Fate: DooDoot. Two more chapters? Three?
Disclaimer: La la la la la la – what?
[11] In Which Yami no Malik Is Angry
Marik spoke first out of the deathly silence that followed. "Who the fuck did this?" he inquired, almost sanely. Unfortunately, Marik has never been good at the sounding sane bit.
"Ryou," Malik gasped, hiccuping. "Oh my Ra I don't know what's wrong with him but he's gone mad and he tried to kiss me and I'm going all insane and I'm falling and I can't see and I think I'm going to die and I don't know what to do and where am I and who are you and someone help me!" The last three words were screamed into Marik's shoulder and punctuated by more hysterical sobbing. "I can't see..." he whispered after a few more seconds of shocked silence.
"At least he can talk," Bakura snarled, shoving away from the wall and stalking towards the basement door.
And walked straight into Kaisei.
"Hey! Bugger off!" Bakura said, trying to get around him and failing. "I need to go have a bit of a chat with my hikari, and you're in my way!"
"Why should I?" Kaisei asked quietly.
"Because!" Bakura snarled. "What'll you do to stop me?"
Kaisei sighed impatiently and dangled the Scales in front of Bakura's nose. "Does this convince you? Am'mit will come if I summon her, and you would be in her belly if not for my word. Do you wish me to revoke that? I'm sure that it would stop you."
"Shit shit shit!" Bakura yelped, jumping backwards, skidding under a table, colliding with Jounouchi's ankles, and knocking him over. "Don't!" he added as he scrambled behind Jounouchi for extra protection.
"Kaisei, that was pretty damn cruel," Shadi said appreciatively.
"I know whatever is happening is absolutely wonderful but would someone mind telling me what just happened to me?" Malik asked thickly, managing to sit up and lean against the wall whilst he scrubbed at his bloody face with one hand. "What the hell was he playing at, and why do I feel so sick?"
Jounouchi immediately went over to Malik, nearly stepping on Marik as he too sat up from his involuntary repose on the floor. "Open," he ordered, prying the boy's jaws apart and squinting down into his throat. "Damn. This is easier with a penlight. Move," he added to Marik, so immersed in his new patient's problems that homicidal yamis no longer scared him. "I'd guess that you swallowed a good amount of blood, considering the condition of your teeth and throat. That sort of thing induces nausea, you know," he added, sitting back on his heels. "Whose blood? Yours?" he inquired, looking further into Malik's mouth. "Don't answer or you'll bite me," he admonished.
"Then why did you ask him, toy-thing?" Marik demanded.
Jounouchi shrugged. "Because I felt like it. You're still bleeding," he said to Malik. "Mother of God, he bit you," he said astutely, letting Malik close his mouth. "Try not to swallow any more blood if you can help it. You need to rinse your mouth out and spit out the blood, and get some liquid in you. Do you feel at all dizzy?"
"It's not all mine," Malik answered a previous question instead. "Ryou was bleeding too."
"Did you hurt him?" Bakura screeched from across the room.
"He cut himself," Malik shot back. "And I feel like death warmed over," he announced to the world at large.
"Okay. Lie back and shut up," Jounouchi said calmly, then stood up and paced back into the center of the room, right in front of Bakura. Everyone else had fallen back into side conversations. "Hello?" Jounouchi said, without much response. "Hello?!"
More ignoring of the only non-Item-connected person.
"WILL YOU ALL SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO ME?!"
Much less ignoring of the only non-Item-connected person.
"I know I'm the only normal person here and that all of you could have me eaten or killed or mind-erased without too much effort, but come on. I'm the one who found Ryou in the first place, I admittedly got Ryou started on this campaign – much though I did not mean it," Jounouchi added hastily, looking quickly at a furious Bakura. "And then I went for help from all of you. Well, okay, I kept tripping over Bakura and he seems to be just tagging along, but frankly, this meeting was my idea and I think that I want to be in charge if at all possible," he said meditatively. "Besides, I'm the only impartial party. I haven't got a Millennium thingie."
"You mean you started this?!" Bakura demanded.
"I told Ryou to go do something drastic to you to see if you'd stop knocking him around," Jounouchi said waspishly. "And before you try and kill me, remember that I'm all that's standing between you and certain death. Literally," he added unnecessarily. Bakura immediately ceased his search for his Sharp Pointy Thing, which was sitting harmlessly on a display case across the room.
Yami blinked. "Since when have you been so vocal about these sorts of things?" he asked.
Jounouchi shrugged. "I dunno. Since someone had to be?"
"He has a point," Shadi conceded. "We're here because of the disruption in the balance of Shadow magic."
Marik blinked. "What? I'm just here because of my hikari."
"Oh, shut up and look impressive," Isis told him. "You know what's going on."
"Hang on, what the fuck? It's that stuff again?" Marik demanded. "Jesus fuck. We're out of here," he decided, grabbing Malik roughly and scooting backwards.
"Ma-rik!" Eisei wailed. "We need you!"
"Like fuck you do! I'm not going fucking transparent again!"
"Just stay here!" Eisei ordered.
"Make me," Marik shot back.
Eisei reached for the Ankh. Marik promptly shut up and sat down. This was followed by everyone save for Shadi, Kaisei, and Malik looking admiringly at the redhead.
"Right, for those of you that don't know, there's a balance between yami and hikari," Shadi began. "If that balance is broken somehow – "
Jounouchi half-grinned. "Let me guess. We're screwed."
Shadi nodded. "Basically. And the balance that Ryou and his yami share is rapidly disintegrating. Therefore the only thing keeping Bakura alive is him drawing from every other yami, hence also physically drawing them to him. And since this connection has been established, every single one of us Item holders could croak at any given moment if we don't get this fixed. He'll drain us all dry, then die himself. And us modern holders won't fare much better," Shadi added.
The impact of this statement was dulled slightly by Malik's announcing, "I think I'm going to faint," and promptly doing so.
Marik stared at his hikari. "Shit," he remarked, poking Malik's hair. "Is he supposed to be doing that?"
Jounouchi briefly facepalmed, then went back over to Malik. "He looks as bad off as you used to be," he said over his shoulder to Bakura.
"That's because he's only snogged us," Bakura retorted. "Right?"
"Wait a minute, who did what?!" Marik demanded. "What the hell is going on here?"
"Ryou kissed me, absorbed a ton of my power, went berserk, and now is going on a psychopathic and nymphomaniacal rampage," Bakura listed off monotonously. "And above all, don't let him near you. Ever."
Marik blinked. "So does that mean I get an easy one-night stand if he finds me?"
Isis picked up a fluffy pen and threw it at Marik. "Sex fiend," she muttered.
"Well, now we know why I'm helping you," Yami said sarcastically to Bakura. "You owe me now."
Bakura simmered for a moment, then shot his best "I WILL EAT YOUR SOUL!' look at Yami before stalking off into a corner to sulk.
"Did I just faint?" Malik asked suddenly from across the room.
"Yes," Jounouchi replied calmly.
"Fuck," Malik replied. "What'd I miss?"
"Not much, just the revelation that since Ryou kissed Bakura, he's turned into a deranged nympho," Jounouchi said. "But I think you figured that out for yourself."
"No shit," Malik retorted.
"I thought so. People!" he yelled. "Now that we're all awake and relatively coherent, can we find a way to get out of this bloody mess? I mean, that was the idea that prompted our coming here," he added solemnly.
"There is a way," Kaisei began thoughtfully. "It worked before, and it might work now, but there's a tiny problem," he said.
"And that would be?" Bakura prompted.
"It involves Ma'at's cooperation in restoring you to normalcy," Kaisei said quickly.
"Well, count that one right out," Bakura said, rolling his eyes.
"It also happens to be the only way I know of," Kaisei added.
There was a long pause.
"Tomb robber!" Yami finally howled.
"What the hell?" Bakura shot back.
"If you hadn't been so damn insolent all this time, we might all still be alive in twenty-four hours!" Yami screeched.
Bakura flopped back against the wall and slid to the ground. "Mymeef."
"Speak up," Yami barked.
One hand slammed against the wall, then the other as Bakura shoved himself away and to his feet. "I said I know!I know, I know, I know! Now that we've all established I'm going to die, let's just get on with it!"
"You aren't going to die," Kaisei said sternly. "My pharaoh?"
"Yes?" Yami replied.
"Sit down, shut up, and don't interfere. It's not your life on the line," Kaisei said nastily. "But if you don't let me handle this, it will be."
"But you just said – "
"I just said sit down and shut up!"
Yami sat down and shut up.
"Listen," Kaisei said to Bakura. "I'm going to handle this myself. Remember, you now have the dubious honor of being expected to do horrible, awful, unredeemable things. It's what you're for. You're someone's personal demon. You're not going to be judged as a human. You'll be fine. Now I can do this by myself, and probably should. It involves balancing the scales of destiny again, and fast," he informed the amassed group. "Sorry, Shadi, but I'd like to talk to my Lady myself. We'll need the yami and hikari of the Ring together, and I believe that will be all. Oh, and I'd like to be relatively close to where the first transfer took place," Kaisei concluded, sounding oddly businesslike.
"Oh, all that's easy, except for getting Ryou," Jounouchi said cheerfully. "So you don't need any of us?"
"I'm not helping you even if I could!" Malik burst out. "I'm not going near Ryou until everything's back to normal! Yeesh," he added with a shudder. "I'm not doing this again!"
"I won't need your help anyway," Kaisei said reassuringly. "But we will need Ryou – is that the hikari? Ryou," he repeated after confirmation.
"I can do that," Eisei volunteered.
"You?" Bakura asked, rolling his eyes. "The fanboy?"
Eisei smiled. "'The 'fanboy', as you call him, is also a yami with more power than you may ever have," he said softly. With that, he rose and opened the door to the basement. "Hello, little one, as my hikari calls you. I knew you'd be out there."
"And you're not even psychic?" Ryou asked with a charming, albeit bloody, smile. He was sitting on the top step of the stairs to the basement, still toying absently with the knife he'd stolen from Bakura. "You want to take away all I've become, is that it?"
Eisei looked thoughtful. "I'm not psychic, but they are, and I know how to be quiet," he remarked, nodding at the two almost identical girls sitting side by side on the desk. "And yes, I want to unmake what you have made yourself. I won't lie. I find it pointless, you know."
"I'm sure," Ryou said, and giggled. He wafted to his feet and stepped into the room, looking around. "Oh, Malik! You look..." He smiled. "Actually, you feel..."
Malik opted to cower behind the nearest person – namely his yami – and snarl, "I'm armed, I'm so armed, I swear to Sekhmet that I'm armed..." while waving the Millennium Rod threateningly.
"Better you than me!" Bakura said unthinkingly, immediately gaining Ryou's attention.
"Yami – "
Eisei then quickly smacked Ryou on the back of the head with the Millennium Ankh, then snapped, "Marionette Design!" as the boy crumpled to the floor wordlessly, eyes blank.
"I suppose if you restore his mind, it won't affect what I'm about to do," Kaisei said. "Thanks for consulting me, idiot."
"I only had one chance," Eisei said with a shrug.
"What did you do to him?!" Bakura screeched.
"Knocked him out and temporarily redesigned his personality," Eisei told him. He gestured with the Ankh. "Wake up," he said. Ryou's eyes flickered, then went back to their previous blankness as he rose to his feet. "Walk with me," Eisei ordered, moving towards the door, Ryou in tow. "Where are we going?" he asked, looking around helplessly.
Yami was staring at Ryou, as was Jounouchi.
Shadi looked at him and sighed. "You've both seen this before. He's not a zombie this time, nor is he a doll in a game. It's temporary. Isn't it, Eisei?" he called warningly.
"It'll be permanent if no one tells me where to go," Eisei said innocently.
Bakura got to his feet and stretched sulkily. "Come on, then," he said, leading the way to the door and shoving it open for the nearest person in a pseudo-polite manner.
"I'm not going!" Malik announced as Yami, Jounouchi, Shadi, Eisei, Ryou, and Kaisei began their exit.
"Then go home," Isis pointed out.
"Are there any psychopaths there?" Malik asked.
"Only the one you keep with you constantly," Aset informed them, earning a glare from Marik. "Oh, stop that, you know you like that moniker. Wait a moment," she added to Bakura, who had detoured back into the room to retrieve the butcher knife. "We have a question to ask you," she said, nodding at Isis.
"What?" Bakura asked suspiciously as Malik hastily cleared out as well. Marik followed, taking the time to relight a cigarette, deliberately exhale smoke in the room, then leave before Isis could do more than make a threatening move in his direction.
"What do you know about this?" Aset asked, proffering the Millennium Eye.
Bakura's eyes widened. "That's mine!" he said, making a grab for it with his free hand. Aset held it up out of his reach tauntingly and stepped out of range of the knife.
"Where did you get that?" Bakura demanded, forgetting his resolution to not betray himself.
"Out of the pharaoh's shirt," Aset replied.
"Bit of an odd place to keep it," Isis added thoughtfully. "Do you want it back?"
"I took it and it didn't blow me to the ends of the earth, so it's mine," Bakura said, hoping he sounded deranged enough to let them just give it to him and permit him to walk away unscathed.
"All right," Aset said surprisingly.
Bakura blinked. "Eh?"
"I said, all right. Take it. Don't get yourself killed and waste all this work. Do you realize all seven Items were in one room and you didn't make a single move to take any of the others?" Aset inquired.
Bakura's eyes went wide again. "Really? Shit! Hey, can you rewind time and – "
Aset merely glowered at him. "Bad tomb robber. No biscuit."
"Then why the hell did you bring it up?"
"I wanted to see the look on your face," Aset said carelessly.
"It was well worth it," Isis pitched in.
"Sam em ab," Bakura muttered. "Both of you."
"So's your mother," Isis retorted.
"Or your father. Whichever," Aset added.
"Oh, shut up," Bakura snarled, wheeling to go as he shoved the Eye into his pocket.
"Bakura?" Aset said as the tomb robber reached the door.
"What now?"
"Good luck," Aset told him. "I can't See a damn thing past this ritual of Kaisei's, so wishing you luck is all I can do. Let Seshat be with you on this one."
"..." Bakura departed with the slam of the door.
"I think he meant 'thanks', but you never know," Isis said spiritedly. "It could have just as easily been 'fuck off, you prats'."
Aset rolled her eyes and sprawled back across the desk without another word, with some very...interesting...thoughts running through her mind.
"Yami! Get off my paperwork! I mean it! Yami, I – Yami? Why are you looking at me like...that...?"
The paperwork quickly became singularly uninteresting.
We grieve for the paperwork.
Fluffy: Yesss. Go forth and grieve.
LFangor: Malik!Pity!
KeMu: He was being low-key in the chapter.
molten-amber: Yep, I invented them...and the end of this is drawing close waaaaaaay too fast. slaps the story Bad! Stay! But I'm glad you like it!
Liviana: Ryou wants your phone number. ;;
Froz Flame: Mmmm, blood.
Aithril the Elf-Maiden: Freaky's good.
Melissa: Glomping is jumping on someone and hugging them insanely hard. It's a fangirl move, mostly. Watch. glomps Mokuba
Alyssa-Anime-Angel: You think so?
Nadoko-Mika: Malik's not happy. ;;
Dark Millenia: This feels relatively quick as far as updates go for me, so I hope you agree.
Sky-Pirate-Tat: You thought that was confusing? They're all here now...bwahaha...is juggling bouncy balls with the characters trapped inside
Ryou's Gal: There is never too much blood for angst. Ever.
R Amethyst: Squee! Fave-ness! glomps and gives pocky
Bakura: Cor. Identity crisis?
higashikaze: Er. Yes. Don't read this in public places. It could be dangerous, y'know.
Jherrus: I dunno, it's up to Ryou.
Fyredra: dances around with a knife
Bakuraluva: Um...pokes You all right there? If you die from complications arising from my fic, will you promise not to sue me? brandishes Disclaimer as a shield
Duel: O me. O poor me. Review.