After a long absence from it, I have finally ventured into lightheartedness. I'm not a very funny person and mix my humor with seriousness, so that's my explanation for the switching moods of the story. Another warning is that this story is set in between Mr. Ishatr's death and Battle City. I can't for the life of me remember which episode showed the scene where he and Rishid left for the Ghouls, so I assume he did that about a year before Battle City.
I don't really consider this a romance, but I think there's enough for it to pass for the YGO Fanfiction Contest this was written for.
I'd love to take another stab at Yami Malik x Malik. Only the next time with a knife…
4Kids pwns Yuugiou, man.
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In order to get out into the world and make something of himself, Yami Malik knew he had to depend on two situations, both of which also required Rishid to be incapacitated to some degree. The first circumstance was that the outside character, Malik, had to be experiencing an emotion to its highest level. Despite the fact that Malik had dedicated his life to killing the Pharaoh, experiencing thought-blocking emotion was a nearly impossible feat for the boy. Even though Yami Malik felt the boy's anger heating the black realm he existed in daily, it did not grow because the boy was used to that level.
The second circumstance which required Malik to run into a traumatic event and allow his other personality to take over was much more desirable than emotions, but required too much patience for Yami Malik. Truly traumatic events in one's life are already limited, but Malik had reduced their number further by the fact he, despite his determination to kill the Pharaoh, had not ascended into the world above ground. Yami Malik often wondered how serious the main personality really was in his life's goal when the thirteen year old boy hadn't even tried to leave home yet and strike out on his own.
These failures on the part of Malik made the other personality feel frustrated, but it did not match the frustration he felt as attempt after attempt to set himself free from his pitch black prison failed and he was left only with power over his desire to destroy creation and what little knowledge Malik had given him at his birth.
The frustration was soaked up one day when, as Yami Malik was thinking about how he would kill Rishid when he emerged as the new leader of Malik's body, the walls around him disappeared and revealed a room packed full with dull, red balls. Last time when these walls had evaporated, Yami Malik had been thrown into the outside world, so he did not recognize the room. Although it wasn't the destination he had hoped for, Yami Malik did not hesitate to run out through the barrier into the midst of the balls. He found them easy to push aside, but he couldn't get free of the soft, wet embrace the little balls made in a combined attack around him.
At last he came to a door, clear of balls, which no doubt led to the consciousness, the control room. He grabbed the handle, turned it, and pushed. The door resisted and Yami Malik, very angry his expectations of an unlocked door had not been met, glared with so much energy that laser beams would have shot out of his eyes if it was possible.
No rage or inability to cope was present in Malik, therefore no entry was available to the darker personality.
Yami Malik pivoted around to stare at the small, round packages which surrounded him. Idly, he grabbed one, and scowled as a small moving picture began to start inside of it. The tiny movie starred Malik, whose part was walking down the hallway and finding a lizard on the wall. Yami Malik let go of this ball and grabbed two others, one revealing a three year old Malik eating mush and the other displaying Malik drawing on the stone wall.
The boy now understood what these balls were: memories. He also discovered Malik had led a very boring life. No wonder he wanted to kill someone else.
Not amused by the miniature movies, Yami Malik turned back to the door and tried it again. He looked around for a sharp object or hard memory ball at the door. Finding none, he then punched the door. Finally, he crossed his arms and muttered threatening words at the door. The door ignored him as doors generally do, though it is really not their fault; the walls had dibs on the ears.
A flash amongst the red caught the second personality's attention. He watched with the eyes of a crocodile as a light pearly-swirled memory ball floating through the stagnant red sea of memory balls. And while his eyes may have been like a reptile's, Yami Malik's hand was closer a fisherman's harpoon, darting out swiftly and spearing its prey.
He brought the memory towards him and almost wanted to toss it away as it came closer. The milky colored surface was burning him, a sensation he was not enjoying for once. He resisted the urge to let go and looked inside the strange orb, finding once more a small scene. In it, Rishid, the one block to his role as the dominant personality, was standing behind a much younger Malik. For the first time, sound came from the image and Rishid's voice, reading to Malik, grew louder and louder.
The story being read was about a scribe who wrote a love letter to his beloved. When it reaches her, he remembers she can't read and therefore wouldn't be able to understand anything written on the papyrus page. From his hiding place in the courtyard, he thought all was lost. Miraculously, the woman was able to receive his message of love by touching the words, all which contained the emotion the scribe had placed in the letter. Yami Malik was boiling with anger at the story's end. The memory had been a waste of time.
He threw the memory at the door.
The ball promptly smashed through it.
Now the trapped personality seemed surrounded by these pearl colored balls. He grabbed them one at a time, pleased to find them all bigger than the last and not so happy they all contained some memory of peaceful times with Rishid or Isis. All were pelted at the door.
A large gap was made only after the impact of ten of the balls. As Yami Malik's hand slipped in and unlocked the door, his brain was busy with what he would do once he got control of the body.
Once inside, he found out his walls had come down because Malik was in a state of complete exhaustion. He found himself at the helm of the brain, but he only found he had control of the arms, ears, and eyes. Letting a wave of rage pass, he noticed Malik was still present in the room in the form of an abandoned robe on the floor.
No matter, he could use this time to his advantage. Malik had fallen asleep at a table on top of his writing materials. A tongue ran across Yami Malik's lips and the action was repeated by Malik's in the outside world. Because of his experience in the memory room and the pearly balls, Malik knew he could use the love found in them to his advantage. Smiling at the pen and paper under Malik's arms, he began to formulate his emotion-oozing love letter sure to overwhelm Malik with emotion and make him vulnerable at last to a complete takeover.
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Malik came back to reality with a pain in his head and Rishid's concerned grip on his shoulder. According to his guardian, he had been writing in his sleep; the sounds he had been making during that time had alerted Rishid to check on him. But Rishid's explanation was not satisfactory to Malik and he suspected the older man had not told him everything because the handwriting on the page before him was foreign to him. It wasn't his neat and straight lettering, but instead large, out of control, and sloping.
As Rishid continued to silently stand behind him, Malik began to read what he had supposedly been writing. He started reading with his right hand supporting his head at the cheek, but as the letter progressed, he sat up straight in alarm. Many boys in the beginning of their teenage years would be shocked to receive a love letter, but this type of pleasant shock was not shared by the young man dressed in white.
Perhaps a part of it was because their letters were not signed with blood?
Besides this detail, the letter was strange in the fact that some of the sentences were vaguely familiar and sweet, as if he had heard them long ago, while others were flamboyant in their vulgarity. The end result was a mix of the innocent love found in all the stories Malik had read and the red hot lust every human knows. Malik put the letter down in disgust and sat for a moment brooding on who would have written it. He knew it wasn't Rishid, but he certainly didn't write it.
He sat for some time, thinking of what he should do next. At last, he tore off some of the writing to later incriminate the person who had done this and ripped up the rest of the letter, not noticing the blood smearing on the bottom of the pages from his left pinky.
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Yami Malik's patience had run out sooner than a woman who mistakenly finds herself in the occupied male's restroom. He knew the boy should have finished reading the letter and should have been drowning in the emotion Yami Malik had forced onto that page. Everything stayed the same. There were no openings to the control room or a view into the outside world. He hadn't even gotten a peep into the room of the memory balls.
The boy made of excess emotion and trauma crossed his arms in anger because he knew his idea had failed miserably. Using love had not worked in his favor, he now saw.
He would have to wait until the next traumatic incident.
But besides the anger of his failed manipulation and the knowledge of a long wait for freedom, Yami Malik felt another emotion, one which could force its victim into hiding or crush them.
Yami Malik, made of Malik's pain and rage, felt, just for a moment, a prick of the sadness of rejection.
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Don't worry, I thought most of it was lame, too. At least Rishid didn't die as I had planned before inspiration stuck for this story.