So the final pairing is Bladeshipping (Pandora/Yugi) for this season of the contest. I just wanted to say how happy I am to have made it this far (never thought I would make it out of the easies!) and I'm thinking about joining for the next season. It was a lot of fun and it was interesting to see if I had any range at all. Anyway, here's my last entry for Season five! I hope you enjoy it!

Note: I'm sure you all know about Pandora but here's a refresher anyway. Pandora was given to Epimetheus, brother of Prometheus who gave man fire. She was given the gift of curiosity from Hera and a box she was told never to open along with it's key. She opens it after being tormented with curiosity to see what was in the box and unleashed all the ills in the world. Depending on which source you read, the last thing in the box is either hope, which she and her husband nuture and release to the world, or foreboding, which she shut the lid on with the last of her strength. If foreboding were to be released, everyone in the world would be without hope, knowing exactly what would happen to them. The last version was in a book I lent to a friend and never got back and it's not as widely known. It's cool to think that hope lies in everyone of us. :) Giving Arkana the name Pandora signifies he brought the knowledge of intense grief to the happy town. Other towns were brought the knowledge of anger at his deceptions. He brings evils to the hearts of honest men.
Warning: Bladeshipping and tragedy.
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh!

The man moaned on the straw mattress, writhing under the blankets and the cool compress on his brow. The fever was at its height and gripping him in a state of agony. He thrashed, calling out incoherencies and half names as delirium set in. Twice he vomited, the chunks of what had been choked down now sitting soggy and sour in the wooden bucket near his head. The ugly burns covering the skin around the upper half of his face oozed with puss from infection.

Yugi stood in the doorway watching the man suffer, hands full with a bowl of cool water and a fresh towel. His hands shook, the water in the bowl very near to sloshing over the sides until with a sigh, he closed his eyes and started into the room where the man lay. Deftly, gentle hands set the bowl down within reach and removed the warm towel from the sick man’s head. Yugi’s nose wrinkled as the smell of vomit rose and nearly caused him to be sick himself, but he swallowed thickly and moved on. He washed the puss from the man’s face, trying to keep it as clean as possible and replaced the used towel with the clean, fresh one after dunking it in the cool water. That done, he straightened the sheets and picked up the bowl and sick bucket and retreated back to the kitchen.

Hours later the man woke up but only for a brief moment. His eyes searched in panic, mouth screaming out a name. Less than half a minute later he had slipped back into unconsciousness, sweating but quieter. His movements had stilled making it easier for Yugi to replace the compress again.

It was in the early morning hours when the fever dropped and nearing noon when the wounds closed completely. The scars were permanent; there was nothing anyone could do to make them fade.

Yugi was washing the towels when he heard the man call out.

“Hello? Where am I?”

Yugi lazily snapped the graying cloth, shaking out the excess water and draping it over the window’s ledge. He took his time walking over to the doorframe and simply leaned against it, watching the man struggle to sit up and touch his face.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Yugi cautioned. “Your burns have only just stopped leaking from the infection. You wouldn’t want to make things worse now that they’re finally getting better, now would you?”

“Yugi . . .” the man murmured in surprise. “What are you—? Why—?”

“Because you were about to die and I can’t, in good conscious, leave someone alone to die.”

The man blinked. “So does that mean that you—?”

Yugi cut him off again, stomping into the room, his cool demeanor falling away under his anger. “Not a chance. I’m only doing this because that’s how I was raised. That’s how we all were raised. You, obviously, know next to nothing about kindness towards others.”

“I do!” The man raised his voice and his body, trying to sit up fully instead of only propping himself up by his elbows. “I was always nice to Catherine and to you!”

Yugi pushed him down roughly and snatched off the towel. The man winced. “You were only nice to me to get to Catherine. You never really loved her.”

“I did!”

“Not the way you’re supposed to!” Yugi stood abruptly and turned towards the kitchen. He stood there wringing the soiled towel between his fingers and staring out the kitchen window. “Not the way Catherine could have loved you,” he whispered.

The man took a deep breath. As used to working with angry, distrusting people as he was, Yugi had always been a mystery and a problem for him. He was always the one standing in the way of what he wanted. Catherine and what little money the people around here had. “I really did love her. You may not believe me, but I did. I only wanted to be happy with her and we could have been if we were traveling.”

The man watched Yugi for a reaction and was relieved when I noticed the man’s shoulders trembling. He succeeded in making Yugi cry and he succeeded in winning the argument with him, for once.

Then Yugi spun around and threw the towel back at him, hitting him full in the face with a sickly, wet slap. The man winced and grimaced at the smell, clawed it off amid the pain, and finally took in Yugi’s emotions flashing across his face. Rage. Pure rage and even hatred rolled off his features. Upon instinct, the man scooted back wishing he had the strength to get up and run. He was cowed completely when Yugi stormed over and shoved his face within bare inches of his.

“You never did love her! You only wanted her for her beauty! If you ever loved her, your love wouldn’t have died the moment she did! You would have known that she was happiest here with her friends and her family!” Yugi panted from his outburst, staring at the frightened man then let go a disgusted snort and turned back to the kitchen.

“I . . . I really did love her,” the man pleaded, weak and pathetic even to his own ears. He lay back and closed his eyes, exhaustion and a form of grief settling over him. “So Catherine is really . . . dead?”

“Yes,” Yugi hissed venomously, walking to the doorway of the kitchen and gripping the wall. “And though there is no proof, you should know that you are no longer welcome here in this town.” The man began to raise his voice in alarmed protest but Yugi’s carried over it effortlessly. “And I would leave in the middle of the night if I were you. If someone were to see you, you most likely would not walk away from them alive.”

“This is the thanks I get? I tried to rush in and save her! You would kill a hero because he could not save someone in time?”

“You started the fire!” Yugi spun around and looked to be forcibly holding himself back by sheer will alone. “I know it was you and so does everyone else, though no one can prove it!”

“The-the embers in the fireplace!” the man offered hastily.

“Were out before we left to go to the river, I assure you! I watched her put them out! No,” Yugi spat and tightened his on the door frame. “you were the one to start it and you counted on her running in to save her mother’s blankets! You just wanted to play hero! You would risk her life to make you look great! I bet you wouldn’t want her if she came out as badly burned as you are!”

“If she had just agreed to come traveling with me, I wouldn’t have had to do that!” The man finally let burst his frustration, his confession. A beautiful woman he had planned to love was dead, he had been burned, and now his life was in danger. Holding in a secret like that wasn’t worth it when everyone suspected him, anyway.

A portion of Yugi’s rage melted to grief and tears actually slipped down his cheeks. He banged his hand into the wall, hurting in so many ways and he let out a roar. “You don’t understand! You don’t understand what you’ve done! I looked up to you! I admired you ever since you came here!” Yugi turned his head away and shielded his face with a hand, ashamed with himself. “The adventures you went on, the places you got to see, the people you got to meet—I wanted that! I liked you for that! And for you to do this—!”

The man’s guilt finally caught up with him and he reached out for Yugi even as the other shrank back. He understood what that felt like; he had felt it before when a stranger had stopped in his town when he was a child.

“I’m sorry, Yugi. I truly am,” the man croaked out, throat dry and coarse.

“No you’re not,” Yugi half sobbed, his face in his hands. “You don’t know the pain everyone in town is feeling right now. Catherine was so gentle and kind. How could you . . . ?” he ended in a whisper.

Not knowing what to say, the man swallowed around the tightness in his mouth and throat and rolled his head the other way to give his caretaker some privacy. Soon, the muffled sobs lessened and the breathing evened out and when he looked back, Yugi was scrutinizing him through bloodshot eyes.

“You’re no longer welcome here.”

The man nodded stiffly.

“If you were to come back you’d be killed.”

Again, the man nodded.

“You are also no longer welcome in the towns to the north of us.”

This time the man exclaimed, “What?!”

“Messengers have been sent to inform the people of those towns about who you are and what you have done here. They have been given a description of you and what you carry and wear. And they’ll recognize your mask. The only way you can go is back south unless you want to live in the surrounding forests.”

The man lay there gaping as Yugi related his choices. Traveling north was out of the question as well as south. The people he had swindled would not be welcoming were he to show his face again. But he had never lived on his own and he hadn’t farmed in almost 11 years and what he had done then wasn’t much. He had a natural charm that enticed others to work for him or give him things. That would be useless were he to live on his own.

Also, Yugi had said something about a mask. “What mask?”

Silently, Yugi walked to a basket sitting in the corner that he had not noticed before. He had not noticed much of anything before with all that had been going on. Yugi sifted through the fabric there and pulled out a blue and teal colored mask, a harlequin design and one made for court jesters. One made for a laughing stock. Yugi held it in his hands and stared down at it.

“We have given you a new name. You are no longer to be known as Arkana. I assume that name was not the one you were born with so taking on a new identity shouldn’t pose much of a problem for you. You are now known as Pandora.”

“Pandora?” The man tried the name out, the taste and feel of it bitter and sour.

“Pandora,” Yugi nodded. “And since you were so in love with your face before, we thought to spare you a little mercy and hide the evidence of your crime that has left you so hideous.” He tossed it on to the man’s stomach where he lay. “Now that you’ve gotten well enough to stay awake for a discussion, I want you out of here by sunset.” He walked out of his home and into the garden that sat just outside his kitchen window.

Inside, the man now known as Pandora slipped on the mask and let the waves of guilt he had not felt since he abandoned his mother and younger sister wash over him. His scars ached at every turn.