Blood Only Glows in the Dark Chapter 33: 33, a yu-gi-oh fanfic

Yet more of my story to go up on this here site...yep, I'm turning out to be a spewing fountain of creativity all of a sudden...

Yes, I know. Bad mental image for me too folks!

Disclaimer: Yugioh not owned by me

Claimer: Stuff I invented is mine

"You know what? The more I think about this, the more I don't get it. And now I'm really confused," Yugi mentioned, trailing in Yami's wake as the mage-demon stepped gingerly around in the poisoned room, looking for some sort of exit while hopefully avoiding any nasty surprises.

"Confused by what?" Yami asked, feeling curious - not to mention that having something to pass the time would be nice, as this room was far longer and wider than it really ought to be.

"The inside of the house was different than the last time any of us came here," Yugi said, "And the way the corridor looked, and this room too…I keep telling myself that 'its magic' and that makes sense, but it doesn't really seem to explain things to me very well…"

"Just that?"

Yugi blinked, thought a moment, then added, "Well, I wasn't going to bring it up before, but all the times I've seen you or Bakura do that healing magic stuff, it looked like it almost made things worse instead of better."

"Oh, that," Yami said, smiling a little at the question. Every apprentice and acolyte asked that one in some form, usually on the first day…

"Well, in the short form, there are several major varieties of magic, not just one big kind. The reason my magic hurts badly when it heals is because it's the wrong type to use for healing. That's primarily a 'Light' form of magic."

"…Then that means…oh! Ryou's got that, right? So if Ryou wanted to, could he heal people?" Yugi wondered.

"Easily, once he learns how…hold on," Yami paused as he changed the subject, holding out an arm to keep Yugi from stepping in front of him, "The poison is a little higher in this part of the room."

"I can see that," Yugi said nervously, inching back and away from the elevated section of the glowing red haze, "What is this stuff, anyway?"

"Wait here and I'll see if I can find out," Yami said, taking a quick couple of steps forward.

Behind him, Yami heard Yugi quietly exclaim "What? I thought he knew this stuff!" and laughed quietly to himself.

As it turned out, the haze only got a little bit higher, not high enough to pose Yugi a problem unless he sat on the ground. What was odd was how the glow was brighter in one patch, looking like a bright line in the dark room.

"I think I can hear water over here," Yugi said, once Yami waved him over.

"Okay, maybe it wasn't exactly water," Yugi added in disgust when they followed the sound to its source.

Against one wall of the room on this far side was a strange sort-of fountain, shaped like a large cauldron mounted on top of a fat cube base. Over the sides of the 'cauldron' part of the fountain were pouring streams of weird, blood-colored water. The way it stank, even to Yugi's nose, as well as the fact that it was steaming, letting off more hazy glowing gas every second, proved it wasn't truly blood at all.

After pouring out of the fountain, the glowing red water collected in a shallow trough which circled the base, before extending away into the depths of the room as the brightly-lit band Yami had seen earlier.

"Someone needs to hire a better interior decorator," Yugi said, trying to lighten the oppressive mood the red water fountain was giving the room.

It wasn't a great joke, but Yami forced a chuckle anyway. Then the sound of something bumping and rattling its way down a shaft drew their attention to the fountain - just as something fell out of a hole in the ceiling and landed in the fountain with a splash.

"Oh no!" Yugi exclaimed, "That looked like a person!"

"Oh no you don't," Yami snapped, grabbing Yugi as the boy impulsively tried to rush over and check, "That thing is covered in poisonous vapors - you'll choke to death in minutes."

"So what? You could fix me," Yugi grumbled.

"No I couldn't," Yami retorted.

"Huh? Why not?" the mortal blinked.

"Dark healing magic can only be used on beings who are also dark in nature or have dark magic," Yami explained, "The consequences of doing otherwise are…unpleasant. And you, Yugi, are not dark."

"…Oh. Okay," Yugi conceded, "Just be careful, then."

'…When did I agree to check on this?' Yami wondered as he made his way towards the fountain for a closer look.

Just finding a perch to look inside without touching the water was hard enough - Yami still had no idea what the stuff was, but didn't feel like taking his chances on physical contact with it - but the view inside was unpleasant enough that the mage-demon was quite glad Yugi couldn't get close enough to see.

"Well?" Yugi asked from where he stood, "Was I right? Is it a person?"

"Uh…" Yami hesitated, then went with the blunt truth.

"…It's half of a person - the top half, from what I can see."

"Who is it? Is it one of the others?"

Yugi sounded extremely worried…thankfully, Yami could easily put the boy's fears to rest right off the bat.

"No, it's an older man…middle-aged, with an ugly yellow mustache…he was quite obese as well, I think."

"Gross," Yugi said, "Do you at least know what this stuff is now?"

Slowly and carefully, Yami reached into to poke at the corpse. The thing bobbed in the red water, revealing how frighteningly quickly and evenly the body was dissolving.

"Its most likely some sort of poisonous acid," Yami finally declared, "Looks to be extremely potent…whatever you do, don't touch it."

"No problems there - hey, what's making that sound?" Yugi blinked.

'That sound' was the rattling noise coming from the overhead shaft as something fell down through towards the fountain. Belatedly recalling how big a splash the last corpse had made, Yami sprang away from the fountain seconds before something - the bottom half of a human this time - landed inside it, splattering drops of the red water/acid all around.

Yami moved to shield his face with his arms on instinct, only to feel some of the drops land on his arm. Feeling with horrible clarity exactly how the acid was starting to delve greedily into the flesh of his wrist, Yami blasted the liquid droplets instantaneously into gas with a flash of magic, distantly hearing himself give an undignified yowl of pain without caring.

Even though it had been cleansed in such a timely fashion, the acid-burnt wrist ached awfully. The marks the acid had left looked like they would scar, even against magic - this was incredibly dangerous stuff here.

At least Yugi was both sensible to understand that Yami was in no mood for annoying pleasantries (was he all right? Oh, sure, fine, except for the fact that his ARM felt like it was on FIRE) as well as fortunate enough to have a bit of something to wrap around the throbbing wound.

They moved well away from the fountain after that.