I know it has been too long since I updated, but I finally found some spare time. This is the last chapter, which is also combined with the epilogue so I hope everyone enjoys it.
Chapter 27
Silhouettes of theDarkness
The light from the orbs of darkness had past a few days ago since the disappearance of Mariku had really taken its toll on Bakura. His depression of needing a companion and recently being traumatized with nightmares with illusions he could not understand was frightening and made him vulnerable and weak ever since Mariku had not been with him.
Malik seemed emotionless as he briefly watched the yami cursing and crying out in agony as if he were being tortured to death by some invincible force. He knew that only one person could cause that kind of pain of making an individual suffer mentally and physically. Strangely he hadn't seen him for a few days now or even felt his presence. In a way it was a good thing since he wouldn't need to worry about the vampire lurking in the shadows every night or causing him pain. It also meant that Rishid was safe for the time being. Still, it wasn't the same since it also meant his other half was gone and it was breaking him apart due to the fact that he at one time had a connection with his evil half.
"He needs to stop doing this. I know that he misses him, but forcing his partner to fear him is not going to make him want to bring him back." Malik shook his head as he walked downstairs and reached for the phone to call his friend Rishid who moved to Egypt hoping that it would be enough distance between himself and Mariku.
Ryou watched Malik leave and then stepped forwards into Bakura's room slowly where he saw his yami stretched out and breathing heavily. He could not understand the spirit's behavior at all. Yesterday he had witnessed his yami's mood swings of being angry, tired and panting loudly. At night though his yami was alert as if he was waiting for something.
At first Ryou had thought that maybe Bakura was exhausted from doing whatever activity he and Mariku had done. The yami's deposition had dramatically changed to frustration since his refusal to get out of bed from an unusual illness had shocked his lighter half entirely. Ryou couldn't even step foot into the room without Bakura growling or hissing at him. All he wanted to do was check his temperature, but his darker half didn't want him near. Even offering him a hot cup of soup forced the hikari to race out of the room before the scorching contents were able to penetrate his fair skin from Bakura literally throwing it at him. This was amusing yet disturbing, as the hikari did not want to fear his yami because he was not feeling well. It was also strange enough since the lighter half still hadn't gotten used to Bakura being separated from his body.
"Bakura, you have been in that bed for three days now. Don't you think you should get up and live life like you always had?" Ryou asked trying really hard to keep his voice steady.
"No, I prefer to stay right here." Bakura growled as he narrowed his menacing eyes at his other half. He then turned onto his side clenching the necklace with his hands hoping Ryou wouldn't notice it.
"What is that you got there?" Ryou stepped closer and looked over at the shining string of gold with jewels.
"Nothing." Bakura snapped at him, his fangs glistening in the reflection of the mirror that bounced off the sun from the open window to Ryou's face.
"Did you steal from the museum again?" Ryou slightly narrowed his eyes from the blindness as if to scold him by placing his hand son his hips, failing to see the sadness in the yami's eyes.
Bakura glared at him and for the first time in three days got out of the bed. He was still in pain from the night he was with Mariku and decided to ignore the soreness that was pulsing through his entire frame. He only hoped that Ryou hadn't noticed because he wasn't going to answer any of his questions.
"Don't walk away from me when I am talking to you. Just because you think I am weaker than you doesn't mean that you can't talk to me. If you were to get caught on camera and then escaped the police would out that…"
"I did not steal it!" Bakura replied through his teeth and limped into the bathroom shutting the door behind him.
Ryou sighed as he heard retching, cursing, and the smashing of glass as he walked over and observed the necklace that this yami had dropped on the floor. He picked it up and examined it more closely. He got an eerie feeling from it as soon as he touched it. The hikari couldn't help but put it around his neck. As soon has he had he saw a bunch of images that burned themselves into his mind, all of blood and death. They were too much for the young hikari who slowly met unconsciousness.
Bakura felt his instincts kick in feeling Ryou had passed out as he finished his quick shower and threw a towel around his waist and with difficulty broke down the door and thus removed the necklace from his hikari's neck.
"You idiot. Don't you know that you are messing with supernatural power?" Bakura helped Ryou up and slapped him across the face to help him gain his senses back.
Ryou opened his eyes and looked at his yami in horror. "I saw many horrible things. Creatures that were bathing in blood and killing humans and then I saw another…oh my god you are a…vampire." He screamed out scrambling to get away form him. "Don't hurt me. Please, I don't want to die."
"Ryou, shut up. Don't believe everything that you see." Bakura shook his head in annoyance as he pinned his lighter half on his back by using his hands to keep Ryou's shoulders pinned to the floor. He looked dangerously into his hikari's eyes and then got off of him.
"This necklace…Mariku gave it to you, didn't he?" Ryou swallowed as he sat down on the floor in a cross-legged position for a moment gazing at the door.
"Yes, he said if I wore it I could save someone that I care about." Bakura blurted out hoping the information he gave Ryou would make him leave him alone.
"So, have you?"
"No, I am confused with the whole thing. Ever since I had sex with him I seem to have caught some kind of illness. I haven't had the strength to put it on." Bakura sighed as he gazed at the necklace and played with its shiny gold and silver string.
"Oh, so you are no longer a…" Ryou smirked, but was caught off sentence by his yami who hit him in the leg.
"Didn't I tell you to shut the fuck up! You don't need to know everything that goes on in my life." Bakura hissed as he then held his wrist in pain.
Malik had just finished his phone conversation with Rishid when he heard noises upstairs and decided to investigate. As he was climbing the stairs he noticed the room had gotten really dark by each step he had taken.
"What the hell is going on?" The Egyptian hikari opened the blinds and saw the moon shining brightly, which in their part of the day the sun was supposed to be out. His eyes nearly jumped out of his skull as he saw silhouetted figures heading towards the house.
Ryou also noticed the room turning dark as he jumped into his yami's arms for comfort. Bakura did not push him away and held him contently as he made the Millenium Ring on his neck glow brightly hoping to bring out some kind of light in the house.
Malik quickly locked the doors and tried to turn on the lights but found out the power was cut off by some mysterious force. His eyes were darting towards the sounds he was hearing as he ran upstairs. He was almost up the stairs when he saw the evil shadows coming towards him. "Yami…" He whimpered forgetting for a moment to be headstrong.
The shadows came towards him and then materialized into a mass of eel like zombies of blackness. Their eyes were blood red and the creatures seemed to almost smile as they creeped over to him. One of them transformed into a mist of wind and began suffocating him. Malik felt stupid that he could not ward off the spirits without the Millenium Rod that he had left in the kitchen when he was talking on the phone. He felt the constriction tighten his throat until he heard a piercing scream.
"Can't you even help yourself?" The voice answered in sardonically as he pulled the shadow off of Malik and then picked up the hikari and headed upstairs. Upon arriving there he tossed the Egyptian into the room and grabbed the necklace from the floor.
"Yami, what are you doing? Stay here and protect us." Ryou called after him, but was shoved back by his yami who looked for some kind of weapon in his room.
"No, I will deal with these things. After all, they are here for me." Bakura mumbled after finding a sharp dagger. "Ryou, if anything ever happens to me be strong. I was hard on you because I wanted you to be independent. I do care for you, but Mariku is the one I must find."
Ryou felt wetness rolling down his face, as he knew that his yami was leaving him. "Wait, I still need you. Don't do this to me." The hikari put his arms around his yami who hugged him back.
"I am your shadow and still have that yami connection with you. You will always be there in my mind, but my time has come. That strange sickness I came down with is because…I am one of them now. There is something that I need to exist."
"Why did you lie to me?" Ryou held him close.
"Because I didn't want to scare you. I also didn't want to accept it." Bakura answered and then saw another shadow by Malik, but he couldn't make out who it was. He gently pushed the crying Ryou away and disappeared downstairs.
The shadows saw the dark spirit and immediately attacked him. Bakura let them he didn't care anymore. He wanted to be with Mariku and that's all that mattered to him. He felt the mark on his wrist vibrating some more as he slowly placed the necklace around his neck. A luminous light surrounded his body which caused the silhouettes to scatter as he felt his mind evaporate into the darkness.
"Its about time. You put it on. I have been waiting for three days." The other spirit answered as he slowly embraced the tomb robber.
"I didn't know I would be feeling this weak and you are the cause for it. Mariku, you didn't have to make me have all of those nightmares." Bakura sneered looking at his surroundings. "We are in a cave. Couldn't you choose something more interesting?"
" I guess I could if I wanted to, but I have to live up to my tendencies of giving anyone fear even if he is my own lover." Mariku replied in a cocky tone, tossing his cloak on the floor.
He then snapped his fingers making the realm turn into a palace of marble flooring and fancy candle lighting not to mention a waterbed.
"I should have known." Bakura sighed as he sat down on the layers of blanket that were scattered on the waterbed. "Why did the shadows come towards my place? I really don't know."
"Because we broke the rules and they wanted to devour you. You see technically vampires are not supposed to fall for humans or have sex with them for that matter." Mariku glanced at the blood on Bakura's fist and decided to lick it off for him.
"That is where the gruesome stuff of killing people comes in handy, doesn't it? So, how come you weren't punished then?" Bakura eyed him suspiciously with desire as he noticed the yami licking his wrist that bared the symbol of the vampire.
"I was tortured and part of it was to never see you again unless you put on the necklace. The spirits interfered from the shadow realm after Serpentus poisoned me so the darkness of the realm began to spread into the real world and it couldn't be stopped because I am the only one who can control the realm of darkness."
"So if I were to take it off. Would I have been able to see you then?" Bakura challenged as he decided to lie down on Mariku's purple cloak (that he had placed on the bed) that felt warm and comfortable to his touch.
"Yes, because you are protected by it and sacrificed yourself to save your hikari. The shadows would have killed him also because he was the one who put it on. It is forbidden for mortals to put on a sacred vampire necklace without being punished."
"I saved Malik also." Yami Bakura retorted as he pulled of Yami Malik's shirt to look at his tan, sleek body.
"No, I did, you just thought you did because you couldn't see me directly." Yami Malik chuckled. "You are dead just like me now."
"I am a shadow of the night like you now? But how?" Yami Bakura didn't realize that the images from the necklace were real when he saw them in Ryou's mind.
"Intimacy is the key word. Yes, you now know the vampires' true name now through the necklace." The spirit lay down next to his lover who was still in his towel, but didn't seem to notice.
Yami Bakura gazed at the sun in the sky through an open hole in the cave as it was setting in the distance. He never imagined that he would have to live a life of darkness and it would be hard for him because he was used to the sun. Still his one question that he had been wanting to ask Mariku since the night they spent time together had reached him.
"If vampires like to kill people and thrive on their blood then how come you didn't kill me when you had the chance in the alley when you defeated me?"
Mariku gazed at Bakura for a long moment before he sat up and curled himself against the other yami's chest. He wanted to avoid the question because he was afraid of the answer sounding offensive, but he decided to tell him since it would be better to get it off his chest.
"To tell you the truth I wanted to kill you since we had dueled on the Battle City Blimp, but that rematch I decided to use a technique that only yami's would know. I defeated you, but then my vampire blood wanted something else. I ignored it, but it was too strong. It was quite obvious that I was looking for a mate."
"What?" Bakura tried to turn away from him in embarrassment not liking the fact that he could have been used like a toy.
"Akura, don't worry about it. It was destiny that brought you to me. It was not a mistake. If any of it was then we would have killed each other a long time ago." Mariku tried to reason with him by placing a hand on his shoulder his claws accidentally scraping at his skin.
"It's just painful to think that because you are a vampire you were looking for someone, but what if you were still human then would you have killed me?" Bakura watched Mariku slip his tongue along his shoulder as he placed his head by Mariku's chest.
"What do you mean?" Mariku asked as if confused by his lover's question of doubt. He pulled the other down on his cloak and began kissing him passionately. He placed the Millenium Rod off the bed and onto the floor as he did with the Millenium Ring.
Yami Bakura was still not sure. He had guessed that Yami Malik's reason for going after him was because of his vampire's urges of need. Perhaps the darkness of Malik had forgotten that he was still human. He wanted to know if the yami had any feelings for him as he one was.
"Does he only love me because he is a vampire? What if he is able to turn back? Will he reject me then?" Yami Bakura wondered as he pulled himself closer to Yami Malik's body feeling a breeze, but then covered by a blanket. He felt the pain entering his body again and hated feeling vulnerable, but didn't have enough strength to flip Yami Malik over.
The spirit of the ring had allowed himself to love, and be taken, but he was not going to face the fact if his lover only fell for him because of natural instincts of being a hybrid. He knew in his black heart that the true Yami Malik was a heartless, cold, emotionless spirit derived from the shadows that cared for nothing and no one. Maybe that was the side of Yami Malik he had missed out on. The cold murderous side, who had lust for power and delighted in causing pain. The one who had nearly stalked and killed him in the past. If Yami Malik ever turned on him then he would be forced to kill him.
Yami Malik was too busy loving the other yami to want to read his thoughts. He didn't care nor wanted to answer his questions. Being a hybrid gave him pleasure though there were disadvantages to it. He knew that he was never human, but only a spirit that at one time controlled Malik's body. He didn't care if he were to ever turn back because he was afraid that his feelings might change one he did.
"No matter what happened even if we were to be enemies again, the necklace if you still wear it will remind us of what we have." Yami Malik smirked as he watched his aching lover get on top of him.
"I feel like I've completed my mission. The Pharaoh is in the Shadow Realm and I have gotten my revenge, but then again I still haven't gotten all of the seven Millenium items." Bakura smirked darkly as he played with Mariku's hair while his other hand slipped to the tan skinned yami's lower body.
"What's the rush? You have all eternity to find them. In time you will, but I will one day create my own dark carnival." Mariku laughed feeling the other yami tickling him, kiss him violently and then make love to him.
"I guess, but I wanted to have the power of darkness." Yami Bakura sighed as his tongue played with his lover's until he fell asleep in Yami Malik's arms forcing himself to forget about the bad things in his mind that could break them apart from each other.
Epilogue
Ryou and Malik had gotten used to the fact that their own yamis wanted their own lives and stopped bothering them. They were never truly happier, but felt the burden was off them for a while until the yamis decide to attempt to rule or destroy the world again. The two lovers knew that their darker halves were no longer 'their' shadows, but individuals who thrived in the night and assassinated humans. They also decided to stop being outcast and officially joined Yugi's group despite their yami's unacceptance of it.
Six months later. A devastated Yugi had contacted Shadi of his yami's whereabouts and begged him to release him from the Shadow Realm. The Priest did so and once the Pharaoh was released his target was to get revenge for the one who put him in there. Yami Yugi found the two yamis whereabouts because of his lover's Kaiba's technology had lead him to where the yamis were hiding. The Pharaoh mind crushed both of them. By doing this Yami Malik's spell on him was lifted and the poison was driven out from his blood and so were the memories. His first enactment was he wanted nothing, but to destroy the world again. Yami Yugi tried to defeat him, but Yami Malik had grown more powerful so he had to rely on Yami Bakura's help who refused to help him at first until he saw what truly Yami Malik was.
Yami Bakura had realized that his lover had turned against him. He was taken back by this and heart broken as he knew he had to do away with him. The two Millenium Item holders declared a deadly Shadow Game where the darkness doesn't just disintegrate their bodies, but also takes away their strength and poisons them. It was a tie as the result. Neither of them could destroy the other because the necklace that Yami Bakura still wore around his neck reminded them of their love for the each other and memories, however, Yami Malik didn't realize it at the time and killed his lover.
Shadi appeared before Yami Malik (knowing he would try to bring him back by causing destruction) wanting Yami Bakura to stay dead, but Yami Malik threatened that he would go back to delivering the world into death and the only reason he had changed was because of the other spirit's influence. Shadi gave in after having the Millenium rod's dagger held to his throat and brought the other yami back.
After some time Yami Yugi finally accepted the two spirits to stay on earth, (because of Ryou's and Malik's begging) but they were to forever be imprisoned to the Millenium items that had accepted them as their master.
Overall the two yamis were free at last from the spell of being shadows of the nights (vampires.) They still had their desires, but agreed to do it together so they could cause chaos and a power struggle with the earth.
Well that is the end of this fic. Sorry if it sounded blah, but I couldn't think of anyway else to end it. I thank everyone who reviewed! And I hope some of you wonderful people someday can write a fan fic about the two darker halves of Malik and Ryou. Seriously there aren't enough of them Look for another fic coming soon.