The sound of two swords clashing rang through the room. It was reasonably sloppy swords play by the two of them, but their swings were accurate, hitting close to its target every time. Yugi found trying to keep Anubis' attacks at bay was not so easy. Being significantly stronger than he was, Yugi was hardly able to push the blade away from him. He found that he was growing tired quicker than that of his opponent, as well as being more on the defensive end than the offensive.

Anubis vertically swung straight down. The attack was easily foreseen, and Yugi blocked it, holding his two hands on the hilt of his sword. Wisely, Anubis kicked him, sending him rolling backwards into the wall. Quickly standing up, knowing his opponent would be coming at him, Yugi realized that he had dropped his sword, which now lied in the center of the room. He turned around, hoping that there would be some sort of weapon to assist him. A long spear hung from the wall, and he quickly grabbed the wooden part. With Anubis running towards him, he threw it in a javelin like manner. Hardly seeing it come towards him, Anubis rolled out of the way. While he was evading the attack, Yugi took the time to retrieve his sword.

"You missed," Anubis snarled.

"No, rather than standing against it, you fled from it," Yugi laughed at him.

"Just like you fled from every scene which your foolish companions dropped dead?" he snapped back.

Yugi refused to let Anubis get away with such a comment. He charged at him, carrying the sword over his right shoulder. Coming upon his opponent, he swung at an angle. Anubis simply stepped back, once again avoiding damage. Yugi immediately tried another swing, which was blocked. Anubis once again tried to kick him, but Yugi was ready for it this time. As Anubis kicked, Yugi spun away from him. The missed kick put him off balance, which gave Yugi an opportunity to attack. He jumped at him in an attempt to do a horizontal swing jump attack with his sword. He had put enough power into this attack that when it collided with Anubis' sword, it forced Anubis to release it. However, his attack did not connect to cause damage, and left him open to an attack, for he could not recover from the force of his attack fast enough. Anubis saw this opening, and delivered a powerful punch to the face. Yugi was again sent backwards onto the ground while Anubis went to grab a giant axe nearby.
"You will have to do better than that," he said, wielding the large axe.

Yugi knew that he was fighting carelessly. Though he was no master of such fighting style, he knew that his moves were sloppy. With blood running from his nose, he got himself back up, and once again charged with his sword. Anubis' weapon being significantly larger and heavier, he lifted it over his head and swung down as hard as he could. Yugi realized he was not moving fast enough to avoid the swing, so he lifted the sword up, using his other hand to hold the blade end, and barely stopped the axe blade from falling on him. Blood trickled from the hand on the blade as he pushed up as hard as he could to try to push it away. The blade was too heavy and his opponent too strong to do so. Thinking fast, he could only see one way to get out of that situation, and he had executed it extremely fast. He ran towards Anubis and nailed him in the gut with his knee. Yugi had done it just fast enough. Now he had Anubis against the wall.

"I will win this fight. I am being depended on to be victorious," Yugi threatened him, pointing to his friends on the balcony hanging from crosses. He backed away, holding the sword at an upward angle in front of him.

"Are you really being depended on by others, or are you more so depending on yourself to pull through?" he asked him, still holding on to his axe.

"Don't give me such sarcasm," Yugi snarled.

"I am being totally serious," Anubis shrugged his shoulders. "I see no one here to support you but yourself. All I see are a couple of corpses that have become what they are because one of their companions let them suffer and die."

Enraged, Yugi made yet another dash. The axe blade and the sword blade collided once again, this time more on Yugi's right side. The axe being on top of the sword, Anubis pushed the sword down and used the dull part of the axe blade to smack Yugi on the side of the face. Yugi fell and rolled on his back. Doing this enabled him to see Anubis' oncoming attack, which he rolled away from. The axe's blade had been smacked downward so hard that it became stuck in the ground. Anubis knew he did not have time to mess with getting it out, so he went for another weapon. Seeing his opponent weaponless gave Yugi the impression he could easily attack without harm and possibly come out victorious. He charged, holding the blade with both hands above his head. What he had not seen was Anubis grabbing a bow and arrow, which was immediately aimed and fired when ready. Yugi stepped aside, but still could not avoid the arrow. The arrow had hit him on the far right side of his groin, and he was stopped instantly. The arrow had not gotten in deep, but the pain was still immense. He backed up against the wall farthest from Anubis, holding the spot underneath his wound and dropping his sword.

"You are too slow and foolish," Anubis said as he went to draw another arrow.

Knowing that unless he did something he would be hit again, Yugi ripped the arrow out of his stomach. He growled in pain as the arrow left his body and blood squirted out. He dropped the arrow and grabbed a bag of needles behind him. He drew four between each of his fingers, and threw them with as much force and accuracy as he could. Only two hit Anubis, one in the right shoulder and one in the right hand, but both were enough to stop the attack. Anubis dropped the bow to pull out the needles. Yugi drew four more needles. There were only twelve in the bag, but each was fairly large, and terribly sharp. Just as Anubis had pulled out the needle in his hand, Yugi sent the next four at him. Anubis saw this coming, and removed himself from harms way. Yugi quickly had the last four ready, and threw them as well. Anubis' left hand was now victim of one needle. He pulled the needle out quickly, blood running down from the backs of his hands.

"Is that all you have for me?" he asked of Yugi. "I expected much more."

Weakly, Yugi picked up his sword. Anubis recovered his sword as well. Yugi's head had already been hit twice, and he now had an open wound to worry about. More than ever, everything was against him.

"I've still much more to offer to you…" Yugi said to him silently.

"Then show me," Anubis told him.

The two began to do swords fight again. Though he had taken more damage than Anubis had, Yugi fought decently. He blocked all of his opponent's blows, and was able to get a few small hits on his opponent. But the speed, energy, and strength required for such a fight was much, and it began to drag on him. He was losing blood from his wound, and he grew tired with every time he struck or defended. Trying to draw him away, Yugi did one heavy swing at an angle, which missed horribly and put him off balance. His guard was down, and had just showed Anubis a huge opening, which he would capitalize on. Yugi moved back slightly, but still, the blow was to be unavoidable. Blood flew from him and splattered on a nearby wall.

"Yes, a fool you are. You have learned nothing, for you make the same mistake," Anubis reminded him of little Yugi's error when he was dueling with swords with him.

Everything to him had suddenly become silent and hard to see. He was able to see the next blow coming, and blocked it, but he could barely hang on. Anubis swung hard, hitting Yugi's sword and it flew from his hand. With the dull part of the blade, he slammed it into his ribs. Yugi went soaring into the wall, crashing into it and falling to the cold ground. He heard the footsteps of his opponent walking to him, and knew that he had to grab something, anything to keep him from delivering the final blow. Without looking, he reached over to the wall and felt around for any weapons. He ended up grabbing a thick caveman like mallet. When Anubis became close enough, he swung it upwards as hard as he could. He was able to hit the hand containing the sword, which did quite some damage to his hand and the sword also flew from his hand, but the force of his strike forced Yugi to release his weapon as well. He was too weak to hold on to it. Though his right hand severely aching, Anubis grabbed Yugi by the neck and pushed him up against the wall, still holding him in the air. Yugi struggled to break free.

"You should see now the reason for your destined failure," he began to mock him, staring deeply into Yugi's suffering eyes. "I see not the reason for your return. All you did was continue on your reign of selfishness. You destroy the people around you. Just look up there."

He turned Yugi's head towards his friends.

"Each one of them, though they were brought down by their own faults, you took away any hope of their existence. Like your partner, he did not give you his memories, just as he had told you he would, because you took them from him! All that was left for him because of that was a dark past that eventually consumed him! With only that in his past, he had no hope for a future! And you see now that he is gone. He is dead, and his soul wanders in flames now. You took everything from him, even his life!"

Yugi was still somewhat choking from Anubis' hold, would not be able to respond to that. In his mind, he thought that it was the truth.

"You say the past is always with us, because we are to learn from it. Clearly, you have not learned a thing from the past, because your entire past is nothing but your own lie, and you refuse to acknowledge the past of anyone else. For that, you are nothing more than a hypocrite!"

He unleashed his fist of fury on Yugi, viciously punching him several times. Though his left hand was not his strong one, his punches were fierce and powerful. Yugi could not even defend himself. He tried anxiously to send a strike at Anubis, but it was useless, and with each punch delivered to him, he grew weaker. Anubis did not stop until his right hand bothered him too much to continue holding on to him. He choked slammed him in the center of the room. Breathing heavily, Anubis walked away to get his sword again as Yugi lied in the middle of the floor, groaning in pain and unable to move. Every bone in his body felt broken to pieces. His entire body was a bloody mess, and even breathing sent a sharp pain through his body. Even worse, he felt that his spirit was tarnished. He had never felt such a powerful feeling of uselessness for as long as he had existed. Yugi didn't even want to get up, feeling that he already failed.

"Your actions, your life, your existence, have been useless and pointless from the beginning," Anubis said softly to him. "So then, I will dispose of such a life."

The sound of the sword being picked up from the floor rang through Yugi's ears.

This is my end? I couldn't give them the second chance they deserve. He's right then. It is pointless for me to be here when I cannot make a difference.

Yugi lay motionless on the ground, waiting for the end. He felt that he had lost to the darkness, but not the darkness of Anubis, the darkness of himself. Having felt he had already hit the bottom, Yugi took a glance at his friends up at the balcony.

I'm sorry…

Author's Note: Te. He. He. I'm so evil. Anyway, I'm basically just here to inform you that you will probably see a series of updates on this story. This is because school is quickly approaching, and I want to finish this before school starts. I also have essays to do…so yes, I would love to have this all done before I start those as well. So I'm going to try to do as many updates as I can this week. From here on out, most chapters should be reasonably short, so hopefully it won't take too long to make them.

The countdown has begun: only four chapters left (evil grin) and a final twist (maybe…well we'll see if it catches you by surprise).