A.N. First, I'd like to thank my beta reader for helping me with this story. And second I'd like to point out that this is done in Ryou's POV. Here he is portrayed as an angry teenager who suffers from the loss of someone dear and looks for someone to blame, hence the bad light on YamiYugi. You've been warned people. And last but not least, there is a slight mentioning of Atemu/Seth, if that's not to your liking I suggest you click the back/close button and go search for something else.
Faces of DarknessThe air was fresh and clean from the rain and the sun was looking shyly from behind the clouds, its golden rays ran across streets, rooftops, and into rooms. Like a pair of mischievous children out to play, they went everywhere they could - thirsty for the world and wanting to explore its wonders. Finally, they've reached a room that was filled with the clear voice of a violin accompanied by the tender notes of a grand piano. In the room - sprawled over a big, fluffy armchair - was a young boy with dazed hazel eyes and soft, silver-white strands of hair in which the rays of light danced upon.
At first I thought it would be just a matter of time until you were out of my mind; I had a million reasons to not think about you. Your absence from my life shouldn't have been that much of a hassle. After all, getting over the lost of someone who was dear to me is something I've done countless times in the past. I was just a kid - only five or six years old - when my mother died after giving birth to my younger sister.
I got over it.
Amane, my sister, died in a car crash at the age of three.
Again, I got over it.
Then again I don't remember them very well, I just remember the feeling of their absence.
With you it's different. Not only do I sense your absence, but I also remember you quite clearly. You were sure to permanently imprint yourself on me and now I cannot let you go. This is not the fist time I have asked myself, what would happen if I were to put that blasted ring back on? Would you appear out of the darkness? Would you jump out of the shadows like a fairy-tale monster, attempting to scare me and then have a good laugh at my expense? Would you come back to me? A bitter laugh escapes me at that. Silly me, you never left. You are always here, always present. Whether it is a lingering sensation at the back of my mind or your face smirking back at me from the mirror, you are always there. You are like a puppet master, watching from the dark corners of my soul, a place where no one else has ever dared to go.
Is this why am I so desperately clinging on to you?
Probably. You are the only person who saw me for who I am and managed not to judge me or run away. Or maybe you did? I've lost count of how many times you have called me a wimp, a coward, a worthless waste of material whose only use was to be the vessel of an ancient spirit - not to mention a vindictive tomb-robber. Nevertheless, you chose to be defeated by the Pharaoh: the sole person you declared to be your enemy and swore to destroy, regardless of the cost. You sold Zork what little was left of your soul and then spent five millennia locked in a pendant, determined to fulfil your vengeance. In spite of that, you chose my safety over you victory, placing me before the vengeance you ache for.
It was your sacrifice that made look deeper, deeper in my soul, deeper in you. And it was at this point that something in me cracked - as the saying goes. Indeed you were my personal tormenter and yet there was more to us, because in some strange, twisted way an "us" started to exist. But you left me before we could jump over the whole "vessel-spirit-thing." Yugi says Marik destroyed you in a shadow game - just like his hikari's soul was supposed to be destroyed by the Pharaoh at the end of the Shadow Game. Still, a part of Marik survived in Téa. I'd like to think that a part of you survived in me, so that one day you can come back to me, too.
A tiny smile crossed the boy's features. The smile did not manage to hide the sadness but it made the smile so much more beautiful.
Silly hopes of a silly, little boy.
Some may find it strange and perhaps they have the right idea. After all what kind of person longs for the return of a psychopath in their lives?
Standing up, Ryou wearily wandered to the window, stopping in front of it he looked at the town of Domino. The horizon swallowed the dying sun; its vanishing fire tenderly caressed his soft features.
I was a loner before you came into my life and after you arrived I became even more isolated, because people were scared of you. The few friends I had, you imprisoned in game figures, claiming this was what they deserved. It seems that you did judge after all, but you still never judged me. Nasty remarks - yes, but nothing more. At times I wondered why. Was I unworthy of your judgement or were we - despite the millennial difference - that much alike that judging me would have been similar to judging yourself? Did you see everything you hated and despised in me? Weakness, fear, stupidity, a need for companionship? All these things that you deem as useless, "a waste of time", "an illusion that makes you blind with idiotic acts of compassion until you are stabbed in the back." I long for all of them, no matter how deceptive they might be. As the current situation is now, I still don't have them.
I think you'd spend a week laughing if I told you that I considered you my friend: A bloodthirsty demon whose purpose was to make Zork beam with pride. Still, it was that same darkness that allowed me to get close to you, for I know my soul's not pure; I've never had any illusions about that. There is too much darkness in me - none of which your fault. I appear to be untainted, but I'm not the perfect, innocent, little angel everyone takes me for. No one knows that better than you. Your cruel, mocking eyes saw beyond the masks, the reasons behind my actions and the truth about me - scared, alone, confused and now bitter.
A pale hand running through even paler strands of soft hair, a frustrated sigh and a handsome face turning to the other side
I wish you were here, even if it is only to mock these stupid drabbles of mine. It's now so lonely here without you.
Damn! Damn! Damn!
His face marred with tears, the boy slams his fist into the hard, cold wall. Shivering, he hugs himself tightly and slumps to the floor. The sound of music is replaced by sobs of grief.
Damn the Pharaoh and his battle for justice! Damn all his bullshit talk about saving the world and "liberating it from evil." It can all go to hell for all I care! Good, evil, justice, peace who the fuck cares?
No one can win.
And after five millennia this self-proclaimed sage of a Pharaoh still cannot see the truth. I suppose he's too wrapped in his idea "to do good". They say men who think too much blind themselves; I guess that's true for him. He believes that only he can understands what is good and what is evil and that it is so simple to tell them apart. For this is his "royal point of view" the "one and only true vision of the world." Boy, wouldn't I love to burst his perfect royal bubble. Because you are wrong, your majesty, so very fucking wrong. Oh how would I like to scream at you, because you obviously need it spelled out. Good cannot conquer evil; the world cannot be "liberated from it." They will always fight, until the end of time and even beyond. That's the way it is children, and that's the way it is always going to be.
But do you know what's the funniest part - the great irony of it all? At the end there is no good or evil, just another shade of grey.
Your father was the demented idiot, who slaughtered a whole village to create these bloody Millennial Items, the bane of all of this suffering you are so desperately trying to prevent. At the time stopping Zork was a main priority. But does the goal justify the means? And lest we forget the cruelty you were infamous for. Even at this Godforsaken Atlantis they have heard of the Shadow King, who played with his subjects lives as if they were useless and meaningless. Another meaningless battle for the cattle. No wonder your cousin- the High Priest of Re, wanted you out of the picture. And once he kicked you out of his bed you received enlightenment about the true meaning of life and the'' tremendous need the world had for justice'', your justice. And now we shall all bow down before the great savoir of the world who sacrificed his life to save us! Oh, give me a break! That one selfless act didn't make up for all the shit you caused. And when you resurfaced after five millennia in that dam puzzle you were so terribly bitter, that the first thing you did was to shatter the soul of your ex-lover's reincarnation! Granted, Seto's not as innocent as a newborn babe but one has to admit that it was a bit harsh. If truth were told, it made him worse. And when he got this whole mess he calls life right you had nothing to do with! Except minding your own business - for once. What gives you the right to judge? Do you think yourself to be a God? Newsflash, this is Japan in the 21st century and not Egypt, 3000 B.C. And may I kindly remind you that the world of the pharaohs is long gone? Shows how powerful they really were.
A bitter and hollow laugh rang in the room, and the tears kept running down the young boy's face.
But I'll never tell you these things, Pharaoh. He was right I'm too scared to do it, and that's where he came in; he was the strength I so desperately lacked and needed. Many times I have been standing on the edge, so close to falling and he would always come and pull me back, setting things straight, putting the scattered pieces of my soul back together. By no means am I justifying his actions, but he wouldn't have come, hungry for your blood, if your father, Pharaoh, hadn't massacred his village. The good of the majority is more important than that of minority you would say. A king's orders are not always clear but always right, huh? Do you honestly believe this? And how modest of you, comparing your humble person to God. Someone should take a picture of you and place it in a dictionary right next to the word "hypocrisy" for you define it very well, oh, my nameless Pharaoh. What's more, who is the "minority" and who the "majority"? You sacrificed people to save people, people who hated you for what you were and what you did to them. Self-imprisonment and suffering won't set the record straight. Nothing can grant you the forgiveness that you yearn for and what this is all about. But you will not receive atonement, for this is your true punishment. A punishment worthy of all your crimes.
He might have killed one of your friends, but he lost each one he ever had. He desecrated your father's luxuriously decorated tomb - yet his family doesn't even have one. Do you not know that the dead do not want anything? They have left this world and have moved on to the next if you will. We are what the important ones : the ones who are still here and have to go on. Vengeance masks our sorrow and bitterness, it makes us blind and pushes us into actions we later regret, but cannot take back. Trust me on this one, I've been there and done that. Vengeance sometimes is a quest for the light or the meaning of life, but it will only lead you to confusion and loneliness. At the end you start doubting everything, questioning the few things in your life that are solid and truly mean something. It's a no-win situation, unless you let it go. My father saw it, I saw it, Seto Kaiba saw it and I wish that one day you both could see it.
Outside the night has fallen long ago. A sorrowful, phosphoric white moon at its zenith hangs in the ethereal landscape. Brownish eyes, red from crying finally rest. A bell rings in the background and the pallid-haired boy steadily stands up, wiping the remains of the salty tears from his eyes as he heads downstairs to open the door. His forlorn figure departs the dark room where only an ancient necklace is pulsating with light