Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this fanfic unless I created it myself. Anything that I did create was inspired by something owned by someone else. This is done for fun and entertainment, not for profit.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Title: Scenes From A Reversal: Bloodpaths: 2:50: Unbroken by Agony
Character: Marufuji Ryou
Word Count: 528
Genre: Supernatural, Drama||Rated: PG-13
Challenge: 50scenes: prompt: pain
Summary: Fifty scenes from a story unwritten, with one fact reversed: what happens when the Gentle Darkness is not gentle? Ryou has his own dark tale to live in this world.

Steel manacles bit into Ryou's wrists, but he paid them little attention. After everything that had happened, he'd grown used to being chained. He didn't like it, but since there was scarcely a moment anymore when he wasn't, he was used to it.

The cell door creaked open, and he wondered who it was this time. It couldn't be dinner. He thought it was too early for that.

Haou's hand was colder than ice when he touched Ryou's back. Ryou tensed without wanting to; being hurt when Haou was there was something else that he'd grown used to. But that did tell him what time it was: torture time.

"You've been in here two months." To be truthful, Ryou wasn't certain of how long he'd been there. He'd thought it was two months, but without being able to see the sun or sky, he couldn't tell. "And you haven't broken yet."

That could not possibly have been respect in Haou's voice. The words were true, though. Oh, he'd answered Haou's questions, because there was no need to lie about them. Yes, he'd been sent to spy, to learn what had happened to Johan. No, he no longer knew where the rebellion was located, because they'd moved everything after he'd infiltrated. They'd anticipated what was going on right now. The answers he'd given had won him no surcease from his agony. He was, after all, a spy.

"Two months." Haou didn't appear to want an answer. That was fine with Ryou. Conversation had never been his strength anyway. "And you haven't learned anything."

Pain arced into Ryou from where Haou's hand touched him, every nerve lit on fire at the same time. He thrashed and struggled in the chains, his throat aching with scream after scream. He had learned not to hold them back. Haou only made the pain worse if he did that.

"Johan has tasted my pain before. I had to educate him, just as I am educating you. He chose pleasure in the end." Haou almost seemed to laugh at that as the barrage of torture ended. Ryou stored that fact away in the vain hope that he would be able to pass it on to the resistance. He didn't understand it, but he would do what he could to remember it nevertheless. "But that isn't a choice that I'm going to offer you."

Ryou gulped for air until he was able to speak, his voice cracked and hoarse. "I wouldn't take it if you did." He expected Haou to kill him. Everyone expected that. It was what he did to people who angered him. Or people he had no use for in general.

"I didn't think that you would. But I'm not going to kill you, either." Ryou couldn't see him; the dark overlord stayed behind him at all times. He wished he could; he wanted to know what was going through the other's mind at the moment. "You've earned something worse than death. She'll be here soon."

"What?" Ryou didn't expect an answer and didn't get one this time. The cell door closed with only the mildest of scrapes and he hung there, wondering.

The End