Author's Introduction:
Shadi begins his dangerous game, and Dark Yami has finally set foot in the real world…
Ra help Domino City. *chuckles.*
And where's Joey, anyway?…
**
Chapter Eleven, Seventeenth Duel: Domino Dancing
**
I hear the thunder crashing
The sky was dark
And now a storm is breaking
Within my heart
All day, all day
Watch them all fall down
All day, all day
Domino dancing
All day, all day
Watch them all fall down
All day, all day
Domino dancing
(Domino Dancing)
(The Pet Shop Boys)
**
The room was as dark as the glare of the girl in its corner. Sugoroku Motou remained still and hypnotized at Shadi's side, immune to the danger at his shoulder and the sudden change in his granddaughter. But it was not truly his granddaughter that was now staring furiously at Shadi.
Once again it was the darker, angrier Yami that was narrowing wild, thickly-lashed violet eyes at the intruder. Her stance was that of a predator, and her whole body was tense, as if any minute she would leap across the room and gash his throat open.
"I needed to see you again, Other Yami," the tall man said calmly. "Now that you're here, the time has come to finish our battle...in a Shadow Game!"
"The last time you and I faced off in a Shadow Game, you didn't do so well," the dark Yami countered, one dark brow raised over a violet eye as she crossed one leg behind the other to pose. "I think the judges would have given the duel to me."
"There are no judges here," was Shadi's answer. "The last time we met, I searched the room of your soul, trying to determine the source of your power, but you forced me out."
Dark Yami seemed pleased with herself for that, a small smirk playing around her heartshaped lips.
"This time," Shadi vowed, "I will try your power in the real world!"
Dark Yami frowned. "Now that the shoe's on the other foot, I suppose I have no choice but to accept."
"If you do not, your grandfather will remain my puppet forever," Shadi pointed out. "The game will begin in ten minutes on the roof. I will go on ahead and make the preparations. Fortunately all of the tools I need are here in this archaeology lab. Come when the clock strikes eight."
Dark Yami's eyes flickered to the clock on the wall, where the pointed minute hand was resting on the eleven. Ten minutes.
"I await you." Shadi left the room in a swirl of robe, Sugoroku at his heels. It was hard for the girl to watch her grandfather follow her foe like an obedient puppy. But she said nothing, turning away haughtily.
Dark Yami tilted her angular face up to the clock, watching the minutes die away. Shadi...why is he so determined to test my power? Does his "bloodline"...whatever group he says he represents...want to USE my power?
A frown crossed her already stern features. Or do they want to ELIMINATE it?
She caressed the Puzzle around her throat absently with small bronze hands. Even I don't know the full extent of my Puzzle's power. But I do know two things: One, the power of this Puzzle is somewhere inside me, hidden in the true room of my soul, and it's MINE. Two...
She whirled in a swirl of velvet skirt, flats soundless on her way to the stairs. Two: YOU, Shadi, are my ENEMY. And those I cannot rule--I conquer!
**
Domino City lights glittered like shattered glass beneath Sugoroku's feet. His sightless eyes couldn't see the lights, didn't know that only a slim wooden plank was keeping him from falling to his death.
"Grandfather!" Dark Yami cried, bursting out of the door that led onto the roof. Shadi's head turned at the sound of her voice, watched the horror on her face as her wide violet eyes took it all in--the old man teetering unknowingly between life and death, the rope stretched taut between his hand and the chain-link fence that surrounded the roof, where the ankh-shaped key held court over a small kingdom of stone figures with hieroglyphs carved into them.
"Let us begin, Other Yami," Shadi challenged, his cloak unfurling behind him, the color of the moonlight. "The trial of the mind!"
But Yami wasn't ready to begin. She sprinted the length of the roof to the chain-link fence, curling her fingers through it. "Grandfather!" Whirling, her skirt rippling like shadow in the wind, she called to Shadi. "Shadi! How dare you put him in danger! Stop this now!"
"You agreed to the game." Shadi shook his head, earrings shivering beneath his lobes. "It is far too late to turn back."
"What are the words I'm searching for...?" Yami growled in frustration to herself. "What are the words...??"
"Your grandfather's fate lies in your hands now," Shadi explained.
Dark Yami looked positively panicked. "You're not going to use him in our game!"
"I am, Yami. If you lose this game, it means his death." Shadi was maddeningly calm. "The only way to save him is to win!"
Dark Yami's equally dark eyes went positively hateful, and she found the words she had been missing. "Fuck you!" Yeah, those were the words.
"Before I explain the rules," Shadi continued as if Yami hadn't spoken, "I want to say one thing about the Millennium Puzzle."
"I'm going to kill you!" Dark Yami threatened wildly.
Again, Shadi continued as if she hadn't spoken. "I don't know how you got your hands on the Millennium Item, let alone how you managed to complete the Puzzle that no one has been able to solve for three thousand years."
"Maybe I'm just that good," Dark Yami growled.
"You make jokes," Shadi said. "You seem to think it is a coincidence, but you are wrong. The Millennium Puzzle chose you!"
Dark Yami's wild, wild eyes flickered down to the Millennium Puzzle, and she cradled it in one hand as if she would protect it from Shadi. "Chose me?"
"After waiting three thousand years," Shadi continued to explain, "my bloodline, too, has been chosen to wield the power of the Millennium Items."
"Oh, that is quite enough!" Dark Yami cried, hands to her head. "I won't listen to any more of your lunacy. Don't you dare try to say we're some sort of allies!"
"Is it so impossible to think of?" Shadi asked mildly.
"It sure is, because I hate you," Yami spat, violet eyes narrowing.
Shadi chuckled and shook his head, earrings shivering in the wind. "So reckless."
"Shut up," Dark Yami screamed. "Shut up and start the game! Tell me the rules, so I can get straight to crushing you!"
The more upset Dark Yami became, the calmer Shadi seemed to become. His turquoise eyes shimmered suddenly, bright pools in his dark face, resting more gently on the girl. "Don't be afraid, Yami."
She chuckled wildly, posing and turning up her nose at him, one hand curled on her hip. "Me?! Afraid?! You wish!"
Shadi's turquoise gaze was one of someone who had seen almost everything twice. "Somewhere in your heart, you are afraid of that power. You fear the unknown power of the Millennium Puzzle. That is the weakness of your heart!"
"You lie!" Dark Yami screamed.
"The proof lies before you!" Shadi challenged, pointing towards the chain-link fence-no, to the Millennium Key.
As Dark Yami watched in horror, one of the small stone fingers cracked and exploded apart in a shower of rock bits. Dark Yami gasped, but the sound was lost as one of the ropes holding the plank in place whipped loosely to dangle beneath Sugoroku's feet.
"What the--!" Dark Yami's violet eyes were frightened. "How did the statue break on its own?"
Shadi shook his head, as if she had disappointed him. "Yami...don't you realize that the game has already started?"
Dark Yami tensed. "Explain yourself."
Shadi spread his arms wide to indicate the rooftop and all it contained, the focal point being the wooden plank that held Sugoroku aloft. "Your grandfather is standing on the bridge of life! It is supported by four ropes attached to four ushebti. You remember the ushebti, don't you, she who is so well-versed in the ancient scriptures? The servants of the pharaohs?" His turquoise eyes twinkled.
Dark Yami frowned, eyelid twitching as she realized he was mocking her. "Their name means 'those who answer'."
"Good girl." Shadi smirked. "But these ushebti are the reflection of your heart!"
The dark one's hand fled to the heart in question as she listened.
"When you show the weakness of your heart, the ushebti will answer that weakness, and break, one by one!"
Dark Yami glanced at Sugoroku. "That means..."
"That means," Shadi interrupted, "that when the four ushtebi that reflect your heart all shatter and fall, your grandfather will fall as well. And now there are three!"
"This game is sick," Dark Yami offered.
"You're right about one thing-it's a game." Shadi smiled. "And you can win. The four ropes holding the bridge of life are strung through the ring of the Millennium Key, and that Key is supported by an ushebti that reflects my own heart!"
Dark Yami's mouth fell open slightly as she understood. "If I can break yours before mine break..."
"Then the Millennium Key will slide down the rope and reach your jii-san's hand." Shadi nodded. "If a person who has been 'redecorated' touches the Millennium Key, they shall be restored to their original state. He will be saved, and I will lose!"
This really is a trial of the mind, Dark Yami thought, pulse racing. My little black heart...weighed against Grandfather's life!
The wind howled, swirling around the two opponents, ruffling Shadi's pale robes and turning Dark Yami's night-black skirt into ocean waves.
"Well?" Dark Yami asked. "Are we going to start?"
Shadi smiled. "We have already begun."
And with that, the rooftop beneath Dark Yami's feet began to crack and split. She looked down in alarm, then shrieked as a hand shot through the fissure. Yami began to back away, first slow steps, then faster. A small shriek escaped her as more decaying hands began to claw their way out of the concrete to scratch at her ankles.
"No! No!" Yami panicked, scratching wildly at the rotting hands as they clung to her legs and used her to pull themselves out of the rooftop. She tried to detach one hand and came away with a handful of dead skin, her eyes widening in horror.
"This is too disgusting!" she cried as Shadi watched calmly.
The hands were attached to arms, and the rooftop became a graveyard, decaying zombies pulling themselves out of the stone and climbing up Dark Yami's small body, pulling at her skirt and clinging to her sleeves. "Keep away from me, you bonebags!" she hissed, struggling against their dead grip.
"Answer my riddle!" Shadi's voice was barely audible over the wind and the moaning of the animated corpses. "Answer me, Yami! 'What creeps on the ground and clings to the pillars?' Then you will know what surrounds you!"
Dark Yami's eyes were bright beneath a zombie's splayed fingers. She wrenched the dying hand from her face and looked down at the suffering corpses, surging around her like a living--dying--ocean. She squeezed her wide eyes shut and gritted her teeth, a mewl escaping her.
One of the ushtebi began to crumble.
Shadi watched calmly from the other side of the roof. To his vision, Yami was panicking in a sea of nothingness, clawing at the air and beating imaginary enemies away with her small hands. You are trapped in the illusion, Yami. When you show the weakness of your heart, you will DROWN in that illusion and ALL of your ushebti will shatter!
He watched the struggle in the girl's face, her fear, her loathing of what she saw and felt. In the Shadow Games, those with weak hearts always lose, Yami! You have been chosen by the Millennium Puzzle! You MUST know that! The only way to defeat the illusion that surrounds you is to hold your heart strong and answer my question. Find the true nature of the illusion!
The zombies had nearly overtaken Dark Yami. More and more of the decaying hands began to claw at her face, causing her to shudder violently. Her mind raced, her pulse hammering in her throat. That which creeps on the ground and clings to the pillars...
One violet eye was covered by a rotting hand. The stench of dead flesh crawled down her throat and wouldn't let go. Dark Yami threw one arm over her nose and mouth and gagged. So real...I can't!...
Jii-san!...
Her groan of frustration and fear matched the groans of the zombies. Damn it! Damn it! This is all just illusion, and I can't break free! Is this what Shadi meant--is that the weakness of my heart?!
Opening her free eye, she saw an open mouth, broken yellow teeth coming closer and closer, decaying tongue lolling like a worm. Dark black liquid spilled from the dead mouth...
The riddle! The riddle! It was getting harder to concentrate. That which creeps on the ground and clings to the pillars...That which creeps on the ground and clings to the pillars...
A hand gripped her shoulder and pulled, nearly dragging her under. By sheer force of will Dark Yami stayed on her feet. "That which creeps on the ground"...is THESE ZOMBIES...
The one free violet eye slid closed in concentration. When she couldn't see the zombies, they were that much easier to ignore. The zombies creep on the ground and cling to--
A hand on her face, and the stench of death...
--ME!!
The groans rose around her, louder than the howling wind. They were going to eat her...
Am I the pillar? I'm the pillar...I'm a pillar, and what drops from me, clinging to the ground...
A hand covered the other eye, leaving her face almost covered completely. She was barely able to breathe.
You disappoint me, Shadi thought, seeing the girl fold up a little, like a flower at night. You are not as strong as I th--
"Shadow!" Dark Yami shrieked, throwing her head back like a drowning swimmer surfacing, gasping in air. "Shadow! The illusion's true nature is my shadow!"
And suddenly, in a swirl of night breeze, the zombies faded away as if they had never been. Dark Yami drank in handfuls of air, closing her eyes and tilting her face to the indigo sky.
Shadi allowed his turquoise eyes to widen a little in appreciative surprise. "Very good. Somehow you've managed to clear the first stage. But I was just trying you out."
Dark Yami arched a brow.
Shadi laughed, issuing his next challenge. "Can you keep your heart strong?! The next stage is ever harder!"
Dark Yami didn't have time to ask any questions. Once again the rooftop was splitting beneath her feet, crumbling away to reveal a yawning dark.
"What the--!!" Dark Yami scrambled back from the widening hole in the rooftop, staring down into its abyss. Two dimly glowing lights began to swim up through the depths of the blackness...heading straight for her.
Can this GET any worse?! she thought wildly.
**
Joey sprinted down the length of the corridor, skidding at the end and turning a corner like a Formula-One racer. The zombie professor was still in hot pursuit. "Jeez! Can this get any worse?!"
**
Author's Note:
Meanwhile, Joey…is still running! *smiles.*
It's official. The hardest word to remember how to spell correctly is "ushebti".
Next chapter: Dark Yami continues to trade insults with Shadi…and there might be some more game-playing thrown in there, too. Now if only I could get Joey to do the chicken dance again…