(NOTE 3/8/06: Chapters have been restored to their original order! Assuming nothing ELSE goes wrong, here ya go!)
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...Okay, yes it was horrible of me to leave you guys with that cliffhanger.
(Authoress dodges flying objects)
STOP DOING THAT! I'M POSTING, I'M POSTING! Sheesh!
Disclaimer: Authoress does not own Yugioh, just the plot and other worthless made-up things like that
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He was lost, confused. Where was he? What was he supposed to be doing here? It felt as if he already knew those answers…but if he could only just remember - !
"You really should have taken his advice and run, boy," said a voice.
Deep down, he shivered. There was something bad about this voice, he could tell even if all his memories were being blocked away. Weirdly, though, it felt like he was the one who had just spoken. His mouth had, anyway…
"Wha-what did you do to him!" some other voice demanded.
This one also made him feel bad. A different sort of bad, though. Instead of fear and disgust…it was guilt? Shame?
"I am the one my Lord sends to retrieve difficulties. He has been trying to incapacitate you for quite some time, boy…but someone kept protecting you. In secret, someone was continually ruining my Lord's schemes for you…and now he shall be the one to bring you in. Ironic, is it not?"
There was something else happening now…running, slashing. Then the running part stopped.
"Giving up already?" sneered the bad voice.
"No…because I know you can't hurt me," came the second voice.
"You will reconsider that in another second…"
"That's Yami's body, not yours. And you said it yourself, Yami is here to protect me from things like you."
'…I am…his…guardian?'
"Your sentiment is both foolish and foolhardy," sneered the first of the two voices, "As long as I am in control of this body, your friend the mage does not exist. Whatever might remain of his consciousness is no threat to me."
That last sentence made him start to feel mad. The two voices were talking about him, somehow he knew that, but the first voice was laughing.
He HATED being laughed at.
Something - a hand? - was curling into a shaking fist as the first voice continued laughing.
"Human, as amusing as this is, I must get to business. Will you give yourself up now? I will admit, I'm not certain if I can avoid killing you without having practiced this body's abilities…"
Whatever answer was given was not spoken aloud, and with the pain in his head he could not easily see anything.
"I suppose I can give you only a near-fatal injury," mused the fouler of the two voices, and he could feel it start moving, just the littlest tiniest bit…
…That was far enough. He was still mad. Plus, if he really was whoever-else-was-there's protector, he wasn't going to let anybody screw over his job.
One hand barely moved in the beginnings of a spell.
The fist uncurled and bared long needle claws, and by the very next instant had stabbed them into something soft and greasy.
It screamed.
Undaunted by the noise, he pulled. There was horrific pain until he heard something tear, something inside his own ear, and then -
Yami shredded the tentacle he had ripped out in half for good measure. By all the gods and all the hells he could think of, that hurt! And there was so much blood pouring out of his ear that it was impairing his hearing on that side.
"THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!" shrieked the Korikosos as the tendrils of its body not currently imbedded in Yami's other ear waved frantically, "NO ONE CAN DEFY MY CONTROL!"
"Shut up, worm dung," Yami growled, reaching over to free the rest of his head.
In a desperate act to save itself, the Korikosos wrapped its remaining appendages around Yami's wrists, shoving them away from its body.
What the evil blue slime creature didn't count on was a pair of smaller hands grabbing it instead. Yami blinked as he registered Yugi's actions.
"What -" he began.
"Sorry!" Yugi interrupted, before yanking on the imbedded tendril as hard as he could.
The Korikosos, already occupied with keeping Yami's claws off of itself, was unable to block Yugi's efforts in time. Fully aware this time, Yami grimaced as the Korikosos pulled apart parts of the inside of his ear as it was being removed. Now he was bleeding heavily from both ears, but Yami had other concerns to deal with first.
He grabbed for the Korikosos' large eyeball. The gross thing squirmed and tried to climb up the nearest wall and escape. Finally, Yami seized hold of the eye long enough to shoot a concentrated burst of dark magic through it.
The foul creature only had enough time for one panicked wail before its eyeball swelled up like a balloon, and then it popped open like a bag of overcooked popcorn.
And it didn't even smell as good as overcooked popcorn. The blue slime of the Korikosos' body turned a muddy brown color and crumbled into dust.
Yami felt pretty pleased with himself, especially since he hadn't actually know that blowing up the thing's eye would kill it. He had really only wanted to do something crippling and painful to the filthy beast. The fact that he killed it was just a bonus.
Maybe now he could take a break…even though he couldn't hear anything now, and his ears were still bleeding heavily…but still, nothing sounded nicer than lying down and taking a nice, long nap.
Yami was slumping against the wall before he realized he was going light-headed from blood loss. That was bad - one, because blood loss that bad in general tended to be life-threatening and therefore was vaguely undesirable, and two because if he passed out he would be leaving Yugi defenseless.
Speaking of the human, Yugi's face appeared in Yami's drowning field of vision, clearly saying something - even if Yami couldn't hear him - and looking extremely upset.
He glanced to the right when he spotted something flicker. Yami squinted. Was that something white? They were at the street now…
At this point, though, darkness overtook Yami's vision and he knew no more.