Seto saw both the silver blade and Yami's body quiver, tormented by Isis's shrill cry and the question that had exploded every pretense he had justified for this moment. Lurching slowly, Yami's mouth twisted into a grim line of dangerous contemplation as he turned finally to face Isis. His eyes had gone from warm violent to storm-dark, and Isis nearly faltered in her resolve as her once beloved king only hitched an irritated shoulder in a half-shrug.
"Torture? And what exactly do you consider my existance from my death until now to be, Isis? Were I to cut him into pieces, slowly or quickly,
it would never be enough. But to see him suffer...helps."
And Yami slowly carved a bright red line over Kaiba's crumbling brow, and smirked at the high whine of pain that answered. Seto felt white fire arching across his forehead, as the blood slowly dripped into his eyes. His whole body convulsed into a shiver as he slowly went into shock from the loss of blood and the overwhelming pain.
"Isis." Her name was hissed in a mutilated hitch of breath, as he narrowed his eyes and abruptly drove the blade hilt deep into the wooden wall beside her ear. Isis winced when she felt some strands of her hair being sliced away. He gave her a coy, brittle smile, and slowly forced his fingers to unlatch the clenching grip of the hilt. Isis glanced at the dagger, gaping before she turned back to Yami, cowering for a tense, tortured moment.
With a shaking breath, Isis forced herself to rise, her Necklace shimmering dully as the fire rose to her eyes again, and her mouth set itself into a fierce, but oddly dignified snarl. "Forgive me, my once beloved king. Forgive me, for what I contributed to your corruption, and for my mercy in allowing your torture to continue in the now lost hope that you could be redeemed. Forgive me for what I am about to do, for I will not be able to forgive myself." It was said with the reverence of a prayer, and the eerie finality of a eulogy.
Yami only stared at her, with a shake of his head, his mouth curled in bittersweet resolve. "Isis, my friend...you fail to understand so much,
despite your gifts of perception, and your unwavering sense of right. So much nobility, and so much bravery. I chose a worthy sucessor when I departed from your time. So, I am beyound redemption in your rightous eyes? You are so blessed with knowledge and judgement that your wisdom rivals that of God? Very well, then. I will give you your precious chance to make this right." With a sneer, Yami suddenly reached for her throat and she shuddered with a cry. Yami's unwelcome hand only trailed gently on her shoulder for a long moment, lingering sadly, and then he ripped the dagger out of the wall with one grunt.
Isis nearly yelped when she felt the cold handle shoved into her hand, his cool fingers sliding over hers, and forcing their hands to curl over the handle.
Yami stepped away, his eyes churning with so much volital emotions, and his arms spread wide, fingers arching high, showing he meant no harm, that he was defenseless.
With an almost casual flourish, Yami casually waved at his exposed throat, as he took the chain from his neck and let the Puzzle dangle in his hand.
"I am willingly placing myself at your mercy and judgement, my lady." Yami gave her a cold, formal bow, a cold mockery to his once noble manners as Pharoah. "If you believe me to be a monster, Isis. If you believe me to be beyond mercy, or unworthy of it, then carry out the sentence your sense of justice requires, and end this the way you know it has to be. Kill me, my lady."
Yami watched as the tears rose in her eyes, and she trembled as if struck. Then her eyes glittered with rage, rather than tears. Both the necklace glittered cold as a dying star, as she drew back the dagger, her face flat and cold, and eerily cruel. She just shook her head.
"Whether or not you are worthy of death for your actions is not my judgement to make, my king. But whether or not you can remain alive is, unfortunately,
an easy question for me to answer."
And her answer came as she swathed the dagger in pure light and aimed for the killing blow at Yami's throat.
Seth could not help the smirk as he retreated deeper into Seto's mind, much like a worm burrowing further into the dark, as Seto watched Yami baring his neck like a perverse offering. Choking, he could only spit out the garbled words, "Stop..."
. His other arm had been hacked to the bone, and hung limp and bloody at his side, violated and useless. Seto glanced at it, and nearly vomited. He could no longer feel the throbbing of the wound, the hot scarlet weeping its sick requiem to Yami's madness in a silent stream. Helpless, hopeless, and gone numb beyond the broken flesh, the suffering, Seto only made a violent slashing motion across his neck, and whispered, raw, and harsh, "Stop!! I...don' wan'" He grunted in frustration, then wildly shook his head.
"Not like this." Yami turned to him with a raised eyebrow, astonished, as he tilted his head to the side in wry amusement. "After all that I've done to you, you plead for mercy on my behalf? Why?"
Seto only whimpered in anguish as his face suddenly went slack when Seth had wrestled control away again, and sneered in answer, "No, my dear king.
I wish to see you suffer and bleed as much as you did when that knife first caused all of this. You suffered and cringed like a dog underneith my hand,
my king, but you died under hers. Do you think it wise to place yourself at the mercy of the one who murdered you in the first place? Or did that minor detail slip your already broken mind?"
The memories came unbidden, swirling about him with all their claws and teeth waiting. Laying there, in bloody agony, feeling the very bones in his neck chilling from the air around him, as his breath wheezed and hitched through the hole. Isis...crouching over him, her eyes pleading for some absolution she knew she could not give, for the pain she could not stop. Yami lay there, splayed out and scarlet from his ears to his ribs, the red puddle only growing as his once pristine white tunic was flooded by the bloodflow that kept burbling up like an undammed river. She felt the dagger against her flesh,
saw Yami's convulsion of unbearable suffering, the horrific outcome of something that was supposed to release him. With a cry of anguish, and desperation,
she slammed the dagger with both hands down into his chest with one trembling, successful slice. The dagger cleaved through his heart as Yami's body went limp with one final sigh. The lax surrender was a sickening contrast to the coiled, twitching torment of the death throes, and Isis had nearly swooned at the brutality of it all.
Isis snarled, vemenently, "It was a brutal act of necessity! He was bleeding from a gaping hole in his throat and weeping after you slashed him open from ear to ear. It was a fatal wound, and allowing him to die by it would have only prolonged his suffering. There was nothing else that could have been done!"
Seth only chuckled, brutally as he shook his head, in slow, snickering amusement. "You accuse me of murder, my dear Isis, but there's far more blood on your hands when you actually carried out the death blow. Regardless of your attempts to alter the truth, it was by your hand your beloved king died like a gutted animal."
"But it was by your hand that I suffered so needlessly. It was your savage thirst for depravity that condemned me to the Puzzle, condemned Seto to this broken existance in his own body. All of your cruelty, each senseless act of brutal, blind rage, or idle, curious cruelty that made me into this...ghost of what I used to be..shall be repaid." Yami whispered, softly, as he smirked. The Puzzle was growing gold in his cradled hands.
