"I can't! Not now...not yet, Yugi, please!" Yami's rich cadence was little more than a choked squeal as he attempted to claw
at the floor, his groping hands seeking something that Yugi could not understand. Yami only trembled, helplessly clutching at
Yugi's arms, before he shook his head in renewed tears as the truth shattered the last shred of salvation he had clung to.
Be gone and be damned. The echo of his last words to Seth were ressurrected in all their harrowing clarity as Yami forced his
eyes open to gaze in numb torpor at the corpses. His last hold on reality was rapidly splintering under the crashing waves of pain,
disbelief and exhaustion, as he inhaled a quivering breath and bit his lips til he tasted blood.
Isis. Seto. Their names grew teeth, grew into beasts, beasts that consumed him by guilt and remorse much the same way Seth
had died, dragging Yami down to the dark where Seth's condemned soul lay consumed forever. There was no sadness left in Yami
now, only a hollow echo that reverberated across the dull ache that replaced so much tension and anguish. Yami felt as dead
and empty inside as a tomb, a vortex of the abyss where there were only ghosts and shadows where his life and heart used to be.
"Yami?! Yami, what is it?! Please, tell us!" Yugi's voice had reached a feverish pitch as Solomon warily tightened his grip on Yami's
body, trying and failing yet again to understand what Yami was pleading for. Tormented, Yugi frantically glanced at his grandfather, who
could only shake his head.
"Please! Let me go!!" Yami could only writhe in Solomon's grasp as he raised his shaking fingers to try and pry the old man's
hands away from him. Eyes widening in realization of what Yami wanted, Solomon only grunted, and shivered in relief. With
infinite care, Solomon literally let Yami go. Yami visibly eased as he felt the sensation of flesh on flesh finally dissapating.
It literally made him sick to feel hands of skin and blood and bone against his perverse, undead body, and it had hurt
far more than Solomon would ever know to plead for his release. Yami felt unclean, tainted by the mortal skin laid
against his own. Bowing his head, his eyes slid up to Solomon's in quiet gratitude. "Thank you." It was little more than
a breath, softer than a whisper. Solomon only nodded in tears.
"I'm sorry, my boy... I thought you meant..." At Yugi's head suddenly jerking, and his violet eyes growing even deeper and wider with
pain, Solomon bit the words back.
Yami's shaking hand suddenly gripped Solomon's wrist, tightening briefly as Yami opened his eyes, struggling to make himself understood, as
"Not yet...I can't...Not like this! I c--can't leave them" and Yami flung a hysterical fist at the corpses, "like this! It...I..."
And Yami suddenly force himself onto his hands and knees, and slid to the floor between them into a twitching, trembling spasm of pain.
Yami's hands were slick with his blood as they blindly sought the fragmented Puzzle pieces, trying and failing to find the strength
enough to find what was lost. Yami heard Yugi's shocked gasp, and heard his name whispered.Yugi's hands lingered on his shoulders, and Yami
tried to shrug them off, as he somehow slid over to his stomache, and grunted at the sharp spike of broken rib meeting the
unyielding floor. Yugi watched numbly as Yami only slumped for a long moment, almost curling into fetal position, and panting,
his eyes shut and his hands shaking into white-knuckled fists before he drew a shaking breath, and slid into a bleeding lurch
over the tiles. It was a brutal, tortured path, one that he knew he could not continue for much longer. His quivering limbs threatened
collapse with each crawling inch, but Yami only grit his teeth, closed his eyes, and prayed for a bit more strength and time.
Yugi crouched beside Yami, eyeing the floor uncertainly and sent a tortured, questioning glance to Solomon who could only offer a helpless
shrug in answer.
Yami felt the presence of the dagger's point even as his finger brushed against the blade. The searing burn laced heat and ice against his
palm and he shuddered at the malice that was radiating from the deceptively serene gold. He grimaced when he felt the unclean violation of
Seto's blood over the cold metal, and nearly wept again as the memories of Isis and Seth swirled in his mind and vanished like smoke.
Yami palmed the blade, turning it over and over in his hands, the sad, bitter smile curling over his lips. A few eons ago, he had been raised from
the dead, but sent there by the blade he held now. He winced at the memories that suddenly flooded his thoughts, and shuddered at the cold heat
graced his palm before cutting the flesh into one long, clean red line. Somewhere in the madness, he was certain that he heard Seth's cackle.
"YAMI! What in the name of God are you doing?!" Yugi gasped as he snatched the dagger out of his hands, in horror, sickened at the attempt of Yami
to carve out his flesh. Yami's eyes narrowed, turned storm dark, as he coldly glared, and opened one hand in silent command. His voice was laced with
clear, regal chill as he issued the order. "Yugi. Give me the dagger. I have to make this right."
Yugi's lower lip curled up to stop the bawling as tears threatened to flood over even more. "Yami," he whispered, softly, shaking his head, in sad disbelief.
"Yami...you can't make this right It's gone too far to fix now. Isis and Seto are dead, don't you see that?"
Yami's eyes only hardened, as he distainfully shook his head, ramming a thumb against his chest. "And what exactly does that make me, Yugi? What does
that make me?! Am I an undead monster, a ghost, a demon, a prisoner of fate, or some haunted remnant damned to wonder and never find forever? I've already
died, Yugi. I've tasted death, and I've yet to be free. This perverse immortality is a more cruel fate than even Seto and Isis have suffered. At least they're free, and
out of the reach of pain, of awareness, of anything that can hurt or wound, or bring forth tears. And,yet, I linger, tortured, waiting, longing for home, and release..."
Yami just trembled as he whispered, "And yet, it's not enough. Yugi? How long do I have to wait to be free? Is this ever going to end? Or am I more damned than Seth can ever be?"
Yugi only knelt beside Yami, as his hands laced over the dagger, then back to Yami's outstretched hand, with a shake of his head. "Yami. I don't have the answers, but I know that this"...Yugi held the dagger awkwardly, flinching, "won't solve this, Yami. I know you want to be free, and I know you want to go home.
But, not like this, Yami.."
Yami bowed his head, and Yugi watched as the tear rolled over Yami's cheek. Raising his searching eyes to Yugi's, Yami only offered him a sad, sad smile,
and shook his head. "Yugi. Understand this, please. I don't belong to your world, to this time, to this...existance, and I never have. I have endured it for longer
than anybody should ever have to. I tried to protect you, Yugi. Know that, even if I failed you at every turn and caused the death of two inocent people. I can't
bear the blood of their deaths on my hands, Yugi. It cannot be undone, but it might be forgiven me if I can yet restore what was lost...forgive me, Yugi. Please,
forgive me for everything, and know that I tried..."
It was a broken smile of acceptance, and surrender as Yami flung his arms out, and Yugi found himself swept up in shaking arms. Yami held him for one brief moment, then relinguished his grip, turning to Solomon, and Yugi. "I cannot thank you enough for the kindness that you have shown me, nor can I repay it. And now...I must finish my final task while I can."
Solomon and Yugi only dumbly watched as Yami grimly clutched the dagger's blade to his throat, and grit his teeth, summoning the last of his strength to
force the blade to do its last ugly work. Yugi shuddered with a cry, and turned away, burying his face deep into Solomon's chest as the old man only patted
a hand over the quaking back and tried not to look away, or scream. Yami reached out, and gently tapped the old man's arm in reassurance, and a negating
finger wagging in the air between them. "My ending is coming, sir, but not by my hand, and certainly not in the same manner that I died so brutally. And, now...
I will restore life, rather than take it for once." Yami only dipped the dagger's point into the gore at his throat, the blood easily sliding over the silver and thankfully,
halting before any more was drawn. Solomon watched, confused, as Yami stooped on hands and knees again, placed one palm over the glittering piece with the
swirled eye, and pressed it over his heart. Eyes slowly closing, Yami uttered a dark chant. The Motos witnessed the disturbing sight of the lightening fork of
the scars at his throat bathing in white heat, as the flesh splintered open in light, and then started to pour from the old wounds of Yami's body into the remaining
Puzzle pieces. Yami's eyes remained serenely closed, his voice low and soft, and his hands cradling the Puzzle's remains, his face haloed in the eerie golden light
that seemed as pure as life itself. With a sigh, Yami relinguished the final bit of his power, and almost swooned from the strain. The golden fire grew to burning, and, at Yami's raised hand, soared high and swathed the corpses with radiance for a brief moment before Yami fell to his knees, limp and still. He did not open his eyes as Solomon frantically caught him, and Yugi pawed at him, screaming his name.
Yami felt himself falling away, falling into the depths of the abyss itself, as his soul quelled within him in rebelling instinct of the unholy thing he was about to do.
Darkness, thick and warm and welcome stretched before him in invitation, and he felt it drape over his tired, tired spirit like a friend's embrace. It had been so long since he had ever felt hands on him that would not hurt him. But it was a cruel delusion, nothing more and no more real than a mirror's reflection of reality. Shadows, and memories, all blurred together in one chaotic storm that was stewing in his mind and threatening to explode. Yami blanched in horror as he realized that he had something left to give, to lose after all. And yet, he plunged downward, drowning, clawing, seeking.
It was the bright pearl of light that rose from the depths that warmed his heart. It was the familiar voice singing his name in greeting like a hymn as Isis emerged from the dark, joyful but bewildered, her garment haloed white and her cerlian eyes full of wonder. Yami said nothing to her, only flew into her arms and held her in
tears, clung to her like a sinner who had found salvation at long, long last. She embraced him, and the two friends held each other for a brief moment, before she pushed him back in disbelief, and eyed him, warily, not quite believing that he had come to this dark place.
"My king?! But how did-" He silenced her with a raised finger and eyebrow, gripping her hands, and only peering into her eyes. "You saved me, my dear, dear Lady Isis. You saved me from being a monster, from being lost...you saved my humanity and preserved the hope that I could be restored again. Isis, did you really believe that I would leave you here to suffer?"
Isis wryly smirked, shook her head, and her laughter was like water breaking over the desert, in its mirth. "Yami, my king, if I believed you to be that way, I never would have taken the gamble that you would eventually come back. You were never as lost as you believed yourself to be,Yami. My faith in you has been richly rewarded and for that, it was worth it. As are you, my king, and my friend." The moment was brief and joyful, as Yami's eyes narrowed, warily and he scowled, consideringly. "Isis. Where is Seto?"
Isis said nothing, only shook her head in tears. "My king...I attempted to deliver him, and only succeeded in summoning his corpse. I cannot tell you if he shared
Seth's fate of being damned, or if he is beyond our reach now. Yami, I am so, so sorry."
A/N...I am sorry to end this chapter on such a dour note, but I hope to have an update very soon. And, no, Seto's fate is not decided yet, either.