Ryou does look at Atem this time, sidelong rather than directly, as he listens to those words and tries to grasp the truth in them. He doesn't believe his friend is feeding him platitudes. Atem always says what he feels is true.
But the idea that Ryou's heart had any strength to it at all was tough to believe these days. Maybe he'd had a strong heart when he'd sacrificed it just to help Yugi and the others in that campaign. But he certainly hadn't shown that strength in Battle City when facing down a god with the pain of his injuries driving him to his knees, the air thin and inhospitable on the blimp that he had no idea how he'd gotten on. And his heart was weighed unfit to enter the Memory World. He was a coward who had utterly repressed how he'd gotten the Ring, and continued to cling to it for some kind of explanation, even when he channeled the darkness that ultimately ended Shadi's life.
What kind of true strength did someone like him have?]
You and Yugi have something in common, you know. This ability to seek a strength within others that they can't see, and show it to them plainly. But I don't see.
If you had the memories I did, maybe you'd feel differently.
And...y-yet you still choose to tell me these things, to convince me that I'm strong and good, and that people care about me.
[The shadowy aura is still swirling about him, but there's more of an ebb at this point than flow. Even if Ryou can't resolve his feelings completely, his trust in Atem is pulling him back, even if just a centimeter from the edge.]
no subject
Ryou does look at Atem this time, sidelong rather than directly, as he listens to those words and tries to grasp the truth in them. He doesn't believe his friend is feeding him platitudes. Atem always says what he feels is true.
But the idea that Ryou's heart had any strength to it at all was tough to believe these days. Maybe he'd had a strong heart when he'd sacrificed it just to help Yugi and the others in that campaign. But he certainly hadn't shown that strength in Battle City when facing down a god with the pain of his injuries driving him to his knees, the air thin and inhospitable on the blimp that he had no idea how he'd gotten on. And his heart was weighed unfit to enter the Memory World. He was a coward who had utterly repressed how he'd gotten the Ring, and continued to cling to it for some kind of explanation, even when he channeled the darkness that ultimately ended Shadi's life.
What kind of true strength did someone like him have?]
You and Yugi have something in common, you know. This ability to seek a strength within others that they can't see, and show it to them plainly. But I don't see.
If you had the memories I did, maybe you'd feel differently.
And...y-yet you still choose to tell me these things, to convince me that I'm strong and good, and that people care about me.
[The shadowy aura is still swirling about him, but there's more of an ebb at this point than flow. Even if Ryou can't resolve his feelings completely, his trust in Atem is pulling him back, even if just a centimeter from the edge.]
I don't deserve such faith or understanding.