Chapter 2 : The Dark King Awakes
RoS: I DON'T OWN ANYTHIN! Too bored to think of an appropriate disclaimer.
Isis slept in her hospital bed. She breathed in shallow breaths and sometimes she'd stop breathing all together. Marik would grip her hand and she would struggle to inhale. (SEL: Question, what happened to Isis? What is she dying from? RoS: IT WILL BE EXPLAINED!)
Rishid watched the siblings in concern. The elder Ishtar was doing badly. She looked sick and perspired buckets. She wasn't bleeding, there was no wound and the doctors traced no poison or sickness, yet she seemed to be ailed by a miserable, dogged illness. Her health had started deteriorating a week ago. However bad Isis was, Marik was doing worse. He hadn't eaten, slept or said anything since Isis fell sick.
"Please, Marik. Take a rest. It would do you sister no good if she were to awake only finding you have traded places," he said, placing his hand on his master's thin shoulder. Marik shook his head. His dry lips trembled as he heard the rapid succession of the beeping on the monitor.
He grasped his brother's arms and yanked him up. Marik yelped at the sudden jolt. He struggled wordlessly to free himself from Rishid's firm hold. "Marik, this is for your own good!" he cried. It hurt to see Marik in so much pain, both physically and psychologically. This unknown disease was not only tearing Isis to pieces, but it also ripped apart her brother as well. If he was not forced to be concerned with his own well-being he may not survive either.
"The dark king awakes," Isis rasped. Her blue eyes opened. They were clouded, the same pair of eyes that Shadi would use bore into your soul.
Rishid was so surprised he let go of Marik. He rushed over to his sister. Not a word came from his mouth, but his expression wrote volumes.
"The dark king awakes," she repeated. Her slender hands reached up to touch Marik's face. "Tell them. Go. Tell them. The dark king awakes."
He grasped her fingers and nodded. His eyes shone with unshed tears.
After a moment of silence Marik faced him, a determined look set upon his face.
"We're leaving."
"Where, Marik?" he asked. The answer was already clear to him.
The golden haired teen fastened his robes that bore the symbol of the Millennium Eye. "To Japan, and we're going right now."
Domino High School, Yard-
Ryou stabbed the sharp knife in his arm. With every painful sting whipping throughout his arm the world shattered around him, one by one a shard of realism dropped out of his perspective. Soon his sleeves were washed with blood and he was surrounded in darkness. He called the Shadow Realm with pain, even if he had to create it himself. His darker half materialized in front of him. His mocking smirk grinned at him from the darkness.
"Go ahead!" he cooed. "Do what you came here to do." His nail traced Ryou's face. Droplets of scarlet liquid formed on his pearly white skin.
Ryou dropped the knife at hearing him. There was that fear again. That unquestionable feeling of shaking knees, jelly arms and a ball the size of a mammoth in your chest. "Shut up!" he yelled. "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"
His smirk grew wider. "Make me."
Ryou fell to his knees when his yami started to cackle. That terrible sound of crackling thunder, pounding in his ears and making it feel like they were bleeding. They most likely were. He held his head, images of slaughtered children and numerous amounts of people, impaled through the heart swam in his mind. Hung out in the middle of the street. The roads died completely red. The poles looked like scarlet stones, shooting out from the streets. The victim's eyes were wide. The kind of freakish display that makes you want to die of fear, just to stop yourself from seeing. Grotesque acts of cruelty marched in front of his mind's eye and he saw them all so clearly.
Tears fell to the black earth, stained with blood. "Why!" he sobbed. "Why are you showing them to me!"
Bakura lifted his tear-stained face so their eyes met. Ryou found himself looking at his reflection. Albeit, a far more demented version, but still himself. His hair, his skin, his body. Even though they all belonged to him, his soul was chained. A small flickering light in the dark.
"Because you should see there's nothing more for you. The world has already run out of her heroes and knights in shining armor," he said. "You've lived far too long. Now Yami won't be around to save you. I've found my ally."
Ryou's perfect chocolate orbs looked with terror into his yami's. Bakura smiled sadistically as he slid his thumb down his hikari's throat.
He smiled that Cheshire grin again. "Ahh . . ." he purred. "I love that look on your face. You think that you can somehow free yourself from me. Those beautiful eyes, so full of terror. It makes me want to gouge them out and hang them for decoration. What do you say, Ryou-kun?" His other hand touched Ryou's closed eyelids.
He trembled, feeling the cold chill run through his eyes. His heart pumped wildly. What was he going to do? He couldn't run, he couldn't scream. Was there anyone who cared if he died? If he was blind? Would there be anyone who would feel sad at his death. No one. There wouldn't be a single soul in the world who would cry for him. At this startling revelation was a sense of peace. He wouldn't be burdened by the feelings of guilt caused by the sorrow of his friends. Friends, a superficial word. One that a person who had been so lonely as he could never understand. Even the presence of their love and compassion were somehow just a dream. He'd been alone all that time. Friends were supposed to always be there for you, but where are they now? Where is that saving grace?
They're not here. They don't care. They will never come. This gave him courage. If no one would help him, he might as well see the end of his life and go down the path of death with dignity. He opened his eyes, wondering what he would see. Bakura stared down at him, that slightly crazed expression adorned his visage. For some reason it comforted him. Bakura was the one who was always there. He never left his side.
Ryou struggled to stand again. He held to Bakura's arm. Every fraction of an inch made another shot of pain go through his body. Every time he moved it felt like he was going to die. It was exactly what he wanted. He grimaced as his right hand went numb.
Bakura watched his hikari grapple at his arm. 'What does he seek to accomplish?' he asked himself. 'Perhaps he's grown enough backbone to fight me.'
"Hikari, my dear, that's not the way to pick a fight. If it's a brawl you want then you should say so," he commented.
Ryou coughed and blood splashed to the floor. "No. I don't want to fight," he coughed. "I want . . . to die."
The yami grinned, delighted. "Then, I shant deny this last request," Bakura remarked. His voice sounded almost cheerful, like killing a human made him high
"You sick, sick bastard," Ryou growled.
Bakura smirked, driving his hand through the light's chest. An organ exploded from out of his back. Ryou's heart flopped to the ground. Bakura pulled his hand out slowly, enjoying the blood gush out of the open wound in his hikari's chest. Bakura licked his finger delightedly. "It's been a long time since I've had a nice kill," he said to himself. The Shadow Realm melted away, the demons locked in there howled, they hadn't been fed for a millennia.
Content with the scene Bakura smirked. He'd finally gotten rid of that bothersome hikari. He got off of the ground and peeled off the crimson shirt. "I should burn this," he muttered. Bakura smiled smugly, this body was now only his. His long planning was finally useful. He thought he would have to wait longer for the Pharaoh to break down, but he was as weak as he'd supposed.
He walked back to the late-Ryou's home. He searched in his pockets and found the keys. Opening and closing the door, he flopped onto the couch and turned on the television. There was the news, in all its beautiful, morbid glory. Bakura loved watching the channel, all the misery in the world was displayed to him on a silver screen, so to speak. He frowned after watching a few minutes. Sighing, he turned it off and dropped the remote on the floor.
'I don't understand,' he thought. 'He wanted to die, but . . . why?' He had killed many innocents in his lifetime, but none he knew as intimately as his hikari. Hell, his hikari was him. It was like self-murder, with only one of you dying. Bakura paced the room restlessly, his pants also on the floor, reeking death.
"And all the while I thought I was in his head," he murmured.
Domino Hospital- (Am I running around too much? Geh. SEL: Yup!)
Yami felt him. In this room. The only thing he heard was his voice, the pumping of his heart, his shallow breaths. Everything about him made the pharaoh want to rip him to shreds. His anger rose. Every time he tried to grab him his arm refused to move. 'I'll wring your stupid neck, you bastard,' he thought hatefully. 'I'll kill you.'
'And you will.'
Anger surged from the depths of his soul. A flaming hatred welled up in his chest. The very air seemed to feel his untainted rage and (SEL: FINISH YOUR SENTENCES! RoS: I can't afford a cheaper editor than this. :sigh:) it reacted. The whole room turned into a whirling tornado.
He heard them screaming. Begging him to stop. A slashing sound, a mournful wail. Silence.
Seto shielded his eyes. The crimson light blinded him, a second glaringsun. His heart skipped a beat as a screech filled the atmosphere. Inhuman. He couldn't describe the pain concentrated in that scream. Like a child, lost in the dark. Hopeless. He hugged his brother closer to him. He knew mokuba was calling for him, but all he could hear was that thing.
And it was gone.
Like that, the world resumed and it was all like a dream. Yami was still in the bed, the monitor blipped and the series of machines hummed quite like they always did.
"What was that?" Anzu asked.
Jounouchi looked horrified. "Did you hear it?" he mumbled.
Honda glanced at his long-time friend. "Hear what, Jou?"
"The screams."
To be Continued-
A/N: Hah! I bet you thought he'd wake up didn't you! Well, he will. Thanks so much to all you wonderful reviewers! (Three of them, but whatever.) I will update soon! Promise!