Chapter Fifteen
Needless to say, neither Jounouchi nor Honda was particularly enthused about the idea. Jounouchi argued against it quite passionately—yes, yes, perhaps his Lordship had need of a powerful spirit, and perhaps his Lordship had summoned such powerful spirits in the past, but by Ra…it sounded like a mistake from the start.
It didn't turn out to be as much a mistake as they thought.
"We need to construct gates…gates to lock the power of the beasts within…to limit their powers to the same rules as the other spirits we call."
"Gates?" That sounded like something that could be opened again. Kaiba leveled a challenging gaze on Yami. His essence was still very much a part of the palace, as his death had occurred only hours before within the most energy-laden part of the underground temples. Calling him had been child's play. But convincing the semi-transparent sorcerer to cooperate was another matter entirely. His aura blazed in a towering, blinding inferno around his misty body. "The Divine Punisher is mine! No hand touches him but mine!"
"I see that you cannot touch much of anything…at the moment."
From his position against the cushions, Yami could almost, but not quite see through the blaze-white of Kaiba's robes to the doorway. He was limited to this room only, contained by the circle of jagged crystals lining the floor in a bounding fence.
Kaiba winced under Yami's calmly delivered jab. "This is your fault."
"We sealed our own fates, Kaiba." The awesome ruby eyes fixed on his intangible former opponent's gaze. "If it will help you…mine will soon be the same as yours."
Jounouchi's grip tightened reflexively on Yami's wrist, as he knelt in wary vigil over the wasted pharaoh. The look he shot Honda was agonized. By the eye of Horus…he knew he was going to say good-bye to his beloved King…but did Yami have to shove the inevitable end down his throat at every turn?
Honda understood. He cleared his throat to gather the attention of the ghost and the pharaoh. "But…don't we want to destroy them?"
"We can't," the pharaoh explained, patiently, "they're manifestations of gods, my friend. We can't lock them away forever, and we can't destroy them. We can only close the door for now, and hope that someday, someone has the power to finish what we begin."
Over Yami's head, bent weakly as it was to his cushions, now Jounouchi and Honda exchanged confused glances.
"Perhaps you should rest a while longer, Majesty…" Honda began.
The gaze Yami turned on him could have charred stone to cinders. "I am not insane. I know what has to be done, and I assure you, I am quite capable of handling this." He strained to sit up on his own, and a weak cough shook his frail body.
Another look of raised eyebrows passed between the two guards hanging over their king. He'd said he could handle the Guardian of Ra, as well.
Yami continued, unphased. "There is an ancient script—said to be written by the father-god Himself—that details the only way to bind them. It requires a sacrifice…three actually…one for each creature."
Jounouchi and Honda opened their mouths at once to volunteer—but their voices never reached the air.
"Their souls must be touched by the monsters. By the Gods. That excludes the pair of you." Yami continued, without looking up. "Besides. You are not to blame." His gaze was still fixed on the sorcerer's eyes. "You, however, are as much to blame as I. Will you…?"
The vague avatar of a dragon flared up out of Kaiba's aura, as lances of brilliant blue overwhelmed the angry red. "You have my cooperation, if it means that you will suffer as I have."
"There is no doubt of that." Yami's eyes flared. "And the third sacrifice is even now approaching this room."
The three men surrounding the fallen King's divan blinked as one. What was this folly? There was no other…
Kaiba sensed the tendrils of power first. "The Guardian of Ra…"
Yami nodded. "I fell to the Dragon. You...to the Punisher. The Guardian has driven his possessor mad."
His words echoed to the tune of the great, fret worked double doors of the master bedroom flying open as though slammed apart by an unseen force. And standing directly between them, shoulders hunched and arms splayed to either side with the exertion of the shove…was…
Honda felt the feral growl rising in his throat. At last, his memories of the future would do him some good! "Malik!" He spat the word as if it were a filthy curse. He and Jounouchi were on their feet in a span of breaths.
His eyes were wild, mouth twisted into an animal snarl as his thin chest heaved with each breath. A chain of gold clung to his neck, as a heavy cloak of some darkly blue fabric hung heavily across his shoulders and down his back. His body seemed bathed in some eerie golden light…as though something beneath his cape glowed with a ferocity only obscured by the heavy thickness of the fabric. Shards of pain-bright light escaped whenever he moved.
The blond hair…bleached silver by immeasurable energies coursing his body stood out from his head in sharp angles as a living, deadly glory. If he'd been in his right mind…whichever one that was…Honda would have snickered at his appearance. Malik had always looked to him for all the world as though he'd just stuck a wet finger in a light socket.
This was no laughing matter. The rolling, staring silver of Malik's eyes boded corruption and madness, and he brandished a shining gold staff in his right hand, topped by an orb inscribed with the Eye of Horus. The lethal needle tip of a dagger's point gleamed at the tip of the rod. Both it and the madman practically glowed with malevolent desire.
Honda knew him. He knew that Malik didn't function well when things didn't go according to plan. He knew that the man…spirit…past life…whatever…could adapt as quickly as a chameleon, and that if he wanted to bring the man down before anything else happened, he'd only have one shot. But nobody was going to attack his friends! Not on his watch!
"YOU!"
Logic and intelligence dissolved in the burning heat of rage at this specter from his future, and Honda lunged, sword drawn and raised overhead before he could stop himself. He didn't heed the cries of denial from his comrades behind. He didn't see the patient smirk twisting Malik's lips – the smile that had always preceded a catastrophic event.
The shockwave grew in the glowing tip of Malik's rod, and burst outward with a thunderous roar and the crackling buzz of spent energy. It raced toward Honda, who stupidly raced— in turn–right into its path…
…Or rather, into the soft, giving body of a man flung across his path. He yelped, and the butt of his sword slammed hard into the stranger's shoulder as Honda's full weight and the weight of his blade was driven into the other's back.
The shockwave of golden light drove through both of them, and with doubled screams of pain they were flung backwards to skid into a tangled heap. Their momentum carried them right through Kaiba's transparent legs, to rest against the raised lip of the dais that formed the platform for Yami's bed.
Honda choked and spat blood, his tender insides protesting to the abuse of a two-ton gut-punch, blocked somewhat as it had been by the…stranger…what the hell…?
He clawed weakly at dark strands of hair flung across his eyes. Dark hair that wasn't his. "Ungh…'Yu…?"
"Mruh…" The croaked reply was equally weak, but the timbre of the voice remarkably clear. He turned the other boy over.
It was. It was Otogi. Why had he come back? Hadn't he left to find what was left of the nomads? Gone back to find Mai's body?
Moreover, why was he here? How had he known to come here and block the bolt of energy?
There was no way he could have known…until a few scant seconds ago, the warrior hadn't known himself.
"Why?" Honda choked, wiping the back of one hand against the corner of his mouth.
Otogi's eyes were fogged with pain, but still managed to latch onto Honda's gaze.
"…couldn't leave, after all."
The eyes closed with a hard swallow.
Sitting up was out of the question. The most he could do was coil closer to Otogi's mostly unresponsive body and crawl across him to lie between the nomadic warrior and the evil they faced.
Fat lot of good that would do. Honda peered back to catch a glimpse of Otogi's face. The other boy's features were a still mask of pain, and blood dribbled from his mouth in a steady line of dark red. His eyes were standing open now again, revealing their glazed emerald depths.
"I'm sorry," Honda sobbed hoarsely.
"Ass." Otogi mumbled, and passed out.
Above them, the battle raged. Jounouchi, screaming in denial of what he took to be his friend's demise, threw himself off of the platform at the yet-smirking youth.
"HALT!"
Jounouchi froze, and turned to see Kaiba's ephemeral hand clenching his wrist, arresting his forward motion. But…but…Kaiba wasn't supposed to be able to do that! He gasped, as the touch sent shocks of electricity sparking outwards, throwing his heartbeat out of rhythm and leaving his skin buzzing and ice-cold from head to foot.
Anger. All of Kaiba's emotions were translating themselves through that touch – and Jounouchi was quite sure that he never wanted to touch another ghost. The incredible anger and sense of purpose pinned Jounouchi to the spot.
"You idiot! One couldn't stop him, why would two?"
"Besides," hissed a sibilant voice at Jounouchi's shoulder, "you have other worries than my dear master."
Kaiba's emotions drained abruptly from him as his wrist phased through the other's hand, and Jounouchi felt the shredding agony of sharp fingernails carving bleeding lines down his spine. He wrested free of Kaiba's grip with a shriek, spinning to ram a fist through the skull of whoever had just left the icy, stinging trails of pain on his back.
A pale youth stood before him, having jumped neatly back out of the way of the clenched knuckles. He chuckled in gentle amusement. "Oh…don't like it when someone else plays rough?" A flash, a click, and a dagger stood out in the white-haired teenager's fist. "Maybe I'll just have to teach you to like it! Rrrah!" He swiped at Jounouchi like a cat, driving the taller swordsman off of the dais and pursuing him viciously further and further from the pharaoh's bedside.
Yami turned his eyes up to Kaiba's, aflame with urgency. His friends' fates were of little importance now…if he took the time to mourn his inability to help them, all would be lost. "He's already created a key. He has a seventh key, Kaiba! We have to work quickly!"
Kaiba was at his side as though he were no more than a whispered gasp, and Yami called the carved scripture up from the annals of memory.
"I feel your intentions, pharaoh!" The silver-maned specter from the doorway crowed. "Do not deign to think that you can take the powers from me now! I alone control the Guardians! I can call upon their powers at will!" Thin fingers tore at the chain clasp of his cloak, and as it fell away, it released the pent-up fiery light concealed beneath. Beams shot away from his skin in a glory that could almost be mistaken for divinity, had it not been for the all-pervasive smoking stench of wrong that wove among the incandescent brilliance. An avian form billowed behind him, arching its seraphic, half-formed wings to heaven as the madman raised his arms.
The painted lines had been made permanent, etched into his skin with dyes, and still bled with the freshness of the wounds – but the gilded light rose up from them instead of lifeblood, bathing his spine and shoulder in brilliance.
And to look at Malik's face, one would believe that it hurt like hell.
Neither Yami nor Kaiba answered him. Instead, Yami imparted the first lines of the age-old spell to his ghostly counterpart, and Kaiba throated the archaic rhythms with a stress that matched Yami's own.
"Let one soul be the Keeper
Let one soul be the Lost…"
Malik shrieked.
Jounouchi ducked a flying blade and was clawed across the eye by a set of sharpened fingernails. He cried out in agony and spun away, only to be scythed across the ribs by his opponent's dagger.
Honda struggled to rise, desperate to join his comrade in battle, and yet fearing to leave Otogi behind. The other youth lay motionless. Honda focused bleary eyes on Jounouchi's writhing form, and at last, abandoned Otogi's side and crouched beside the dais, waiting for his chance to bring down his best friend's opponent. His stomach was still a churning pit of fire, and every move was dizzying…but if they came close enough, he might be able to strike.
"The dagger," Yami hissed under his breath to the warrior kneeling at the base of his bed, "get the dagger…"
And then he launched into the second couplet of the simple verses. Already around them, the air was crackling with power. It swirled in copper strands, eddying when Malik directed another shockwave to strike them. The avian form took on leonine hindquarters, and sprang for them, beak open and eyes glowing a hot red. Honda saw it coming, realized that even if he leapt for it…the thing would probably pass right through him without stopping. He gazed up frantically at Yami and Kaiba's spirit. Things were unraveling far too quickly for him to follow.
Another hoarse, agonized cry from Jounouchi's lips tore his eyes away. The white-haired stranger struck again. Jounouchi dodged sluggishly, slow, as though dragging his body through deep water. Water which soon turned to mud…and mud to cement. Every step took more out of him, until at last, he could only just stagger away from the other's blade and claws in desperation. And then…not even that.
Honda dragged a bloodied hand over his own mouth to stifle a cry of denial.
The blade was poisoned. Or magicked. It had to be. If only…oh shit…
At last, Honda's fuzzing vision rewarded him with a true glimpse of his mentor's assailant. The angelic face and grace of movement brought tears of disbelief to his eyes.
White hair flung wildly about the other's face, and beautiful blue eyes were calculating and predatory.
Bakura? Please, no!
The gentle boy's image had been twisted. Perverted. The mix and mesh of memories began to take their toll on Honda's sanity at last, as the continual bloom of pain became more fierce.
Jounouchi spun, and with a last spurt of anger, he aimed a slash at Bakura's chest, slitting him from chin to navel. Filmy, pristine hair exploded over Honda's stomach as Bakura fell back against him, dagger clattering to the floor.
Bakura's slender arms wrapped around his midsection, and he crumpled, eyes glazed with pain and disbelief.
Defeated…? No…please…
He would never be able to save his village…never…
…never…
Malik's shrieking avatar darted inexorably toward its targets.
"Charge one to bind the magic, and,
Make three to pay the cost…"
Yami intoned the words, as Honda caught up the loathsome dagger and tossed it onto the bed.
A ball of hot white light enclosed them, and the bird-cat bounced off with a scream of thwarted rage.
They were safe. For now.
Honda wrapped his arms around Bakura's trembling, jerking form as Jounouchi stumbled down against his other shoulder.
"What are you…?" Jounouchi tried to gasp, eyeing the pale, dying teenager in his protégé's arms with cold hatred. "Kill…"
"No." Honda caught his best friend's arm and drew him in tightly. "It's not him."
"But…" Jounouchi's eyes were glazing as the poison of the blades reached his head. Honda's body was screaming a protest at even the slight weight of Bakura's shoulders in his lap. He couldn't bear to touch it. And he felt as though he were going slowly, slowly numb.
"He's a pawn." He choked.
Bakura was always a pawn. Nothing had changed in any of his other comrades…why should this integral part of the abused, fading spirit cradled in his lap be any different?
In answer, Jounouchi only groaned and collapsed utterly against his friend's shoulder.
"Honda."
"Nn…"
"You served His Majesty well."
"…"
What could he say? Thank-you? His silence filled the scant breaths of pause, before Jounouchi spoke again.
"I…am glad…that…it was you…"
"Jou…"
Jounouchi's eyes squinted in confusion…warmed with recognition, and he nodded.
For a moment only, their bond spanned the ages. Jounouchi knew him for what he was, who he was, and the memory of what had been and what would be melted together. This familiarity of kin could not be thrown aside – it went far, far deeper than any blood ties.
Jounouchi sighed, this time with finality. The dark depths of his eyes slid shut, leaving Honda alone.
The brief flash of recognition was over.
First Jounouchi's, and then Bakura's chest slowly settled, their heated breath no longer spilling against his skin.
Heart-wrenching sorrow built up in the pit of his burning gut, and he let out a raw howl of grief. Too late. He'd never had the chance…to say…
A soft body stumbled against his opposite shoulder, nearest the foot of the bed.
He looked up.
Green eyes looked down.
Tears pricked both.
A brilliant glow of light was growing between the fleshless form of Kaiba and the hopelessly frail Yami.
"Make one to see the future; charge one to know the past,
And one to sit in judgment is the one awakened last."
The burning ball of brilliance surrounding and consuming Kaiba and Yami burst outwards, flooding the room and bathing its occupants in the glow.
Everything…everywhere…stopped.
Honda looked up, weak and sliding into shock. Preternaturally clear green eyes burned into his own. They were the only drop of color in an otherwise colorless white world.
Time was slipping away from them. He knew it, and Otogi knew it.
Time to say what they needed to say.
Honda knew he should thank Otogi for his sacrifice. But with his best friend slumped in the heaviness of death at one shoulder, and a close companion lying flayed on his lap, and the burning purpose of Honda's existence chanting a dirge to sacrifice his own life for all of them…who were already lost…
Well, there wasn't a whole hell of a lot to be thankful for.
But there was one thing he wanted to say. Whether this Otogi would carry it to the next life, he didn't know. But even if he never said it again, or if Otogi never really knew what he meant – there was one thing that he wanted to say. Needed to say.
Above them, Yami reached for the poisoned dagger, and in a single smooth stroke, he drew its sharp tip across his wrist. "We bid you, oh Great Ones…lock your beasts away." The other hand clenched around the blade, and slashed it over his yet unmarked wrist.
"We give you…our souls…in…exchange..."
The wounds flashed with impossible brilliance, rather than spurted blood.
Malik crumpled with a scream of such force that the very foundations shook. He fell to hands and knees, as the tattoos upon his back – unseen until now – flared angrily, and he felt himself being consumed by the flash.
He knew he was lost.
But he would not be taken!
In a burst of greedy self-preservation. Malik forced Bakura's spirit out of the tattered remnants of the pale youth's body, and thrust it into his own dying form, while he stepped neatly aside to watch.
But he had no idea just what the Rod had planned for him. When Bakura's spirit was sacrificed to save his own, the Rod would catch Malik when it reached for Kaiba. Catch Malik…lock him away…while the priest continued on to the next life alone…free…
A pentagram etched itself into the floor in glowing gilded lines. Where triangles formed, a simplified shape was born. The horns of Hathor. A six-pointed ring. The Eye of Horus. The sacred ankh. And the scales of Osiris.
Three lines stretched inward and formed a sacred pyramid in the empty center of the pentagram. Honda's skin was crawling. He looked down to see a soft glow forming over his hands and traveling up his arms.
Oddly enough, he wasn't surprised. Just…warm.
The floor shifted. Began to crawl as well. Liquefied. From the tawny waves of limestone, the glowing symbols rose and took shape. The Tauk. The Ring. The Eye. The Ankh. The Scales. And in the center, a familiar pyramid took shape, pushed up out of the floor into a gleaming gilded radiance that took the breath away.
The Puzzle.
Yami rose from his bed with the last of his strength. Walked past Jounouchi's fallen form, unseeing, as he stepped unsteadily into the center of the pentagram. It bore his weight without complaint, though the stones still shifted ceaselessly under his feet.
Kaiba watched, expression unreadable on his translucent face.
Honda turned back to Otogi. Time was gone.
"Otogi…"
The dark-haired nomad gave him an odd look.
"Otogi, I…"
Kaiba joined Yami in the pentagram, and drawn by the will of the Gods, Malik's body – and the spirit of Bakura trapped therein – staggered up to his feet and took up his empty place.
Palms rose. The Puzzle shattered.
Wispy, ethereal tendrils of some misty aura drifted almost lazily from Yami's thin form, drawn into the broken pieces of the golden pyramid. It drew together piece by piece, the place where each fragment interlocked outlined by sheer white light.
The Puzzle shattered…
He understood.
He would remember.
"…love you…"
The other's eyes were burning…burning with a green brilliance that almost drowned out the supernatural light already bathing the room. Otogi's ruby-stained lips twitched…began to curve as though to smile…
There was a terrible flash that blinded every eye left to see, and a scream of denial from Malik's disembodied throat cut short…and then darkness.
Just…darkness. Empty. Warm and empty and dark.
He groped in the shadows and touched nothing. And nothing touched him but the warmth.
Is this what it's like to die?
There was no tunnel…no glowing beacon of light drawing him onward.
His uncle was a big, fat liar.
Otogi…
Otogi don't leave me. Otogi…
Don't leave me alone…