Title: The Value of Sin
Author: Phoebe Delos
Series: Yu-Gi-Oh! DM
Story Summary: Yuugi and his two friends go to a long abandoned cabin to fulfill a dying grandfather's final wish… But why are they there? What is soa important about this strange, eerie house? …and what will be the cost of finding out?
Story Rating: T for dark, scary imagery, language, blood, character death, and general angst.
Spoilers: No real spoilers for canon, beyond certain details of Yami no Yuugi's true identity, and the existence of a certain thief demon spirit.
Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! isn't mine.
Notes: …I'm just gonna say this. This is a horror story. It does not have happy ending… I don't feel I can say much more than that without spoilers, but. Yeah. Prep the kitten videos and the tissues.


:: Part Four ::

"You doing alright back there?" Katsuya asked, craning his head back to frown at the portion of Yuugi he could see. "Leg leaving you be?"

"Yeah…" his friend mumbled, never lifting his head from Katsuya's shoulder. The reticent reply tempted the blond to put Yuugi down and get a good look at him, to talk to him…

But that would mean delaying their departure.

"You almost done up there?!" Katsuya called, turning to look up the loft, hiking Yuugi a bit higher up his back with the move. "We're ready to go!"

"Yes! I just need to finish packing my own bag," Ryou replied, sticking his head over the side to smile at them. "You go ahead, I'll catch up!"

"Leave without you?" Yuugi asked, speaking up on his own for the first time in some minutes at that suggestion. It made Katsuya frown, too, confusion painting both men's faces.

"What's the point of that?" Katsuya scoffed. "We have to leave together at the bus stop."

"Yes, but even with the bags, I'm going to be able to move faster than you will with Yuugi. We'll have a better chance of catching the bus if you get a head start."

"He has a point, I suppose…" Katsuya grumbled, earning a mute nod from Yuugi before the latter called up.

"All right! I'll leave the key on the table, so make sure you lock up when you leave!" He did not want anyone else wandering in there after them, if he could help it…

"Okay! I'll bring it with me, so don't worry!"

"Right…" Katsuya grumbled, shooting one last look at his boyfriend before turning to go. "Just hurry up, okay?!"

"Got it!"

As Katsuya struggled with the door and grumbled about bringing too much stuff with them into the house, Yuugi looked over his shoulder at the room.

His tears had dried up minutes ago, and he hadn't heard a peep or felt a twitch from the ghost since.

Part of him expected one last desperate ploy to keep him in the house.

Another part expected a goodbye.

And a third was disappointed when Katsuya carried him out into the snow without either happening.

He stifled that last part within him, and asked, "Are you really going to be okay carrying me all the way down the mountain, Jounouchi-kun?"

"Pffft, are you kidding? You're as light as toddler. I could carry you halfway across Japan if I wanted."

"Gee, thanks…"

Katsuya had the gall to snort at his tone, but both went quiet as they squinted against the late afternoon snow, the wind making a valiant effort to get it in their eyes. Yuugi was just thankful that it wasn't a full-fledged storm again, or else there was no way they would have made it out of the house that night.

Instead, they would hopefully be back home by morning, and could put this whole thing behind him.

But, why had his grandfather sent him to that house in the first place?

That was the one thing he couldn't really answer… his grandfather's thinking.

He had harbored a killer in his home, helped him murder, watched that thing kill his only son, and… and done nothing.

Sent him there, too.

Why?

Please, Yuugi- You have to go to the cabin. It can't- It has to be you, no one else- No one else can go there before you do, please-

"Hey, Jounouchi-kun?" he whispered, barely audible over the wind. He must have been heard, though, because Katsuya hummed in question in front of him, and Yuugi trailed on. "Sorry… about bringing both of you up to the cabin," he apologized, staring out into the woods as they walked by. "We never should have come here."

"And we never would have let you come alone, so you can cut out that sorry stuff right now."

But I never should have come either, he thought, but did not say.

"I just don't get what's been going on with you, or Ryou," Katsuya huffed on, half-breathless from the trek and Yuugi's weight and the wind stealing his air.

"I don't know about Bakura-kun, but… you wouldn't believe me if I told you…"

"You might be surprised," Katsuya countered, shaking his head. "I've seen some weird shit this month. I wouldn't take much for granted at this point."

Yuugi hiccuped with something that might have been a laugh, an empty smile tugging at his face. "Maybe when we get back, then… I don't really want to talk about it while we're up here. A few dozen miles behind us and a warm house might do the trick, though."

"I'm gonna hold you to that, buddy."

Yuugi just grinned, squeezing his arms about Katsuya's shoulders before relaxing again, letting the silence hang…

That is, until they reached the still quiet bus stop at the base of the path, and it occurred to Yuugi that "Shouldn't… shouldn't Bakura-kun have caught up to us by now?"

Katsuya turned, stared with him at the path they had just walked. "Y...yeah, definitely." They had been going slow the entire way down, and even if Ryou took his time packing, he should have caught up to them by now.

If… if he had been hurrying.

If he had left the house.

The two stood in silence for awhile, waiting… hoping for a figure to appear at the root of the path.

No one did.

"He should be here by now," Katsuya repeated with harder purpose, prompting a nod from Yuugi as the shorter bit his lip.

It had to be that he was slowed somehow… maybe Ryou realized he forgot something at the house halfway down, and doubled back to get it.

But that didn't stop Yuugi's skin from itching when he thought about the fact that they had left Ryou in the house… alone… with the ghost.

He wouldn't… He said Bakura-kun and Jounouchi-kun didn't have enough sin in them to be worth it, right?

He wouldn't… he wouldn't.

"…I'm going back to look for him," Katsuya announced, immediately moving for the bench right below the bus sign.

"What, it, Jounouchi-kun!" Yuugi cried as his friend dropped him onto the seat. "If you're going back, then I-"

"Don't worry about it, man," Katsuya interrupted, unzipping and shrugging out of his outer winter coat, dropping it at Yuugi's side. The sacrifice left Katsuya in little more than a sweater as he gave him a thumbs up. "I'll be faster this way. I'll just run and make sure he's on his way, and be right back! Just tell the bus to wait for us!"

"But what if… Jounouchi-kun!" Yuugi yelled as Katsuya turned and sprinted back through the snow.

He didn't turn back… left Yuugi to look between his receding back, and the snowy street before him.

The bus would be there within the hour… a single look at his watch told him that.

And it was the last bus run of the night. If they missed it, they wouldn't be able to get out of there until morning.

Yuugi stared for all of twenty seconds, then stood up, and started up the path himself.

He wouldn't be able to catch up. Running was out of the question, and climbing at even a slow trek sent a throb up his leg with every step.

But he couldn't just sit there… he just couldn't stand it.

If he was wrong… if there was really nothing wrong, then he would meet them coming the other way, and they could go back to the bus stop together.

But he didn't meet them… he stumbled back up the mountain one clumsy, cold step at a time, and ran into no one the whole way up.

He arrived alone at the cabin's front door.

Where he stopped… and stared… at the window just beside it.

It had shattered inward.

Yuugi's hands shook in his gloves where they had been numb seconds ago, blood pounding through his extremities and his ears as he took slow, wary steps forward, mind rushing to take in every detail he could.

The room beyond the window was dark, the curtains catching in the loose wind the only movement he could see.

But, he could hear it… a pounding, and a tearing.

Like wood being bent in half.

He gulped as he reached the door, and tried the knob.

It was locked…

He hadn't left it locked.

The sounds within instantly stilled.

Yuugi sucked in his breath and held it, painfully conscious of the fact that whatever was making that sound had heard him, too.

He stared at the painted wood with blind eyes, waiting… waiting for something to happen.

But nothing did.

What had to be a minute, or two, or five raked by without a single sound.

And all he did in the interim was dart his eyes to the window.

He was at a bad angle… he couldn't see much inside.

But, neither could anything within see him.

So… what was it waiting for?

What was in there?

He wanted to run. To turn around and walk away from what was so clearly wrong inside that house.

But, Katsuya, and Ryou… they were still missing.

They, had to be inside…

Yuugi clenched his eyes shut against the tears threatening to gather… and moved to the window.

He climbed in, keeping his eyes ever forward in search of anything that might get in his way, or jump at him as he struggled through the opening.

But, nothing did… when he tripped inside of the main room of the cabin, nothing popped up to greet him.

He was standing in that dark, familiar room, the same as always…

But as his eyes drifted towards the ladder, an all too familiar something slammed through his guts and took control of his mouth.

"Yuugi," it hissed at him, anxiety and anger and desperate fear running loose in that voice. "I-it's too late. You have to get out. Get out," it begged.

But it really was too late.

Yuugi never saw it coming. One second he was standing alone in the room with nothing but that ghost talking through him.

The next a figure stepped out of the shadow of the door, hooked his ankle with a foot, and tripped him.

He cried out as his bad leg gave out from under him, slamming him down to the ground.

"Took you long enough," the unknown assailant complained, stepping into the light as Yuugi rolled over, tears in his eyes as he clutched his thigh.

But his cry caught in his throat as he saw his attacker and…

"Bakura-kun?" he breathed, wet confusion clogging his throat as he stared up at his friend.

Into his… golden eyes.

What

"Hello, Yuugi," the… the, something, with Bakura's face greeted, smiling all too politely as Yuugi took in every feature he could… and his heart sank with each realization.

The tears streaming freely from golden eyes… eyes that did not match the anguish of that weeping.

The dust and blood caking his face, and shirt, and pants.

The… the knife… stained, and dripping, there in his hand.

Yuugi swallowed, body beginning to shake as he numbly tried to make sense of what he saw.

Every answer presented… un-unacceptable…

"I was waiting for you to come in for quite a while. It wouldn't do for you to walk in while I was working, after all… But you took so long, that it's just me and you now."

"What," Yuugi started, tears choking even as his mind struggled to accept the conclusion he already made. "What do you…"

"It doesn't matter," the not-Ryou said, voice all but soothing as he adjusted the blade in his hand. "I'll have a better use for you in just a minute, if you'll just stay put and not get in the way. But, if you need some help sitting still-"

Yuugi… couldn't do anything as the familiar stranger dove at him.

The one inside of him though-

"Stay away from him," the spirit hissed, every muscle in Yuugi's body tensing as he grit his teeth and glared at the stranger hovering just over him.

Yuugi… Yuugi's brow burned with heat he did not understand, and the not-Ryou stalled.

"You," the golden-eyed thing breathed, staring down at him in clear disbelief. "You would use the last of your strength to protect him, not yourself?"

Yuugi, didn't understand… but the spirit must have.

He was clenching his fingers in the floor, glaring up without blinking, or speaking.

Finally, just as Yuugi thought his heart would beat through his chest, the pale-haired shadow laughed.

The sound of it made Yuugi's eyes water again.

"Have it your way then…" the thing dismissed, turning to walk into the sitting room.

Being released from that golden stare sent a rush of confused adrenaline through Yuugi's blood, but the spirit kept him still, whispered to him.

"Just stay back, Yuugi. He will leave as soon as he is done… he won't consider it worth getting through me to hurt you. Just, stay back… and once he leaves, run. Get away from here."

"But-" Yuugi protested, only for a sound in the next room to interrupt him and prompt him to lift his head.

He froze.

He could see the sitting room from where he groveled on the floor, and…

And the thing was slamming a sledgehammer into a section of the wall, right beside the closet.

He had already opened up a large hole there, revealing a small open cavity behind the panel… a part of the closet that had apparently been permanently walled off.

And… and there was something inside of it.

Something large and golden.

What… Yuugi mused, his eyes straining to make out details… but in his search for answers he noticed something.

Something across the room from that hole and the stranger, at the other edge of Yuugi's view of the sitting room.

His gaze slid to it and stuck… failed to register what it was.

Only for the realization to slam into him with all of the force of that hammer.

It was leg… and a shoe.

Katsuya's sneaker.

He jerked forward, tried to crawl.

The spirit held down his limbs.

"Don't look," he hissed, only to slap a hand over his mouth as Yuugi fought to take back control only to sob, to give rise to the scream pounding through his chest.

The spirit wouldn't let him… so the pain rolled out of him in tears, and the quake of his shoulders… the only comfort one of his own hands rising to clutch his other arm, clenching with a pulse of sympathy each time a cry denied shook through Yuugi's body.

He didn't try to get up after that… just howled in silence on the floor until, finally, the scrape of metal on metal made him look up.

He watched through his tears as the strange pushed the golden mass out into the open… a sarcophagus that should have been too heavy for twenty men to move.

He knocked the lid off of it like it was made of paper, and it pounded into the floor with a roar that rang up through Yuugi's ears.

He barely flinched… just watched, barely moving, barely feeling as an unearthly cloud of shadow rose up from within the coffin and formed a demonic shape of foggy black and golden eyes… and flew inside of Ryou.

He cried out.

Ryou cried out.

And the sound of it, of the real Ryou's voice made Yuugi jerk, but the spirit still wouldn't let him move.

And all he could do was watch as his friend fell to his knees and bent forward… then slowly straightened again.

Laughing, with the demon's voice.

"Finally… Finally…" he breathed, rising back up to his feet with slow movements, rolling his head.

"He's free," the spirit in Yuugi's head breathed, and… and something of the defeat in his voice sent a short spark of life through the young man's deadened heart. "I'm sorry, Yuugi… I can't stop him now… it's all been for nothing."

Yuugi wanted to ask, but there was no time before those golden eyes turned and focused on him again… a horrid grin forming on the thing's face.

"Bakura-kun," Yuugi breathed, but the demon just laughed. Stood, stepped passed the sarcophagus, and the body at his feet, and Yuugi… opened the front door, and walked out into the snow.

Into the night.

The bloody knife back in his hand.

And Yuugi just… watched him go… the cold snaking up around his limbs as it drifted in from outside.

He couldn't feel it… couldn't feel anything, as his eyes drifting back to the sitting room door.

To the legs sticking out, just beyond the sarcophagus.

"I was, sealed away with him," the spirit was saying through him. But even as his own mouth moved, Yuugi didn't feel it. Didn't feel the pain as he rose back up to his feet. "I don't know what he is, but… I knew he would destroy everything," he said as Yuugi stumbled towards the other room. "I knew that I could keep him sealed away with me if I took the sins from mortals' hearts, and 'fed' them to him. That they would put him to sleep… keep him asleep. I knew, I had to do it. Feed him. If I didn't, and he woke up… If he drew a victim to himself and possessed him, broke loose, he would run rampant across the world and kill again and again and again until he wore his host completely out… then he would kill him and find a new host, and do it all over again."

Yuugi stumbled at that last bit.

Kill his host.

Then he kept walking.

"He won't rest… he won't ever rest. He will just keep killing until everyone in the world is dead by his hand. He knows nothing but destruction. A… a vengeance I don't understand powers him, I don't know-"

Then Yuugi crossed the threshold, and saw.

Sobbed.

Fell to his knees at Katsuya's feet.

His best friend… he was crumpled up on the floor, clutching his stomach. Trying in vain to hold in the blood that oozed out between his fingers and pooled on the floor.

Eyes… his eyes, stuck open, wet and wide.

And dead.

Yuugi reached out and clutched his ankle with shaking fingers, his whole body trembling with sobs as he fell forward. Curled around his friend's leg.

Jounouchi-kun

There was nothing to be done… nothing to be said… nothing to fix this.

Nothing but the pain wracking his body, cruelly insisting he was still alive.

Nothing but the silence… until his chest stilled enough that the spirit could speak through him again.

His voice quaking with what had to be Yuugi's own tears.

"You… You need to go."

He shook his head, kept his face buried in Katsuya's pant leg, but the voice persisted.

"Yuugi, I mean it. He will come back, I am sure of it. He knows you will be vulnerable soon… That I won't be here to protect you."

"W-what…" he breathed, after he got back his voice and sucked back another dry wail.

He… he didn't care about protection, but… what did he mean, won't be here to?

"He exposed me to the air. I will be gone soon."

...the air?

Slowly, as if the truth was wafting up to him from the depths of some deep ocean, Yuugi understood.

He raised his head to stare at the sarcophagus.

His sarcophagus.

"You're, in there…" he breathed, words clogged by the tears still staining his throat and face. "That's what Jii-chan brought back from Egypt."

"Yes," the spirit breathed through his lips as Yuugi stood and approached the great golden coffin.

"And he, he knew… he knew about the demon… that you had to kill, to keep him contained… what would happen, if it ever got loose."

"Yes," the spirit said again, and Yuugi's legs shook with the grief and guilt that struck him with cruel suddenness.

Please, Yuugi- You have to go to the cabin. It can't- It has to be you, no one else- No one else can go there before you do, please-

He didn't listen.

He had ignored him… had brought potential victims right to that demon's door.

Had brought his own friends to the slaughter.

"I'm sorry," the spirit whispered, and Yuugi shook his head. "I… I went too long, without a sacrifice. The demon woke up, and targeted your friend. If I had just told you… just trusted you from the start-"

"No," Yuugi started. It was… it was him! He should be apologizing to, to him, and to his grandfather, and to Ryou, and- and…

His eyes swerved to Katsuya, and another wail rose up from his gut. He smothered it in his hand as he fell back to his knees, his free hand curling on the stone lip of the sarcophagus.

"Yuugi…" the spirit breathed, and he shook his head.

He didn't deserve it… didn't deserve the strange kindness… the pained softness in that spirit's voice.

"Why did this happen…" Yuugi whispered as the latest sobs passed, resting his head against the side of the case, hieroglyphics and symbols he could not understand pressing against his brow.

The spirit did not answer. He just repeated, "You have to go."

Yuugi shook his head again, shut his eyes. "…you said, you will be gone."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"My, soul is tied to my body… and it is now exposed to the air. The magic is leaving it. When it decomposes, I will go with it."

"Will you," Yuugi started, swallowing around the lump in his throat as he sought some little bit of solace… some, silver lining in this new loss. "Will you be free then?"

"…"

…Yuugi opened his eyes at that silence, and stared at a carved bird on the side of the case. "Ghost?"

"…I, do not know what will become of me."

Yuugi, stared… "But…" But, what? What could he say?

His lips twitched with a smile he did not form. Could not form. "Do not worry about that. You should go, Yuugi. I told you, he will be back. If you hurry, you might yet catch the bus. And if you hear of some strange deaths in some corner of the world, run to the farthest corner from it. It… it will be some time before he will find you again, if you do that. Decades, even… I would have you enjoy them however you can. Wherever you can."

The words were coaxing, almost tender.

But Yuugi could barely hear them over the odd pounding of his heart.

"There's… there's no other way? To… to stop him? To save Bakura-kun? Save you?"

A long, heavy silence followed his words… followed by short, simple, "No."

It should have been soul-crushing. Completely defeating.

But Yuugi's eyes narrowed.

He had felt it, just before the spirit spoke…

His brow had furrowed.

"You're lying."

His lips pursed a touch. "Yuugi-"

"What aren't you telling me?" he demanded, only for his head to shake with the spirit's denial.

He tried to move Yuugi to his feet. "Just go, you'll miss the bus for sure if you don't-"

"No," he snapped, stiffening his feet in place as soon as he stood. The spirit didn't fight him. "What are you hiding from me? Could it… could it stop him? Because if it can, how can you not-"

"You would die," his mouth snapped back at him, clipping shut as his whole body tensed… with the spirit's reaction. "Saving me, giving me the means to stop him, it would mean hunting out a hundred times more sinners and sacrifices and it would kill you. Not at once, not quickly, but…"

The spirit trailed off, his whole body wilting under the weight of his confession… a sort of pained defeat already starting to invade his voice, because he must have known on some level what the reply would be.

For Yuugi had stared into Katsuya's dead eyes the entire time… and the moment silence fell again, he whispered, "What must I do?"

The spirit shook his head, and Yuugi could feel it. The threat of tears aching again in his chest. "Yuugi…"

"If you try to make me leave," the young man said, explaining in slow, simple, calm words. "You will just lose control of me again the moment I step of the house, right? So, I can just walk right back in… right up until you are gone, or the demon comes back."

The spirit pursed his lips again… and they trembled. "Yuugi…"

"Please," Yuugi breathed back, shutting his eyes against the tears gathering there. "Just, give me a choice in this… please."

It was the only thing he had left.

After a long, painful moment… the spirit whispered to him.

And Yuugi turned, as he was told. Reached into the open sarcophagus and pulled back the white cloth that was far, far too fresh for what had to be an ancient burial veil.

Stared, as he came face to face with the young king beneath the cloth.

A king, covered in gold and white linen, draped in a cape of royal purple, a tiara crown glittering upon his brow.

Above a face that was a near-exact mirror of Yuugi's own.

A day ago… an hour ago, Yuugi might have gawked, or questioned it.

Now he simply stared as that figure, so fresh it seemed to be sleeping, turned to dust before his eyes.

And then that dust flew in his face.

He dropped the cloth and covered his eyes, screamed as they burned, as his bones burned, as every tiny cell in his body-

The heat centered on his brow again, shone there-

And his mind made room for another.


A few months later…

"What do you think, Okuma?" one man jeered to the other, the pair locking eyes and smirking as they hovered close over the man they had cornered in the alley. "Usually I'd say we should break a knee, but it looks like someone got ahead of us with this one."

"True," Okuma drolled back, eying the short figure in front of him as he talked, smiling for the way the cripple focused on his own shoes instead of fighting back or crying for help. "But there's no reason we couldn't finish the job with the other leg."

His friend chuckled at that, only for both of them to go silent and gawk as the man spoke up.

"And, if I still don't pay back the money I won in our game, what will you do then?"

Okuma shot his friend a look over the short man's head. Was he crazy?! Honestly, the weirdest sort popped up in the casinos sometimes.

"Isn't it obvious?" Okuma asked, pulling his gun out of the back of his pants and holding it where the cripple could see it. "I think this speaks for itself, but if you need a demonstration, all I need is this and the back of your head."

"So," the man breathed, speaking almost as if to himself. "You would kill me then."

Okuma snorted as his friend laughed. "Aren't one for subtlety, are you? Fine then, if you want to be direct about it-"

But, then he stopped.

The words froze in his mouth.

Because the cripple had looked up.

And those dead purple eyes of his were burning red.

"Have it your way, then," the cripple seemed to finish for him, but… but that wasn't that man's voice, what-

And then the cripple's head was glowing, and Okuma's head was screaming, and he was screaming, and his friend was screaming, and his eyes were bleeding out of his face-

And then it didn't matter anymore.

Unseen by both of them, those reds bled purple again, and Yuugi watched as the two, hulking men collapsed at his feet, shaking with terror and pain…

And then all went still.

And Yuugi just… kept staring. Watching, as their lifeblood bled out of them.

As his own nose dripped blood… and tears welled in his eyes.

Tears that were not his own.

He did not cry anymore… had not for many deaths now.

He had sobbed, wept, shook, and vomited his thin lunch on the floor of some seedy bar that first time, when he led a drunk into the bathroom and the spirit intervened just as the creep tried to tear his shirt open.

He had hated it… hated leading that man into the stall, hated himself for doing it on purpose, hated the drunk for having so much darkness in his heart that he made himself such an obvious target, hated the demon for making all of this necessary and killing Katsuya and taking Ryou-

But… not Yami. Never Yami.

He couldn't hate Yami.

For Yuugi's tears slowly ebbed with each new kill, each new sacrifice… But, just as his began to dry up completely, with maybe the twenty-sixth death, or the twenty-seventh?

The 'effects' began to show… Yuugi began to bleed.

His heart would skip a beat here or there, and his fingertips… as he walked away from the latest body, they would go numb in a strange way he could not understand.

Just as his heart began to go numb in ways he did not understand.

The first harbingers of the end…

And with their appearance, Yami's tears began to flow in place of his.

Just as they did then, there in that alley.

Yuugi brushed a thumb through them, sighing. Called out his name… no, his title.

"Yami…"

Shadow.

And Yami shifted, moved out of his flesh to hover before him.

He could do that now, tied as he was to Yuugi's flesh, and not his own.

But it wasn't that glorious dead king that stood before him, or even Yuugi's own reflection with the wrong eyes.

Yami was nothing more than a silhouette of black smoke against the shadows, the only mark differentiating him from Yuugi's own shadow the golden glow of his eyes, and the third upon his brow.

He was barely solid like that, and he certainly could not cry outside of Yuugi's skin… but Yuugi still reached out, and cupped his face. Ran his thumbs across cheeks that felt like nothing more than dried water.

Yuugi

Yuugi shook his head, and smiled. For him… for his shadow.

It was the only reason he bothered anymore.

And he knew… just as he could see into Yami's soul, feel the weight of duty and grim fate and stale regret and fresh agony pulsing through him? He knew Yami could see the mirroring sensations in Yuugi, the layers of dead grief and numb despair stifling his heart.

Every barrier between their souls had been ripped down the moment Yuugi accepted him into his mind… and there was no going back from that. No hiding their pain from one another… and how the other's pain only heighten their own.

All they could do was soothe it where they could.

And Yami tried… he tried, lifting shadowed hands to curl around Yuugi's own as he whispered in his head.

We're getting close… I can feel it. I'm stronger than I have been in centuries. Just a little more, okay? And then we'll be done.

And Yuugi nodded, smiled wider… didn't speak of what they both knew.

That somewhere out there, the demon was getting stronger, too.

That even if they found him, he might not be wearing Ryou's face anymore.

That, even if they stopped him… even if they sealed him away, alone, without Yami…

Even if the best possible outcome was reached…

Yuugi stepped forward, tilted Yami's face up to his own.

Tasted smoke and salt and ash.

Yami jerked at the contact, but did not pull away.

He did not want to.

Yuugi was certain of that, or else he would have stopped kissing him long ago.

He just… Yami just, didn't think he deserved it.

Just at Yuugi didn't think he deserved it.

But something in Yami's heart always softened and went still at his touch.

So Yuugi didn't stop.

But it was all he could offer, as Yami inevitably dispersed and seeped back into Yuugi's skin the moment he gave into the impulse to move closer.

And Yuugi shut his eyes at the sensation… the feeling of Yami sliding back into place around his heart.

The feeling of Yami embracing him in a way that had nothing to do with arms or lips or flesh.

Another tear rolled down Yuugi's face, and he wiped it away, unsure if it was his shadow's or his own.

It didn't matter… he just shook his head, and turned.

Limped away into the night.