I once said that I would finish this fic, even if it took me 50 years. Well it hasn't been 50, only 3. Three whole years since I last updated, and five whole years since I started this. It's a very strange feeling. I hadn't thought that much time had passed. But good news, because I've come back to Yuugiou. I'm sorry for leaving, but nostalgia has brought me back. There's about 2 or 3 more chapters to go here, and I'm ready to take up the challenge. I reread this fic before starting to write again, and was pretty embarrassed by it. Though, I did scrap the last chapter I had published because it wasn't the direction I wanted this story to go and only uploaded it because I felt bad about not updating. I'm not a kid now, so hopefully that'll show through in my writing. And I know this is a small update but I just needed to get back into the groove of writing. I have a couple new fics planned after I finish this, so stay tuned and have fun.
I'm back, baby.
For a long time, Ryou was angry. The last thing he had ever expected was resistance, but that was exactly what he got. Mariku couldn't be sure how much time had passed, but it was apparently enough for people to start organizing. Isis had told him everything; how Ryou had made world leaders bend and submit to his new rule. All it took was gathering the items and then world domination was in the bag. At first there had been no resistance. Maybe it was just pure shock. It was different now, though.
Humans in general think as a group. Of course, there are always leaders, but most people are followers. Widespread panic tends to wash over everyone in its path. The collapse of political alliances helps to ease that along. In a normal situation of abnormal acts of terror, militaries would be sent out to squash the problem. But Ryou was an abnormal plague. While the world aged over thousands of years, ancient Egyptian lore was a thing of the past. Human beings evolved and the older stories were left behind. No one in the common age would fear the resurrection of Zorc. Those were stories. And that was exactly why Ryou was able to conquer.
In the modern era humans feared war and economic unease. So when the sky turned black and darkness incarnate washed over, there was mass chaos. No one knew what was happening. The supernatural was the least suspected threat. Ryou took advantage of this. Of course, nations did try to retaliate at first, but mechanical weapons of destruction were no match against magic. It was unthinkable, things of stories, but it was true. Ryou had unlimited power, his only limit being his imagination.
He forced nations to bend. Delegates were sent from all over the world to meet with them as he gave them his ultimatum: submit or die. And people did die. Heroism in the end counted for millions of deaths. Those who spoke against him were eliminated like insects. People saw neighboring countries who had been allies for hundreds of years be exterminated in a matter of seconds. If the country did not submit, darkness took over. A literal wave of rising, boiling, churning blackness washed over the land and drowned it. The corpses were left to rot in its wake.
From what he had heard, it was truly eerie. Or maybe it was what he didn't hear that was the most unsettling of all. There were no sirens in the distance, no mobs, no anarchy that he thought would swarm up to the gates of Ryou's stronghold. The world was strangely quiet. Everyone held a bated breath. And that's why the riots were so horrible.
Perhaps Ryou thought there really wouldn't be any rebellion. Maybe it was childish of him to think that, but to be fair, there had been no resistance beyond the initial shock. It had been months now. The seasons changed before Mariku's sheltered eyes. Maybe Ryou had gloated a little much, triumphed a little too long, but the rebellions snapped him out of that smugness.
They were hardly a threat. Mariku heard whispers in the halls between servants. 'Another uprising in Moscow.' 'Did you hear about the Seoul revolt?'
Mariku didn't know these cities. He didn't know anything except the tomb and the blimp and now the white, white room in Ryou's mansion. He didn't know them, but he knew they were no match for Ryou's power. No matter how many people spoke up, no matter how many countries organized themselves against him, they would never win. Ryou had absolute control. The sennen items were the gateway to immortality and power. Nothing could touch him or his grip on the world.
There had been assassination attempts. Almost daily, he thought. But none of them got past the front gates. Most of them were stopped in the middle of plotting. Because Ryou had the Eye, he knew the ins and outs of all the world's workings. He could delve into the mind of anyone he chose, and his gaze spread over the whole world.
Nothing truly posed as a threat, but Ryou saw it as so. It made him furious. It made him pace back and forth for hours, muttering and yelling to himself and scuffing his feet on the floor so that black marks tracked everywhere he paced. Mariku sat and watched him most of the time. Ryou made it a habit to bring him wherever he went. He didn't have much of a choice but to watch him scheme and plot.
Ryou had left him alone for the most part for a while. True he still lashed out and would periodically hit him or play with his fear, but not in the way he used to. It was utterly impersonal now. Mariku used to have a very singular and personal hell. The world used to revolve around him and his pain. He wasn't so sure now. Something in Bakura's words all those months ago had opened his eyes.
Mariku wasn't sure what he felt anymore. The fear was there, for good reason, but he wasn't sure what else. He felt a bit disconnected. Mariku had always been narcissistic. Malik had always been narcissistic, and Mariku was Malik's emotions tripled. But the idea had begun to dawn on him that he was only one person. Yes, he was Ryou's project and Ryou's project was what was keeping him from tipping off the edge into total insanity, but watching Ryou pace back and forth day after day because of the actions of others felt extremely humbling. Ryou's attention was no longer as much on him, and Mariku's mind was once again allowed to wander.
He began to hate again. With a boiling rage he began to hate Ryou once more. He had always hated him, but dealing with the overwhelming struggle of fear had once took him over and replaced everything else. Maybe the part of him that was Malik had decided that enough was enough. The fear would not torment him any longer. It was still there, but it could be contained. Mariku refused anguish. If he was a conqueror, what was he if he could not overcome his own emotions?
The time that Ryou left him to himself allowed him to recover. With each passing day he got back small parts of himself. He was damaged, physically and mentally strained, but he was a self made man. If he could pull himself out of a tomb in the ground, he could pull himself out of the pit of fear and terror. He replaced the fear with hate. Hate felt good. It was the foundation of his very creation. And he would use it once again.
And so he watched Ryou pace back and forth. Ryou was slipping. He had control, but he wanted perfection. He had the whole world, but the idea of people trying to overcome him drove him insane. It was easy to stop these people, but just the idea of it left him simmering with anger. It seemed that Ryou had very little time left for Mariku. He had expected him to take it out on him, but for the most part he didn't. Mariku thought about what Bakura had said.
Zorc was eating Ryou alive from the inside out, consuming his mind. Perhaps he had not always been insane, but the darkness was not helping him. It was getting worse, and more hard to control. Ryou may have had the key to immortality, but his body and mind were not suited for such a host. When Bakura had lived inside him, it was diluted. Zorc was inside Bakura, who was himself unearthly. Born human, Ryou was not, and the parasitic darkness was consuming him.
Ryou lashed out against the people who tried to rebel against him. He made a spectacle of it, broadcasting their execution over the world through television. He would have him watch sometimes. It was a gruesome affair, one that Mariku once would have delighted in but now watched with curiosity. It was curious in that Ryou was being watched in fear by the world itself, armed forces surrounding him looking for a shot, standing on a platform high above anyone else, yet he was so small. Looking at him commanding awe, but he was so small. Mariku had always been significantly taller than him, but seeing him amidst a terrified audience, he realized how small he really was. In that short, petite body, held a monster.
It was then that Mariku started to think about killing him. He entertained the idea for a long time, but nothing like this. It seemed to consume him. Seeing Ryou's body made him lust for blood again. Oh, he hated him so much. But hatred wasn't his only fuel or drive. It was the curiosity. What if he could just kill him? Their bodies were human. Ryou had hurt him. With great ease. All he had had to do was dominate him physically, and his flesh and bone was separated from him. Of course Ryou had used tricks, like the rod, but in the end it was physical dominance that allowed him to hurt him. And seeing Ryou there, so small, truly seeing him, Mariku believed he could do the same.
He was stronger, bigger. His mind was no longer the caged, cornered animal that it had once been. Ryou had always called him an animal. A dumb animal. An insult. But Mariku felt like it now, his eyes watching him pace back and forth like prey. He could feel his muscles tense, waiting for a chance to spring at him, to plunge his teeth into his throat and rip out his life blood.
Still though, he was scared. Or maybe not scared, but wary. Mariku wasn't a fool, he knew what Ryou was capable of. He knew that if he did plan an attack, that Ryou was more than capable of ending his life right there. And he was certain that he would. At some point, Mariku believed that he would simply be physically punished. This was when he believed himself to truly be special. But Ryou's mind was slipping, and slipping farther and farther away from him. He no longer cared about his project, he no longer cared about Mariku. Mariku didn't believe for one second that he would be spared, if Ryou truly became angry with him. And above all else, Mariku cherished his life. No matter how deformed his body was now, it was still his. He had conquered Malik for control over his body, and he would not let it be taken from him by an act of impulsiveness.
It was a waiting game, then. The both of them. Ryou waiting and pacing, and Mariku watching and seething. Ryou muttered and plotted under his breath, and Mariku did so in his mind. Because if it was one thing he had learned, he truly was the key to Ryou's demise.
In Ryou's lust for conquest, he had purposefully turned a literal blind eye to Mariku. He did not use the sennen Eye on him. He had left Mariku's mind untouched for the sake of thrill. 'I like things to be fun, like a game. it doesn't take much strategy to cheat and see what you're thinking', he had once told him. And of all of Earth's population, Mariku was the only one who was safe from his ever present gaze. It was he alone that could think without the Eye upon him. And through this, he knew that it would be him alone who would kill him.
Let the games begin.
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