Psychopathology: The study of psychopathic disorders, which are marked by aggressive, violent, antisocial thought and behavior and a lack of remorse or empathy.
He was hunting. His prey had run away and he didn't know where they were, so he was looking through where the blimp had landed. He could feel their bodies, but their minds were far, far away.
He had to find them. And maybe find more prey as well.
He wandered through the corridors of this strange place they had landed in. It was cold and metallic, filled with computers.
But no prey. He growled, his blond hair whipping about his face as hecontinued to wander though the metal hallways. He had no real path, no direction, except for the feeling that prey was here, somewhere, just out of reach.
He almost paused when he met the robot guards, thinking they might be prey, but they had no soul. Nothing to torture, nothing to destroy.
He got destroyed them after their pathetic attempt to stop him. These foolish things would never be able to stop him, so he blew them up for trying.
And still no prey, damn it!
He came upon a door, much like the others in this place, and paused. Here was prey, a soul. Something to destroy. He could feel it. Maybe the ones he hunted?
But no. The only thing in this room was another large computer, with a man on the screen.
The man was rugged, with a harsh professionalism and a half-hidden cruelty. He was handsome with neatly combed steel gray hair and a pressed red suit.
Yami no Malik looked at the person on the screen in confusion. Was this prey? There was a soul somewhere in here. It wasn't one that he was hunting, but he wasn't one to turn down prey when he found it.
But this one didn't feel like prey. True, he was just an image on a computer screen, but Yami no Malik could feel a soul behind it, somewhere. And that soul felt like… himself.
He cocked his head in confusion. How could there be another like him? He was him and no one else was.
"Who are you?" The one in the computer asked. Yami no Malik started to smile, his head still on one side. He looked the image in the eye and began to laugh.
"Who are you?" He asked, a harsh mockery of other man's (because it was a man – only something alive something human, could feel such lovely hate and malice) words.
"Answer me first."
"Why should I? Why shouldn't you answer me? Tell me," He purred. "Who are you?"
The man on the screen scowled, but then smirked. "Does it matter?"
Yami no Malik barked out a short laugh. "No, no it doesn't. Besides, I can tell." He tilted his head and stared at the man intently. "You're connected to Kaiba… Ah. You must be the stepfather. I've heard about you." He laughed at the man's curious, but guarded expression. "Oh, your precious stepsons have said nothing about you. But I've heard it in their actions. How the older tightens his fists at the slightest mention of you, how the younger always flinches. What did you do them, I wonder?"
The other man didn't answer, just stared at him with increasingly hard eyes. Yami no Malik laughed again. He watched the man's face, looking for a response. Hate, malice, but not a drop of remorse. Whatever he had done to his stepsons, he didn't regret. Yami no Malik smiled widely.
"Ah, whatever you did, you don't regret it, do you? Oh, how cruel of you." He smiled. "But I like that."
For the first time in the conversation, Gozaburo (For that is who it was) smiled. "You're the same way."
Yami no Malik's smile widened. "Isn't every one? Only they hide it, conceal it." He paused in thought. "I've never found out why."
The other man frowned. He began to pace on the screen, as if about to begin a great speech.
"You see, it's simple. They're afraid. They say they want power, but they're too afraid to grasp it, too afraid to take the measures needed. So they find 'important' reasons not too, such as loyalty, morals," He snorted. "And love. They are only weak fools and-"
"They will be crushed." Yami no Malik finished. Gozaburo smiled a mockery of the smile of a master whose pupil is finally learning.
The two shared a smile. Yami no Malik sat down, cross-legged on the floor. "It's so hard to find a mortal who understands." He said.
Gozaburo chuckled, as if he found Yami no Malik insane but amusing. "Mortal? And what are you, if not mortal? Since you seem to hold them in such distain."
Yami no Malik chortled, smiling widely. "I'm the darkness and the nightmares that haunt the bravest of men and make them shake in fear." He stood looking intently at Gozaburo's face "And what about you? You're human, but you live in metal. What are you?" He titled his head.
Gozaburo smiled coldly. "I was human. But them I died, but I had put my mind here. As long as this computer exists, so will I. I am immortal." He finished with a flourish.
"Immortal? But I could kill you now. Just destroy this," Yami no Malik gestured to the computer "And you would die. That's not very immortal."
Gozaburo scowled, but said nothing.
"What, don't like hearing flaws in your plan? Maybe that's why your stepsons hate you. You don't like being wrong and neither do they." Yami no Malik smiled, mocking. "That's why you pushed them down, tried to destroy them. You can't stand having your power threatened."
"They had no right to question me." He said in anger. "I took them in, knowing that I could make them into what I wanted. And I did. I made Seto into the perfect pawn, the perfect replacement. He was ruthless, cold enough to use his own brother that loved him, and full of enough hate to stop at nothing to kill me. I don't know what happened to him," His eyes seemed to glowing, he was so angered. "But the…weakling he is now is not what I created."
Yami no Malik, frowned, almost confused. "You adopted him knowing he would kill you someday? Why?"
Gozaburo laughed, a harsh sound that could chill the bones of most men, but Yami no Malik, the only one that heard almost purred, the sound so much like his own laugh.
"Yes, I knew he would kill me. My training of him would be useless if he had not been at lest capable of that. Why would I want a successor who would was that weak?"
"True, but why have a successor at all? If you could become almost immortal like this, then why pass on your power?" Even though he was something that was a mundane as a businessman, Yami no Malik was impressed by how the man operated, acting as cruelly and evilly as Yami no Malik himself.
"Even with this, there was still a chance that I could die. And a like minded pawn is always useful."
"But you knew he would try to take over your company, and he likely would succeed. Then why train him? A weak, fearful pawn is just as useful as a likeminded one."
Gozaburo smiled – it was an empty smile, with no real joy or happiness, only a sort a satisfaction. "But I knew he would continue business as I did. He would deal with the same ruthlessness and skill that I did." He smirked. "He still doesn't understand why I laughed as I fell, or why I didn't fight."
"Why did you?"
"Because he had finally done what he had sworn not to do. He had become like me."
Yami no Malik tilted his head. "He was like you? He isn't now."
Gozaburo scowled. "As I said, that weakling is not what I created. He was perfect. Now? He's just another sentimental fool."
"So," Yami no Malik purred, finally understanding. "You don't care if you die, as long as your company was run as you wanted. And how was your company run?"
"The only way to run a company. Ruthlessly, with no mercy for enemies or anyone in my path. But there was more to why I made him the way I did."
"What do you mean?"
Gozaburo laughed. "He and I fought for as long as he was my son. We were enemies and we both knew it. I wanted him to be like me. He didn't want to, and fought to stay…soft. But what he didn't realize until later, was that soon he was giving up parts of his soul just to survive. I made sure of that. He was, in the end, like me. I had won."
Yami no Malik smiled, understanding. "I see. You don't care about what happens to your company, really. You just want to win."
Gozaburo laughed. "And I did. He is me."
Yami no Malik joined in his laughter for a moment, but then stopped, smiling maliciously. "Was. You said that he is different now, not what you made. So obviously you must have failed somehow. I wonder how?" He smiled again, mocking and cruel, just to anger the other. He liked doing that.
Gozaburo snarled. "You mock things that you have never even attempted."
Yami no Malik leaned forward close to the screen. "I don't need to. Soon, I will have the world and it will be covered in my darkness. All will be my servants, and I will be immortal." His face showed his madness, one that almost frightened even as it intrigued. "Won't we have fun?"
The other man was silent, seeming disturbed for the first time in the conversation.
"What, scared?" The yami mocked. "I know we're not that different."
"Oh, really?"
Yami no Malik smiled and leaned forward more. Warm breath ghosted over the computer screen. "You're so cruel and selfish and evil, just like me." He moved closer. "I like you."
A brief brush of lips against the screen, and Yami no Malik turned to leave. He still had his other prey to find, after all.
"Bye bye."
(0)
Gozaburo's character is wonky, Yami no Malik's character is wonky...
Ra, this one doesn't like me. Probably mad at me for leaving it alone for so long. It's an old project that I finally got around to finishing. Oh well. 'Tis a new pairing.