Chapter 33: The Choice
The wind was blissfully soft and comforting. The song was incoherent having no understandable words, just creaking pitches and warm fluttery like sounds. The type to lull one to sleep. There was no need for words; Kaede could hear the emotion dripping from it like the sap pouring from a wounded tree. Sorrow interweaving into pain and…
Longing?
Yet these emotions meant nothing, seemed like nothing, were nothing. The girl stared with the bleak bored expression, so doped up on strong suppressing magic that the normal soul wouldn't have been able to breathe, let alone think.
Brown glazed eyes watched the humanoid figure blankly, moving, twisting, changing in an elegant dance never witness by human eyes. Never would be. It took her a moment to see the curve of its hips under the clothed leaven skirt, twirling morosely, and medium length maroon hair swishing in the strong gush of wind made of that tangled speak.
It was female.
"Who are you?" Kaede asked in her monotone voice. The woman stopped, or what Kaede took as a woman. She was shaped more mature than a girl. The humming vocal song, that inhuman sorrow stopped, as her elegant form twisted, turned slowly towards her.
Emerald eyes peeked at her.
(…)
Yami watched, not being able to understand for a moment why TombRobber was in front of him, running far faster than he had ever seen him towards that tree, knife waving dangerously. Or why everything was suddenly so quiet, why he could hear the blood pumping behind his ears. Dimly he was aware he was in shock, but too dimly to really think about it.
What did wake him was the worried bellow.
"DON'T GO NEAR THERE!" He turned painfully slow towards the voice in what his mind was making into slow motion, turning, turning, turning. Until his sight met the haggard form of a white haired man, staring with wide brown eyes, haunted wild eyes, his face turned up in warning horror. Bakura.
A loud bang was next to catch his attention, and twisted around much faster than before, as time caught up with him, in just enough time to watch T.R go flying across the room and slam into a nearby wall, knocking all the dust off it in a cloud. It settled to the floor in a swirling sort of mist.
There was laughter. Venomous laughter.
Housed in a boy.
At the sight of him, it was easy to see it was the son. The son. Bakura's son. Mat. He had known it was Mat, who else could it have possibly have been? Yet seeing him in that light was horrendous.
He stood, watching the form of the thief with bent knees and a ready stance, a sneering grin plastered on his face, hair wild and out of control, hazel eyes bright and glowing in the violence. The rod was held like a weapon, glittering gold and feverishly in the light.
T.R screamed a cry of war, lunging at him with that knife, glowing gold as he used the magic of his millennium Ring to fight the millennium Rod. He was slicing and stabbing with no thought, rage driving the white haired spirit completely. The boy dodged every move with ease, using the rod to deflect the blade but not the Ring's magic. He had a magic that was far older to combat that.
He pointed the rod at T.R suddenly and jerked it up. The thief didn't even know what was happening as he was lifted with the greatest of ease off the ground. Mat was grinning crazily as he made the most casual of flicks and watched him fly back so hard it cracked part of the wall. Again the youth laughed. Wickedly.
Yami ran to the thief, deciding it was time to be done with being an audience member, to give him aid. He watched in the corner of his eye as the boy became aware of his presence, the grin becoming wider on his face, and the Rod pointing at him. Yami threw up a wall to counter act the blast of the rod. Joey grabbed the kid from behind after that, and bought him a moment or two with the thief.
"Pharaoh." The Robber growled. He was hurt, but not enough to subdue the wildfire inside. He started to force himself to rise from the floor, despite Yami trying to tell him to stay down. Joey yelled, and Yami saw him get hit in the face with the winged part of the Rod, and heard the boy yell bizarrely.
"KILL HIM!"
Yami started a little confused for only a moment. Only a moment. A cold gnarled grip clenched him around the neck so suddenly he had no way to defend himself. He started chocking as he was lifted off the ground, twirled and pinned to the wall as simply as a rag doll.
Yami watched TombRobber glaring up at him, at the other end of his strangling arms, eyes pitched somewhere beyond sanity, teeth gritted in a slightly bruised face. His fingers were clawed around the soft part of his next, the pressure steadily increasing, breaking off the breathing. Yami found his hands wrapped around the Robber's wrists, digging his nails in and trying to kick him off and he slowly started to suffocate. The puzzle was lit up like a got ember as he used his magic, trying to will off the Robber. It wasn't powerful enough to over come the Ring's power and the strange force Mat had commanded, which was burning just as bright.
He was loosing.
Soon his strong kicks went feeble, and his grip started to weaken. His vision blotched with black threateningly. He was sure his face was purple. And somewhere in his head he was screaming, screaming get out, get out now, getout getout getout getout, incessantly like a chant.
"Ph-Phar-aoh." A voice growled. Through the haziness he could see the brown eyes, eyes staring at him so raged it was impossible to see any person beneath. Keen eyes. His grip suddenly flexed, widely for a moment. The Thief began to scream, scream like a man getting his hand cut off. It flexed just enough for Yami to get his hands between the thief's hands and his throat, enough for a breath before that amazing death crunching pressure closed down on him and the screaming subsided.
He held off that pressure for as long as he could, shaking from the strain. He couldn't get down, even though he was bigger than the boy, couldn't quite move. He was being pinned with something so much more.
And in the corners of this struggle he could see Mat, waving that Rod around like it was a baton, giggling and laughing as Joey yelled, a monster from his deck flying at the boy, his Flaming Swordsman, and being obliterated on the spot, watched Mat use a fresh wave of magic to make his own monster, some kind of three-headed dragon, killing it on the spot, and Marik trying to cover Joey with a trap card.
"Lis-ten." T.R wheezed in the next breath between his tight teeth. Yami looked back at him, the pupils of his eyes small, his hands feeling the needle pains already as his strength weakened
"C-C-Can't. C-Control." He growled the muscles buldging in his arms and neck now.
"C-c-c-c-ca-all h-him." Yami stared at him, suddenly understanding what he what the Robber was saying, what he wanted him to do, what he must do to survive as well as give them a fighting chance. It all came down to trust.
Yami took a huge breath and bellowed with everything that was inside of him.
"BAKURA! RELEASE THE BIND! RELEASE THE BINDING! DO IT NOW! DO IT NOW!"
He watched the haunted man stare at him; stare at him like he was insane from all the way across the room. Stared with haunted never forgetting eyes. Remembering all the pain and suffering he had endured so many years ago, stared at the back of his prisoner, now slave. Stared and wasn't sure if he could be willed to do it.
"DO IT FOR YOUR DAUGHTER!"
And all the logic and love chased that childish memory of fright away. Chased the old fear back into its hole. New eyes opened wide to the world, the eyes of a man who knew what must have been done, and would pay for it with his life in the end.
Because that was what it would eventually come down to.
Yami was getting dizzy. The strain and the smaller amount of air that entered and exited his lungs with each passing minute was the result of the added pressure. TombRobber was winning. The Pharaoh was sure after all these years he finally knew the answer to who would've won victory that night they had fought before; he was sure now that he would've lost. He was loosing now. He would lose. And TombRobber was getting what he had always desired.
For once he could leave this with no guilt at what he had done.
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