Shadows That Bleed

by YamiYugiPuzzleshipper

Pure-Bloods are said to be myths, not even well-known within stories. "A specialized genetic coding of the moon and the dire," their spoken lore proclaims. They are creatures beyond the power of mortality, gifted by the gods themselves. Known as the Eternal Ones, their existence once extinguished, resurrection foretells a powerful omen.

46. Counsel

Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh

Update schedule: Every other day

Chapter Warnings: Mentions of Hallucinations, Mentions of Death, Slight Mentions of Lore/History, Yugi Being Bitter, Mentions of Murder, Mentions of Sacrifices, Mentions of War

The work log entry hasn't been posted just yet, but in one Atem is referred to as a Hound of Heaven. The explanation comes in this chapter why they have this name as well as the Pure-Bloods (but not the Eternal Ones because that comes later). Anyways, so, the mythology behind this is as explained, including the real life story about Theiss of Kaltenbrun in the middle ages who claimed he was a werewolf, a "Hound of God", who fought the devil during certain seasons to ensure a good harvest for the year.

Next chapter will definitely NOT be posted on time. I have some files and things to go through to figure out how I want to present some of the info in there before I do anything else with it. I thought the scene came up later than it does. So expect it about a week or two from this update.

On that note, beyond that, updates should even out again with part four.

Chapter XLVI: Counsel

Work Log Entry XLIV: March, 2004 (Part III)

March 24

The boss has decided that we shall drug "Atem" with nerve suppressants but perform the surgery while he is completely awake.

With drugs in his system, "Atem's" body reacts the same way as it would while asleep.

March 25

"Atem" is completely sober and we have begun the procedure.

The healing has not slowed even slightly. We suspect that this allows them to heal from life-threatening wounds without much trouble. It seems particularly focused in the head, unlike the hellhounds, where it is focused more prominently towards the neck.

This leaves us to question the sanity of the choice to recreate this creature.

March 26

None of the other wolves have progressed or fallen behind in their experiments. Lung power remains steady, heart rates remain constant, and the cellular evolution of their genes is unfaltering.

"Atem" is the only issue.

The silence beyond the clicking of his nails was horrifying for the white canine. Every breath he took seemed amplified within the darkness. And he had no idea what direction it was that he was truly going. He'd simply begun trotting and had not ceased his movements. But he had not come upon Slifer's altar for the dead and none of the tunnels stank fully of rot and decomposition. Perhaps he had come from the wrong tunnel and the area had been a deceptive angle, a hideous mimic of the one before it. He felt sick, his stomach hurting with despair, and he almost puked as he continued.

Morrigan had saved him. Slifer was somewhere within the tunnels. She could tell him if her sister was okay. He wanted to know that more than ever now. In the dark, in the quiet beyond his own movements, he could not think beyond this task.

He had to know if she was okay. He had to understand what had possessed her to intervene as she had. Would she not he punished for her actions?

She seemed to be the only one to truly care. She'd directly stood between him and a hunter. Granted, Obelisk had come to rescue him in the labs and had even agreed to become the pack's new beta, but he was a lycanthrope. Morrigan was a hellhound. And she had a son who he knew she had to have been interacting with on a more consistent basis than he himself crossed paths with Obelisk or Slifer or Ra.

To be so delicately laced between two entities as well as her own duties surely meant more of her care and desire and will of their safety than the others, yes? He shivered and lowered his head. The tunnels smelled of dirt and mold, sometimes of root rot and water which he could not pinpoint the location of. His nose detected nothing beyond this. He did not even smell bone or broken flesh or decay or metallic blood. He could not even detect the faintest hint of Slifer herself.

Where was he?

Had he hallucinated her actions?

Perhaps he was wrong and Morrigan had simply let him be shot in place of herself. Perhaps it was his punishment for such stupidity as to place himself in such a position. And, maybe, in all reality, this place before him was limbo. Perhaps limbo stretched around him in never-ending lengths which he could not hope to measure. And, because of his inability to fulfill the very role of his own creation, Yugi was trapped there rather than allowed passage to Paradise.

Yugi hated himself for a moment. How could he possibly be so foolish? The gods were treading within his life now. And he was making mistakes that even a five-month-old pup would know better than to make. His skin crawled, his fur shuddering along his flesh, and he felt dizzy and stupid all the same for it. He opened his jaws, then closed them again with a large inhale.

How could he be so foolish? How could he be so lost? Was it truly possible that the gods had seen it fit to allow his death and replacement? They would call the second Pure-Blood out and they would take his place. Yugi drew in a deep breath. Both relief and disgust filled him at the concept.

How expendable were they all? If he was meant to be Atem…how easily could they replace him with another? It shook him as he continued walking. His legs were beginning to feel the softest hints of strain. He was so tired. And his belly gurgled softly with the need of food. He licked his lips and closed his eyes for a moment, ears flicking about rapidly for noise.

Yet it was not with sound that she came to him. It was with absolute silence and deadly precision. Yugi had just barely opened his eyes in time to avoid collision with her. And, upon seeing her eyes, molten topaz gems which bore through the darkness in a glittering halo, he felt his legs tremble beneath him. The happiness and despair met him in equal fortitude.

Slifer, he gasped out.

She eyed him silently for a moment. Then she came forward. It took several minutes for his eyes to take in the details of her. She was slimmer then even before and her face somewhat sunken. Her fur seemed somewhat rugged and she appeared tired. Yet somehow she retained some ounce of magnificence, of majesty, which Yugi felt cowed before the sight of.

The she-wolf closed her eyes. You are foolish to do such things, she said in a gentle tone. As she opened her eyes again, she was tired rather than hateful. Yugi was so relieved that he could not suppress the tremble which came through him. You cannot live your life by the measurements of who remains in them at one given time, Yugi. It will destroy you.

Hearing his given name from her voice made him cry out. He shook and nearly collapsed, then breathed in roughly and struggled for coherent thought. Slifer, please, I…I need him. I need Yami here—w-with me. I don't… I can't do this without him.

Her eyes hardened, then softened once more. She came towards him again, pressing her nose to his forehead and then licking there. Then she sighed loudly and moved to press her nose into his cheek. The exhale was harsh and loud and Yugi nearly cringed away from it. It seemed almost to encompass the resolution of the entire world and the deaths of those to tread the path.

You must cease your searches for him.

Yugi pulled away from her. His teeth snapped sharply in the dark. His fur rose furiously. Rage, indignant and hot, coursed through him. He snarled low in his throat and curled his lips back fully. Fuck you, he spat. I'm not going to just stop looking for him because you think I should. You don't care anyways. None of you give a single shit about any of us!

Slifer looked at him with all the impatience of a mother ready to discipline a destructive child. She glared at him from the dark and her eyes were hateful for a moment. You do not know the pain that each of us feels when one of our own is determined dead for no other reason than we are not allowed to interfere to save them. You have no idea the lengths of which we have gone at one point or another to try to save them when we can hardly do so ourselves. She fell silent for a moment. We care. We cannot always prevent destruction and oftentimes our domains feed such despair which grips you. But we do care. And we love each of you.

What does a god know about love? Yugi spat. None of you have any idea what this…

I know much about love. As does Morrigan. Do you think she watches Valon so closely for the sake of sealing her lineage in this pathetic world? No, she cares for him in increments of which no mortal soul could ever understand. To put such feelings into words would be to insult them. She was spitting at him and he was disgusted to see her slather for a moment. Her rage was endless and her pain was lined with teeth ready to inflict merciless ache upon him as well. It does not matter. You are not to search for him any longer.

Why should you have the right to tell me that? Atem is more important than you, isn't he? And he can't function without his alpha. What is so hard to understand about—?

Do not think yourself above me, child. I shall prove you wrong within the heartbeat you cease to breathe. She bore her teeth for a moment. Then she flicked her ears back and watched him with cold eyes. You do not fully understand the truth of this situation. And for that I cannot fault you. The mortal mind was never to know these things. But I shall tell you what you wish to know as to my request. And that is simply this, Yugi.

He blinked and tilted his head, somewhat bewildered by her change of direction. Where was the ferocity? Had she truly become so worn and exhausted? His heart ached for her.

Events have come to pass. By their chain of effect, Yami shall be returned to you. She did nothing but watch him upon speaking of such matters. But Yugi felt as if his heart might explode or his brain burst with excitement. And the emotions which swept through him left him adrift. His mind was spiraling. But the goddess merely studied him. Her voice was so cold and calculated that it might have scared him another time. But now it simply made his heart pound and the words warmed him to points he thought he might burst into flame. Cease your search for him now, however. It will lead you only to madness and pain. You must give him the time to find you.

Yugi shivered. He wanted to ask for more details but Slifer turned from him. She began to lope ahead of him and the small wolf realized that to remain back there would be a mistake not easily rectified. She would surely leave him there to rot on his own. He followed her quickly, head spinning.

His stomach was in knots and his heart hurt from the rapid beat it had taken up. His eyes flickered about and the darkness seemed almost to subside with his growing happiness. He licked his lips, keeping pace a few steps behind the goddess.

She had said that he would find his way to him. But what did that mean for him in terms of his physical status? Would he be wounded as he had in his dream? Would he be half-dead? What if he made it back to him only to die right in front of his eyes?

Yugi was shaking again.

What state was he going to be in? What if he was dying or he was recovering or something? What if he was poisoned or he returned just long enough to die among the pack wolves?

He was breathing harder than ever.

What if he had amnesia? What if he had no idea who Yugi was or that he'd bitten him? What if he was under the impression of being completely human? What if his mind had regressed due to experiments being run on him and he thought he was a child instead? What if he was just so traumatized that the truth destroyed him? Or what if—?

If only you had the ability to worry about the others within your pack as you so clearly do him. The words were so cold and mocking that Yugi flinched behind her. But they became wistful along the edges as she continued. Then you might understand what we feel for each and every one of the wolves that pass or become wounded…

A part of him felt raw, exposed, and he licked his lips to bite away at the sensation. He was cold from the harsh edge of her tone, but it was more than simply being chastised which made him feel ashamed.

It was the truth of it.

He did not know the wolves within the pack. And all of this time he'd ordered them to search, he still did not know their names or anything about them. Since he'd announced Obelisk the new beta, he'd failed to give them more than a second glance upon telling them to patrol and search. And he'd grown even further enraged by it all because he'd known that none of them would come back with answers.

And that infuriated him to the point of absolute ignorance.

Shamefully, Yugi shivered and lowered his head. He needed to give them more. He needed to know more about them. He needed to figure out who was who and what they were all best at. Then he could find out strengths and weaknesses. And he could attempt to cater to their needs that way instead.

But what needs did they have?

So many of them simply seemed inclined to worship the ground he walked on. And that scared him more than even his growing lack of identity. Because, who was he if he was not Atem and who was Atem if he was not among the wolves? And who were the wolves Atem was meant to be amongst? Who were the wolves he was meant to save by declaring this war? And who were the ones who were meant to lay their lives down for his sake? Who were they? And who did they assume him to be?

He felt sick and small now. How stupid was he to think himself capable of such immense responsibility when he only seemed to find the ability to care for one person at a time now? He was so foolish. He was young and blind and foolish and stupid beyond his years.

I can believe that you care. I can even believe that Morrigan and Obelisk do as well. But Ra? She did this. She brought me and this second Pure-Blood into existence. And she allowed this entire thing to happen.

Slifer's ears flicked. Even the gods are capable of mistakes. You learn to judge some and forgive others. But such passing is not the right of you or any other mortal. She fell silent. I understand your outrage. I felt something very similar when the humans first began to experiment. And we all chose to have your existence become a truth. We all decided that we could not cease this battle without a warrior created to do so.

But the wolves said it was told in legends that Atem would come one day.

No, it was passed among them that when a time came in which the humans once again threatened them, a Pure-Blood would come into existence to end their suffering. The name Atem was announced upon your birth, when I myself spread it to the pack my daughter led. And from there the word has spread that Atem is the name of the wolf meant to save the lycanthropes and hellhounds alike from the very cusp of destruction.

He shivered. And how did you all come to the conclusion that one wolf would be enough?

We didn't. We knew one wolf alone was not capable. A second was born, the same day, the same hour, down to the very minute and perhaps even the same millisecond in time. And they were meant to be the foundation of what Atem himself could not do. What Atem could not face, this second Pure-Blood would.

There's a lot I can't face.

She narrowed her eyes. Then I suppose you must find that second Pure-Blood.

He was shaking. But it's not Yami.

Slifer's head turned and she looked over her shoulder at him. No, Yami is not the second Pure-Blood.

He felt his heart crumbling to fine red dust within his chest.

---

He tilted his head up and his skin felt stretched along his muscles. Exhausted, the small wolf trotted forward a few more steps and flattened his ears against his skull. He'd barely gotten into bed and slept for a couple of hours after forcing salmon and rice down his throat. It had tasted like dirt and sandpaper as he'd made himself eat it. And he'd narrowly managed not to alarm his mother and grandfather further with his state of well-being. Being drawn into Paradise only hours later did nothing to help him in the slightest.

He felt as if he could barely lift one paw after the other to continue walking. And his stomach was knotted as he forced himself to keep going. The trees gave way to the smallest of clearings, where the earth dipped just enough to give them a formation like a miniscule meadow. It made his skin crawl and Yugi glanced around for a moment. Since he'd originally been drawn into this place, he'd instinctively been walking.

The trees had looked like immense tombs, with towering crowns which rose high in the sky as it to offer it support. Yugi thought of thorns and needles and teeth that opened into gaping maws. They looked like silver scars against blue and black and the faintest gleam of a million stars and the brightest moon he'd ever seen. Yet the beauty of the surroundings did not calm him and his skin continued to crawl and his muscles ached as he kept moving.

He wondered at the absence of the other wolves. Where was Bakura? Where were the three wolves he had seen on the river banks? And the other wolves that had come to see the disturbance and witness the one they had all likely died for; where had they gone? Did any of them realize how weak he was compared to the ideas they must have held in their heads where he was concerned?

Take a seat.

Yugi blinked and looked up with wide eyes. His paws slowed and his fur rose and fell in a rapid wave of bristle. Then he lowered his head and continued forward until he was on the very outskirts of the small circle of a clearing. He took a seat there, ears pricked forward, eyes on them as he noticed their forms slinking out of the dark. It was Ra, Slifer and Obelisk. He wondered where Morrigan was, casting the smallest of glances about them. But he could catch no hint of anything beyond them. And he doubted the hellhound cared to come here to see him again.

We have come to hold counsel with you.

Yugi blinked and looked towards the golden-furred she-wolf. Her blue eyes were dark, glowing, and the way they stared into him made his heart race. Hatred sprung through him and he almost bore his teeth but remembered himself at the last second. He could not fight her. And especially not when there were two other gods to bear witness. They'd kill him before he could blink.

But the ferocity did not fade and so he was forced to pick a stone beneath their paws to stare at. The fact that it even existed above the inches of the snow made him curious. The sides were slick and there was only the smallest hint of its existence in dark gray stripped with blue and black, flecked with the softest touches of silver. Its shadow was harsh and inky, reminding him of the blood from the river and the way the darkness had been all-consuming.

Counsel? Why should I want counsel from you? he asked in a cynical voice, bristling faintly and shaking his head slowly in annoyance. His bitterness was harsh and cold in his gut and his blood was hot with anger. But he shook it away as he might the snowfall from the night before. Now wasn't the time to be angry.

There are things that you don't know. And things that Yami did not have the chance to tell you before you became separated as you were.

His fur rose into a bristle. He barely suppressed a snarl of outrage. Before Yami was separated from him? He hadn't been separated. He'd been basically almost killed. And Yugi wondered if he was even alive to begin with. When they said he'd be returned to him, did that even mean what he thought? It left so many possibilities of interpretation. It would be so easy for him to come to him half dead and bleeding and mortally wounded, ready to croak in front of him.

Being separated from him was the mildest way of interpreting the event. He bristled a bit more. Then he swallowed hard and kept his eyes trained on the rock. If he did not look at them, he would not want to attack them. And if he didn't try to attack them, he'd make it out of the dream alive.

Like what? Yugi inquired, though he thought his own voice sounded choked with anguish. What is there to tell me?

He told you what he knew of the Lunar Ascension. And for now that will have to suffice. You will come later to understand its full meaning, Slifer said now, taking a lead that was not properly hers to possess. Ra shot her a dirty, almost infuriated look that the red she-wolf ignored without a pause or the slightest touch of hesitation. Her eyes were on Yugi and he could feel them as a warmth, almost as if he had known them his whole life. It made him bristle somehow further. What we mean to speak to you about now is the Hounds of Heaven.

He blinked and his eyes flickered up to lock with hers. Beside her Obelisk closed his eyes and tilted his head as his back paw rose to scratch at his ear in a lazy motion. Ra, beside him, remained statuesque, a shadow with definition that looked almost lifeless against the moonlight.

Hounds of Heaven?

The second name of our species.

Yugi pricked his ears forward. The second name? Of all werewolves or just us…?

Only us, the Pure-Bloods. Slifer was silent for a long time. Then she looked towards Obelisk and Ra as if in askance before shaking herself out and stepping closer. We are the Hounds of Heaven, named for our ability to touch Paradise and return to the living when our wounds healed. Immortality gave us many names and two of them survived. Regardless, my purpose of explanation is that you wished to know more of your origins. And this is what you must come to know.

Yugi pricked his ears forward, eyes caught on hers. He could not immediately stop his surge of anger, nor the pain which came afterwards. It hurt him to notice it and his stomach ached as he watched her with growing bewilderment.

I remember reading something where werewolves were called the Hounds of God, he said slowly, eyes on her and ears flattening back. It was someone in Germany… He was old, completely elderly…Theiss of Kaltenbrun.

He was unsure where the words came from. Some darkened corner of his mind seemed to spit them forth, memories and half-formed ideas which crept from the subconscious. Was this the perfect recollection Yami had spoken of before? He supposed it must have been, because, had it not been, he would never have recalled.

Yes. A human who wished to become one of us. He made a story among the humans that the werewolves were used to fight the devil which plagues their religion. He claimed that they changed in order to fight witches, to protect the crops and make sure that none went hungry. Obelisk was scornful, his voice dropping with mockery, and his amber eyes were dark with disgust. He was seated with his tail stretched out behind him, his ears pricked forward and his head tipped towards him as he continued. Theiss of Kaltenbrun was desperate to escape his own age and mortality is as it implies. Death was behind him for months before he came upon the scheme of declaring himself a wolf.

Okay, but what does that have to do with us?

We, as the Hounds of Heaven, are gifted beyond what most wolves know. As we are, so are the Harbingers of Death. And behind them are the hellhounds which possess one or more of their strengths. The Hounds of Heaven were created to fight the Harbingers of Death. Between the two subspecies, there is a lot of pain and destruction that was wreaked. You must understand that while names are written by these, not all of us think in terms of these definitions.

Ra curled her lip back. Lycanthropes are just as capable of evil as the hellhound. And the hellhound can do just as much good as the lycanthrope. Identification does not define them. Remember that. Valon has proven himself to be more than what he seems as a Harbinger. And you have not even slightly scraped the potential of your strength as a Hound, Atem.

What are you talking about? What does that have to do with anything? Yugi demanded, voice growing hot with anger. I don't understand what you're talking about.

Forgive my sister, a new voice sneered. Yugi's head snapped around. The newcomer was lithe, lean, with a slight tuck to her underbelly and waist, her fur long and feathered gorgeously along her forelimbs. Her eyes were glittering red, like gems, but a pale green encircled the pupils and from there was a ringlet of harsh golden that drifted into red. But the shade of this discoloration made the red beyond this slightly pinkish in shade before solidifying to a ruby color. Her ears were larger, straighter, and her frame thinner than even Slifer's. She stood at the same height as the goddess of death, but her own muzzle was thicker, yet sharper, and Yugi thought of a coyote or a jackal with longer legs. She is quite foolish when it comes to the task of speaking with the living. She herself had for years cut existence from the wolves within your own world. She rests more than any of us.

I remember telling you to make yourself scarce—

She snorted loudly and the puff of her exhale was silver and glistening. When she pulled her lips back and pricked her ears, the sneer was oddly beautiful and somehow mesmerizing to behold. Yugi blinked and his eyes widened drastically. You are not Lupa, dear sister, however much you wish to pretend so. You are a fool to think that I should listen to you when you hold no power over me.

Obelisk was thoroughly amused when his sister bristled and snapped her jaws. But Slifer merely tilted her head and her lips seemed to pull back into a smirk or amusement. Ra snarled softly and the black she-wolf flicked an ear with a clearly dismissive expression.

The she-wolf had a coat of such blackness that Yugi almost did not recognize the soft touches of reddish brown which lay as her undercoat. She was cinnamon and fire beneath her guard hairs, with only the faintest touch of it along her jowls and the center of her throat. There the hair was just thin enough for him to catch a glimpse.

Hello again, Yugi. She sniffed loudly. Or perhaps you should hear your name as Atem? I do not know your preferences. Do you have one?

He was breathless for a moment. Y-Yugi… I prefer Yugi, he said softly, gently, confused. His eyes were wider than ever and he felt sick as he stared at her. T-thank you for…for helping me. You saved my life before.

She smiled at him, her eyes alight. Her tail tagged slowly from side to side, and Yugi could see that, like her son's, it was curved to the right in a permanent twist. It was slight and warm and looked so much more akin a dog that it was amazing to think she was even half wolf.

You are welcome, Yugi. She paused and her predominantly red eyes flickered to Ra, her expression dismissive. A sneer covered her face for a moment as she lowered her tail once more and wrinkled her lips back slightly. You, dear sister, need to learn to respect another's free will. Yugi does not understand and your impatience cannot lend the knowledge he needs. You have to remember that he is young. He is not used to this gift of immortality. He and Yami come from the same place. Is that not why you allowed him to bite Yugi in the first place? You could have easily prevented it.

Slifer closed her eyes and tipped her head to the side. Quarreling will get us nowhere. She was watching Yugi again when her eyes opened and she got up to pad a couple of steps closer to him. Her red fur was beautifully silver and gray and luminescent beneath the moonlight. Somehow Yugi thought she looked all the more powerful and ethereal for it. Morrigan is right. Ra does not mean to make you feel foolish but she has not been awake for long and her exile was self-inflicted. She sees things in a way of which you are infuriated and none of us fully agree upon.

What does that mean exactly?

It means that Ra may be powerful but she is not subtle. Nor does she mean to make you feel that she does not care. She does. But her love is jaded and she's not especially used to interaction with her children altogether. Obelisk and Slifer and I know more of the wolves and their lives than she herself does.

He bristled faintly. But she sees suffering as a measurement of how important someone is! he burst out. Nothing excuses that! Not an absence among the living or anything of the sort!

Morrigan stared at him for a long moment. Oh, dear Yugi, you are a new immortal, standing among ones that have existed since before time was truly a written concept and writing was drawing upon the walls of caves. Her eyes were somewhat pitying now. We all see suffering as a means of declaration of importance. If you do not suffer, you do not know of purpose. Purpose comes from the ability to persevere where you were not originally thought capable. It is the harsh reality of the gods. We are not able to completely immerse ourselves with living wolves. Nor can we fully expect you all to understand the lengths which we go to ensure at least one of you all survive.

He bristled. But she did not soften. Nor did she blink. Instead her red eyes were the pale reflection of wine, flat and tired, as she came closer to him. Yugi almost backed away but some part of him was too angry to assume the ability to move. So she was able to press her nose to his and pain crashed through him in a violent shudder.

He awoke to the sky still that same shade of silver-gray which came with the nighttime and snowfall. In the darkness of his room, only the faint illumination of the digital clock near him shone. There, in the shadows, he could only narrowly find the numbers to read early morning, hours past midnight. His entire body throbbed with the remnants of her forceful exile and his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth. He reached up to rub at his eyes with the palms of his hands and he ran his fingers through his hair.

If Morrigan was so willing to interfere with their lives to the point of saving him as Slifer and Obelisk already had, what did that mean of Ra? Was she so closed off from her own self-exile that she truly did not understand what her callousness might invoke in others? Did she truly not understand his anger towards her coldness? If she didn't, that was her own fault. She had done so to herself. And Yugi hated her all the more for it.

But how else was he meant to see her seemingly constant rejection? It seemed so hideously easy for her to cut herself away from them. And she did not appear to care beyond ensuring that the rest of the wolves survived. If he was so expendable then why should Morrigan and Slifer insist upon loving him? And what had she said about Yami?

That Ra had allowed Yami to bite him? That they were both unused to their immortality? But wasn't that impossible? Obelisk and Slifer had both said before that Yami was not the second Pure-Blood. They had not told him what class of lycanthrope he was, but they had made it clear that he was not the second wolf meant to be Atem.

His skin crawled.

But, regardless, what happened when Yugi and this other wolf became unnecessary? Would they kill them themselves? Would Ra and Slifer and Obelisk and Morrigan and the other hellhounds…would they destroy them? Would they prove themselves to be as merciless as humans viewed the species altogether? Werewolves and natural wolves alike were seen as monstrosities. Would they prove to him that the human half of them was truly superior in all manners?

Perhaps they wouldn't be able to kill them. And then what? Would it become as Fenrir was in mythology? Would they tie him up and bind him purposefully with the declaration that he should never be released? And would he simply rot there? Would the hunger destroy him? Or would they finally resort to the attempt of killing each other?

Yugi was breathing hard.

What part of him would exist when that happened? Would he truly be Atem by then or just as useless as he was now as Yugi? Was there even the slightest hint of the power within him that they claimed Atem possessed?

Was he wrong? Were they all so completely wrong?

---

Yugi forced himself to swallow the bite of food lying on his tongue. He was tired but so hungry that it amazed him he could even sit there and look at them. The dizziness was dancing in his peripheral and he was so bewildered by the very fact that he even remained there at the moment. But he propped his elbow on the table and watched them as they all finished off their own food and Honda sipped loudly on his soda and Jonouchi burped and nodded in approval. Anzu wrinkled her nose at the blond and watched Yugi with concern clear in her azure eyes.

"Do werewolves not eat that much?" Jonouchi asked skeptically, looking at him when Yugi nibbled on his sandwich again and blinked wide eyes. "I mean, you're barely touching your food. And you invited us, remember?"

He frowned and took a larger bite to stall for a moment. He didn't want to point out that he hadn't spoken to them since Yami had gone missing. Or at least he had not in more than a few brief sentences when he saw them at school upon deciding that it was important enough to attend. He bristled and his skin crawled and Yugi chewed carefully as he debated his words.

Whereas Anzu would usually nudge him in the ribs and point out how rude he was being, her own curiosity held her in a vice grip. So she did nothing more than stare at him in question, as concerned and bewildered as Jonouchi was.

Only Honda had the decency to look slightly flustered by his friend's lack of tact. Yugi almost smiled at the way he glanced at his best friend and then the small teen and ducked his head to rub at the back of his neck awkwardly.

"You're right. I'm just… I'm not doing so hot with keeping up with meals," he admitted softly. "And I can't eat all that much at one time or else I might end up puking. So I'm really trying my hardest not to eat too fast or too much and save myself the embarrassment."

"What happened? Why aren't you eating properly?" Anzu asked softly, voice gentle and concerned. Yugi blinked at her and looked away. But Honda and Jonouchi stared at him in bewilderment, both of them wondering how it was that his mom had even let him leave the house.

"I don't want to talk about it." He cleared his throat awkwardly and the lump that had formed there was harsh and swollen. "It doesn't… It matters. But it doesn't concern you guys so…"

Both of them swapped looks and then glanced at Yugi with concern clear in their eyes. Not one of them had the heart to push for more answers, however so each of them fell silent and glanced at each other once more. Then, collectively, they turned to their drinks and took sips or played with their phones after digging them from their jacket pockets.

He felt his skin prickle, his relief immense as he looked at them again. "Well, anyways, I haven't really spent time with you guys recently so I… Want to go to the arcade after this? Or the park or something?"

"Dude, totally the arcade. The park is boring," Jonouchi snorted loudly. He took a long drink of soda and Yugi listened to the way the bubbles rushed up along the sides of the straw with the disturbance. He watched the way the ice clinked against each other and the soda began to chip away at the cold exterior. The bubbles fizzled and then burst, small droplets of spray rising up and over the rim of the tall glass. It made his skin crawl for a moment. He felt sick. Did blood do that from gaping wounds? Had Yami's blood ever done that before?

He was dizzy for only a moment. Then he shook it off as quickly as he could manage. His smile was strained and his mouth felt sharp as if teeth were digging through the muscles. He wondered if his lips quivered beneath the ache.

"Yeah, the arcade is better."

There was more noise and maybe the games would distract him some. That might help him a lot if he did that. That would help keep his mind from circling back endlessly to Yami. Maybe the games would keep him from wondering even more than ever.

"Then eat up and we'll head there."

Yugi resisted the urge to swallow hard. Instead he grabbed his sandwich again, taking enough of a bite that it would keep then from thinking too hard about his lack of enthusiasm. His appetite was so far dwindled that Yugi could not think straight.

It took several long minutes to finish eating, his stomach aching from the new sensation of fullness. He'd neglected feeding himself for what felt like years. And his stomach threatened to rebel against his choice to eat then. But he shook it off and walked as quickly as he could with them to get to the arcade. The walk was so simple that it almost had enough strength to ease the tension from his body.

A few children were playing in the snow further down the street. They had dressed themselves to the extent of almost looking like large, colorful marshmallows and it made Yugi blink in surprise. Snowballs collided with other kids and burst, dropping into the snow again. They played as if the world held no sense of danger or touch or disappointment to be beheld. And he hated them for it. He hated their laughter and their joyful faces. And he was disgusted with how their cheeks reddened and their eyes shone even from so far a distance from them.

He hated them. He wanted to show them the suffering that existed. He wanted to make them understand. They didn't know any extent of pain. It hurt to look at them and know that, while he and his friends might suffer, these kids were untouched, so innocent that the world saw them as nothing more than a distant distraction of youth. And, for the smallest second, he wished that he himself could go back to that. He wished with everything in him that the world would have allowed him to remain is such blissful ease.

When had he lost that naivety? He struggled for a moment, watching them. Had he ever truly possessed it? What it came down to was that, in all actuality, he was unable to recall it. When he'd been younger, he'd been chased by other kids and picked on for being smaller than them or having strange colored eyes. He didn't fully remember ever having absolute freedom from the entirety of such experiences. And it hurt to remember this, to actually think it over and see it in a new light.

Yugi shook it away. His eyes flickered and fell back on his friends. All three of them were feet ahead of him. When had he stopped walking? His skin crawled. He almost didn't recognize ever having done so. Still, he forced himself to move again though the urge to watch those kids again burned in the back of his mind. And he again desired to throw at them the harshness of the world, the way that death and illness and pain truly ruled it.

He kept his eyes on the back of Jonouchi's jacket, feeling sick for his anger. It caused him to bristle further and he was sickened with his growing disgust. It made his skin crawl for only a moment, but the bitterness was so close to the surface that it calmed his anger slightly. With frustration Yugi continued to walk, eyes narrowed slightly and his lips threatened to curl with anger.

"I'm totally going to win at that Kung fu game this time," Jonouchi said suddenly, startling Yugi who blinked wide eyes and stared at him in confusion. The blond tilted his head at his open bewilderment and the laughter left both Honda and Anzu's faces. They blinked at him, somewhat stunned by his confusion.

He blinked in response, then glanced at the arcade doors and back. "Kung fu game," he whispered under his breath, the statement inaudible to the others. Then he blinked again and smirked at Jonouchi with bright eyes. "Yeah, right."

All three of them still seemed troubled but the blond shook it off just enough to give him a smirk. "I'm totally going to beat you at it."

Somehow, from somewhere in the back of his mind, Yugi heard the whispered hiss of If Fuwa could do it, so can I. The effect of it was instant. The small teen felt sick to his stomach, his distracted mood becoming exceedingly sour.

But Jonouchi hadn't said that. And Yugi was well aware of it. It was his own nightmarish thoughts, sharp and dark, pushing upon him for attention. He hated it. He hated everything about it. And it made him further infuriated. Yugi hated himself somehow for it. And he glanced slightly towards the children where they ran with rosy cheeks and snow in their hair.

He wondered if he had eaten enough.

He couldn't truly remember ever coming to such anger without outside influence. And he wanted so much to take it out on the happiness they so effortlessly exuded. Whenever he had lost his temper it had been for more than just looking at someone and seeing something that made him envious. It had been actions and events which spurred his anger, stroked at his ire, pressed painfully until he felt suffocated with tension and need.

Maybe hunger made the wolf cranky. Maybe it made them violent. He supposed that would make sense considering what it was that Valon had said. Yami had even told him before that it made their minds unbalanced. But did it make them uncharacteristically angry like he thought he felt? Or did it just tend to push on the limits of their patience with certain things? His lack of answers was infuriating to him.

He wondered if the others sensed it, his sharp and abrupt discontent. Did they recognize it? Or were they actively trying to ignore it? Were they trying to convince themselves they were wrong? That he would never act in that way? His skin crawled with frustration. He would have loved this any other day. But now he could only find more anger to display.

Yugi forced it away, skin crawling and stomach curdling with pained tension. His heart felt shaky in his chest, but it stemmed more from grief than nerves now. And it hurt even more to feel such anger and revulsion towards children who had nothing to do with him. It all ached and burned in his veins and he felt dizzy and sick and childish and stupid.

He licked his lips, shaking his head slightly, and made his way quickly through the door. Inside the air was much warmer, to the point of suffocation. The lights bounced endlessly before his eyes, images moving with grace that made his head hurt. His neck ached brilliantly when he turned his head and the smell of sweat was stale and cold in his nostrils. A million different voices splashed in his ears, slithering and slipping in his head. It made his head spin and his stomach toss to smell the newest waves of fried food coming from the stand. Spilled soda was sticky and sugary, clogging his senses. And the heat in the large area made it feel claustrophobic for the moment.

The large rows of booths were filled with teenagers on the large seats, all of them laughing as they tried to beat high scores. The lights that reflected in front of their faces seemed to bounce off of their corneas and project further images into Yugi's eyes. They seemed to burn and dance and brand themselves in his mind, currents of pain and falsity. The talking was a huge, monotonous spout of noise, screaming and roaring in his ears. He blinked stupidly and looked up at one of the bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The way the light beamed down at him strained his eyes and his heart twisted and knotted and constricted painfully. He was exhausted now, stupefied somehow, and his body felt oddly cold.

It took them a few minutes to become situated comfortably enough to try conversing. Anzu looked especially worried, fidgeting, and Yugi felt sick to see it. She was usually so level-headed and capable and now he reduced her to this. He wondered if she felt as if he were being unjust in bothering to come with them there. Did she think he was as useless as he felt?

He cursed under his breath, his blood feeling icy with frustration. He needed to stop. He had to change his line of thought or he was going to end up doing or saying something stupid…

Yet, all roads led to Yami, didn't they?

Yugi could have flinched. Rome, all roads lead to Rome, he thought frantically, but that was hardly true in his own head. In his mind, all things led to Yami. He folded his hands in his lap, then glanced out the window and back to her curiously. What were they doing here, honestly? Why had Jonouchi and Honda left them alone to sit there together? It seemed so childish and stupid to him. But perhaps that was only because of those times they had attempted to push them together like Barbie dolls. Then again, back then he had wanted that.

His skin crawled. How long ago had it been? He didn't even know if it amounted to a full month since they had stood on her porch after their latest disaster of an attempted date. His stomach churned. An overwhelming urge to apologize and bury his face in shame crept through him.

"Are you okay?"

No. Nothing was okay.

"Yeah, I'm okay." He blinked and offered her a strained smile that did nothing to comfort her. Anzu frowned at him, both puzzled and disbelieving. Then she looked at the table for a moment. Yugi glanced at her nails, the way they had been manicured recently. The polish was a soft sky blue and his stomach ached. "Are you okay?"

"I guess so."

Yugi exhaled softly, then leaned forward and watched her. "Don't tell Jonouchi or Honda…a-about me and Yami…please?"

Her eyes stretched wide for a moment. Her frown grew more pronounced. Yugi felt stupid and sickeningly foolish to even ask that of her. Not only was he selfishly redirecting the conversation, he was almost accusing her of being a gossip.

"That's your business, not mine. And if you don't want to tell them, then don't." She sighed and glanced over her shoulder and Yugi felt as if something of a secret dangled in her mind as well. It disturbed him but hypocrisy held his tongue and so he merely looked away again. "And Yami isn't… He's not our business. We've only met him twice and one of those times he had just killed a tiger in front of us. I hate to say it, but I don't think I want to know more about him than is absolutely necessary…"

Yugi nodded, not the least bit undone by the news. In their shoes, he thought he would have done similarly, entertain the friend who had become entwined with them but avoid them any chance they were given. He watched a couple of cars pass by, saw a child stumble on a step to one of the shops. When they fell he nearly burst into laughter. Hatred swelled in him again and shame dashed through him with startling accuracy. He was losing his mind. He was losing himself…

Was it truly possible to only know oneself through another person? And was that what was happening here? He felt dizzy with realization.

He had lost sight of Yugi the moment that Yami had been swept away in the river. And now, even as he tried his hardest to recall, what he managed was only time spent with the other boy.

Because Yami had drawn out some hidden piece of him. And that piece had seemed better than all the rest. And now it was gone. It had slipped from his fingers just as Yami himself had. It burned him and his body ached at the realization. Something inside of him felt hollow and broken and pain ravaged his body. He wanted both to puke and burst into tears and to sob until he ran out of breath and his lungs constricted and his heart collapsed in his chest.

Yugi felt as if he were choking. The lump in his throat was ice and fire and scraped at his insides as if it might destroy him from the inside out. He could see his fingers trembling, though he did not want to focus on that if he could help it.

Raggedly, drawing in a deep breath, the small teen asked, "You guess so?"

She blinked and finally Anzu seemed to focus completely on him again as she turned back. Her bottom lip was between her teeth and she was watching him pointedly now. "I'm not…you know, bitter or anything. I'm…I'm just… I don't know what to say or do around you anymore. We were so often dancing around the question of us being a couple that I never even thought of what to do if that didn't work out." She paused, then shrugged. "It just seemed so…easy months ago. And now it's…"

"Complicated? Frustrating? Stupid?"

"The last one doesn't apply to anything, but the other two, yes," she answered with a small smile. Her eyes had softened considerably but she did look tired and Yugi wondered how miserable the two of them appeared now. She tilted her head, watching him for a moment. "I never really expected that you would want to be with someone else when you'd had a crush on me for so long…"

"I don't know how it happened…" He felt incredibly small admitting it. Because, when he tried, he could pinpoint the very moment his desire for friendship with Anzu changed. "I just know that it did. And I…"

"It's okay."

Because it most likely didn't matter. Yugi hated himself for thinking it. But the truth was that it was unavoidable, that it couldn't be changed. His attempt to explain was all but beating a dead horse. But his explanation was useless and his apologies pathetic. Neither did anything for her. Neither did anything for him. He felt guilty for using her, but he had a feeling she already knew that, somehow, and she didn't want to know more.

Yugi closed his eyes. "Thank you for being so supportive…about…everything I guess," he muttered so low under his breath that he almost feared he would have to repeat it.

"We're still best friends. We'll always be best friends," Anzu said with a small choked knot in her throat and widened blue eyes. She shook her head slightly, offering him a strained smile. She wished more than anything that Jonouchi and Honda would come back to the booth so that they could all sit around and the tension could be withdrawn from their situation altogether. "That doesn't change just because our emotions have."

He was so relieved to hear those words that he almost burst into tears. His eyes stung and his mind raced. She didn't think he had changed too much to be recognized. She could still see him when she looked at him. And that broke his heart even more.

"All right, so!"

Both of them looked up, Anzu jumping a mile and Yugi merely blinking. The lycanthrope struggled for a moment not to snicker at her skittishness. Surely if she was meant to be afraid of something it should have been him, right? Jonouchi and Honda both ignored her startled reaction.

"You and me, right now. I'm going to kick your ass. Let's go!" the blond announced loudly, smirking at him before turning and starting towards the nearest set of seats. Yugi snorted in amusement and got to his feet to follow him.

For hours the four of them remained at the arcade. Anzu and Honda had played a couple of games on their phones, teaming up for a couple of levels and events. Yugi and Jonouchi had challenged each other to the same set of games with higher scores until eventually both of them had gotten migraines. They'd left as others had begun to. Because of the curfew, each of the others began to file out with small groups of more than one or two.

They were all but the last to truly step out onto the sidewalk.

Yugi himself stuffed his hands into his pockets and bunched his shoulders for a moment. He didn't feel the chill in the slighted but the others did and his will to blend in forced him to pretend otherwise. He glanced around cautiously, then turned back, murmuring, "You guys will be okay walking home together, right?"

Honda blinked, confused. "You aren't coming with us?" he inquired softly. He considered the smaller boy for a moment. Yugi's house was in another direction, that was true, but it did not go beyond a few minutes' difference in distance. And wasn't it smarter for all of them to remain in a…? The thought fell short.

Yugi shook his head and his words were an almost revelation of Honda's thoughts. "No, I don't need the protection, remember? Werewolf here." His wink was of forced humor but the brunet could see his frustration beneath the barrier of his irises. Something was pushing the small teen rapidly towards anger. And he did not know what it was but he worried for him. Yugi being angry was a rare thing but it also tended to press at his patience enough to make him seemingly become an entirely new person before someone's eyes.

And Honda could see it. He was at the breaking point of it. It confused and scared him to see that. Yugi had seemed so much more composed and maybe even slightly happy while they had been in the arcade.

The small teen glanced over his shoulder abruptly, his eyes flashing as he looked around. His shoulders rose with the beginning of a full-bodied bristle, and Jonouchi stared at him with obvious discomfort. Anzu was immediately alarmed, looking around as well, and Honda felt almost dizzy for a moment. Was it another wolf? Was something going on? He drew in a deep breath and shook his head slightly.

Yugi was breathing long and slow, eyes flickering about and his body tense. He seemed to be more put off at the lack of answers he got, because he turned to them abruptly. "I'm not sure but I think someone's here. You guys need to get a move on. Keep close together and don't drag along. I'm going to see if I can find out who or what that was."

Anzu frowned. "What did it sound like?"

He was quiet for a moment, tipping his head to the side. Then he blinked and furrowed his brows. "I think it's someone's sneakers but I don't know for sure…"

"Maybe it's Yami," Jonouchi said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

The mention of his name made Yugi stiffen noticeably, eyes widening and appearing to almost shimmer for a moment. He drew in a breath that was ragged in their ears and Honda blinked with a stunned expression upon seeing the absolutely devastated, agonized look in his eyes. Anzu looked away immediately, cheeks tinted pink with embarrassment to see him in such a state. And Jonouchi cringed as Yugi finally turned away with a shake of his head.

"I would know his footsteps," Yugi said quietly, shaking his head a second time. He looked around once more. Then he faced them with a shaky ghost of a smile. "Anyways, you need to go before curfew. Text me when you get back. I'll see what it is."

Something inside of Anzu began to ache at the pained dismissal. "Tell us what it is, okay? Whatever it is, I want to know…" She hesitated for a moment, glanced at Honda and Jonouchi, and then continued. "Be safe, okay?"

Yugi graced them with a more genuine smile, tilting his head to the side. "Of course," he agreed. Then he gestured for them to start moving and watched until they had all but disappeared from his sight. He was quick to begin moving in the direction of his home but first, he'd have to double back a couple of times and—

"Atem."

He was frozen in place for a moment, startled and lost at the sensation of the name in his ears. It held such power even when it seemed to mean nothing. Yugi faltered in his step, however, then turned his head and stared. In the darkness of the shadow of a building over, there was the faintest outline. He blinked and his eyes focused almost immediately.

They were taller than him and something spiteful inside of him snarled that it was not hard to be. But they stood almost a foot higher. Their hair was glossy and strangely almost silver in the shadows, giving him the initial idea that perhaps it was somehow Bakura or Ryou.

Something inside of him snapped and ached and burst against his hollowed body. He wished, oh gods how he wished he'd never killed the gray wolf. He had never meant to. And it hurt as his mind recalled his fresh blood, hot and metallic, covering his face and eyes, almost to his throat.

His head spun for a moment. His throat felt tight and he shivered. Then he blinked. Bakura had growled at him in that dream, said he'd done what he was meant to.

Perhaps it should alleviate his guilt that he was at peace with his death himself. It made his skin crawl, however, to consider the truth of it. He brought in a deep, almost ragged breath, then shook it off. Who was…? Someone had come for…

Atem. They had come for Atem…

Yugi narrowed his eyes, phantoms in his mind writhing for his attention. This newcomer had pale hair which spiked upwards only along the bangs and fell mostly straight along their shoulders and along their back. He blinked and tilted his head, brain working rapidly for the voice that had come from the boy's throat.

He blinked slowly.

His mind was racing.

Then he blinked again.

"Marik," he greeted in a voice that was almost dismissive. He could not fully understand how his brain even identified him. Somehow he'd connected that voice to a face that was unlike the wolf he'd come to know to harbor those eyes that always seemed to bore through him. He furrowed his brows. His emotions were as shut off as Yami's, however, and Yugi had yet to truly understand and read them altogether.

So he stood there, unsure what more to do. A part of his mind rebelled at his presence. If he was there, had he seen his friends? Did he know the direction he had been heading?

His skin prickled. Why was he here? Marik didn't need to be there at all. He'd never seen him as a human before so why had he shown himself as one now?

It alarmed him, setting him further on edge. He had found the source of the noise, however. He realized it now. Marik had been walking down the street towards them but must have heard him talking about them going without him.

Now that Yugi was truly looking at him, Marik seemed more top heavy than slim and lean as he and Yami were. He was taller, but his torso was somewhat triangular, almost like that of a bodybuilder. But he did not have the muscle necessary for that. He had the slightest bulge in his biceps and Yugi could easily imagine he might have a six-pack of abs but he could not see much beyond that.

"What are you doing here?"

He didn't care how harsh it came out, his mind racing. If he had seen his friends, what did that mean for them? Jonouchi and Honda and Anzu could all be killed simply because he did not choose to live in the mountains with the pack. They could easily be picked off, as could his family. Which begged the question once more of whether he had seen the direction he was heading…

"I was sent by Obelisk."

Yugi couldn't fully focus on the discussion, but it was as if half of his mind had dedicated it to this very idea. He blinked, voice calm though the undertone was frosty. "Obelisk sent you?" He made a small hand movement, gesturing for him to continue and make it quick. But the other half of his brain was struggling. How was it that he had not realized that someone might have been coming up on them? And did he know? Did. He. Know?

He didn't want to have to fight Marik for his friends and family to remain safe. He didn't want to do as he had done before. He didn't want to kill Marik just to save someone else.

Why do that when Yami would eventually be returned to him?

His head spun.

Alive or dead?

"He's calling for a meeting. So I offered to come here to retrieve you," Marik explained in a voice that was oddly silky. Yugi blinked at him, processing the words, and the smallest hint of anger spiked through him. Obelisk was calling a meeting? He was calling a meeting when that was the alpha's job? "And so I assumed it would be wiser to come here as a human instead. I don't think being a large wolf would do well for most people."

Yugi stared at him for a moment. Would they have assumed he was an oversized dog like his frantic mind had the night Ushio had attacked him? Would anyone really have known that he was a wolf to begin with? Considering their extinction he did not assume that any of them would truly think wolf before they did dog.

"Yeah, that's a good idea." It sounded mechanical, as if he weren't paying full attention to Marik or the words coming out of his mouth. Yugi blinked and his eyes flickered away and back again. Then he seemed to truly notice Marik's stare because he began to bristle slightly before curling his lip back. "Did Obelisk say what it was about?"

He would have assumed that Yugi was spiteful of the god being in the pack, had it not been for the glare that Marik himself was receiving. But it did not make sense as Yugi himself had brought Obelisk to them to begin with. To be spiteful was foolish. So he merely frowned and bowed to him, eyes averted to the cement, licking his lips.

"He did not give me any details. He said to simply find you and bring you to the camp."

Yugi stared at him, both frustrated and exhausted. It felt as if some massive war were being waged inside of him, desperately tearing through him in its need to conquer. And all it did was make him feel heavier, the loss and exhaustion and the anger and everything inside of him bursting and then damming again. He blinked and his eyes lost their fire and for a moment he looked childish, a small boy with a face as cherubic as a baby's, with eyes too wide to go unnoticed.

Marik did not see this from where he was carefully keeping his eyes on the ground. But he did see it when Yugi exhaled softly, eyes faraway, thoughts even further, and slowly looked towards the bleak white-gray of a sky that was bound to bury the world in snow and rain. He looked arrogant and somehow incredibly astonishing in his expression for a moment before he blinked. Yugi turned back to him now and their eyes locked though Marik felt instinct warring inside of him to look away once more.

"Let's get a move on then."

Only as they began to navigate the woods did the snow begin to fall. It was a drifting flurry of white at first, flakes which danced on the wind and dropped gently before their eyes. Yugi looked at it, thinking of ice that had been had been soaked with blood. There was so much blood that had been spilled now that he was a wolf. There never seemed to be days without it any longer. How many times had he and Yami spilled blood on the snow now? Or Mai? Otogi?

What about Bakura and Kaoruno and Haga? Or Ryuzaki and Ryota? What of them? They'd all died. And for what? For him? Yugi nearly scoffed, hateful and tired, and his breath came in a furious gust of white before his face.

What of the two wolves that had charged him in the woods when he'd left the festival? He still did not know what had happened to them. But he knew that Yami had destroyed them, ripped them to shreds to protect him. He'd killed Ushio. He'd murdered Tomoya. He'd probably played the reaper to a million others as well.

Where was the line drawn?

When did it become overbearing on his own soul for such a thing to happen?

He'd been the one to kill Bakura. He'd stabbed Ryota in the throat with a rock. He'd killed that man in the labs. And he had mutilated Pegasus in front of that other man's face.

But, oh gods, who had done Shizuka in? Who had destroyed her, ending the life of a girl who had been kidnapped and tortured endlessly? Who had been cruel enough to tear the head off the shoulders of a blind girl?

The world was a dark and sickening place. Yugi hated it. He hated the people who dwelled in it. He hated the wolves. He hated the gods. He hated the way the strong survived and the weak were so effortlessly picked off. He loathed it all. And he wished there was something to aim his anger towards. But then the exhaustion came over him and, with a tired mind, he thought of Kokorano, who had choked on his own blood while telling him that the shadows were bleeding.

He wanted to collapse, to sob in broken breaths and let himself curl up in the snow. He wanted to give up. Anything was easier to give up on. But part of him snarled at such a thought, with such resilience that it made his heart pound. The tear grew larger, a gaping chasm which made his skin crawl. He was overwhelmed by the intensity of it, the way his body throbbed and ached beneath the surface of it all. And he thought, somewhere beneath it all, of Miho's twisted broken body found in that quad so long before he'd crossed paths with Yami.

Everyone dead seemed to pop into his mind, faces with names that he knew that others didn't. The pack would never know them, would never realize their meaning in his life. That hurt just as much, or perhaps even more. And he hated it more than ever.

The wolf who had been Yami's cell mate appeared in his thoughts, a prominent face of brown and black and russet-brown ears. His eyes were beautiful glowing green eyes and it burst the dam deepest in his heart. The pain was enough to make him stop walking. His head spun. By the gods, what had this boy known of Yami that Yugi himself didn't? And how much pain had he nursed the red-eyed boy through? How many nights had he known Yami better than Yugi could ever truly hope to?

Marik turned towards him with a puzzled look. The silence between them had grown somewhat daunting now. The smaller boy blinked, then glanced at him with darkened, confused eyes. They seemed unable to focus on him, however, staring through him rather than at him.

But Yugi's mind was taking detail, small notes which he spat forth through his subconscious. Marik had a caramel skin tone, noticeable by the slight shadowing which made it appear almost gray in the dark. His eyes were wider than Yami's, with lashes that were not particularly long or short. But both of them had what appeared to be tattoos at the bottom, triangular almost, but somehow also like sharp wings. His hair was much like his fur in his canine form, with a shiny gleam to its platinum-blond appearance, the shadows of it a soft silver color much like his coarse guard hairs. His bangs were feathery, wispy, and angled outwards to fall in layers on either side of his semi-narrow eyes. From there his hair fell in uneven tufts along the back, ending a little beyond his shoulder blades. But, unlike Yami or himself, his neck seemed unusually corded, his collarbones sharper and his shoulders slight.

Yugi looked away again. "You're Egyptian?" he asked in a quiet voice.

Marik stiffened for a moment. "Yes. How did you know that?"

"Your name." He hesitated. "Your skin tone."

He'd recognized it from that day looking through pictures to figure out what they could say Yami's nationality was. It burned to think about and his chest felt tight, cold, and his heart was aching as it beat too quickly.

"Oh." He sounded slightly unimpressed but Yugi didn't care to see if he had read the emotion properly. His mind was so tired he could not find it in himself to truly pay attention. He wondered at the newly risen disgust which came over him now as well, but shook it off moments later. It wasn't worth analyzing, especially when Marik began to talk again. "Yeah, I came from Egypt a few years ago. My sister Ishizu and I—"

"Ishizu?" He furrowed his brows. "That's Japanese."

"Yeah, she prefers it to Isis."

"But Isis is her actual name."

"And she prefers Ishizu."

Yugi glanced at him sideways at the tone of his voice. His lips threatened to twitch up into a smirk and he wondered where that impulse had come from. He couldn't remember smirking often. The very idea surprised him as it was. But he knew he had done it before, just, he supposed, not with the sneering connotation his face would have possessed.

"Why did Obelisk choose to send you anyways?"

Marik narrowed his eyes, his irises flashing for a moment. His lip threatened to curl back in annoyance. "He didn't. He asked someone to come retrieve you and I figured I would do it."

Yugi snorted softly but the derisive note did not go unnoticed. The wolf beside him bristled indignantly and the smaller teen ignored him. His mind was already on other things, which ached and stirred and burned. What was it that Obelisk could possibly want to talk about? Why would he summon them all for a meeting? Was it actually going to be important to him or just to the other wolves?

The thought angered him somewhat. He should have been grateful that Obelisk was doing this in the first place. The fact that Slifer and Obelisk had both stepped in to replace Yami for the moment was amazing in all actuality. They could have ignored him. They could have disregarded the pack's needs altogether.

It would have been so easy for Morrigan to turn her cheek when he'd needed her in the woods. And it would have been simple enough for Slifer to say it was not her problem that Yami was missing. Obelisk could have watched him wander away from the tunnels and called it quits but he'd stuck around. Part of him knew the reasoning behind their actions, that he was Atem and that was the most important thing to them.

He shrugged away the initial sting of hatred that came through him. He needed to focus and pretend to care about this meeting. If he didn't he couldn't be sure how the wolves might act. What if they took his anger for means of betrayal or something of that nature? He felt his skin begin to crawl at the idea. It was disturbing how easily animals read and deciphered emotions and reacted in kind. It was a mob mentality that swelled and grew to greater proportions than most humans could grasp.

When they reached the camp, Yugi was steadily ignoring the boy beside him and hoping that it would go quickly. The moment he pulled himself out of the bramble thicket, the wolves began to bow in unison. He blinked at them, then glanced towards where Obelisk was coming. The wolf was immense when he stopped and stood before him a few feet away. He stood at almost the bottom of his ribcage at the whithers and his head came to nearly his collarbone. He had never truly measured him before now and it amazed him how the wolf seemed so much larger now that he was human…

Even Yami didn't seem that large.

He considered that for a moment. Had he ever actually tried to see how tall the black wolf was before? He couldn't think of an instance.

He could not even fully remember seeing Yami as a wolf while he himself was human. How many times had that happened? Twice, three times—four at the most? He knew he could count them on his fingers. And it hurt to consider this as he looked at Obelisk and remembered Yami adamantly declaring that he experienced life only as a wolf and merely survived when he was human.

Yugi struggled for a moment to shake thought away, but not before he remembered Yami saying that he didn't value his life as much as he probably should have. He had said that healing and immunity could make anyone assume they were immortal, that he knew he wasn't but that when death came for him he would not fear it. But Yami was alive and he wondered at those wounds he'd seen upon his face in that dream in the woods.

He tilted his head. Was it a dream though? Or a hallucination? He'd seen Yami before him in the snow, when he'd howled and then disappeared before his eyes. Or perhaps it had been Morrigan wearing his skin like a well-loved coat. But he could not fully believe that. She had not had the same eyes as him when he'd come across her finally in front of the entrance to the tunnels.

Yugi nearly closed his eyes, mournful and tired. Then he forced himself to face Obelisk head on. "What is this meeting about?" he asked in a low voice, unsure of his tone and the bitterness in his blood.

Y—

An intruder, Atem! We have found an intruder! another wolf crowed, her voice bright and amazed and full of excitement. She came bounding towards them, a body of bright gray and silver with the smallest hints of black along her back. She was wagging her tail and her brown ears flicked back and forth about the others coming towards them. She—

Obelisk snapped his teeth at her furiously, tail up and eyes blazing. I do not recall you having the ability to call a meeting, you idiot child, he spat at her before his ears flicked towards Yugi.

The small blue-violet-eyed teen blinked in confusion. His gaze shot towards the she-wolf and then the shape he noticed further into the clearing. She sat apart from the others, red fur glistening like a pale silver flame and her golden eyes glowing in the darkness.

"Slifer," he commented, unable to think straight. "What is the meaning of this?"

She's to be a sacrifice! a new voice cried.

Her blood will give you strength!

In your name, she shall draw her last breath!

Yugi felt his head spinning. A sacrifice? What the hell were they going on about? He blinked stupidly, then shook his head slowly.

She was found by a patrol. She wandered into the territory, Obelisk supplied in a furious tone. His eyes were on Yugi's, scornful, hateful and dark. He realized belatedly that he saw their disobedience as a result of his lacking leadership. Yugi wished he could argue but it was far from undeniable. She insists that she was simply looking for traces of someone who recently went missing—

"You don't really believe that bullshit, do you?" Marik snapped, eyes wide and glittering in the dark. The usual lavender shade of them was mauve with night vision. He scowled at Obelisk, then turned to Yugi with a shake of his head. "Why would you even listen to an outsider? She's probably a traitor!"

Yugi glanced at him sideways but didn't turn his head. Immediately his eyes were on Slifer again, then Obelisk. He considered them both for a long minute. "Well, I won't know until I take some time to talk to her, will I?" he said sarcastically.

Marik bristled. "You would hold discussion with a wolf that could very well be from the labs? What if she's going to lead you to—?"

Yugi turned his head now, eyeing him coldly. "I went to the labs," he said quietly, "I was born in them. If I want to go back, I know the way. There's no reason for a decoy to bring me there."

The other wolves paced restlessly now, some snarling and others circling the spot behind Slifer. He could not see more than tawny paws but he assumed it must be the she-wolf in question. Yugi ignored the remark of "And if she attacks you?" and stepped around Obelisk without a care.

The god flicked an ear, then turned and followed him. When he got to his sister's side the two of them shared a look that made Mai's skin crawl. But as she glanced at Otogi the predominantly black wolf merely turned away and flicked his white-tipped ears uncomfortably.

Yugi could feel the unease of them all as if he were burdened with it as well. But he was tired and more exasperated than anything and because of this he barely gave the wolves circling their prisoner a chance to move out of his way. But they instinctively shifted away to give him space to move towards their captive.

"Who drew blood?" he asked quietly. But the wolves shied away from him instantly, flinching at the anger in his tone. He narrowed his eyes. "Well?"

Slifer turned her head. The ferocity in his voice was almost feverish. It should not matter who has done it, simply that it has happened, Atem, she reasoned, but his sideways glance at her was hateful and she wished for a moment to rip his throat out. The boy was so petulant. His loss was great, yes, but not many were given the gift of return that he was. Had they not told him Yami would come back? Yet here he remained, acting as a child might. Do as you should wish but her wounds are superficial. They have most likely healed already but the blood remains.

Yugi ignored her now, turning to the apparent prisoner. "Can you walk?" he asked just to be sure. The she-wolf in front of him blinked dark gray eyes and bristled faintly. Immediately she sprang to her feet, fur ruffled and legs slightly shaky. It was abruptly clear to him that she'd been extremely fearful behind the well-placed facade she'd created.

"You can't actually be considering going somewhere alone with her!" Marik protested loudly. His outburst made several wolves turn to look at Yugi, though most were with trepidation towards the possibility of his anger.

"And what do you have in mind? That I take you?" the smaller boy spat, glancing at him and curling his lip back. "That sure as fuck isn't going to happen. You just said that she should be killed as a sacrifice!"

Marik glared at him, his lavender eyes darkened and more than slightly blackened by his dilated pupils. Yugi wondered if it was hatred or bloodlust that made them so hideous. "You should at least take someone with you!" he snapped. "She might try to kill you when you least expect it!"

Yugi snorted loudly and gestured at the she-wolf. "You can't honestly think that she's going to attack me all on her own! Look at her! She's shaken up and wounded as it is! None of you can argue that she isn't. And, in case none of you were listening, she came here looking for someone. Does that not mean anything to you? She probably didn't even realize that you all were here." He halted for a moment, then turned back to her. "I highly doubt you were looking for me."

She bristled and glared at him. Her lips pulled back and her eyes narrowed with a look almost akin hatred. Yugi tilted his head, studying her for a moment, and his own lips began to tug into a grin. She had a similar expression to Yami when he was at his most angry. It was oddly amazing to see it in her face there.

"If you all are so worried, Obelisk and Slifer can accompany us. I'm sure she won't attack me with two gods there as witness," he murmured, voice bordering a sneer as he turned away. Both wolves blinked at each other, then began to follow as the hostage flattened her ears against her head and glanced around herself awkwardly.

Yugi led them a couple of miles from the camp, stopping in a small grove of trees where the branches were oddly shaped and the roots knotted as if they were bodies piled on top of each other. An image of them, all decayed and disemboweled, with blood and tendon which clung to their forms in chunks among fur and hair that held it just barely in place, began to form in his head.

He turned away from this image but it was burned behind his eyelids, branded there. The blood oozed as if part of a shadow which trailed like ink through the dirt. He shivered and turned around again. Slifer and Obelisk had taken a uniform flanking position a few paces behind the prisoner. He snorted at the thought. It was hard to see her as a threat in any fashion. Her head was down, her ears flattened, and her eyes were lowered to the ground. She was limping and he could only imagine the scuffle she'd been part of when the wolves had gone after her.

Her fur was slicked along her front legs and right shoulder and her back right was torn along the knee. But now that he could see her, he had to admit that she was a gorgeous color, of dark brown almost like chocolate. Her undercoat was that of tawny and light golden brown. Her ears were black, her face a solid color but for her cheeks where the outer edges were tawny. Two ringlets of golden circled down from behind her ears, spreading down her chest. Her legs where a dark brown almost as dark as the black of her ears and he realized he'd been looking at the wrong wolf earlier.

Yugi bit his lip and considered how he was going to speak to her. But his first impulse was to huff in annoyance from his pack's hastiness. It was his second that he went with. "Come here," he murmured, gesturing with a hand. He crouched and gestured again. The she-wolf eyed him cautiously, then glanced around them as if for an escape route. "I'm not going to hurt you. Please, just come over here."

Slifer and Obelisk swapped looks but did not intervene. In a bid of unison both wolves moved away from each other and paced a few feet away to take seats at the base of some trees. They both lay with their chin on their paws, ignoring the she-wolf's shocked expression at their careless dismissal.

Yugi snickered at her opened mouth and flattened ears, the way she glanced back at him with widened eyes. "Why should they protect me? I don't think you're going to do me any harm."

She bore her teeth at him, snarling, and an image appeared in his head. Her muzzle was bloodied and his face was gouged with teeth marks. He laughed loudly and she snapped her jaws at him, bristling and snarling louder.

"You think you'd be able to do that?" he asked frankly, smirking. "Surely you don't think you could do that to Atem."

The she-wolf faltered visibly. Her aggression became skeptical, her eyes flickering about as her ears pricked and searched for noise around them. The only thing her efforts received was a loud snort from Slifer behind her, as if she were close to snoring or perhaps sneering at them both. She blinked and glanced at them once more. Her gray eyes flickered once more back and forth.

"Come here."

This time the patience had turned to iciness. Her eyes shot to him again. Hesitantly she moved to come closer. Within inches of him, she bore her teeth as if in warning but Yugi ignored her. His hands came out and she yelped rather than attacked, unnerved by the way he so easily sorted through her fur. He inspected every smear of blood for a few minutes, checking wounds that had healed long before and then studying her shoulder where it was still throbbing. Quietly, the boy in front of her—Atem? Was he truly Atem?—settled back on his haunches and pursed his lips.

"Your shoulder got pulled out of place. But it's probably not too bad. You can still walk on it so I don't think you should worry too much. Probably when you change back it'll move back in place."

She blinked and tilted her head. An image formed in his head, of him in a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck and a clipboard in his hand. Yugi snorted loudly, laughing.

"My mom is a vet."

She blinked again. Hadn't it been said that Atem's mother was long dead? She considered him for a moment. Did he mean his human replacement? It would make sense. Camouflage was a necessity. Her gray eyes flickered towards the trees. She could run if she wanted to.

Yugi hummed in the back of his throat and it almost sounded like a growl. Her attention was immediately caught on him again. "So, you said something about searching for a friend of yours?" he prompted, smoothing the fur along her shoulder again. It was a lighter, tawny color there as well, and the undercoat was soft and downy. Behind her shoulder came a grayish patch of color which trailed downwards in a tuck that went along her underbelly where the very edges along her hind legs were white. The hairs on her back were scattered with black and dark gray and her tail was deep chocolate with a slight tawny patch along the bottom.

She pricked her dark ears and glanced once more at the two gods. Were they truly divine? Were they really deities? They looked so lazy and lackadaisical at the moment. What kind of deity appeared in such a way?

And when she glanced back, this boy in no way fit the description of the Atem she had been taught about. He was meant to be a war hero, a god among mortal wolves. He was supposed to lead them all into battle and win the war. This boy looked nothing like a warrior and his pack seemed uprooted in madness rather than grounded with hierarchy.

In his mind was a brilliant picture of a deep gray wolf with pale silver, tawny and white markings upon their face. The muzzle was colored with dark cinnamon brown and the cheeks were immense and large, their ears dark red and the fur along their forehead scattered with dark brown and black. His eyes glowed brightly with strength, both inner and outer, and the color of them was a gorgeous green that pulsed with life and vigor.

Yugi felt his heart clench. Yami's cage mate, he realized, head spinning. It was Yami's cage mate. It was the green-eyed wolf who held the red-eyed boy above everyone and everything else. His heart was shaking in his chest. Pain flooded each thought and breath and any hint of comprehension his mind provoked.

He cleared his throat awkwardly. "How long has he been missing?" he asked slowly, narrowing his eyes and hoping he did not sound as foolish to her as he did to himself.

Her eyes were piercing, boring into his. A struggle persisted in her mind, both for secrecy and for the inclination of answering his question. He could be nothing more than a fool, leading a pack of idiots. He might very well simply be a boy who wanted to seem more important than he was.

Finally, with reluctance clear in her eyes, an image was projected of deep green grass and trees with branches full of leaves. The sunlight was strong and the scent that came to his nose, a phantom touch of smell, was that of bloomed flowers and fresh water. It was the perfect picture of summer.

Six months ago? So soon? Yugi thought with his head spinning. He'd gone missing during the summer six months back? When Yami and Atem and the others had all escaped? His mouth had grown dry and his tongue was plastered to his palate. He closed his eyes for a moment. "So, then, when I escaped."

For a moment there was only silence. Then she whined softly and her eyes were begging, desperate for his attention. Yugi blinked at her, frozen in place, and felt sick and lightheaded for a split second. They watched each other for a long time and then her mind seemed to burst as if a dam had been busted apart. A voice was softly spoken but authoritative, with calm baritone notes as it murmured, "He's here, Echo. He's in Japan. I think I've found him."

Yugi was frozen. He'd been looking for Atem, hadn't he? His throat felt swollen. "So your name is Echo?" he asked instead, fighting the urge to both mourn for a wolf whose name he did not know and the possibility of yet another painful death at the hands of merciless humans which were prone to kill. "And he came here to find me?"

She flicked her ears. His face appeared again, his green eyes the fiercest shade he had ever come to know. His heart was pounding and his head spun once more.

"I don't think I met him."

Her ears flattened. Her eyes began ash-colored pools of agony at the words. She blinked at him, then turned away.

Not alive…

No, he had not met him alive…

But to tell her…

She visibly shook and her head snapped towards him. Her eyes were mournful but her face was twisted with hateful anger. She raised her tail, her fur raised in a furious bristle.

"I don't know that he escaped. And I never met him when I was in the lab…"

But had he?

Yugi could scarcely remember. And if he was Yami's cage mate, why would Yugi ever assume that he had met him? He hadn't met Yami back there in the labs. So surely he had never crossed paths with him either. He considered her again.

"What was he to you?"

She hesitated for a moment, then dug at the snow with her front paws in avid frustration. Yugi realized not for the first time just how limited the ability for the other wolves to speak seemed to be. Mai had trouble with it, Otogi could form basic words, and many of the other wolves simply saved their strength until they had something of interest to tell him that could not be portrayed through pictures. This she-wolf had most likely used her mental capabilities for the task when she'd been attacked, trying to convince them she wasn't an enemy.

The she-wolf finally turned back to him, then glanced at Slifer and Obelisk and bristled. For a moment neither of them moved and then, huffing, Echo snapped her teeth at the god of war. Obelisk cracked an eye open, tilted his head, and then raised his chin just enough to shift his position and tilt his body away with his back to her.

Yugi snorted and then shook his head. His amusement drained when she turned to him angrily, her tail wagging in frustrated jerks back and forth. She chomped her teeth again and flicked an ear towards Obelisk once more.

He considered the angry movements, then the slight gleam of frustration in her eyes. Finally he looked back and forth between them. When Echo snapped her teeth at him again and dug at the snow once more, he looked at the two gods once more. But neither provided an answer.

He wracked his brain for a moment.

Then he blinked at her.

"Your beta?" he finally muttered, eyes flickering about. Echo swung her head around to look at him in surprise, as if she had thought it hopeless he would realize the meaning of her tantrum. Yugi was watching Slifer now, however, mind burning with the possibility of whether his body had wound up with her in the tunnels. "So then…I'm guessing you're the alpha."

She pricked her ears forward and blinked at him. With a small wag of her tail, she confirmed his theory. Her eyes were bright and warm and her expression was far less frosty than it had been originally. The chocolate brown wolf glanced over her shoulder at the other two and then turned back after a moment. Yugi looked at her for a long time, then shifted position to stretch his legs out. The ice immediately chilled him but he ignored it, as a moment later his body began to fluctuate its temperature as he had been certain it would. He forgot the cold and watched her for a long time.

"You have a pack from wherever you came from"—He smirked in amusement when he saw a red and white flag with a blue patch filled with stars—"so I don't see why you would want to stay here."

Echo flicked an ear, then blinked at him. Her gray eyes seemed bewildered for a moment before she paced a step back and tilted her head. An image appeared in his head again, this time of wolves fighting and blood spilled. He himself was in the fray but in the image his colors continued to change, all solid but with different shades entirely.

"White," Yugi grumbled, feeling both sick and dismayed. "My fur is white."

She looked startled and he wondered at the sight for a moment but then his head was filled with images again. A white wolf tore into a black one's throat. A white wolf snapped teeth dripping with blood. A white wolf whose face was smeared with red. A white wolf running after a retreating black dog. A white wolf with much more muscle and strength than he ever thought he'd possess.

Yugi shuddered. Then he shook his head slightly. The images were burned there. And when they cleared a new wave came within a nanosecond. There were wolves everywhere, herself and Yugi, and black dogs the same size or bigger. Blood sprayed across laboratory walls and through air that was quivering with noise. Human corpses were left beneath fallen comrades and guts were torn and spilled about. Pawprints outlined in red ran from one side of the room to the next. Death and decay was everywhere around them.

The war.

She was going to stay for the war. Yugi wanted to object but the thought occurred to him as well. If he denied her, then wouldn't he be seen as weak afterwards? The thought was both stunning and frustrating. He could feel both bewilderment and aggression filling him for a moment. Then he shrugged it off.

This was her choice.

If she wanted to believe in something he didn't know he was capable of, then that was her choice.

Yugi bit the inside of his cheek. Then he tilted his head. "You're free to stay or leave as you please," he commented dismissively, feeling both sick and stupefied.

She sent him a picture, of wolves which he did not recognize and herself there among them. Her pack? But though the image was overcome with ice and winter, the snow was not as thick or high as what surrounded them now. And he realized with startling clarity, feeling sick and small, that she meant to go back for them and bring them with her.

He swallowed hard. "If that's what you want," he muttered softly. He couldn't raise his voice any further and his head was spinning now. How could she even think to do that to them? What if none of them survived? She might have been optimistic for the outcome, but he himself knew better. Had she ever fought before today? She still looked somewhat shaken. So why would she enter a war when she had no experience?

Yugi nearly laughed out loud. Who had told him that wolves responded to the needs of Code Name Atem? Was it Mai and Otogi? Were they the ones who had mentioned he would find support from wolves he did not know? That they would appear from seemingly nowhere, all willing to follow his lead and listen solely to him?

And now here Echo was, doing just as they—or perhaps Yami—had predicted.

He shivered and moved to stand again, eyes falling on Obelisk now. The movement had made both gods raise their heads. They sat up unison and turned to him with unblinking eyes of amber-flecked gold and topaz. In the dark Obelisk's eyes were nothing but dark orange, smeared with the faintest hint of yellow and Slifer's looked ominous and unholy.

"Then I suppose I'll see you again when you come back," he muttered, but shame made him almost too nervous to look at her again. When he did, their eyes locked and her tail wagged slowly. In a halting voice as soft as rain dripping, came the words, We pledge our…allegiance…to the Hound of…Heaven.

A shiver ran through him again. "Good." What else could he say? He couldn't think of anything more. He licked his lips and turned to Obelisk. "How about some practice?"

The wolf perked up the moment he said the last word and Slifer snorted as she got to her feet. Echo considered them for a moment, bitterly eyed the other she-wolf, and then followed her as she began to lead the way.

It was not even thirty seconds after changing and preparing himself to fight that he was pinned beneath the war god.