Right, the phrase "the puppet doesn't know he's on strings" Is borrowed from S.A. Bonasi's fic "Have my son become king".
I don't own that phrase, or Yu-Gi-Oh thank-you-very-much.

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The puppet doesn't know he's on strings...




It was strange, truly. My puppets were all on strings. I controlled everyone of them. You'd think the puppet master would know when he himself was on strings, wouldn't you?

You'd think wrong...

Every move that I'd make would be manipulated, and I never knew...

Every move that I made fell right into their hands. Them. The three who lived most of their lives within the darkness, if not all of it.

The thief. Who used me for his own personal gang. To hit the Pharaoh with all he had. To claim the Sennen Items. To control God.

My own hatred. Who used me to hurt... to try to kill the only person who wasn't blood who cared for me. Whom wanted to destroy man-kind. Whom wanted to turn this world into a desolate wasteland. As though it wasn't hurrying along quick enough for him.

Then there was him . The nameless one. the damned Pharaoh! he was the one truly pulling my strings. He was behind it all. For glory. For fame. To wipe out those of his kind. To destroy those whom were born from the darkness, or were nurtured in it for eons. It was him. All him! His fault.

Look at me. Going off again. Old habits die hard, I suppose. Really, it was least of all the Pharaoh's fault. He was just doing what he had to. I keep telling myself I don't hate the Pharaoh anymore. I have no reason to. Not anymore. So, what is this feeling that I have for the Pharaoh? The one that makes me retch. The one that makes me fear the return of my own personal darkness? My own personal Hell?

Is it just the residue of the hate I nursed, the hate I loved? Will it ever leave me? Or will I be trapped within it for the rest of my life? Will it always encapture ((I know it's a word . SPL? Anyone?)) me? Will I always remain here rattling the blackened, bloodied and jagged bars of hate?

I wish you were here, but ... no... I don't want this o be personal. Just a collection of facts, of reasons why I've done the things I did, and why I've made you do the things you did. And how I feel about them. And so that you know that I truly am sorry for putting through that Hell.

It's ironic, really. Throughout that entire tournament, I never had to duel once. I mean, I had people duel in my stead, and I told people what to do and how to duel, but not until the end did I have to leave my ship. Not once did I have to give up Ra (Though I made the mistake of dueling with Saint Dragon: God of Osiris once, and I ended up losing him to the Pharaoh). Never did I have to give up my identity. To tell the truth, I felt like the villains in the movies... Or... as I saw it back then, the hero.

Aha! that's great. I can see it now "The Ishtar." "Supermalik." "Duelman!"

"Lurking in the darkness, wreaking justice by hurting the innocents is [Insert corny superhero name here]!. Punishing the Good Pharaoh Gone Bad (or some corny super villain name like "Pharaohdark" or "Puzzlesolver") for killing his father, even though he never saw it happen, and the only reason he thinks he did it was a see-through stranger floating in the middle of his living room."

"Average revenge-thirsty teen gang leader by day, deranged blood-thirsty psychopath by night. He's [insert corny super-hero name] to the rescue!"

Aha! that's a laugh. I'd love to see how many people would support the protagonist in that one.

But...

It hurts to know you were just a puppet. A pawn in someone else's arsenal. Or a knight. Or even a Queen or King.

That's the worst of it. I don't even know how important I was, or for that matter, am.

Could they just chuck me out, or was I actually worth something?

I'll never know.


Rishid... if it was a chess game, he was defiantly my King. Or a very least my Queen. Bakura and the thief were probably my Knights, and while I had them, Anzu and Jonouchi were my Bishops or Rooks.

And the rest of them under my fingers? Pawns, of course.

Total disregard for human life, or desires. All just pieces in my chess game.

Rishid, of course, was invaluable. He gave me my locator cards. He gave my secret identity. He gave me everything, things I hadn't even asked for. He gave my things I probably don't know about today. Probably will never know.

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There, another chapter done. And this was fairly easy to write!! ^_^ PLEASE REVIEW!!!