Message from the Darkness
I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh. I will never own Yu-Gi-Oh. Yes, it does make me sad.
A/N While this story can be read as a stand-alone fic, readers may find it helpful to read "Two Way Street' and "Fair Exchange" first.
Images and voices swept through his mind even as he hurtled through the shadows. Carvings on an ancient stone, a priest and a lost pharaoh locked in battle. A dragon and a magician, three god-beasts keeping watch above them all. A man and woman standing before the stone, the man staring, shocked, into the eyes of the pharaoh. A voice he recognized in both past and present shouting out a truth they had all failed to realize-"That's Yugi!! Yugi!!… Yugi!!..."
Suddenly, the scene changed. Kaiba and the Pharaoh, (Or was it Yugi?) dueling beneath an open sky. Kaiba playing a card to steal Pharaoh/Yugi's monsters to summon his god-beast, Pharaoh/Yugi countering with a card he recognized yet had never seen outside his own deck. Gods were summoned, and then destroyed. Once again, the dragon and the magician faced each other…
Yet more images flashed before him. The pharaoh facing Marik on the dueling platform, Yugi beside him, bound in shadow chains. But before that, Kaiba striding toward them, flinging a card into the air shouting "Yugi take this card"! The Pharaoh shuffling the card into his deck, "I believe in you Kaiba!"
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He returned to awareness in the cold solitude of the Ring. Of his Landlord there was no sign, the lack of any sense of his host's consciousness increasing the wrenching feeling of isolation. He was cut off from Marik as well, it seemed. However, Marik's final fate was of no concern to him at the moment. He had already given the wretched boy more help than he deserved. Whether it was a dream or a vision from the Gods, the Spirit of the Ring knew the truth the ancient tablet now on display in the Domino Museum was meant to convey, and that knowledge had to be passed on. Without it, the Pharaoh and his host had no chance against the darkness within Marik.
The problem was how to reach Yugi. The Ring had been lost to Marik's demonic alter ego, and the spirit did not even know the location of his host's physical body or what condition it was in. The one being who might be able to help had taken great hurt in the duel with the Rare Hunter who had dared to call himself "Master of the Magicians", tearing his own soul from his body to shield his masters. There had been no contact between them since that duel, only an unexpected encounter with Yugi. The Puzzle Bearer offering the Spirit "Ectoplasmer", the very card that had wounded his unexpected ally.
The Spirit started moving along the path his spell had forged linking the Puzzle and the Ring. Using hard-won skills to dodge the Puzzle's traps, he wandered the seemingly endless passages, hoping to find Yugi's soul room while avoiding an encounter with the nameless bastard. Shadow and light drifted before him, at one point taking the form of a half-shadowed figure with one dark leathery wing and one wing of shimmering white. What could be seen of its face resembled Landlord. Was this yet another sign from the Gods? "Message received and understood," he thought dryly.
Time had no meaning within the Puzzle. He might have searched for an hour or a hundred years. A door had appeared, seemingly from nowhere, opening onto a corridor lined with stone tablets holding Ka beasts, many he recognized from his mortal days. He thought of his own beast, and wondered if Pegasus would someday recreate Diabound as a card monster…
He was getting nowhere at an excruciating pace. "Damn it, where IS that priest?!" A blast of silent lightning blinded him and sent him stumbling into a wall.
"I am here, Bakura."
"Heh, so the priest can still make a grand entrance." The Spirit refused to consider, even for a moment, that his sarcasm was a reflection of his own nervousness. Without direct access to the power of the Ring, he had no defense should his once enemy blast him for spite. Even in his mortal form, this priest had been the most powerful magician in Pharaoh's court. In the modern revival of the ancient shadow games, as Dark Magician, he was one of the most powerful monsters. On or off the dueling field, he would be a formidable opponent.
"Your duel with the demon was ill-advised, Bakura. Because of your recklessness, two of the Items are now in the hands of a dangerous creature."
"How else was I to claim the Rod if not through a shadow game? Or should I have stood aside and let the bald guy die? But then, the death of innocents was never any great concern of your lot, eh, priest?"
The hand not gripping the massive staff curled into a white-knuckled fist. The spirit wondered if, as a being of shadow, he would feel it if his neck were snapped like a dry twig.
"It is true a great evil was done to your people, but my pharaoh had NO knowledge of it, thief!"
"It was done in the NAME OF PHARAOH!!"
"And Pharaoh sacrificed himself to seal away that evil! You were with him at the very end!You used the Ring's power to help him do it!" The spellcaster turned away, looking back to a time long gone to dust. "My pharaoh has forgotten all of it. His very name is lost. And I…I am no more to him than a valued card in his as Dark Magician, I too fought in that last battle and I have not forgotten. Bakura, it is not within our power to undo the past. And if this demon of Marik's succeeds in his ambitions, there will be none left to hold back the darkness, and our suffering will have been for naught."
Item-bound spirit and magician-turned-monster stood together in the chill silence of unwanted memory. "How ironic," the Spirit mused, "that Pharaoh seeks so desperately for memories we would give up our souls to be free of… If Marik's darkness is to be defeated," he said, "they must duel Kaiba first."
Dark Magician raised an eyebrow, confused by the Spirit's pronouncement. "The duels will fall out in the order fate decrees," he said. "My pharaoh and Yugi must face the demon. Why would it matter when or if they duel Kaiba?"
"Do you know of the stone tablet the woman Ishizu showed Kaiba and the pharaoh?"
"The tablet displayed in this city's house of memories? I have gazed upon it through the eyes of my Pharaoh. The Lady Ishizu believes it depicts a duel between my Pharaoh and a priest of the court, Priest Seto by the look of him-"
"Ishizu is wrong."
"The Lady Ishizu is the bearer of the Necklace. She saw the duel-"
"She saw what the Necklace wanted her to see!Were you not always at Pharaoh's side? Did you ever see or even hear of such a duel in the Great House or the temples? The tablet also shows you and The White Dragon. Did Pharaoh ever summon you to battle The White Dragon?!"
"I have faced The White Dragon in several duels since Yugi-"The magician's eyes widened at the realization.
The Ring Spirit smirked in satisfaction. "Exactly, since Yugi solved the Puzzle and joined with Pharaoh!Does not the Necklace have thepower to reveal both past and future, Priest? Kaiba had the right of it- Pharaoh resembles Yugi because it is Pharaoh in Yugi's form!And the dragon's master is Kaiba!"
Dark Magician stared hard at the Spirit of the Ring. "You may indeed be correct that the tablet was meant to record a prophecy,Bakura, but such a prophecy may have already come to pass. There have been several duels with Kaiba. How can you know that the tablet does not depict one of those duels?"
"Because of the god-beasts on the tablet. Before the start of Battle City, no one knew Pegasus had recreated them. The world we knew is gone Priest, but if the shadows can awaken in this time, who is to say that the old gods cannot send a vision to 'The King of Thieves'? As the shadows pulled me back into the Ring, I saw the Ancient Stone. I saw the duel that is yet to come. And I saw Pharaoh and Yugi facing Marik, and Kaiba giving them the card that will be their last hope. Whether those visions came from the gods or the shadows, I know Kaiba has the one card that can defeat Marik's darkness, and they must defeat him to get it. And in my deck is a card that may help them do that."
Dark Magician stared down at his boots for several long moments, silently considering the Ring Spirit's words. Then he looked up, having decided on a course of action.
"Even if we could somehow restore the Ring to its rightful bearer, the boy is too weak to stir from his bed. He will recover," the spellcaster continued, noting the Spirit's stricken look, "and he is in a place of safety, but for now he is unable to assist us. Yugi has your deck in his room for safekeeping. While he sleeps, I can reach his mind. Which card will be needed?"
"It is the card that is Landlord's soul card, and my own. You remember Duelist Kingdom?"
"Indeed. Your vessel's courage and quick thinking saved us all that day. He would be a worthy ally if you would allow it."
"I will not allow him to pay the price we paid in opposing the Dark One!"
"He will pay a high price indeed if you do not take better care with him, Thief! It is a wonder he has not bled to death!"
"Is it my fault that the mortals of this time are so frail? Besides, torn flesh will mend more quickly than a shattered heart. Little Yugi may be far too trusting for his own good, but he is not a complete idiot. He is beginning to understand what the final outcome must be. The smile he shows to the world cannot conceal the tears shed within his heart. Pharaoh's 'friendship' will be the worst cruelty in the end."
"Leaving your host frightened and confused is an act of kindness?" The Magician's words were heavy with irony. "Yugi will be griefstricken, true, but he will not regret what he has shared with my pharaoh." He continued in a gentler tone. "The boy is bereft of mother and sister, his father has all but abandoned him. Surely you of all people can understand his pain?"
"I understand it all too well, Priest, and I would prefer not to add to it. I protect him from those who would harm him. Do not ask more of me!
"Then there is no more I can say." Dark Magician sighed and turned away.
The Spirit watched as the other prepared to depart. "Mahaad?"
The other stiffened in shock at hearing his true name.
"You knew,or at least suspected, the truth of the Items. Yet you still meant to kill me in that cavern?"
"Not because of Kul Elna. It was Akunadin who wished to bury the truth of what happened there."
"Then why?"
"You were within your rights to demand justice for your people, but not to defile my father's tomb and use his soul beast against my pharaoh!Those crimes could not go unpunished!
"Your father's tomb?! I was indeed 'The King of Thieves' to the merchants and foreign traders, but despite what tales you may have heard,Priest, the only tomb I stole from was that of the old Phar- ah, I see. But you were the elder- why were you not Pharaoh?"
There was a long silence. "It was the son of The Great Wife who became my pharaoh. Have you any more questions, oh 'King of Thieves'?"
"Yes. Why now do you go to Yugi for help instead of reminding Pharaoh of your shared blood? Do you fear he would not believe you, or care even if he did?"
"He would care far too much, maybe to the point where he would hold back from using me, even when the need was greatest. And if he did not, Yugi surely would. And restoring such a memory would cause needless distraction when he needs all his strength to defeat Marik's demon. I am going now, Bakura."
The Spirit watched until the other was out of sight. "Heh heh heh, so the priest was a harem brat…"
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He was not sure when he first became aware of the voices. Perhaps it was after the near fatal fire in the warehouse. It was as if somewhere in the twisting corridors of the Puzzle, people were engaged in some urgent discussion. Always just too far away for him to understand what was being said…
Now for the first time, he recognized one voice. It was the voice of his young partner. And it was not within the Puzzle, but seemed to be coming from Yugi's room on the blimp. He felt concern mixed with irritation. Yugi had been through enough this night. He needed to rest!
He materialized next to Yugi's bed, only to find his partner curled up in it seemingly fast asleep. There was no sign that anyone else had been in the room. He did sense something however, a faint hint of the shadows and something else, a magic he was sure he had never encountered, yet it seemed as though it should have been familiar…
The Puzzle Spirit watched his young partner for a fewmore minutes, worried about the toll the day's events had had on him. Just as he was about to return to the Puzzle, he saw the card clutched in Yugi's hand…
Change of Heart.
The End