From Darkness Reborn

by supersteffy

Rather than eternal suffering, Marik thinks his dark half deserves a second chance. With Ryou's help and Bakura's support, he decides to try and summon his alter ego from the Shadow Realm and into a body of his own. Light Deathshipping and Thiefshipping one-shot. Some Death fluff at the end.

Done for the Deathshipping Contest No. 3 for Marikuu and Creampuffsandcardgames on tumblr. Thanks to the outstanding Site Bethel for beta'ing! If we missed any errors, feel free to let me know. Happy belated Halloween everyone!

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The moon skulked behind clouds as they crawled slowly across the sky, intermittently plunging gravestones and wilting bouquets into darkness. In one of the more secluded areas of the cemetery stood a circle of candles, glowing soft orange in defiance of the overcast night. Three figures were gathered in the ring of light, one sitting, one standing, and one prone on the ground, stiff and cold as the dirt on which they lay.

Streamers of white hair fluttered into Ryou's eyes as he watched Marik place the finishing touches on their amatuer ritual. The wind had been blowing the candles out as fast as Marik could light them, but Marik let out a vocal sigh of relief when it changed direction, blocked by the mausoleum they had set up behind. Throwing the lighter at their feet, Marik sat down beside Ryou on the crypt's built-in stone bench. Together, they stared at the third member of their group.

Ryou tried to convince himself that this wasn't wrong. The man had donated his body to science, along with his organs, so he'd obviously wanted to help people, save lives. And wasn't that what they were doing when you got down to it? Saving a life?

The witching hour was almost upon them, but each minute seemed to drag its feet. The longer they were there, the antsier Ryou grew, certain a groundskeeper or beat cop on patrol would discover them. He couldn't even imagine what his father's reaction would be to Ryou getting arrested for trespassing, grave vandalism, and corpse desecration.

Using a hair tie on his wrist, Ryou pulled his fly-away mane into a messy bun.

"Do you think this will work?"

Marik gave a lazy shrug and kicked the corpse's foot. "It did for Bakura."

"Yeah, but he had a soul. As far as we know, your other self is just that-a personality without a soul or conscience."

Another shrug. "If it doesn't work, at least I can say I tried. I just can't live with myself knowing that I abandoned him to an existence of eternal suffering. I didn't consciously decide to create him, but I did create him. He was the way he was because I pushed all the things I couldn't deal with into him. I owe him a chance to prove he can change, like the Pharaoh gave me."

The obvious question danced among the leaves surrounding them. Ryou was afraid to ask it, but they'd come this far, and it had to be said.

"And if he can't change?"

He'd asked it softly, gently, and Marik responded just as quiet, but with steel in his voice.

"Then I'll take care of it. I gave him life. If it comes to it, I'll take it back."

Ryou hugged his arms around himself, Marik's words chilling him in a way the wind hadn't.

Rustling sounded from the copse of trees to their left as Bakura approached, hands in pockets, kicking up leaves with each stride. More leaves were trapped in his cumulous cloud hair. His pale skin glowed in the moonlight, striking beside his black duster and sanguine dress shirt. The outfit made him look like a cliche vampire, which Ryou supposed was fitting, given his status as recently risen from the grave. Marik rose to meet him once he was close enough for the candles to fleck him with sepia light.

Ryou's heart clenched as he watched Marik pull the entangled foliage from Bakura's mop, teasing him in a voice too low for Ryou to make out. He'd known since Battle City how they'd felt about each other, and he was happy to have helped them reunite, but as he watched them banter and huddle close, a small part of Ryou couldn't help but feel left out.

Bakura came to join Ryou, usurping Marik's spot on the bench. He and Ryou watched as Marik paced, triple and quadruple checking that everything was in place while they waited for twelve o'clock. Perhaps it was superstitious, but they'd figured if there was any time to successfully raise the dead-if giving Marik's dark half his own body qualified as that-Halloween at midnight was it.

At least they knew the spell was legit. Marik had looked the spell up himself, pouring over endless scrolls in his old tomb for the better part of two weeks before finally stumbling across it. It was the spell Pharaoh Atem had used to lock himself and Bakura into the Millennium Puzzle and Ring, only Marik had tweaked it to pull someone from the Shadows, not trap them inside. It had worked on Bakura, but Bakura had been an actual spirit; none of them were sure Marik's other personality counted.

Marik wasn't one of the Pharaoh's priests, trained to use heka from a young age, and he hadn't been entirely sure if his homebrew incantation and Ryou's out-of-his-ass symbolic ritual would get the job done. For Bakura's ritual they'd used the black duster Bakura now wore as a sort of altar cloth under the body, with the deck he'd used in Battle City as a focus object. This time they used Marik's cape from his time as the leader of the Ghouls and Marik himself as the focus. It made it a bit risky since they had no way of knowing whether Marik's other half would take to the new body like Bakura had, or if he would merge once more with Marik, and Ryou could tell the uncertainty was weighing on Marik.

Bakura pulled out a phone. "Five minutes."

Marik grunted, his pacing not faltering.

"Hey," he said, pocketing the phone again. "You're the one who wanted to do this. If you've changed your mind-"

"I'm fine." Bakura raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Marik stopped and blew out a breath. "Okay, maybe I'm not, but I can't back out. I have to at least try."

"Alright." Bakura leaned back, stretching his legs out in front of him. "However this plays out, we'll handle it."

Marik and Bakura shared a glance and seemed to reach some sort of understanding. Marik nodded. "Let's do this."

Ryou got to his feet. His part was done for the most part-setting up the ritual's aesthetics and assigning symbolic objects-but he wanted to stay for moral support. He'd agreed to help, first when Marik wanted to bring Bakura back, and now this time. He felt compelled to see it through.

The ritual was set up in two concentric circles: the outermost ring was made up of the couple dozen candles Marik had fought with; the center band was around the body, set with salt for purification. Marik stood in the space between the candles and salt while Ryou and Bakura stood outside and watched.

Marik began the incantation, spinning power and words together in a tapestry of intent. The tingle of magic swelled within him, filling him like nothing else he'd known. It was a familiar high, but there was a distinctive feel to the heka he wielded now compared to the Shadow magic he'd commanded back in Battle City. It felt cleaner, crisper as it flowed and collected, dancing to his whim.

A surge of power built and broke, sending out a shockwave with the corpse as the epicentre. In its wake it left darkness, all the lights blinking out for several miles. And then the dead body began changing before their eyes. At first it was subtle, the shape of the man's eyebrows lengthening, the face thinning, but then the changes became more obvious.

Short, gray-black hair lengthened and lightened to bright gold as dead, pallid flesh darkened to a healthy shade of cinnamon in the shifting light. As the body shifted and lengthened to a taller form, the business suit the man wore remained the same, stretching tightly across broadening shoulders and legs now too long for the specially tailored pants.

When the transformation was complete, all trace of the expired Japanese businessman was gone, replaced by the sharper features of Marik's alter ego. All that was left was sealing the spirit into its new body.

Marik hesitated on the last line, not having a name to attribute to his other personality. "Mariku," he said, wincing at the unimaginative name.

The power swirled within the confines of the two circles like a dust devil before coalescing and settling.

Marik sighed and stepped out of the circle. Bakura took his arm and led him to the bench while Ryou checked for a pulse. but found none. Undeterred, he began performing CPR, alternating between chest compressions and breathing life into cold, unmoving lips. After Ryou's fourth attempt, the ex-corpse's eyes flew open and he sat up, coughing air into lungs that couldn't remember what to do with it.

The next thing they knew, Marik was the one struggling for air as two long-fingered hands tightened around his windpipe.

"What the fuck did you do to me?" Mariku growled, fingers a vice around Marik's neck.

"Uglhf-" Marik tried to answer, but the grip on his throat was too tight.

"Let him go!" Bakura barked, trying to pry the hands away without hurting Marik further.

"He brought you back to help you!"

At his words, the recently revived personality glanced curiously at Ryou, but his hands didn't move from their chokehold. Ryou continued, rubbing the toe of his sneaker into the dirt.

"We didn't think you deserved eternal damnation and torture for doing what you were created to do...so we brought you back in your own body."

Mariku stared at Ryou for another long moment before retracting his grip and stepping back. Marik choked and coughed, massaging his throat while Bakura crouched in front of him, glaring daggers at Mariku.

"You brought me back...from the Shadows," Mariku said slowly, gaze jumping between the three of them.

"Yeah, we did. Strange way show your gratitude," Bakura snarled.

Mariku looked down at himself and took in the ill-fitting suit. He smoothed his hands over his own chest and up to his face and hair, his eyes flashing huge. "I'm in my own body," he whispered hoarsely.

Bakura had turned his attention to Marik, but he snorted as he checked Marik's neck for signs of bruising. "If only we'd remembered to give you brain to match."

"Stop being hostile toward him, Bakura," Ryou chided. "I'm sure this is a lot to take in."

Bakura scowled at Ryou, who hadn't moved from the circles. "I'm being hostile? He just fucking attacked Marik!"

"And he won't attack anyone else...right?" Ryou asked, turning a hopeful look to Mariku, who seemed entranced by his own hands.

"What?" Mariku blinked at Ryou.

"I said, are you going to attack again?"

"I-no. I didn't realize…" He trailed off, hands falling to his sides as he stared at Marik.

"You thought it was a trick, right?" Bakura caught the maniac's eye and knew the answer even before he nodded.

"It wouldn't have been the first time. The Shadows...they know what you want most, and they taunt you with it."

Bakura nodded slowly.

"That's why-" Marik cut off with a harsh cough. "-why I wanted to get you out. I couldn't live with myself."

Mariku's expression darkened, and he folded his arms across his torso. "Well, I'm so glad that your conscience is clear. It's not as though you're the one who trapped me there in the first place. Oh wait."

Marik opened his mouth, an angry retort at the ready, but Ryou intervened, addressing Mariku.

"So, now that you finally have a body of your own, what's the plan?"

"I...don't know." He tousled his spears of willowy blonde hair. "Never really had a plan beyond, well, existing."

"Existing is nice, but you'll need a place to live, right? Uh…" A thought fell into place. "Hey, so, how is he supposed to make a life for himself if he doesn't have paperwork? Neither do you, come to think of it," he added to Bakura.

Marik waved it off. "I still have contacts from when I ran the Ghouls. I can get him documentation."

"Real documentation, or forgeries?"

Marik smirked. "They'll be the best fakes bribery and blackmail can buy. I know a guy who works for Witness Protection in the States."

"Okay, but that will take time," Bakura pointed out, now sitting beside Marik on the bench. "What about tonight?"

"Well, I mean, I guess he can stay on our couch until we find him a place-"

"He can stay with me."

The words were out of his mouth before he'd even thought them. Ryou felt his cheeks heat up as all three of them stared at him, Marik and Bakura in surprise and Mariku in confusion.

"I-I just meant, uh, if it's easier...and if you want to," he mumbled to Mariku, trailing off uncomfortably as they all continued to look at him.

Bakura recovered first, sending Ryou a knowing smile. "Riiiiight." Then he turned to Marik. "Ryou enjoys playing host. Let him put-Mariku, was it?-up for the time being."

Marik squinted distrustfully at his twin. "I don't like the idea of letting him out of my sight."

"Stop talking about me as if I'm not standing right here."

Mariku still had his arms folded over his broad chest, and Ryou couldn't help but stare at the way the movement showcased his muscles. Mariku noticed and grinned at him. "Besides, of the three of you, he's the only one I don't have cause to murder."

"Yes, that is exceptionally reassuring," Bakura replied dryly.

Mariku shrugged. "Only reason I wanted the two of you dead was because you stood in the way of me attaining Marik's body for my own. Seeing as how I have this one now, I have no reason to kill any of you."

Marik snorted. "Right. So we should just take your word on it? After you just tried to kill me?"

Another careless shrug. "Shadow Realm deception aside, you pulled me into a body completely my own. I was bombarded with sensory input. It took time to process."

Bakura nodded, and he and Marik exchanged one of their meaningful looks. Marik mimicked his dopple's shrug.

"Whatever. Ryou, if you feel safe taking him back to your place, he's yours."

Ryou felt a small thrill in his gut at the thought of Mariku staying with him, but he wasn't entirely sure whether the cause was excitement or fear. Then Mariku draped a long, toned arm around his shoulders and the coil tightened further.

"You hear that?" Mariku asked, leaning close. "Dad says we can have a sleepover at your house!"

Ryou grinned and bit back a retort, saying instead, "Right, help me gather this stuff up and I'll lead you back to my flat."

Mariku gave an affirmative grunt and began extinguishing the candles that the wind hadn't yet blown out. Ryou folded the purple cloak-Mariku's lone material possession-and draped it over his arm before smearing the salt ring amongst the dirt.

Bakura snickered as he and Marik rose to leave, one arm curving casually around Marik's lower back. "Haven't even stayed one night yet and he's giving you chores."

"And he's doing them without complaint," Ryou shot back. "He's already better than my last tenant."

Marik chuckled, pulling Bakura toward the darkened city. "Let's go home and go to bed. That spell really wore me out."

"Once we get home and in bed, I'll show you worn out..."

Ryou rolled his eyes as their banter faded with their footsteps. Mariku finished gathering the used candles, placing them into the box they'd shoved under the bench as Ryou scattered the last of the salt. All evidence of their activities erased, Ryou turned to leave, but stopped when he almost ran into Mariku's chest.

"Sorry!"

Mariku steadied Ryou with one hand, cradling the box in his other arm. The hand stayed put for a few seconds, its heat leaking through Ryou's jacket sleeve, before Mariku jerked it back.

"S'fine," Mariku muttered. Then he smirked. "You look nervous. Afraid to be alone with me?"

Ryou felt that trill in his stomach again, stronger this time. "N-no, not afraid."

Mariku moved closer, adjusting the box slightly. "Oh? Then why the stutter?"

"Just a bit cold."

Mariku's hand came up to stroke Ryou's cheek, and Ryou's breath caught.

"Funny, you feel pretty warm to me." He looked at Ryou's face and a small frown creased his mouth, as if he couldn't quite figure it out.

"W-what?"

"I'm not sure." Mariku slid the hand into Ryou's hair and pulled out the tie binding it. The wind caught the freed strands and sent them billowing like a cape.

"Uh, why did you-?"

Ryou cut off when Mariku kissed him. Ryou's brain locked up for a stunned few seconds, but then he leaned into the touch. His hand fisted in the jacket of Mariku's inherited suit, and a small moan caught in his throat when the blonde pulled back.

"You have nice hair," Mariku said, his eyes holding Ryou's enthralled. Ryou noticed that they were darker than Marik's, but perhaps that was due to the poor light.

Ryou licked his lips. "Uh, thanks."

Realizing he still clutched at Mariku's coat, Ryou released his grip, but couldn't step back with Mariku's hand still caught in his hair.

"You've been staring at me since I awoke."

"Have I?" Ryou felt his cheeks heat tellingly and was suddenly grateful for the blackout.

"Yes." He studied Ryou for another moment before releasing him. "So. Your place?"

Ryou blinked "Oh! Right."

Pulling out his phone, Ryou activated the light and started walking. They traveled in silence, Marik seemingly in deep thought and Ryou doing his best not to get lost in the lightless streets. Ryou wondered if the dark reminded Mariku of Shadows he'd just escaped. Wanting something to fill the silence besides the blaring car horns and unintelligible yells of gridlocked drivers, he decided to ask.

Mariku flicked a glance at Ryou before avoiding a light pole in his path. "No. The Shadows are far more than just darkness; there's intelligence there, a consciousness. This doesn't bother me."

"I've never been to the Shadow Realm, although most of my friends have, at least briefly."

Mariku huffed out a short laugh. "You almost sound disappointed."

"A little," Ryou confessed. "I'm really into horror movies and stuff. It would have been interesting to visit a literal hell-not be trapped there, of course. More like a sightseeing tour."

Mariku's towering hair swayed as he shook his head. "You're fucking weird."

Ryou sighed as they skirted between cars and turned the corner. "So I hear."

"I didn't say it was a bad thing. You said you like horror movies?"

"Uh, yeah. We could watch one when we get to my place if you'd like."

"How? The power's out."

"I've got a laptop. It should be fully charged."

They didn't speak further until they were in the apartment. Ryou started up the computer while Mariku lot the candles and paced the strategically throughout the room. With light to see by, Mariku went over to scan the movies that sat shelved beside the tv.

"This one looks interesting." He brought his pick over for Ryou to see. Ryou laughed.

"Of course you would pick that one."

Mariku frowned at the box in his hand. "What do you mean by that?"

"You'll see." He patted the sofa beside him and Mariku sat while Ryou loaded the disk.

As "John Carpenter's The Ward" began playing,Mariku scooted closer, his arm snaking around Ryou's lower back and pulling him close. The laptop sat perched on Ryou's knees, but it almost went flying when Ryou started.

"So we can both see," he explained, an edge to his smile.

"Right."

Ryou tried to focus on the movie, but the heat of Mariku's body was distracting. So was the hand idly stroking his hip.

"Mariku?" Ryou whispered, his breath hitching.

"Hm?"

"Are you hitting on me?"

The darker man chuckled, and the sound reminded Ryou of Bakura when he was scheming.

"Why? Do you want me to?"

Ryou was starting to feel like they we're playing the questions game.

"And if I do?" He turned into Mariku's body a touch. He forgot about the movie as Mariku leaned closer, his eyes locking with Ryou's.

"Then show me."

Ryou tangled a hand in Mariku's hair and pulled their lips together with a quiet smack. Mariku combed the fingers of his free hand through Ryou's hair as well. The hand resting on his hip urged them closer.

"Do you make out with all your tenants on the first night?"

Ryou laughed. "Not usually, no. And perhaps we should, uh, take things slow?" Ryou looked away. "I just...don't want to rush into anything."

"You were the one distracting me from the movie."

Ryou gave him a playful smile. "You're right. My apologies."

Setting the computer on the table beside them, Ryou started the movie once more from the beginning. They stretched out on the couch together. Ryou leaned into Mariku and rested his head on his shoulder, getting comfortable as a burning building lit up the screen.

The were both sound asleep long before the movie ended.