Warnings: It's not just the chess pieces that get broken. Is that a good warning? No. Can I actually give my warning without giving away half the fic? Nope.

Length: 2,101 words.

Time Period: Any point after Mari(k)onette: Loyalty Never Works. The recommended reading order of the oneshots is on every other Mari(k)onette story, so go look at one of those if you want to know the best reading order. This is the last in that order, XDD.

Handicap: Same as all other Mari(k)onette oneshots, I'm just too lazy to type it out today. POV is sufficiently weird, and the pairing sufficiently inverted. Set in the same AU as the other Mari(k)onette oneshots, blah blah can be read on its own without reading any of the other one-shots first blah blah bold text is so cool blah.

Feedback: Concrit, babble, whatevs, all are greatly appreciated. Spooner will be very happy if you choose to review on her work... unless it's flaming, obviously. If you really need questions for your concrit, then I guess one question I've got in the back of my mind is this: Now all's said and done (since this is chronologically the last of the Mari(k)onette oneshots written for the contest round), what do you think of the AU itself? Was it too complex to be handled properly? Seemed a bit random and/or hard to work with? Did it make all my fics for Round Five pretty damn monotonous reading, since they were all based around the same AU?

Mari(k)onette: StopStart, PlayPause

Stop, think, remember, daydream.

Start, yelp in surprise, leap six foot in the air, bang your head on the ceiling.

Play, trick, torture, laugh.

Pause, howl in victory, savour sweet winning, stand to deliver punishment.

"H–hello. My name is Ryou Bakura." The boy took a nervous look around the classroom, then quickly closed his eyes as he smiled. "I hope…"

stop

"I hope we can all be friends."

And those friends he made, all slumped over game tables in dark rooms, their eyes wide and soulless. It was his fault, all his fault, he moved schools, tried to run, but it happened again and again and again and then it LOOPED and he chose a new starting school but the LOOP kept going and–

start

"Yes, Ryou?"

The pale boy jumped. "Ah! Um. I… I hope… I hope I'll get to know you all."

"Very good. Now, why don't you sit next to Joey?"

So it was that the wraith–like Ryou Bakura walked the long, embarrassing walk down the aisle, praying he'd get the seat right. All eyes were on him, and every thug looked just like the next. Faces blurred, and–

"Over here!"

He turned towards the sound of the voice, tripped, and whacked his shoulder on the sharp edge of a desk. Lay there, partially draped over the table, staring at the blood trickling down his arm in silence...

stop

There were no cries of pain.

Just like when the pendant stabbed him every night, his silent screams ringing in the cool darkness of his bedroom. The spikes worked their way a little further into his chest every time it happened, forming scars that would never properly heal over, and then when it LOOPED they would be all gone and then his necklace wouldn't come off and it would happen all over again.

Just like when the knife came towards his own arm, clenched in his own pale fingers. He couldn't stop it, his protests were cruelly muted, and it went in, then out, then in again and stabbed him over and over, and then when it LOOPED the cuts were gone but the memories weren't and he knew he wasn't himself sometimes and then the knife the knife the knife–

start

"Hey, you all right?"

He staggered to his feet, wiping the blood off with a tired smile, not looking the concerned boy in the eyes. "Eh?"

The blonde eyed up his arm with a worried look; whether it was genuine concern or just pity, Ryou couldn't tell. "I said, are you all right?"

"I'm…"

stop

"I'm fine."

He was broken inside, soul shattered into a thousand pieces, his sanity peeling away, his mind torn and twisted. He was tortured in a thousand different ways, every dawn, every day, every dusk, every night, every LOOP. He was at this silly new school now, he'd walked a mile from the wrecked body of Yakou Tenma to get there, he'd seen too much, and not lived enough.

He was, simply put, not fine. But he had to lie, he had to say it and cover himself, he didn't want anyone else to get hurt–

start

"You're not all right, are you?"

Ryou stiffened, even as the blonde led him out the door, mumbling something about nurses and doctors. This guy, he knew all about Ryou's situation, and though the pale boy couldn't be sure how it'd happened, he knew, he knew. There was fear in that, there was comfort in that, and there was most definitely a terrible yearning to know this one's name.

"Wh–who are you?"

"Joey."

The pale boy rolled the name around his mouth a few times to remember it, his lips dry as he stood there in the school corridor, the filthy carpet against his shoes and the stale air filling his lungs. He hadn't noticed before, but the space suddenly seemed too small, all he wanted was to find a window, open aforesaid window, and then run like hell. Stalling for time, he repeated the blonde's word: "Joey."

"Yes. Joey Wheeler. Nice to meet you, I guess." He extended a hand for Ryou to shake, arm dropping limply to his side when the other teen muttered anxiously and backed away.

"Wheeler…"

stop

"Wheeler… Joey Wheeler, the Duelist?"

Ryou didn't want to ask questions he already knew the answers to, so he didn't. He'd heard that name a few times before, in the LOOPS where he'd chosen to attend the Duel Academy. Like this one, only this time he hadn't LOOPED, and Joey…

Joey had been a Duelist in those LOOPS, but here he was at a human school, so things could really change, and Joey would surely know all about the problems with the Dark that possessed Ryou sometimes, and he wanted to help Ryou, and–

start

"I know all about you, Ryou."

The pale boy desperately wanted to bury his head in the blonde's chest, wrap his arms around that slender body, not wanting to let go of it, not wanting to lose someone like this, someone who really understood and… and…

And he couldn't, because if he did, he would lose that person. He would find that Joey was dead on the floor, and then the LOOP would come, and he would relive it, again and again.

So, he stood back from the blonde, head hanging.

"It's too…"

stop

"It's too late. I'm sorry."

But… somehow, he didn't quite want to give up yet. Was it really too late? Too late to change?

He remembered it all again, just as he had when he'd stopped forgetting the previous LOOPS.

His friends, unconscious or worse over dark gaming tables.

The pendant, stabbing him.

The pain, the constant emotional low, the anguish, repeating and repeating and LOOPING–

start

"Too what?"

"Too… too much of a surprise." A fake nod. "Yes, that was it."

"That wasn't what you were going to say." The blonde was watching him carefully now, and Ryou felt a stab of pain; he couldn't get close to Jounouchi, he just couldn't.

"Why would you care about what I was going to s–"

"RYOU!"

The word rang like a gunshot, and Ryou shrank back, bumping into the wall as he did so. "Wh–what?"

"Don't play with me. I can see that your shadow… you know."

"It's…"

stop

"It's just some object casting it onto mine, that's why it's all weird. That's why its hair sticks up instead of down."

Another lie, he just couldn't tell another. Not after fourteen LOOPS, not after he'd lied and lied and people had died no matter what he tried–

start

"I know the truth. I just want to hear it from you."

Ryou gaped for a full eight seconds; Jounouchi really did know, then. And he wanted to help, this was evidence, and maybe he really could help.

He flung himself into the blonde's arms somewhere around that point, beaming because he'd found someone who knew, crying because he knew himself that it wouldn't last…

"I... I..."

stop

"I don't know what to say."

But why would you say that, anyway? What was the point?

Deep inside, he felt the darkness raising its ugly head, but it was too late, it wasn't going to get him again, he was going to be really strong and what the heck was he even thinking, he couldn't be strong, he was so weak and he'd LOOPED a million times now and it had never changed, the darkness was taking and TAKING–

play

It was over.

Ryou's frame was racked with laughter instead of with sobs, even as whatever he'd become reached up to claw at Jounouchi's neck. "We own this one. The host was right in his thoughts... Aheh, you shouldn't have come so close."

The blonde's eyes narrowed instantly. "What do you mean? Don't tell me that-"

A leer; a malicious flashing of sharp teeth. "We will destroy you, Monster Killer. A thousand times over, once for every time you killed one of our servants. We will beat you to within an inch of your life." Shadows flickered around it, even as it pulled a chessboard from Hammerspace. "Let's…"

pause

"Let's play a game."

That had used to be their catchphrase, until the Second Puppet, the newcomer, took it off them. They couldn't repeat it now, could they?

Sitting across the board from the enemy, as they'd done for a million million LOOPS now, they felt calm, collected, in control. Now that they were free of that pesky spell, they would kill all their enemies, and rape them as well, and NO NO NO I WON'T LET YOU I WON'T GET OUT OF MY HEAD YOU–

play

"Ch…" The thing's hand strained towards the final move on the chessboard, the checkmate. It had waited a long time for this, and now it had victory in the palm of its hand – literally. One move, one last word, and Joey Wheeler would be living in his own personal hell; Yami: Bakura's own personal heaven. The puppeteers made a special note to visit the blonde sometimes, teach him to hate the love bestowed on him, to love the few times hateful words were said instead of the near suffocation of the kissing, and the painful savagery of what followed. They had tried a little of this during the game, but so far the blonde's spirit had remained unbroken; a invitation for the Yami to try even harder.

"Che…" But to its frustration, it just couldn't reach that queen, couldn't make its arm move the final two inches to grasp the piece, and with it, its victory. "Kkkk…"

The blonde grinned from ear to ear. "Something wrong, Yami: Bakura? Host giving you trouble?"

"N… ye…no. Of course… n–n… I won't let you… we… we are in… let me g– sh…shh…"

pause

"Shut up."

But it could no longer make its host obey, the words were useless, and they were losing ever so slowly. The boy, ridiculous as it was, was ripping his way out of his own mental prison, and he was winni–

NO. This was THEIR body by RIGHT, they were NOT going to LOSE it to a stupid, whiny little git after being trapped in a LOOP for years! They were NOT GOING TO BACK DOWN, it was all THEIRS! And if THEY damn well wanted to KILL this git's friends, well–

playstart

"Ours." It stared that bastard in the face, growling softly. "Ours."

"Not yours, actually. He was there before you."

"Sh... Shut up! He does not exist! This one is all ours!" The host was fighting back bitterly, but he was useless, he would lose, and badly, and the puppet masters went to move that final chesspiece, taking their time–

I'll take you with me!

Too late, they realized their mistake. The boy had somehow forced his own soul into the pieces; and now they were cracking, splitting apart, crumbling into dust. With it, they could feel their own soul being destroyed, their presence weakening.

And at last, the host appeared before them; floating over the gameboard between them and the enemy – smiling a little, even as it dissolved as well. It was a suicide act in every sense of the words; the host was tearing his own soul apart to destroy them both, and yet smiling through his terror. It was admirable, in a strange sort of way.

"Any last words?", the creature hissed, and the host nodded.

"I… I wanted to say that I won't let you hurt my friends. Even if it means my soul will shatter."

"We–we'll get them in the end. You won't come back. But we will." It took a deep breath; it was getting harder and harder to maintain normal speech patterns, it's body dying and weak."We are... are... We are Yami. Darkness."

"Just because... you stopped looping... i-it doesn't mean... that I haven't." With that, the host was gone; the chess pieces no more than grains of black and white plastic.

Yami: Bakura, the First Puppet, the first to arrive and the last to leave the control of the Yami, the Puppet that claimed a hundred lives...

Gave one last, awful shudder, then his head hit the ground with a thunk, eyes wide and soulless.

And the body's heart…

pausestop.

UAB

Yes, the line breaks were meant to switch over like that halfway through, yes, there was lots of manga dialogue in there, yes, Ryou was found to be dead after the Monster World arc (the method used to get him back was crack beyond crack) - and yes, this really is the last thing I'm writing for the final round. Those remaining ten non-acquired adopt pairings are just crying out to be written, but I really shouldn't. Eight fics in whaaat, ten-ish days? Seven fics in nine-ish days? Something like that? Come now, I'm not about to flood the comp with any more - and I REALLY mean it this time, not like how I only 'meant it' when I said something similar at the end of the sixth and seventh fics (Adopts Five and Six). There's a 'really' in there, guys - that's important!

Besides, I started my silly little run with the rise of the Third Puppet (Yami: Marik), and I ended it with the decline of the First. It's a good note to end on, even if there's still a helluva lot of AU left to explore and extend.

So, now it's all over, well... I guess I feel pretty much like the suitably epic music track 'Reaching' by Audiomachine (or whatever heroic "I did it!" sort of music you please, really... or alternatively, somewhat goofy celebratory music, because I feel very much that way as well, being on a sugar high yet again). Even if they were in my eyes all pretty pathetic excuses for fics (except maybe the first one), I WROTE CRACK, FLUFF, TROLLFIC, SEMI-HORROR, ANGST, AND GENERAL STUPID THIS ROUND. IN WEIRDO POVS. I EVEN WROTE TWO THREE-WAYS AND A FOURSOME. WHILE WRITING ESSAYS AND PASSING TESTS. AND I NEARLY COLLAPSED DOING ALL OF THIS.

In other words, I basically couldn't care less that all but one of the fics fall well under the high Spooner Standard, a fact I've beaten myself up repeatedly over now. I'm not exactly proud of them on an individual level... but eh, still wrote eight of them, had an awesome/stressful time doing it. Increase in quantity equals drop in quality and all that (just imagine if I'd put all that effort into fine - tuning one fic... and now you have some idea of what's going to happen in the 'real' contest rounds where I can only write one ship at a time. Be afraid. *evil grin*). Besides, I wasn't thinking of the contest when I wrote the majority of them, just sitting in my own little world and going 'So, for the next bit...'

One last stat, before I go:

Point where the Author figured out that what she'd done was a Really Bad Idea, because all eight of her fics were now running against each other as well as against the main competition that fateful round, which was Not A Good Thing: One minute after this final fic was completed. Why, why, why did I not see that coming until I'd done it all? Arrrrgh, the sheer level of fail...

Well, guess that's all the babble I can come up with. So, until next time the contest swings round...

*Jumps on kangaroo, and goes riding off to have a break and walk the dingoes, because STEREOTYPES.*