Notes: Hi there, fellow fanfic readers/writers! I've just labored over the creation of a joint fanfiction site I'm working on with another writer by the name of Completed Irony.So, I'd really appreciate it if you guys would take maybe a couple of moments to check it out. (Please sign the guestbook!) It's still in the stage where everything's being uploaded so check back every once in a while for more stuff. So, that was my website plug.
And this chapter...Oh boy, what can I say. It's just so easy to slip into the world Yuugi and Yami are in. Maybe that's why there are so many stories out there on this series. I just want to say that this chapter was hard to write, to bring the right point and feeling across so I hope I've done that. And just as a heads-up, there's a couple more chapters left after this one and then, that's it.
So, I hope you enjoy!
CH 10 Two Sides of a Heart
In the light of the receeding darkness, Mokuba's frown looked monstrous. His gaze raked over the subjects and halted on the monitors.
Everything seemed to be going well; the group was sufficiently infused with the illusion and battling it out, to the best of his knowledge. But still, something nagged at the back of Mokuba's mind.
He continued his assessment of the program. Mokuba's brother and his boyfriend were against the far wall, attached to a single machine that read their life-signs.
All the other couples were attached to shared machines as well. This allowed their consciousness to cross over into a double world, where anything could happen.
Heading all this, was Mokuba. He was directing the entire scheme: the place, the time, the beginning dialogue. It had taken considerable work to put this all together and he regarded the finished product was more than healthy pride.
A loud, piercing beep cut through the intense silence and reached his ears.
Immediately, the atmosphere changed. Mokuba's demeanor drastically altered from a self-assured one to the exact opposite.
He ran over to the monitor in question. Nothing, not anything, was supposed to happen. His visions of creating such a perfect environment went down in flames as worry flooded his mind. Mokuba could feel the panic edging in, trying to overtake his logic.
One of the machines had sent out a warning and Mokuba suddenly knew that his instincts had been confirmed.
Something was entirely wrong.
XXXXXXXXX
"I'm here for you, Yuugi!" Shouted a voice through the darkness, but the boy in question didn't even lift his head. He had long ago given up hope, and all the disembodied voices around him didn't reach his heart.
This voice, the sound of Yami through the silence, Yuugi knew it wasn't real. By now, he'd given up hope of his true love coming to save him. He had already accepted his fate, to dwell in this dark, pain be his life, until all eternity ended.
Yuugi suddenly felt so alone, so vulnerable. So, in pain. Bloody coughs racked through his body as he tried to sit up, and failed. He couldn't even lift his arms to try to ward of the blows anymore. The pain just kept coming, given endlessly by the black demons of his past.
Ironically, the most pain he felt, was from the memories each blow brought back to him.
A kick to his ribs...and he was transported back to a time when he had been alone, when all Yuugi had to enjoy was the cards in his deck and his imagination. Lonliness had seeped into his very bones and he always felt like he was about to break down.
That had been one of the most dark times in his life. Locked away in a world of unfeeling, uncaring souls, Yuugi had felt his own shrink a little more each day.
He had even contemplated ending his life, but had never had enough courage to carry out the task. Tears had obscued his vision everytime and not being able to see what he was doing, Yuugi had halted himself every time.
Dark days he had seen, then.
A sudden resounding slap to his head and he was sent spinning into an abiss filled with his worries about his friends. Blinking, he opened his eyes on a scene he wished he could forget.
Across from him stood Joey, yet he did not look as he usually did. His normally joyous and amused gaze was blank now, cruelly so, and Yuugi felt tears come to his eyes.
It had always hurt him and filled him with terrible guilt that he had not been able to stop his friends from getting involved in his affairs. It had not been their fault, their choice. Yet, Yuugi's friends had chosen to stay by his side.
Joey had risked his life, sacrificing his own freedom to save Yuugi, though in his heart, Yuugi knew he didn't deserve it. It was only luck that had allowed Joey to survive that day as well.
Yuugi felt a bone crack as an incredible force came down on his right arm and he couldn't hold back the cry of agony that escaped him. But the pain he felt now didn't even compare to the horrid feeling he experienced every time he thought back to his worst memories.
With a jerk, he was brought back to the day he had been ripped out of his body, leaving Yami alone. That had been the most terrifying experience he could imagine.
The comfort and warmth, the support and care, everything had had come to depend and live on from his Yami, that was gone. It was as if a piece of himself had been torn away as Valon's Seal took him away to a dark and terrible place, where the only sounds were the mad laughter of Dartz.
He had lived in such eternal darkenss and despair that Yuugi had been in disbelief when he had seen his Yami next. All the time spent alone in the darkness had made him question himself endlessly, until even the foundation of his sanity had begun to crumble.
With growing horror, and with every breaking pain in his broken body, Yuugi now felt his rationality slowly leave him once again.
XXXXXXXXX
Yami landed in the heavy, sifting sands once again, but this time, he didn't to get up. The terrible ache and strain that he'd put on his body had finally taken its toll and now his body refused to listen to his pleading calls.
It felt like an eternity since he'd last seen his precious light, and every second without him was a second more that something died inside Yami. Like the first sweet breath of air in the morning and the last exhale before sleep, Yuugi was his very reason for survival, the only one.
Without Yuugi by his side, Yami became a hollow body, devoid of all emotions and thoughts except for the ones associated with his one-track determination to find Yuugi again. Whether he liked it or not, Yami was totally, irresistably, consumingly, and unforgettably addicted to the most important person in the world to him: Yuugi.
Yuugi...Just the very name was enough to send shivers up and down his spine and his breathing to become erratic. Just the very thought was enough to send him wild with longing for the lithe form that was his hikari.
But right now, no matter what feelings were trying to make themselves known in his body and soul, Yami was trapped in a place of aching and anguish. He had been tormented relentlessly since he'd left the abandoned city a while back. The visions just kept coming...
Walking along a dark corridor, Yami kept his balance and sense of direction by pressing a hand against the damp wall. It was rough beneath his fingers and caught his skin in places painfully but he endured it; anything to get out of such ultimate finality as the dark provided.
Ahead of him, a small beam of light seemed to suddenly pierce the darkness and erupt all around him. With a mind-dizzying jolt, he was thrown head-first into a scene that to his eyes, had to be anything but truth.
Yuugi lay in front of him, lying broken on the ground, and a pleading look in his eyes. A voice that didn't sound like his echoed into his mind from somewhere far away.
Please...end it, it begged him. Yami couldn't do anything but stare motionless at the wraithlike figure of his light in front of him, an unreadable emotion in his eyes. I can't stand the pain...end it.
The voice called out to him again, but Yami's feet remained firmly planted on the ground and refused to take anymore steps closer. It seemed, subconsciously, he wouldn't, couldn't believe that what lay before him was the truth; the real form of the love of his life.
Somehow understanding, the vision before him was wiped away like sand on stone, and Yami was wrenching violently away again into the dark abiss.
He landed in a more familiar setting, and this was what began to scare Yami. Each vision was becoming more personal, as if it delved into his mind and searched for something to use against him.
Yami had no such defense against it, he could only try to overcome whatever it threw at him.
The room around him was his own. Glancing out the window, Yami could make out the rain against the pane and hear the steady pitter-patter as it hit the roof. He had the sensation that he'd been here before, that this scene had been played out some long time past.
A strange feeling seemed to gather itself in the back of his consciousness and bring itself forward, forcing itself passed his rationality and into his thoughts. More strongly now, Yami felt that this had happened a time before this one, that he's been here and done this another time.
It took a couple more silent minutes with the rain beating its constant reminder, but then it hit Yami like lightening. This was that night; the one he'd tried so hard to forget.
Why? It was the night that Yuugi had almost left forever, as broken and distraught as Yami himself had been.
Like a malicious beast, the memories descended and engulfed him, sending him reeling with a thousand emotions.
It was some time later that he emerged from another particular vision and memory and found himself back in the dry and sandy place where he'd started. Ironically, this was the one place he did not hate anymore, not like the others.
For this ghostly city from his past, it did not try to overpower him with his own existence; it just let him be, let him regain his breath before he was inevitably dragged off in another direction.
Yami didn't know how much more of this he could take.
When the pleading voice of his hikari called from the darkness, Yami could only feel anger stir in its depths, at his last sanctuary, and at the betraying injustice of it all. No doubt it was another of the horrible and never-ending visions come to plague him some more. Oh, how he now hated them and his helplessness in preventing them.
The anger brought fresh defiance to his mind and without another thought from his rationality, Yami stood up and ran.
He fled the warmth of the sun on his face and into the blue-tinted shadows of the shade. He left behind his emotion and feelings, left behind his memories. But try as he might, Yami couldn't leave behind his soul.
He ran in whatever direction his legs felt like taking him and until he felt ready to give out. He ran long, and hard, and thoughtlessly, for even one thought of Yuugi sent a painful jolt to his heart that pounded away at his sanity.
Much later, or so his already jumbled-up mind believed, he tried to catch his breath and forced himself upright by leaned against a brick wall he had found, rising from the ruins of someplace city. It seemed never-ending, and at that moment, Yami welcomed that. He was becoming more and more pessimistic by the minute, but couldn't summon the willpower to keep all the bad thoughts away.
A fist came out from his form and smashed against the wall he was leaning against, hard. It gave Yami a grim satisfaction, even though violence was beneath him; right now, the former pharaoh just didn't care, not in this situation; without his Yuugi.
His fist came crashing back down a second time, sending echoes of the destruction all up and down the street he was on; he must have hit the wall harder than he thought, for large chunks of brick began to crumble and fall to the ground when he pulled his hand away.
Yami hissed at the disstilled silence and turned his eyes downward, to that spot in the wall. And immediately blinked, to clear his head from any dillusions and blurred vision. But his eyes worked just fine and what Yami was seeing before him was real, as far as he could tell.
From the hole he had made in the wall, Yami could see a mist-like form seeping through. Yet he knew that there was nothing on the other side of this wall. He double-checked to be sure, glancing around the corner; the opposite site of the brick wall was just empty space, as he'd thought.
Yet, when Yami bent down and looked through the opening and passed the mist, he could see a blackness not unlike the vision darkness that overcame him just before he spiraled off into another memory. Unconsciously, he leaned forward until his nose was almost pressed against the rough-edged brick pieces sticking out from the wall.
It was then that he heard the voices from the other side.
XX
Yuugi had been slumped against the wall in a daze for the past ten minutes, too lost in his own thoughts to realize that the physical pain had temporarily stopped. It came in bursts and jolts that seemed to be weakening.
That didn't mean that they didn't cause considerable pain. On the contrary, the pauses only allowed Yuugi time to brace himself for the next kick or slam. To him, it was even worse than the continious attacks before. For then he had been resigned to his face; now Yuugi felt grudging hope flair every time pain didn't come for a couple more seconds.
Of course, his hopes were spectacularly dashed every time when the attacks came, sudden and intense. Yuugi could feel himself slipping away from his small body every horrible memory he relived, yet he tried to hang on as hard as he could.
Long ago, he had stopped trying to call his dark. Long ago, he had stopped waiting for a rescue from this pit of torture. And long ago, he had accepted that this was his fate, this was his life.
The pain stopped as abruptly as it began. Yuugi blinked in bewilderment and tried to look through the darkness, nothing. He tired to move his body, carefully flexing his joints, some movement there.
Inevitably hope flooded Yuugi's heart and he could feel himself losing the loaded pain he was feeling.
But then, a quick and precise kick directed at his stomach cut through all the rising emotion and sunk his soul back down into the pit from which it had come. The light left Yuugi's eyes and they became lifeless and dull once more.
Tears leaked out of the corner of his eyes, and while Yuugi would have liked to believe that it was only from the pain, he knew otherwise. These were the tears of final defeat, approaching and sure of its victory.
Yuugi felt it, consuming and easy and willing, the urge to just give up and let his self go where it will...It was becoming hard, so hard, to resist. With a final tear leaking down his already dirty and tear-stained cheeks, Yuugi closed his eyes and turned face upwards, wishing the world away.
XXXXXXXXX
A/N