Author's Notes: Hmm...usually, I have songs I like to listen to while I write. NOTHING works while I'm writing this. Always puts me in too-happy mode. I need dark songs! There's one that worked, but more than half of it annoys me. Suggestions? I listen to literally everything but rap. (I listen to rap if it's in French, but Kazaa doesn't seem to have any of the ones I like...)



"Bakura? Bakura!" Yugi is panicked in a way I've never seen before. I try to copy his tone and the slight shivering of his body as he inspects his lover.

"We were...we were kissing and he started choking and passed out," I force out. I don't know if I'll be able to lie to Yugi. I don't know if I can keep anything from him, whether I want to or not.

Malik has taken me again. "I'll call an ambulance." I frown, as Yugi surely knows I would never have said 'ambulance'. He's too busy to notice.

I pretend to call, then hold a short conversation with the dial tone. When this is done, I place the phone back in its cradle and go back to the living room. I won't stand very close to them, in case Yugi notices I am wearing the Ring. Or worse, Bakura wakes up.

"They're on their way," I say. Yugi looks up at me and nods, still trying to aid Bakura. "I will go outside and watch for them."

I quietly shut the door behind me, trying to block out the imagined scenario my mind keeps conjuring up, in which Yugi realizes I just tried to kill his boyfriend. I slowly turn to face the road and nearly jump out of my skin.

Malik stands barely a foot away from me, smirking. "That wasn't too bad. I didn't think you were so clumsy, though."

"I did what you asked." I slip the Ring off and hand it to him.

"Bakura isn't dead."

I narrow my eyes slightly. "No, but Yugi is expecting the healers. We should leave before he discovers what we did."

"Or rather, what we didn't do?" Malik smiles. "Very well."

I try to convince myself that I haven't forgotten this man is bent on two things: world domination, and torturing the afterlife out of me. I follow him down one dirty street and up another, telling myself over and over that Malik is not to be trusted even the slightest bit.

My feet go after him on their own. They must be; I would never follow this murderer willingly. Never.



An hour later, I'm standing by the only exit and watching Malik as he debriefs some of his drones. I can feel Yugi frantically clawing to get through to me, but this time Malik is not the only one who has blocked him out. My disappearance was probably suspicious at best, and Bakura has probably told him what happened. Even if my legs could move without Malik pulling the strings, I would have nowhere to go.

So I stay.

The five black-robed figures push past me and vanish into the city smog and grit, off to do their master's bidding.

"Pathetic," I mutter. Malik looks over his shoulder at me as he continues to undo the front of his shirt.

"What is, Pharaoh?" He says my title as if it is a curse.

"Your pawns. That's all they are; expendable, dependent. Useless and incompetent."

He slides his shirt off and tosses it onto the table. His back is tattooed with Egyptian hieroglyphs that I feel I ought to know, but the memory of it floats away like loose ashes after a fire.

"You know a fair bit about being pathetic yourself," he snarls. "The way you fawned over that boy, your 'protege'. It's disgusting. At least my slaves won't rebel against me if I screw who I want."

"Your opinions of my actions, Ishtal, add up to-"

"This isn't about my opinion, Pharaoh!" A bottle he has thrown at me shatters by my right ear, showering the floor with glass and alcohol. "Right now, we're talking about you."

He crosses the room easily, never letting his gaze falter from me. His blue eyes glint dully, filled with a frosty hate that I know he feels for no one but me. Perhaps because he wants to see me react, he has released my body from its 'puppet' state.

"What about me?" I glare at him.

He folds his arms over his bare chest and stares evenly back at me. "Granted you probably don't remember everything...I know you remember being a Pharaoh." I nod once. "You don't remember having my father killed. Or maybe you do. Do you know how many people were slaughtered, senselessly, because of *you*?"

My teeth grind against one another as I struggle not to let any emotional reaction show. I swallow and nod again, not trusting myself to speak. Malik's expression, if possible, becomes even more bitter.

"It was a long time ago, wasn't it," he whispers, no longer looking me in the eye although I am no less chilled because of it.

"Perhaps." I think back to the last time I allowed myself to think about the darker side of my past life. It was on that night that Yugi and I...

Malik knows what I am thinking about. I can tell because whatever it is he has done to me, to the Puzzle, suddenly flares to life and brings me to my knees as I cry out in pain.

He yanks me back up, one hand tight on my shoulder and the other squeezing my throat. "Forget him." Malik says, venomously. "You are mine now." He slams me against the wall. "Mine!"

I gasp reflexively, trying to ease the pain. "M..al..."

"You were a Pharaoh! You ruled my people! My father and my *sister* dedicated their lives to you! You killed without regret, without thought! You sealed away darkness!" His hands are shaking, but like iron shackles they do not loosen their hold on me. "You were not meant to serve a sniveling brat!"

I want to defend Yugi. Normally, I do not care what other people say, especially not when they are maniacal enemies of mine. But to attack Yugi is an affront to everything I have let myself become.

"Why...do...you care?" I force out, though it is more of a croak against his hands.

"Because I know what you were." He releases me suddenly. "I know...that as you are now, you are not worth my time. It's revolting to constantly be thinking of you, while you sit around acting as a poorly paid prostitute. I will not kill such a miserable wretch; I'm not that merciful."

I rub at my neck and let myself wonder at what Malik is saying. "You mean that you pity me."

He smiles, a bare movement of the corners of his lips. "Yes." I stiffen, resenting it all the more now that he has admitted it so triumphantly.

His form of 'pity' does not mean that his heart has softened. Staring into his eyes, I know full well that if his feelings of 'pity' do not stop annoying him, he'll take it out on those who least deserve his wrath.

"I'll make you what you were," he says, so low that it's no more than a growl and soft breath against my neck.

I never realized how utterly insane he is. I may never understand why he is but at the moment, being told that he has ensnared my body until he thinks I am as cruel as he has imagined I was simply so that he can feel content when he kills me...I know that I don't *want* to know what twisted his mind.

Whatever torture he went through will not excuse what he is doing now. I won't let him hurt Yugi.

He steps back. "Go have some fun."

I just stand there, baffled. I won't even bother to think of what Malik would consider 'fun'; how am I supposed to be anything but frustrated in this labyrinth he has created out of the world?

I feel a thin tendril of fear come through my bond with Yugi, something more than just the anxiety of not knowing where I am.

/Aibou?/

//...Yami...//

Something is happening to him. My warped surroundings lurch with every step I take and I am more than certain that I must look drunk. It doesn't matter. I have to get to Yugi.

It doesn't take me as long as I feared it would. True, each time I put my foot down it feels as if it has taken me twenty minutes to get it there, but surely that can't be true.

Crouching over Yugi is a filthy street thug; my other half is curled up, lying on the street. One of the thug's friends is standing nearby, watching and jeering. Instantly, by some unexpected blessing from Malik, my senses return. The world is as it should be, except for one thing: Yugi is in danger.

I leap into the fray and shove the lookout against the wall. He crashes through a large glass window and lies still, crying as blood already streams from the gashes on his legs.

I use Shadow Magic to attack the next opponent. He is wrenched up to his feet, staring in wide-eyed horror at me. With the same martial skill Malik used against Bakura, I take him down. There are no games this time to ensure my victory. Nothing but fist and foot against the enemy's soft flesh.

It is only after the two men are down, bleeding and groaning on the sidewalk, that I realize...Yugi is gone.