock of Keith, throwing him the black duel disk and desperately demanding a rematch. The dying man chasing their only shot at feeling alive again, eyes wide and crazed and meeting past-Katsuya's alarmed and horrified ones.

As he tells Keith he can't fight him again. He won't. As he throws Keith the 'Time Machine' card and walks away.

He made it the length of a duel field before falling over- the disks dropping, Keith distantly looking over in confusion-

This time, instead of simply doubled vision, the Katsuya of the past blacks out into a seizure entirely.

As the consequences of the ritual meet their eyes.

Conan was watching, but still very little of this was making sense to him. There had been that before. But what did that have to do with a card game. It must be related somehow, but the connection was eluding him.

And then he jumps forward in alarm as the past Jounouchi goes into a seizure. Obviously, he had survived this. But what caused it? Was he prone to this? Was this something they needed to watch for on the train?

Definitely not. Just before Keith can properly react to there being a seizure after their card game that Definitely Got Intense, the scene flips. Immediately.

To the chamber underground. To the elders preparing to do...something.

They never find out.

The shadows roar- a DRAGON forms from them in rage, and strikes as many down as possible. A few escape- but most are burned to a crisp, bitten down into bleeding messes, or perhaps mercifully snuffed out in an instant.

The 'Katsuya-who-isn't-Him' is unmoving, and still. Their eyes are blank, and unperciving. To Conan, it would no doubt seem as if it were a child's corpse- a body now cradled by another young boy his age, echoing 'I'm sorry's filling the air while the dragon turns to look sadly down at the one he apparently views as his son.

The memory ended there.

The cave, undoubtedly, appears around them.

Katsuya however- "HhhhAaaUUH...Hahhh...HAUUUHH..."

Is most certainly not aware of it.

Part of him is himself- for a few moments it's as if it's only the blond holding his arms close, gasping as if he's on the verge of death himself. And then his form...changes. Shifts. Flashes like a swapped television channel- to someone older than he is, closer to thirty or so. With darkened skin that speaks of another land and of work under the sun, swathed in simple robes- albeit with a more recent cloak of red. Cloth wraps over the legs and arms, silver hair tied loosely back- but the face, the expression, it's the same.

They're different people, but between each swap, both are trying desperately to not die. "Haaauhh...hauhhh...hahh...!"

He can't die right? He can't possibly, that would be silly, he thinks in the form of the ancient, he's already done that, you can't die twice right?

He can't, he shouldn't, wasn't he doing alright, he thinks in his normal state. He should be fine right, he's survived worse, he can't, he can't, he can't,

Conan had questions. A lot of questions.

But he also wasn't willing to leave Jounouchi in a state of panic like that. Especially with that flickering form. Conan didn't know anything about magic, but even he could figure out that that wasn't good for him.

So he considers the situation for a moment, then casually kicks Jounouchi's ankle again. He wasn't really tall enough to get his attention any other way.

Height matters not when you're curling on the floor. When you've crouched down so much that you're practically a ball, bent inward on yourself.

The kick gets a brief glimmer of surprise in the figure's eyes, but not much more- that said, he is undoubtedly 'short enough' to be open to other methods now, as unfortunate as that fact is.

"Jounouchi!" Conan snaps at him. "Wake up! You're back in the cave! Whatever memory that was, its over!"

He reaches down and firmly shakes his shoulder.

Now that's a little more grounding. A kick is brief.

Shaking, not so much. It's a hand, and it's grounding, or at least enough that breathing moves from 'gasping chokes' to 'alarmingly rapid'. Jonouchi is only one name. It belongs to one side.

Breathe, he thinks, you're alive, you're alive, breathe! Only things that live breathe!

For a second or so, he's still in that ancient appearance- the one that's years beyond what they saw in the memory, no matter where within it. Rather than an abrupt channel shift however it simply fades back into the teen's self- clothes restored to beachwear and a towel poncho, to blond hair and lighter but no less tanned skin.

Breathe...

Now this was a little more familiar territory. As Jounouchi starts to come out of it, Conan crouches down in front of him, making sure that he could be seen. "Breathe," he tells him. "Take deep breaths and count them."

Okay. Okay. He can do that. They're fairly awkward breaths, more audibly like gulps than anything, but they're calming down.

If only because it's, well, it's difficult to breathe and speak at the same time. "Gh-h...One...h...hk...two..."

Well, it's probably an improvement.

Conan listens to his breathing with a worried frown.

"Try to breathe slower," he advises.

Well, whether he heard him or not isn't very clear. He's just. Breathing for a bit, eyes wide and partly vacant. But there's some clarity coming back. Brown to replace the grey. Breathing in...breathing out...breathing...in...

"Hhhahhh...hhahhhhahhh... I don'....t...think I've done tha'...s...since I thought I was gettin' tossed 'n a pit again...hhaha..."

He might not quite have his head straight yet.

"You were having a panic attack," Conan informs him. But he relaxes as Jounouchi's breathing comes closer to normal. "I don't know what the rest of it was, but I could recognize that much. And the other you in the memory. Was that a seizure? Will you need a trip to the medical car when we get back to the train?"

"Seizure was ages ago," he answers numbly, rubbing at his face. "It's...fine tha' was jus' th' fuckin'...evil gods, nothin' that's repeat..."

Ahh, right, all of this. He takes a shuddering breath, leaning against the rocks. "...That memory... ...I had some flash's in tha' one, huh..." he mutters, narrowing his eyes and staring upward in thought. "...Make anythin' of it yerself?"

Conan sighs as he sits back.

"I could tell by your reaction that it was bad. And a lot of what I saw in there was concerning. But honestly, very little of it made any kind of sense to me."

He came from a world without evil gods,monsters, reincarnations or magical card games, after all.

"Yeah, don' really make a whole lot 'f sense in th' momen' either," he huffs casually, trying and failing to cover up the residual jitters and panic.

"I c'n like. Try explainin' shit I guess. I dunno. ...be jus' as weird f'r anyone else fr'm home, so."

Conan gives him an assessing look.

"Don't get me wrong. I'm a detective, of course I want to know what just happened there. But you just came out of some kind of panic attack, combined with something I don't even know how to describe. Are you really okay to explain anything right now?"

The last thing Conan wanted was to send him into another panic attack like the last one.

"Nh-! I'm fine enough!!"

The protest, of course, is weak. He knows it's weak, and looks away with a scowl. "...cave ain' gonna let 's out until we talk 'nough anyway, righ'?" he manages after a moment, voice quieter.

"...Plus, I... ...I think 'f anythin', talkin' 'll help keep me grounded in what's 'now', y'know? ...Th' stuff tha's happenin' in th's life, not... ...whatever was goin' on a few thousan' years back..."

Conan frowns at him some more, but sits back.

"Okay, then I'm listening."

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CW: Death, Panic

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