I have always liked this story, but something always felt off. So I am re-uploading it after a re-vamp. Some of the vocab words are really out of place. So now it's time to fix it.
This is a character study of Malik and Marik's relationship. It's a bit AU due to the fact that it doesn't fit anywhere in the canon, but that's okay.
Disclaimer: I don't own YGO!
Running to the Eye of the Storm
He scrunched his brow as his eyes scanned over the desolate land. Smoke billowed in the distance as the last breath of the fires fought to survive. He could think of one person—beside himself—who used such an archaicway of destruction: a five thousand old spirit who still held true to old customs that were long forgotten. He was confused though to why the Spirit would do this; direct punishment was against his style. He ran a tanned hand over the rough surface of a charcoal tree, the ashes leaving a black residue on his fingers. A charred birdhouse sat askew on one of the branches, a lonely cry of sadness echoing from the little hole. A low rumble shifted from the back of his mind to the front, destructive thoughts followed by chaotic laughter drifting and dancing across his mind. His hand flew up to clutch his throbbing head.
"Wonderful work he has done, hmm?" The Voice hissed, the deeper undertone of darkness threading fear and regret and hatred through the teen.
"Leave me alone," he muttered angrily.
The Voice clicked his tongue, the sound making the teen cringe. "You just don't appreciate genius when you see it."
The teen growled. "Genius my ass. If you ever say something coherentand logical, maybe I'll listen." He suddenly gasped in pain as a searing blow ripped across his mind.
"You used to listen." The Voice snarled. "You were so much easier to control when you were younger. So innocent, so naïve…"
"I was mistaken back then. Too gullible and innocent to not see through your lies of friendship and comfort." The teen shook his head rapidly, hoping to silence the Voice. Their fleeting discussions of power and control only happened while the Voice was trying to take over. The teen knew that he wanted to come out, to play with the remains of the city, but that wouldn't happen.
He wouldn't allow it.
A desert fox scampered across the deserted street, calling out for its young. The blond stopped walking and watched the small creature as it whimpered and howled for its kits. His heart reached out for the poor creature as his hand reached behind and pulled the Millennium Rod from his belt loop. The teen listened for the Voice, wondering what the hell he was doing with his hand and the Rod. A pulse of shadows and a flash of light from the Eye of Horus, and the fox was under his control. A malicious laugh reverberated off his mind and the tan skinned teen fretted the poor fox's life.
The Voice didn't do anything quite yet though, and he questioned this unusual patience. The cries of the kits grew, and four bundles of brown fur tumbled out of a hole by a house. The teen felt a smile cross his face as his hand unwillingly held the Rod toward the mother.
"Eat your kin," the Voice cried out gleefully as the teen watched in horror when the small creature began to devour the kit closest to it. Watching the dissolution of the fox's own babies by their mother was too much for the teen, and he turned his head away, only for it to throb in pain.
"Watch." The Voice commanded. "Learn. There are worse things than death, dear hikari. This is a world where the dog eats the dog. You must do so to survive."
An angry tear slipped down his cheek as the fox's kit cried in pain. The others jumped around their mother, crying and howling for her to stop, biting at her ankles. She ignored them and ripped apart her kit, unknowing that she was slaughtering the babies she tried so hard to protect. How much did he abhorand regret the creation of the Voice. Why did his anger and fears engender such a psychopathic, deranged monster?
The Voiced laughed wildly, the sound edging to the side of insanity. "You are calling me a monster. Oh, hikari, hikari. If you call me a monster, you also call yourself a monster. After all," he chuckled darkly, "I am you."
"I will never be you." The teen protested in a raged voice, shutting his eyes from the revulsion of the fox still consuming its bleeding kit. He coined his darker side "monster" many years ago when he ran away from home and found out the Voice's true colors. The dark Voice was something that hated and was to be hated. He often had inner conflicts, one side chastisinghis creation and the other side goading him on, that side usually being the Voice itself, something he just recently learned. His disapprobation and disapproval were never secret. The Voice always knew; secrets between the two of them were never kept and could not be kept since they both resided in the same soul, same mind.
A series of invectives and vituperative words of hate ricocheted off the caverns of the teen's mind, excruciating pain beating his head. The Voice was not very patient and quick to violence, often making the teen black out when he recriminated his accusations, pointing the finger at his chaotic dark or when he wanted out.
He pushed forward, walking over the corpse of the fox's kit as the poor creature consumed another tiny fox, the other kits pawing and whining for their fallen sibling to get up. The guilt and frustration rose in his heart, threatening to spill out and bleed him to death. He wanted nothing more than to rid of the beast.
He knew that he wanted to chastise the thief for causing destruction on a helpless town in the middle of nowhere in Egypt, but he also knew better than that. The Spirit was not as rash as the Voice—not by far—and his patience scared the teen. He waited five millennia for his revenge against the pharaoh, and the teen did not want to think of the nasty ideas he could come up with in a short amount of time.
Another trenchantpain laced through his mind when the word "revenge" crossed it.
"Remember why I brought you out here," the Voice whispered. "Our revenge against the pharaoh. Look at what he did to us. He forced us to live underground for so long and separated us from the world above. You would have never been where you are now without me."
The teen shook his head. "You are wrong," he snarled. "This was never an 'us' operation. It is my revenge. You're just coming along for the ride."
The Voice filled his head with lies. He ignored them; the Voice pulled these tricks before, hisheart warning him to listen to his gut, not to a voice in his head. The Voice may know everything about him, the teen admitted regrettably, but he was not omniscient. Thank Ra for that.
:::^:::
"You are nothing but a plebiscite," the Voice ridiculed viciously after an hour of silence. "A common piece of filth for me to use. You're a waste of my time. I don't know why I just didn't rid of you completely."
"You couldn't if you tried." The teen answer just as venomously. He smiled a tiny bit. "Odion protects me."
For once, the Voice did not have a retort. The teen felt his dark return to the depths of their jointed soul room, occasional pulsations of frustration radiating from his head.
An ironic, lone cloud covered the sun for a brief minute, allowing the Egyptian to lower his hand from his face. By the looks of the mess that the thief left this once populous village, the teen anticipated the Ancient Egyptian was not going to be in a good mood when he found him. He wondered how this started. Maybe his darker half took control of him or spoke through his mouth, annoying the white-haired male and bringing up painful memories. This only happened one other time when the ashy-blond teen accidentally asked a wrong question about the Spirit's past. The Spirit then proceeded to Shadow Travel to Egypt and destroyed a small village in unconscionable retaliation. When he finished, he knelt in the sand and just glared and cursed at the world.
That is exactly how he found the Spirit this time. After walking to the far outskirts of the destroyed town, he found his frenemy swearing in every language known to man. The tanned teen stared at him for a minute or two, his lavender eyes just watching, before placing a hand on the white-haired Spirit's shoulder. The Spirit jumped slightly at the sudden touch and he turned his blood red eyes toward the pair of lavender before turning back to face the eternal sands.
"Malik." The Spirit said in a gravelly voice.
"Bakura." The tanned teen returned.
That was all the two needed.
Fixed! It makes more sense—hopefully—now. Enjoy!
Review?
Over and out,
Mahersal