Blood Only Glows in the Dark Chapter 5: 5, a yu-gi-oh fanfic

(NOTE 3/8/06: Chapters have been restored to their original order! Assuming nothing ELSE goes wrong, here ya go!)

Am so happy people like my fic.

Oh, and in case anyone noticed, this fic is no longer rated R. I looked it over again and realized I rated it too high. At least for right now...maybe later I'll kick the rating back up a notch or two...

Disclaimer: Nothing not invented by me is owned by me. Did that make sense?

He grumbled as he wiped his hands off on a tree. That had been a messy one, and the one thing Yami disliked the most was having to rush a job because the rushed ones always ended up messy like this.

'At least it looks like something besides a transfer high school student killed them,' he thought to himself before taking off, wanting to be far away before anyone spotted the corpses.

He supposed he might have been going a little overboard, but the world was that much better off with those three dead. But now he had to make certain the boy wasn't being attacked or kidnapped while he'd been having his fun. Yami hesitated for a fraction of a second when he realized he still reeked of blood, but he shrugged the notion off.

'I'm not supposed to be close enough for him to find me with a pathetic human nose anyway.'

Yami stopped at the boy's home to check first and spotted him, his two human friends and the girl walking away. He followed, leaping from rooftop to rooftop as he paced the group, wondering where they might be going to.

"I dunno, Anzu," the blond human was saying, "You want us ta come wit ya so ya can buy some flowers?"

"I just want some outside opinions on it," she said, "This is what I'm going to raise for the Flower Show."

"That's months away!"

"I guess its better to get started on something like this as soon as possible, right guys?"

Yami sighed to himself as he heard the boy defending the girl. If she actually participated in something as wimpy-sounding as that, Yami thought, he'd eat his left boot.

They made it to the Flower Store and Yami perched out of sight just outside it. The 'store' was actually a block of canopy-tents with plants under them, and a clear tent in the back with more. It would have been possible for him to sneak into this place, like he could into most other places, but plants, like animals, posed a creature such as Yami a problem.

They could sense things that were 'evil' or 'supernatural', both categories he could easily fit into. The plants would give away any hiding place he might find. So Yami settled for a decent watching post just down the street.

While he watched the assorted humans gushing over their plants, Yami once again let himself wonder what was so special about the boy under his oblivious protection. Yugi seemed normal enough, though he was actually rather attractive for a human - Yami felt some heat rising in his cheeks as he thought that - so it had to be something else.

'Hmm…he's the key to a great power…that's what that man said…but Yugi doesn't have any magic worth taking - certainly no more than any other regular human.'

The boy in question was pointing out some flowers in a sickening shade of florescent orange, and the others were pretending to be interested - the girl even picked a few out to take with her.

Suddenly, everything seemed to grow heavy. Yami's senses swirled before he figured out what was causing that effect - the force of a spell being cast, and a really powerful one too.

Shaking off any lingering dizziness, Yami sprung to his feet and tried to pinpoint the source. He spotted a figure in the shadows of a nearby building, but the person vanished even as Yami watched him. Human screams redirected his attention back to the Flower Shop.

"What in the heck IS that?"

"Help! Mutant plants on the loose!"

The plants hit with the spell were growing and moving, and all of them were vicious. A few humans cried out as vines encircled around their waists and lifted them over ever-increasing toothy maws.

Some ran. Others tried, as foolish as it was for humans to do so, to yank down the vines and free the captured ones. One of those humans captured was the blond friend of the boy, who had gotten into this mess as he tried to free one of the other captured humans by grabbing onto the vine, only to find another wrapping itself around his leg. The boy himself was risking his safety in the exact same way in hopes of a more successful rescue.

Cursing everything he could think of Yami got as close as he could to the chaos and flung some of his magic from his fingertips, the bolts becoming dangerously sharp blades that pierced anything they were aimed at.

All the humans saw of it were that some of the vines broke, sending anything in them to the dirt. A few humans working together managed to rip off another vine and freed the boy.

During all this, another plant, one that looked like a spike-covered and green-colored human finger, swelled up like a balloon before exploding into dozens of smaller creatures that looked like wolves made from leaves and twigs.

These beasts tore after the humans in the area, a few of them actually running down one like a cheetah catching a gazelle. Yami let loose another magic blast at one of the beasts - it burst into flames and died, but it didn't help the human's chances at all.

'Dammit! What are those things being controlled from?'

A new power signature appeared to Yami's senses - he tracked it instantly to the girl. She was around some plants at the very edge of the store and he managed to hear what she was saying -

"It's amazing how much stronger I am! That brat's definitely good for something…"

Then the plants she was next to grew into giant flesh-eaters like the first wave had been. Yami was confused.

"That boy is…what?"

'No time to worry about things like that,' he realized. 'I have to find out where those beasts are getting controlled and get rid of it if I want this to end well.'

As he was thinking this, Yami leapt into the chaos of the store and darted around, avoiding humans and plants as best he could while he tried to figure it out.

Meanwhile, the human's reinforcements had arrived - 'Fire-men'. They used axes on the beasts and that actually seemed to work. Until more beasts showed up.

The 'Fire-men' used high-pressured water hoses to drive the things backwards but it was a losing strategy. And the humans still in the shop were very vulnerable.

"Dammit! Where are all these -" he paused to blow an attacking beast in half - "Things coming from! There's more of them then there was before!"

"Dat ting keeps spitting out more monstas, we're toast if we stay over dere!"

The blond and the brunette rushed past, dragging their smaller friend to safety. None of them noticed Yami, who gave them only one glance to make certain they were alright before rushing in the direction they were coming from.

'Of all the cases of sheer dumb luck…'

The trail lead him back to the exploded plant that had released the beasts in the first place. It was still intact, draped with empty fibrous sacks along its outside.

The top was a stem supporting a huge open blossom that kept spurting out globs of a sickly-greenish-colored mass. The mass solidified into one or two beasts every time.

Yami grabbed the stem, and focused his magic straight into it. His type of power was drawn from the forces of death and destruction, which the living plant-monster couldn't handle being pumped into itself for long.

It spurted out one more beast - one that was very thorny and all black - before bursting into flames.

The effect was instantaneous - all the beasts howled once and went berserk, going after the other mutant plants and each other instead of the humans.

Those that didn't tear each other apart were easily taken care of by the 'Fire-men', and four or three bolted into the rest of the city.

Those were harmless now, and Yami had a satisfied smirk on his face as he sought the peace and quiet of the nearest roof. Barely hesitating to get his bearings and his breath, he went in search of his charge.

'So, are these your 'Strange Occurrences', Shaddu?'