Authoress Note: I got sidetracked from my other fic Let Me Save You to write this incredibly angsty fic. Sorry bout that... I think it's crazy angsty anyway... you might not. It's kind of shonen-ai, but not really (I think...) and surprisingly it is in no way shape or form a songfic! Go me! It's a one shot. Yup. That's all. Go read the good part now!
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh. So there!
It's been so long. So long since that one night. So long since I've elicited any form of response from him. So long since he shut down and refused to acknowledge the world around him. Only one thing matters to him anymore. No. No I can't say that. Nothing matters to him anymore. Nothing at all. And yet the only thing I have to say is that it's completely my fault.
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Ever since my hikari set me free of that accursed ring, my mind was set on one path. The path of destruction of all living things. Okay, so maybe not exactly destruction, but I wanted to make them suffer as I had suffered for fifty centuries.
He was my first victim, and he was the perfect type to be the victim. He was small; weak. I could not believe that he was me and that I was him. I, a widely known tomb robber of Ancient Egypt, stuck with a pathetic and sorry excuse for a human. He requested friendship of me and it was then that I first cut him down, lashing out and striking his delicate face for even thinking such a thing. It continued on from there. It grew from using just my body to inflict pain on him, to adding weapons into the mix. I favored knives, how their cold steel glinted and how the neat line of blood followed the path that the blade had set. The amount of beatings grew as well, from only once or twice a week to every day, sometimes several times in one day. He became the one that I wanted to suffer for those decades that I was locked away. Others I only beat or killed if they got in my way.
The hikari took it all. Every beating, every foul word and insult I threw at him. Sure, he begged for me to stop. He didn't understand why I did this to him, only that I did it and he was my target. I can still hear his voice apologizing if he did something "wrong," pleading for me to stop destroying his frail body. How I laughed. His cries meant nothing to me, and his pain filled screams only fueled me more.
Even through all those beatings, he never broke as he did that one night. True, I broke that something inside of him that allowed him to retain his childish joys and wonder a long time ago. I had re-shaped him into the obedient slave I believed he should be. He came when I called, he obeyed my every whim, and I punished him when he did something wrong. That all changed, though, as many things do.
I remember it clearly. It was a Friday night near the end of winter, sometime in the beginning of February. I had beaten the runt once again, this time to the point of him passing out. With one swift kick to his unconscious form, I grabbed my coat and went outside into the night. He couldn't take anymore; I may have hated the kid, but I didn't want him to die. I headed towards the bar that I knew was nearby and walked the few blocks that it took to get me there. Several hours there were spent on boozing and shooting pool. It wasn't until I decided that it probably wasn't a good thing to be seeing three eight balls on one table when I knew there was only one that I decided to head back.
When I walked in, the light that I had left behind the navy blue sofa was gone. Apparently he had awakened while I was out and moved himself to his bedroom upstairs. Ra knows how long that took him after the number I did on him. There seemed to be three times as many stairs as there normally are, but perhaps that is because I was seeing triple. When I reached his room, I threw the door open, standing in the doorway for momentary support before heading over to him. From the doorway I stumbled to his bed where the sleeping light rested. His eyes fluttered open when I fell on his bed on one side. They held confusion as his mouth formed my name which, for him, was "Master." I remember the hand I placed over his mouth to keep him from speaking. Vaguely do I remember telling him that we were going to play a little game. Well, that's what I called it. I knew what I was really going to do. He nodded obediently when I told him that we were playing a game, but fear filled his iridescent, tear-filled eyes when I removed first his shirt and then my own.
He begged and pleaded for me to not do what I did softer than I had ever heard him beg before. Fear overwhelmed him to the point that he could merely whisper his pleas. I didn't listen. I took him and made him mine and mine alone. Of course, he already was mine, but in my mind this confirmed it completely. He sobbed and he bled. His pure white sheets mimicked the hikari itself in that it became stained and dirty. Impure. I collapsed when I was done and fell asleep- or passed out, I'm not sure- while listening to the sobbing beside me.
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When I awoke the next day, it took me a while to figure out what I had done. I should have guessed from the condition of the sheets, but my head pounded and refused to allow me to remember the previous night or put the pieces of the puzzle together. I left the room when it came to me. Never had I ever intended to harm him in that way. Oh I would never let him or anyone else know that; a master has no faults and makes no mistakes. I found the light at the kitchen table staring at his folded hands that lay before him as if they were foreign and did not belong to him. I ignored him for the day, figuring that the punishment from the day before was enough for him to be left alone for a day.
The next day I thought nothing of it when he neither screamed nor spoke nor cried when I beat him. I decided that he was afraid that if he did anything to anger me more he would once more receive the punishment of that other night. The following days that he refused to speak or cry are what got me to thinking. Why did my hikari seem so... empty? Had that one drunken night affected him so deeply? No longer did he make any noises with his mouth. He acted as a robot might, doing only what it was programmed to do and the maker had forgotten the coding for how it was to speak. One time I slammed him against the wall and forced him to look me in the eye. What I found in the place of his eyes, were the eyes of a stranger. His once warm eyes were now empty and dull. They no longer held emotion or feelings, just as his mouth no longer held words or any other noise.
I ceased the beatings completely. As much as I hate to admit it, those foreign eyes scared me. I never meant to do that to him, but I had and it had broken him to the point of no return. The anger I felt at myself, I slowly turned against him, until one day I snapped and held a knife to his throat demanding a response of any kind. He simply stood there; those alien eyes of his cutting into my own and deep inside of me. I avoided any type of contact with him for several days after.
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I came home one day after doing, well, nothing, to find the lifeless shell of the light of mine lying on the floor. Panic filled me, as I believed him to be dead. True, he was dead. And I was the one responsible for his death. His soul died without his body long before I found him like this. I rushed him to the hospital where I was later informed that his case was not physical, but mental.
He was admitted into the institution shortly after.
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That's where I sit now, unsure of what to do to help my light. I watch as he moves about his small and sterile room as I talk about things that have happened, though there is nothing. I make things up. I've told him pretend stories of his friends and how "happy" they are and how they are doing. I've confessed that I was wrong in what I had done to him, especially in that night I finally broke him. I beg him to wake up and to forgive me so that we could start anew and lock the past away in a box. Every cry and plea and bargain I make with him go unanswered, as do those that I make with any deity that will listen. Perhaps none are listening to me anymore. As I think this, tears hotter than fire roll down my cheeks. I make no move to wipe them away; I've admitted to myself that I am weaker than my light ever was.
The liquid fire that coursed down my face stopped as abruptly as they had started. Wiping my face, I looked up at the form standing by the window. The lone tear that I saw dripping from his eye shocked me to no end.
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His death came quickly, suddenly, and painlessly. His body had finally given up on living while carrying around a dead soul.
You know how they say where there is light, there is darkness and one can not exist without the other? I'm learning that as I too begin to fade away. I stand on the grave of my light, staring at his cold gray headstone. Soon I will be buried next to him, and on my way to receive punishment for all that I have done to my light, though it will never be enough. I let the single white rose I carried fall from my fingers near the base of the headstone. I fall to the ground as well as the last of my life flows from me. With my last breath I utter four last words before joining the souls of the dead.
"I'm sorry, my Ryou."
