DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fanfiction produced for entertainment purposes only. Yu-Gi-Oh! and all related characters are the creations of Kazuki Takahashi.
AUTHOR'S NOTE 1: Text in bold is being emphasised.
AUTHOR'S NOTE 2: This is part of my special Christmas update, a thank-you gift for everyone who's reading my stories. I've updated all five of my ongoing Yu-Gi-Oh! stories and posted a one-shot Christmas fic too. Merry Christmas everyone!
Hearts, Souls and Shadows
Chapter 4: The
Passage of Time
By Shadow's Mirror
Five long years had passed since the Pharaoh's rule had been usurped by a power-hungry tyrant bent on controlling the world. For the possessor of a powerful mystical item that controlled the vast energies of the Shadow Realm, it should have been more than enough time for his plans to succeed. But the years had passed with little turmoil or change. Indeed, it was almost as though the evil ruler had been defeated and the true Pharaoh returned to his rightful place.
Unfortunately, that was not the case.
The tyrant's power was great, but five years earlier an unexpected obstacle had revealed itself. A magical force that rivaled his own in strength had begun to work against him, defying his will and bringing all of his schemes crashing down. Every time the evil Pharaoh tried to use his power, the other force countered his spells and reversed their effects, rendering them useless to him. Despite having all of the Shadow Magic at his command, this other force had made him virtually powerless.
When he had first realised what was happening, the Pharaoh had tried to seek out and destroy the source of the power, but he had failed. Although he had discovered the source easily enough, he could not destroy it, since its power blocked his own. Angered beyond thought, beyond restraint, he had sent his soldiers to try to do what he could not. They too had failed... in spectacular fashion.
Apparently the source of the power could not be captured or destroyed by mere physical force. The soldiers, however, were just as vulnerable to the Shadow Magic as any other mortals. Most of them had been found outside the city walls the following morning, cowering in terror as their various fears and phobias overwhelmed them. Almost a third of them had never recovered from it.
While the Pharaoh had been infuriated by their failure, it had made him see that brute force was not the answer to his problem. He had turned instead to more stealthy means. When the third assassin was found lying broken in both mind and body outside the city walls though, he knew he was defeated. Besides, word had spread and the prices that the remaining potential assassins were asking were starting to get ridiculous.
After that, the Pharaoh had been left with only one choice. He had been forced to bide his time and wait for an opportunity to present itself. Of course, in the meantime, he was only powerless to act upon his dark wishes. He could still plan and scheme to his heart's content. When the day came that he could once again use his power, he would be ready for it.
- - -
From the evil Pharaoh's perspective, nothing had changed in those five long years. He had tested his power every day, and every day the same force had risen to negate his magic. The Pharaoh could feel it when it opposed his will and he knew that it always matched his magic in strength, no more, no less. That worried him. He had the uneasy feeling that the magic's source was merely toying with him. The possibility made him cautious. He did not dare risk attacking the source, in case it reacted by opposing him more openly. For it to match his power so effortlessly, surely it had to be stronger than he was. If he challenged it, there was a chance that he could lose everything he had gained. So, he waited.
What he did not realise was that the force stopping him was not being controlled. He believed that those opposing him were doing so deliberately. It never occurred to him that the items they held might be negating his power automatically. Nor did he realise that the power he was facing came from only one source. The magic that stopped his own was pure Shadow Magic, channeled through three powerful items, but not at the will of the items' bearers.
Although the magician had made many mistakes in his life, he had not gained the power he had by being ignorant of the ways of magic. He had been unable to prevent the Pharaoh's item from summoning magic entirely, but he had been able to turn the summoning into a trigger for another spell. Whenever the Pharaoh called upon the Shadow Magic, the spell activated and the three items held by the magician's own daughters immediately reacted. The girls were not required to do anything, nor did they need to have control over their items in order for the spell to work correctly. At the time of their creation, that had been necessary, for there had been no time for the girls to learn how to use their items for such a thing. That use for the power had been needed immediately.
Automating that particular spell was by far the most intelligent thing that the magician ever did, for although the years passed without change for the Pharaoh, that was not the case for the magician and his daughters.
- - -
When he had given them the items, the magician had been confident that his three beautiful and talented girls would learn to control their new items quickly and easily. He had foreseen the fall of the evil Pharaoh as soon as his daughters mastered their items enough for them to go against the tyrant in a duel. The magician had been certain that the victorious day would not be long in coming, but his dreams of the power that his daughters would command had been dashed within a month. By that time, it had been obvious that something was very wrong.
The magician had originally bound the three items to his daughters' souls. As long as their hearts were good and their souls pure, they could use the items to control the powerful magic of the Shadow Realm. But if there was any darkness in their hearts or minds, it tainted their souls and that weakened their power. Too much darkness and the items would refuse to respond entirely, except for the automated spell that stopped the evil Pharaoh's power whenever it was used. Because the girls had no control over that side of their items' magic, the spell would always oppose the Pharaoh no matter how strong, or how weak, the girls' control over their items was.
It was a good thing the spell worked in that way, because after a few weeks the girls had found that their powers were growing weaker. The dark emotions that stained their hearts were too strong for the soul-binding spell to ignore.
It had been a great shock to the magician when he had realised how tainted his three beloved daughters' souls truly were. He had believed them all to be gentle, kind and compassionate; pure of mind, heart and spirit. But the items had revealed a truth that he could not deny. All three of his daughters had been so badly tainted with darkness that their items had been weak from the moment they had received them. Within three months, all three items had refused to respond to the girls' commands at all.
By that point, the girls had well and truly reveled in their new-found abilities, and their lack of respect for the powerful magic they had commanded had resulted in more than just the darkening of their hearts and the weakening of their items.
The girls had been unable to resist showing off their new powers, and most of their so-called 'friends' had been too terrified to remain close to them. Those that had remained, had done so not out of any real loyalty, but because they had been awed by the girls and what they had been able to do. When their items had begun to fail, the girls had realised the trouble that they were in. Trying to cover up their weakening powers, they had stopped showing off. Bored, their supposed friends had quickly turned to other amusements, but the girls had been too afraid to mind all that much.
Without their items to protect them, they had been in great danger. If anyone had learned the truth... Their only hope had been that their weakness would remain undiscovered by the Pharaoh. That had left them with only one option, and it was the last thing they had wanted to do.
The girls had gone into seclusion with great reluctance. The two eldest had bitterly regretted the twist their lives had taken and they had blamed their father for it. Not only had he made the Pharaoh's item in the first place, but he had also bound their items' powers in such a ridiculous way that they were all practically useless! Confined to the house with only each other to complain to, deprived of their favourite pastimes of visiting and gossiping with their friends, their moods had quickly reached the point where even their younger sister had tried to avoid them as much as possible. Of the three, she had been the only one who accepted that their punishment was deserved.
- - -
Desperate for his daughters to be able to wield the full power of the Shadow Magic, the magician had tried everything he could think of to reverse the binding spells that he himself had cast on their items. When all his efforts failed, he had turned his attention to the girls themselves. For the first time since any of them had been born, he had looked beyond their outward appearances and seen the shadows of their hearts. He had been so shocked and disgusted by what he had seen that he had immediately taken steps to 'cleanse' them of the darkness that tainted them.
The years that had followed had not been pleasant.
For countless hours on end, the magician had forced his daughters to study 'improving texts' in a corner of his workroom. Usually, he would interrupt their reading several times a day to lecture them on proper behaviour and anything else that he thought would make them see reason. He was determined that they would become as pure and as good as he had once believed them to be.
He had been relentless in his watch over them, never allowing any of them out of his sight for more than a few moments each day. Only during the nights had he allowed them out of his presence, and even then it had only been so they could rest for another day of study and lecture.
At the end of every day, he had tested them with their items, in the hope that they had improved enough to have regained the use of them. The testing had always been followed by a loud, and often long, rant on the darkness that dwelled within them. At the end of each rant, the magician had stormed off to his room in a foul temper, while his two eldest daughters had stalked off to their room in similar frames of mind. They had dragged with them their younger sister, who had usually been reduced to tears by their father's harsh words.
- - -
For over a year, the magician's daughters were forced to endure their father's determined efforts. During that time, the two eldest girls became even more bitter and angry at the unwelcome twist their lives had taken. They became surly and unresponsive to their father. They ignored their brothers completely. As for their sister, she became the target of their nightly stream of complaints and their loud and violent temper tantrums.
With all the stress and emotion, it was not surprising that the youngest girl also changed. She became quiet and withdrawn and would emerge from the bedchamber each morning with reddened eyes and the tracks of tears fresh on her face. She also began to look pale and tired. But the most drastic change was to her appearance. Always a girl whose eager love for food had gotten the best of her figure, her unhappiness was reflected in her lack of appetite and increasing thinness.
The magician's two sons had watched all this with great concern for their youngest sister, and annoyance at their oldest sisters for their treatment of her. As their fears for their youngest sister's health grew, they began to try to help her. There was little they could do without incurring their father's wrath for interfering, but their whispered words of encouragement and their warm smiles did seem to help. At least their youngest sister began to eat more easily again. But the source of the problem remained. The girls were still unable to use their items at all.
The magician had been on the verge of desperation. He'd even begun to threaten his daughters with taking their items from them. But then something unexpected had happened.
The eldest daughter had suddenly regained the use of her item! Within a week, she went from being unable to use it at all to having complete control of its power!
A few months later, the second daughter also began to regain control of her item.
The magician had been astonished, but too overjoyed to question the girls on the reason for their power returning. He had put it down to a change of heart. Praising his two eldest daughters, he released them from the strict schedule he had been enforcing and allowed them to once again leave the confines of the house at their will. At the same time, he turned his full attention on to his youngest daughter, increasing the harshness of his lectures and the strictness of his watch in an attempt to get through to her, as he believed he had done so with her sisters.
Within a week, she too had been freed from his control, although her item remained completely unresponsive to her.
The magician had refused to speak of his reasons for releasing her from the rigid schedule however, from that moment on, he had regarded his youngest daughter with the same almost fearful disdain that he showed his eldest son, and the same total disregard he showed towards his youngest son.
- - -
A relative peace had returned to the magician's household after that. A peace that had lasted for four more years before shattering. The lives of the magician and his children shattering with it.
To be continued...