Disclaimer: Yeah yeah, I don't own the characters.
The door opens to reveal a lovely room, sunlight streaming in through a window. Everything was a pure white, with highlights of a light blue color. A warm breeze ruffled the curtains, and a smell of flowers drifted through the chamber. Beautiful hills covered in blooming flowers and a deep blue sky with clouds that could have been made of cotton cansy were visible through the glass panes. A few pictures lined the walls, pictures of a beautiful woman, a smiling man, a lovely child, and combinations thereof. In all of them the family was smiling happily; but there weren't many photographs. One wall was devoid but for a framed Change of Heart card, which hung above the bed. The room bespoke comfort and light, bespoke innocence and purity. But there, hidden deep below the bed, invisible to a casual observer's eye, was a splotch of darkness that did not belong there. Small, dwarfed in comparison to the rest of the room; but it was there.
Yuugi sat staring at me with his puppy-dog eyes, pleading with me to say yes. His high voice continued on. "Everyone will be there, Anzu, Jou, Honda, everyone! You have to come too! Please? It'll be fun!"
I dearly would have liked to say no. When I had first met Yuugi, he was my saving grace; just like me, picked on and ignored. Yuugi and I had so very much in common, from the way that we were always bullied around to the way that we looked at the world, the way that he still does. We became friends quickly, and our group was inseparable.
We -had- so much in common. Then came our other halves.
For a while, I thought that Yuugi's dark side was akin to mine; at the beginning he was cruel and heartless, even where Yuugi was involved. But then... but then Yuugi's Yami began to care for him, and gradually to love him, a feeling returned a hundred fold by his hikari. Yami no Yuugi would do anything for his light, even spend the next million years trapped in the Sennen Puzzle if Yuugi so wished it.
Oh, how I wish I was in little Yuugi's position.
"Um, Ryou?" It took me a moment to realize that I had spaced out once again. I made sure to arrange my face in a bright smile before I spoke. "I'm sorry Yuugi, I'm just tired. I'd love to come."
The lie slipped past my lips easily. Yuugi's small face brightened noticeably at my words. "Yay! Okay, go home and get your stuff and then come over! We'll wait to eat until you get there." He ran off, beaming happily and waving back at me. I didn't want to go to his sleepover, not really. But the alternative was going home, where I was alone with Him.
I could feel Him in my mind, annoyed, but not yet to the point of full-blown anger. But He just sat there, emotions simmering in my head, and I knew full well that he was savoring the feel of my discomfort.
I practically flew to my house, taking as much advantage of His peace as I could. Very little time passed before I was out the door again, heading over to the Kame game shop, as much as I was loathe to go.
Yuugi opened the door before I had a chance to knock and let me in with a wide smile. "Great timing! The pizza just got here," he piped, grabbing my wrist and dragging me into the room containing my friends.
It was no shock to discover that Honda and Jounouchi were already well into the pizza, with Anzu complaining and trying to get them to wait. Yuugi gave a long-suffering sigh, ruined by the fact that he was smiling, and plopped down on the floor by the others. I joined them, noticing the fact that my counterpart was making himself known a bit more.
And then it came. I suddenly understood why He had not said anything later. His feelings of hate, this time directed mostly at Yuugi and his yami, dwarfed my senses as He mentally dragged me back and slammed me in my soul room. He had done this to me countless times, and no matter what, I could never prevent it. In the beginning, I used to try to fight Him. But it never worked.
And so I gave up.
I sat in my neat soul room, staring at the bright moon outside my window. But even the scene that normally clamed me had no effect this night. I was sick and tired of this, of Him, of my friends that don't know mw at all, and sick of myself and my weakness.
He came back sometime later, in a horrible mood. I returned to my body to find that my right eye hurt like mad and was rather swollen and that everyone was looking at me somewhat warily as I opened my eyes. Yami had taken his hikari's place and was glaring at me as though I was about to slit his throat. But what shocked me most was the blood pouring from a gash in his arm.
I slowly began to piece everything together. My other half's silence over the past few days, pent up... his sudden act of locking me in my soul room. The evidence of the battle was scattered around the room: a broken glass shelf that bore testament to Yami's wound, Jou breathing heavily as though He had attacked the blonde boy, the general feeling of animosity in the room. It must have been a while that I was inside my haven, for I knew that He would not have done all of this quickly.
Their eyes, their accusing gaze bore straight into my, into my soul, nearly bringing me to tears. "Yami no Bakura," Yami said coldly, and I knew that he was aware that it was me, "shall be killed if ever I set my eyes upon his pathetic form again."
I didn't even bother to ask what he had done. All I could do was turn and run out of his house, hitting the door handle with such force that it bruised my hands, wrenching the thing open, dashing out into the moonless night that had fallen. I could not bear their gazes.
Night outside the window this time, the velvety sky sprinkled with stars that twinkled merrily. Pure silver moonlight filtered through the window, lighting the room and reflecting off of the glass of the picture frames, playing over the white of the neatly made bed, glinting off the alabaster hair and skin of a boy curled up in the corner. No candlelight or electricity graced the room, for it would have ruined the beauty of the place. A teardrop fell from the angelic boy's face and dropped, glittering in the white light, to splash onto the cool floor. And beneath the bed, not toughed by the pure light of the moon, the shadow grew.
He materialized the second that I burst into my empty home, angered like I had never seen Him before. No words were needed; His scalding glance made me cower against a wall. "Come here, kitty," He demanded, a wicked smile playing on His lips. When I did not move, the creepy twist of his mouth slackened a bit. "I said, -come here-." His voice rang through both the air and my mind, and I was powerless to resist His command.
I stopped only when I was scant millimeters from His face. There was an odd look in His hard eyes as he regarded me, as He drank in the terror that threatened to consume all that was me. I stood like that for what seemed like ages, feeling His breath on my face. Then, without warning, He slammed His fist into my stomach, at the same time assaulting my soul to cripple me both physically and mentally. I slammed into a wall and crumpled to the floor trying desperately to breathe.
He sank His fingers into my snowy hair, playing with it for a little while as I sat doubled over, trying not to cough up blood, for I knew it would anger Him. His fist suddenly closed and He pulled me up by my hair. A whimper escaped my lips from the pain, and my breath still did not come well.
"What was that?" He asked, the eerie smile still on his face. "Did kitten say something?"
I shook my head, eyes screwed shut. I didn't want to look at Him, didn't want to see the look of possession in His eyes, didn't want to feel like I was nothing but His little toy- his kitten.
His other hand moved to caress my face, so softly that I could not help but open my eyes in surprise. His face was once again so very close to mine. The look in His cold chocolate orbs bespoke lust and ownership. I locked eyes with Him for a moment, but could not bear His gaze.
"Come kitten," He said, in a voice that chilled me to the very core. His hands suddenly moved to rip my shirt off of me, and when I tried to protest, He hit me again in the stomach, on the exact spot from before. Pain exploded into my brain and I distantly heard the snap of one of my ribs breaking. I could do nothing but hold my arms to my side and gasp for breath as the rest of my clothing was removed, and then his, and all the while his hands were roaming freely over my body.
"It's time to have some fun."
The boy, now lying face down in the center of the room, blood spattered everywhere. The moonlight has dimmed a little, as though a cloud has obscured the moon although the wide sky is cloudless. His shoulders shake with silent sobs as tears stream down his face to form a sparkling pool on the floor. Despair radiates off of the bruised and violated boy in swamping waves, not to pass the walls of the room. He looks small, so pitifully small, lying on the ground in so very much pain. And in the shadows, a pool of darkness that spreads disturbingly fast.
I tried hard to forget that night, to forget all that He did to me and forced me to do. But the pain, both physical and the scars on my innermost heart, did not go away. I knew that they would not.
Something deep within me screamed with anger; but fear held that feeling at bay, the pure terror that He used to bind me to him with.
In the beginning, it had been different. He hadn't been kind, oh, no. But my confusion seemed to radiate off of me and onto him. To this day I do not know if He truly looks like me or if He merely took my appearance and made it His own. My fingers automatically went to curl around the golden artifact that hung at my neck.
How I longed to take it, to throw it as far away from me as possible, to turn back the time and get rid of it ever before I placed it around my neck. But it was impossible, my wishing was in vain and it only angered Him.
He controls everything I do, everything I am. I have fallen to the point where I can do nothing of my own, for fear that he will dislike it. He is always there, always watching, always reading my thoughts and mocking me for being weak and pitiful, just like a newborn kitten. Nothing I do, nothing I say, ever pleases him, and it never will. I must live with Him here, haunting my thoughts, until the day that I take my last breath.
A feeling new to me suddenly bubbled up in my heart, deep down where even I often ignored it. But the telltale prickling in my mind that signified His presence made me hide it, block it with the walls that had taken me far too long to figure out how to build, the flimsy mental barriers which were my only hope.
There was a disconcerting feeling of my body being pulled in two, and then He was next to me, the ever-present smirk gracing His face as he took in my bruised and bloodied appearance. He took my face in his hands and drew me close, sending waves of fear throughout my body. I flinched, tried to pull away from him, fearing what he would do to me, but his grip was like a vice, holding me in place with bruising force.
Let go of me. The thought bounced around my brain, gaining force with every instant that I realized that I wanted nothing more than to have the power to make my wish come true.
He must have seen the spark in my eyes, the sudden flare of defiance. "Oh, is kitten upset?"
Don't touch me, get away from me! My breathing began to come more quickly until my chest was heaving with the effort of drawing breath into my injured body.
"You know," He purred, pulling coming closer to me and running His hands across my naked flesh, goosebumps trailing His fingers, "the more you resist, the more fun it is for me."
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" The words tore themselves from my throat in a scream the likes of which I've never uttered before. With all the strength that I possessed, I shoved Him away from me, feeling His form solid like never before.
The pale moon affords the room no light, nor do the stars. It is possible to see if you strain your eyes, but the lack of light is there. Where there should be moonlight streaming in through the window and a sweet breeze coming in through the window, there is none. Shadows play across all the walls, the furniture, and the motionless figure of the boy sitting in the center of the dark floor, dancing in a light that cannot be seen. The furniture is of a darker shade, not the pure white that it had once been, though it is hard to tell in the lightless space. The boy does not move a muscle, blank eyes staring at nothing. Shadows of a deeper, more malignant force curl around his prone body, deeply contrasted to his alabaster skin and white hair, twining themselves through his locks, around his arms and legs, binding him in place, crawling over his skin. And still the boy does not move.
A look of surprise flashed in His eyes and was gone the next instant. He advanced on me again, the smirk fading a bit. He used my hair once again to pull me to my feet. Why have you become so... real?
I realized my mistake as soon as His eyes, so alike my own only much more cruel, flashed. "Real?"
That all too familiar fear gripped me. "I-I-"
"I was -always- real, kitten," He drawled, slamming me against a wall and then sinking His fingers into my hair, twirling it idly around His long fingers. His body pressed up against mine, sending shivers throughout me and making my blood pump. One hand once again moved to play across my face, a touch so light that it was hard to believe the appendages belonged to him. "I was real before the cursed Pharaoh sealed me in the Ring. I was real while all the others put the Ring on and I entered their minds. And I am real now."
A strangled cry escaped me as His face bent down and His hot breath hit my neck. As He spoke His lips brushed my skin, and no matter how I moved, I could not get away from Him.
"Don't struggle kitten," He muttered, tongue flicking out to slide over my neck as He spoke. "You'll only get hurt." With a jerk He pushed away from me slightly, though He did not let me go. His eyes roamed over my naked body, now drenched in sweat, taking me in, savoring the fact that I was shaking in terror.
"But you see, kitten, there is just something about you, something that works. When you first came to me, I could do no more than the Pharaoh, may his soul be judged unworthy- I could control you or project myself into this dimension." He pulled me into my room and threw me down onto the bed, where I lay motionless is the desperate hope that He would leave me alone.
"That was, until I learned what the Pharaoh and his brat do not know: that by touching you as I grew stronger, by feeding off of your soul, by making you mine, kitten, I became stronger." He climbed on top of me, flesh rubbing against flesh. "It's all because of you that now I have my own body again. And that, kitten," he purred, " is why I keep you."
The room, now nearly pitch black, has lost the beauty that it once held. Shadows claim the room, making it their own. The boy is falling farther and farther into the mass of darkness that binds him, almost invisible within the gloom. The room has changed; another room, made of cold stone into which are carved ancient hieroglyphs and without furnishings, one solitary torch lighting the place, seems to overlay the room, the two twisting and melding until they are inseparable. The pictures in the tainted room have changed, darker tints covering the happy smiles that had been there before. And there was complete silence.
I did not know how long it took me to pass out; all I knew was that when I was awake, I ached all over and was still covered in blood, laying on my disheveled bed. There was completeness in my mind that signified His occupation in my head. Furious tears stung my eyes as I realized what He had done to me. I hate... I HATE YOU! I screamed the thought in my mind as loudly as I could, anger flowing through me in quantities to rival Him. There was a stirring of interest, a flash of anger, but He did nothing.
I tottered into the bathroom, sobbing from the pain and gasping for breath, shutting the door behind me out of pure habit. I wanted nothing more at the moment than to immerse myself in a warm bath and try to forget everything. But how did one go about forgetting one's life?
The water roared out of the tap, steaming like mad. I noted with annoyance that there was no soap. I flung open the cabinet doors, stiffly reaching for the soap. I managed to curl my fingers around it, sniffing, tears still cascading to the floor. As I extracted it, a particularly convulsive sob made it fall from my hand, knocking a number of things into the sink. Wiping my eyes on my abnormally pale arm, I grabbed the things, yelping as my finger was cut on something. I gingerly picked it up, blood welling from the slice.
I'm so sick of this, so sick of being his little kitten, of being powerless to do anything... and it's all my fault for putting on the stupid ring... all I'm fit for is to be a slave to him, to be abused by him until it finally kills me... until it kills me...
Not daring to hesitate for fear that he would read my mind, I grabbed the offending blade and dug it into my arm below my elbow. The pain was intense, and I faltered. But the fear and the knowledge that he was coming to stop me moved me to grasp the handle and drag it vertically down the soft flesh of my inner arm.
I nearly fainted then and there, swaying from the pain. All of a sudden he was beside me, reaching furiously for the knife. I used my feet to hurl myself backwards, slamming into the cool tile wall with enough force to nearly knock me out. As he lunged for me, I plunged the blade into my other arm and dragged it down.
Until it kills me... There was a crash as he slipped on the warm water overflowing from the tub, missing me and falling to the floor. Though I was swaying dangerously, I moved to stand above him, My blood dripping down to splash onto his face and hair. It took energy for Me to focus on him, for My vision was going spotty from blood loss.
A hollow laugh ripped itself from My throat as I stared down at him poor, sopping form down on the floor. His eyes held all the emotion that I realized I had wanted to see in them for a long, long time- bewilderment, horror of what I had just done, and, what delighted Me the most, fear. Fear of Me, fear of what I was doing to Myself... and to him. Even as I watched, his body lost substance and solidity, fading away even as I, as my life flowed out of me and away, gained color.
"R-Ryou..." He had never called Me by My name, never. At any other time than this, I would have broken and bent to his will again.
"You said it yourself," I croaked, My voice sounding far away to My ears, vision beginning to tunnel. It hurt to stand, hurt to speak, hurt to even breathe, but I had to say this. "You can't exist as you are without me."
My eyes finally shut and I swayed, falling straight into the warm embrace of the water.
"RYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUU!"
Forgive me, Yuugi. I'll never be like you.
And the room, barren and devoid of its previous beauty and pure luster, fades from view. But the last thing to go is the card hanging on the wall.