Disclaimer: No I do not own Yugioh.

Demon Duelist Legacy-World Tour Arc

Chapter 34: The Darkness Game to end them all

"I'm tired of hoping you'll suddenly grow a brain." Throwing back his robes and his hands, the demon sneered. "I have existed for over ten thousand years, and the Purge was my invention, for the winner of it came to me. Though you have never seen me before, I'm sure you'll know my name..."

His next words had Rikuo nearly falling out of his chair. "I...am...Valeus!" Throwing back his head, the demon mage laughed into the darkness.

"V...Valeus!?" Rikuo leap up. "You have to be lying! You were banished by my ancestors long ago!"

Valeus, a wicked smile on his face, waved a finger. "You should know better than to think that banishment means forever. Deondre never told you this, but I finally escaped my prison and took over his body for a short amount of time. Unforetunately, I lost to him in a darkness game and I was sent to Envirius, who destroyed the crystal my soul was stored in."

A short laugh escaped his throat. "So I suppose you could blame him for all of this madness. You see, I cannot die or be destroyed. It was a long time ago, but I found a state of existence know as the 'immortality of night' in which I am as close to immortal you can get without reaching it. When Envirius destroyed the crystal, all he did was free me."

Rubbing his bronze skin, the demon mage looked down at the projection within the table, where the form of Ryu in his dragon shape was unleashing another Solar Stream on Sestros. "After my escape, I engineered Daniel's success against Yamidra. I couldn't have the end of the world stop my plans, now could I?"

Rikuo had returned to his seat, his eyes watching Valeus angrily. "So, what will our game be?"

Valeus pouted and threw up his hand in exasperation. "You're no fun at all! Jeeze, I bet Daniel would love to hear all of this explaining as to why I am doing all of this."

"Don't speak his name in vain, you slime." Rikuo, while calm on the outside, was considering thousands of ways to make Valeus' immortality get turned against him. "All I want is for this crazy crap to end. It's tiring to watch you evil monsters return from the darkness again and again to threaten my friends and family."

Valeus had thrown aside all of his previous niceties, his cold steel eyes meeting Rikuo's burning golden ones. "I think without all of this you would lose your purpose in life. That's my opinion though, so I guess I should just not bother with it. The facts are what really matter here, and the fact is that Sestros is immortal, just like me. Nothing any of you can do will kill or slow him down anymore. However, there is a way to seal him away and still get your wish."

"Then let's duel and get this over with, Valeus." Rikuo continued to rely upon his training as a general of war to get him through this. His opponent was a force that outweighed him when it came to power. However, he knew he could win in a duel against Valeus, if the mage was unable to defeat Deondre. ("And I can beat him, so logically I can defeat you.")

From across the table, Valeus continued his wicked smile. "You think you can win? Actually, you might have a chance, even though it will be a small one." With a wave of his hand, the table shuddered and warped to change into a huge gaming board. On Valeus' side of the table was a single huge stone figurine of Sestros in his demon form. Meanwhile, on Rikuo's side, there were smaller stone figurines representing all of the wolf demon's friends.

Rikuo didn't like the look of this. He could play any game like a pro, but he was best at Duel Monsters. "What's all this supposed to be?"

"This will be our playing board." Valeus motioned to the Sestros piece. Above it was a glowing set of statistics.

Torture King Sestros; Final Form (Immortal of night)

Life points: 90000

Special Abilities: Darkness Creation

Abyssal Sun Levels 1-3

Flight

Shadow-walk

Immortality

Fear Infusion

"Is it sinking in yet, Rikuo? This game will not be a Duel Monsters match...at least not like one you have ever done before." Valeus calmly waved his hand and the darkness next to them warped and shifted. There was now a picture of the real field, so that they could see what was happening.

Someone had managed to dispel the darkness, and Sestros had regenerated his lost eye, so he was going on the offensive now. Ryu, Esmin and Jasmine were doing some damage to him, but from what Rikuo could see, it wasn't having any effect on the Torture King's life point total. "What's the point of all this Valeus?"

"Quite simply, my dear Rikuo." He motioned to his side of the table, where there were three black boxes of stone. "These lovely little things are another rule. But first, I'll explain the basics for you." His hand pointed to the three pieces on Rikuo's board.

Ryu (Jourgen)

Life Points: 3950

Special Abilities: Dragon Ascension (In effect)

Solar Stream

Fireball level 1-2

Jasmine

Life Points: 6300

Special Abilities: Shadow Knives

Demon Speed

Thievery

Esmin

Life Points: 5000

Special Abilities: Shadow Whip

Plant Control

Demon Speed

Thievery

Rikuo looked at each of the pieces in turn, grimacing whenever one of the life points totals would drop. "So, this is some kind of Role-playing Game?"

Valeus snapped his fingers. "Bingo!" He pointed at the wolf demon. "You're a quick learner when it comes to gaming. Anyway, each of your three pieces represents your friends. If they die then nothing will happen to you, but I doubt you'll let them die, so who cares? We each have 8000 life points, and as you can see from the table, a normal dueling field. Our decks will be Soul Decks, so that neither of us can cheat in this battle."

Rikuo felt a pull on his soul as a deck of forty cards appeared in front of him. "And what are in the three boxes?"

Valeus rested his hand on one of them. "Each of these three boxes contains an item of incredible power. Of course, to get access to one of them you will have to skip three whole turns, so you'd better hope whichever of your three boxes you open has something useful inside." He snickered. "And as always, whoever hits zero life points first loses. Oh, and just as a little bonus hint from me to you, if you successfully knock Sestros' life points to zero, then you will seal him away forever. And yes, it will be forever...unless someone is stupid enough to attempt to let him out."

Rikuo rested a hand on his Soul Deck, feeling it pulse with warmth. ("Those cards represent my desire to protect my friends and family...I will not lose!") "Let's get this duel started!"

"Sure, but first off...I think it would be unfair to leave you in such dire straits. Your friends are exhausted and tired, so let me restore everyone back to full health." The stats on the projections shot up to 8000.

"That's awfully nice of you..." Rikuo knew there was some kind of catch.

"Sestros is restored back to his original health score of 200000, so don't start thanking me for healing everyone." Sure enough, the Torture King's score read 200000. "Ready to get started?"

The wolf demon nodded his approval. "I'm ready to take you down!"

"Excellent...then let the real darkness game begin!" Valeus' smile was still strangely calm. "Darkness game level 11-Game of Gods...begin!"

Rikuo- 8000

Valeus- 8000

To be continued...

Next Chapter: The Game of Gods

Author's Notes: As always, this is one of my four-page intermission chapters in between big events. And yes, this is the actual final darkness game.

To Seeker of the Soul: Actually, I owe some pittance to Takahashi for that idea. The Yami no RPG sounded so cool, and I wanted to end my story on a game different from all others. Yami Bakura....is so...evil! ::Shivers::

To Neo Arkadia: Kinda sorta is the end of the series...it's hard to explain, so I'll get around to figuring out an explanation after this all ends.