Frozen in Darkness

by BridgitKiido

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh and Yu-Gi-Oh GX (the latter of which is more prevalent here) are the intellectual property of Kazuki Takahashi. I am a mere American mutt in high school that happens to have a laptop and a very strange sense of humor. Therefore, I am not Kazuki Takahashi, and therefore, I do not own either of the properties stated above. Nor, of course, do I own Digimon, which only has relevance because half of the plot of this story is based on that. Please don't hurt me…

Prelude

A nice, peaceful breeze passed over the field of wildflowers, gently rustling the leaves of the solitary willow tree in the middle. It was so quiet that the sound of the leaves' rustling seemed as loud as a tuning orchestra, but contrary to the belief that such silences cannot exist when other beings are around to hear it, there was one solitary being sitting in one of the branches of the tree, perfectly still. The young man appeared to be enjoying himself, allowing the gentle breeze to pass through his perfectly sculpted brown hair and even to rustle his silken robes.

But, Fubuki didn't let himself succumb to sleeping, no matter how tempting it might have seemed. He had come to this spot for a particular reason after all…

… and said reason had just arrived.

Fubuki waved happily, calling out, "Hey, Asuka, over here!" before leaping out of the tree to meet his sister, who had broken into a dash upon seeing him.

Upon catching up with her older brother and giving him a swift hug, Asuka ran a hand through her blond hair and asked, "So, Brother, what news do you bring of the treaties in Academia?"

Fubuki laughed. "Oh, come on, do we have to discuss business affairs right now? I haven't talked to you in days!" Upon noticing his sister's slight glare, however, he sighed mentally. The entire purpose of his trip, after all, had been to complete negotiations with the country of Academia. The siblings' home country of Nordia had recently been involved in a great war with the other, and had lost, so even though they had not been involved in the conflict to begin with, Fubuki and Asuka were left having to deal with the mess involved.

"Well, I went to meet with Academia's Kaiser. They have a new one now, ever since Kaiser Samejima retired; you'll never guess who it is." Upon receiving no answer from his sister, Fubuki replied, "It's Ryo Marufuji. You remember him, right?"

"Really?" Asuka replied, her interest perked. "I never would have expected him to become Kaiser. Anyway, continue."

"Well, he hasn't changed all that much from back then, and even though we haven't seen each other in a long time, he and I were really getting along well I think."

Asuka put her hand on her hip. "You still haven't said anything about the treaties."

Fubuki sighed. His sister always had to be the one to get straight to the point on things, didn't she. "They're going just fine. In fact, Ryo and I were just about to go finish the final one, and I felt it important to let you look it over and make sure you're okay with it." He fished around in his robes until he found what he was looking for – an important-looking document written on very fine parchment detailing the peace treaty between Academia and Nordia – and handed it to Asuka.

After looking it over for a moment, just barely enough time to get the gist of it – she trusted her brother's judgment, after all, as long as it had nothing to do with clothing – Asuka handed it back. "That sounds like a fair agreement." Then, as a sort of afterthought, "Our predecessors really messed things up, didn't they."

"Yeah, they certainly did," Fubuki laughed, but his laughter was cut short. His eyes widened suddenly as he instinctively put an arm to the back of his shoulder to suppress the blinding pain that had now decided to strike there. It took everything he could muster not to scream in pain.

"Brother?" Asuka asked, noticing Fubuki's condition. Then, more worried when he didn't respond, "Brother, what's wrong?"

"A-Asuka," Fubuki strained to reply, "Something's gone wrong… I need to get back now. I'll… I'll contact you later, when everything's taken care of… don't try and contact me until I do." He then could no longer prevent it, and his voice burst forth with a shrill scream of agonized pain.

"Brother!?" Asuka cried out, reaching toward Fubuki as their miniature universe faded to black…

Far away, in the throne room of Nordia's palace, the Blue Princess collapsed to the ground with a terrified cry of "Brother!"

One of the handmaids, a somewhat pretty, black-haired, young girl known as Rei Saotome, was the only one in the room at the time, and therefore the only one who noticed the princess collapse to the ground. Immediately, she stopped her mopping to attend to her, for the princess was known to be quite resilient and did not fall ill easily, and therefore she reasoned that this must be a particularly bad scene.

"Your highness," Rei asked as she helped the princess onto her feet, "what happened? Are you all right?"

"Brother…" she replied, still in shock over her experience. "Something bad has happened to my brother. I have to go help him…"

"In this condition?" Rei replied. "I mean this in the best way possible, your highness, but you just fainted. You need your rest."

Rei helped the Blue Princess up to her chambers and made sure that she was safely in bed before leaving the room to request that the Advisors make certain of the prince's whereabouts. Not that Rei was particularly worried about the Blizzard Prince herself – he may have been a little spacey at times, but he was strong where it counted – but she wanted to alleviate the princess' fears if possible.

While on her way to contact the Advisors, however, Rei was drawn for a moment to the window. This particular window, as was the design of the palace, faced south, toward the land of Academia. In the past, this window had shown great bloodshed between the two countries as the war continued over something trivial and forgotten. Of late, it had shown peaceful signs of reconstruction.

Now, however, all that the window revealed was a dark cloud spreading over Nordia's neighboring country, spiraling from Academia's palace. This, Rei thought, can't be good.

Sho Marufuji, younger brother of the Kaiser of Academia and heir to the throne, was a fairly flexible person, but he did have one daily routine that no one was allowed to disturb him from. Ever day, just after lunch, he would sit in his room and quietly meditate for half an hour, after which he would go outside and perform some sort of physical activity that varied from day to day. So it had come as no surprise to the Kaiser himself that his brother had refused to attend the meeting that he and the Blizzard Prince were holding shortly after lunch, and he had politely explained it to Norida's ambassador, the Blizzard Prince himself, who had cheerfully laughed and expressed no hard feelings about the matter.

The first thing that Prince Sho noticed when he came out of his meditation, however, was that everyone in the palace appeared to be in a panic, screaming at the tops of their lungs as they ran around like lunatics.

Someone probably clogged the toilets again, Sho thought cynically as he stood up and stretched. He then reached for his sword, as he was planning on a sparring session shortly. However, plans changed very quickly as one of the panicked advisors, a tall man named Daitoukuji, peeked into the room, his cat still miraculously asleep in his arms despite all of the movement. "Prince Sho! I'm so glad you're awake, nya. Quick, come with me – we have to leave the palace now, nya!"

"What for?" Sho asked, startled enough by the demand that he didn't comment like he usually did on the advisor's usage of the word 'nya' at the end of his sentences. "Did something happen? Is my brother okay?"

Daitoukuji placed his cat delicately down on the floor before beginning to pack a few various objects in a suitcase. "As you know, Prince Sho, while you were meditating, your brother the Kaiser was having a meeting with the Blizzard Prince of Nordia, nya. However, something attacked the room that they were in, though no one actually saw the attacker itself. Now, neither of them is to be found anywhere, nor have we been able to find the Kaiser's elemental companion, nya. And to make things worse, the being that attacked is calling himself "Kaiser Darkness". The throne's been usurped, nya!"

Sho immediately unsheathed his sword. "Well, what are we waiting for then? We need to go up to the throne room and – "

Daitoukuji shook his head. "You know as well as I do that that's an impossible task, which is why we need to leave now, before Darkness can find you and kill you, nya. You are the true heir, but the powers of the Kaiser are too strong, and he will seek to kill you if we don't leave now." He then finished packing, shut the suitcase quickly, picked up both suitcase and cat, and continued, "Come on, Prince."

"O-okay," Sho replied as he slowly sheathed his sword once again and followed his advisor. They moved quietly, attempting to not bring attention to their movements. Sho did, however, pause for just a moment to look back; just down the hall from where he had been meditating was the room where his brother had no doubt been calmly sitting just a half hour before. Brother… Sho thought. I'm sorry I wasn't there to help you… but make no mistake; I will come back and rescue you soon. I promise!

Contrary to Daitoukuji's fears, the new Kaiser was not, in fact, focusing right away on killing the Prince. Instead, the young man was simply sitting on the throne and focusing on spreading his dark power throughout the palace. One could not see his face, as it was covered by a black mask in the shape of a wyrm's head, so the only distinguishing feature that could be noted about him physically was his long, brown hair, significantly longer than most young men would typically wear theirs. But then, old fashions, like old relations between countries, were coming and going with the tides these days.

After a few minutes, Darkness stood up and walked to the window. The dark aura that he had been spreading was beginning to take hold of not only the palace walls, but of the rest of the land itself. He smirked, staring at his hand and stretching it. "Excellent. Although not completely according to plan, things are working out quite well. I might as well have a little fun while I'm here." He then lifted his head up, stretched his arms out, and gave your cliché evil laugh.

Anyone in the village who had been still oblivious to the usurpation…

Well, none of them were oblivious anymore.

Author's Note: This is my first fic in the GX fandom… so if it's a little off, please don't hurt me. For spoilers… well, this fic has them for most of the first season, and it will also probably include a couple of second season characters, but no one who is introduced in the third season will be included in this story.

Please don't hurt me in that this story is going to seem slightly on the Digimon-esque side… that's where the inspiration came from, a little game of word association involving the term "Kaiser".