Notes: For Yu. Because this is totally her fault.
Notes 2: This fic is kind of post-everything.
There's a crack, inside of him.
Marik doesn't notice it at first. This small, tattered thing at the back of his mind. It doesn't really make much of a difference, then. He is already ragged as it is.
Ishizu isn't there when he finds out. That's probably a good thing.
Through the rift a voice—his voice—is beckoning him to come after him, into the abyss, and Marik feels as though all the cells in his body are being torn apart, dissected, dismembered.
He ends up as a writhing, messy heap on the ground, every fiber of his being contorted into the shape of a name.
Marik thinks he half-knows what's going on. That's why he doesn't tell his brother or his sister.
He wouldn't like that.
And after all, isn't that what this is all about?
Midnight.
The moon is a fat, white disk slicing through the thick fabric of the night as Marik wanders the empty streets of his new home. Stray dogs cross his way and he can't help but feel a distant sort of sympathy for them, so he takes the knife from his pocket, and—
One, two, three strokes are all it takes.
"Welcome back," he mutters to himself, and grins at the sky.
That's all it takes.