.:.Hellfire.:.
Summary: Yami no Malik and Yami no Bakura have been sent to Hell. And they're about to drag their hikaris down with them.
Chapter 10: End Game
"K'so." Bakura muttered to himself. He wrapped a hand around the Millennium Ring, preparing to send her soul to the darkest, coldest sector of the Shadow Realm he could– but he was cut off by the concentrated fire she sent his way. He dodged out of the way just in time, smelling his hair singe.
"I know the properties of your item... You seek to seal me in that pathetic 'Shadow Realm' of yours, don't you?" Shinrya laughed menacingly, turning a bit of flame into a whirling fireball and lobbing it at him.
Mariku advanced on her with the Millennium Rod, but she whirled about and threw another fireball at him.
"You're not going to get me either. You think you can do better than me because you're older, you bugs? Ha! I deal with him every day!" Shinrya pointed to Zangan, who was standing impassive. Ukemi had disappeared once again.
"You could help, you know!" the Pharaoh yelled.
"I am. " Zangan replied with a slightly satisfied smirk. "If I wasn't here that volcano would be blowing you guys sky high by now."
"There's a hopeful picture." Bakura muttered as Mariku rejoined him. Mariku flashed him a fanged grin.
"You keep her busy and I seal 'er?" the blonde asked.
"Sure." Bakura agreed, kissing him briefly. He ran off to the side.
"Do you guys have any sense of decorum?" Yami demanded.
"Decorum?" Mariku shrieked. "What's decorum?" Insane laughter bubbled from his throat as he dodged another high-temperature missile.
"And do you not care about which one among yourselves you're with?"
Bakura rolled his eyes, grabbing Yami by the collar and jerking him out of the way of another blob of fire. The ground where the fiery arsenal landed was melting into molten ooze, creating 'land mines' to beware of all about the craggy mountainside they were on.
"What's to care?" he asked. "We're really only a pair with four bodies." 'Heh.' he said to himself as Yami went silent. 'Got him there. That was so worth saving him for.'
He grasped the Ring again, feeling the swell of power from Mariku. A blast seared past him and nearly melted the gold in his hands. A yelp and shattering of power signaled that Mariku had been similarly bombarded.
A yell from Malik startled him into whirling to face where the hikaris had been encamped. They were throwing stones wildly, obviously fed up with feeling useless. The stones turned to lava within three yards of Shinrya, who was now a glowing spot in the midst of black ash falling from the sky.
Bakura attempted to clear his eyes, to no avail. They were pretty much fighting blind.
"Pharaoh!" he called.
"Tomb robber?" Yami's voice responded at his left.
"Can you seal her without the warning power surge?"
Yami reflected a moment.
"Yes, given enough time." he said finally.
"Right. Do it. You need to send her to the Northern Ocean, far under as you can get and cold as you can get." Bakura bounded away, pulling a knife from a hidden pocket in his jeans. He could hear Yami say softly, "Game Start."
Oh great. One of the Pharaoh's silly games. He briefly wondered what it was, but was distracted when a glowing blob of molten rock flew through the flurry of ash toward where he knew the hikaris were sheltering.
"Ryou! Malik! Move your asses!" he called.
"What?" echoed back at him. He lunged through the isolating cloud, vainly trying to reach them before the chunk of lava could.
Suddenly it stopped, glowing with a faint orange light that overlayed the black of Shinrya's control. The dark red blob slowly turned orange, then yellow, then white, its intensity so great that Bakura could see through the black haze to Mariku, jusmping about in a maze of molten spots, Ryou and Malik staring at the thing that was threatening their safety, and that little shrimp Zangan clone who was the source of the orange aura.
Shinrya's attention was focused on the war of wills going on with the lava. Bakura took the opportunity to throw the knife at her. It sunk into her heart– or, at least, it would have had it made it past a five-foot radius of her.
Nevertheless, her furious black gaze turned on him. The blazing lump of magma went flying straight for her, splattering into several thousand infintesimal lumps. Bakura dived under an overhang.
"Damn it, Pharaoh!" he growled. "What is taking you so cursed long?"
The mountain underneath their feet rumbled, unable to take the stress of two powerful fire spirits fighting for control of it.
"Damn it!" Shinrya was shrieking into the roiling clouds of ash. "You are all just sparks! Your power is nothing! I will send you all to the pits of Hell!"
"We've already been to Hell!" Malik yelled, chucking a good-sized rock at her. She hissed and sent it back. Bakura couldn't see them from his position, but he heard Malik yelp and a scramble.
"Pharaoh! What the hell's keeping you?" Bakura yelled.
"Enough!" Shinrya said, finality in her tone. Her black aura framed her body, but was overlaid by the red-orange glow from the heat pulsing from her. "This is not the Hell you've been to. That place is soft... pathetic! Hell on Earth, you'll learn, actually burns!"
The red glow increased in intensity. A sound like thunder rent the air, and the ground underneath Bakura's feet began to move.
"Anytime, Pharaoh!" he heard Mariku roar.
"30 seconds!" Yami said. A yell of alarm followed.
Bakura leapt aside, just as the rock wrenched itself apart. Waves of heat made his skin tighten, then blister, drying him in an instant. The chasm seemed to go to the center of the earth.
"Welcome to Hell!" Shinrya's deepened, maniacal voice cut through the roaring of the stone and the fog of ash. Bakura cursed mentally.
Tongues of fire were reaching out from the rift, forming into hands that grabbed at him. One got his hand, and a smell not unlike cooking meat resulted.
Bakura bit back a scream and forced himself not to retch. The thing was towing him under.
"Bakura!" three voices screamed.
"Game End!" Yami declared. "Penalty Game!"
Shinrya screamed her laughter at this pathetic statement.
"You will never get me! Your item cannot perform that task!"
She was still laughing as she was swallowed up by the Shadow Realm.
The pit to the center of the Earth slammed shut, the fire gone as if it had never been. Mariku was kissing his burnt hand, though the smoke rising from his leg attested a close escape as well.
The ash clogging the air began to slowly thin, but Bakura still couldn't see further than a yard or two. Ryou was fussing over Mariku's leg. His and Malik's clothes bore burn holes and singe marks, a bright pink burn on Malik's cheek and a similar one gracing Ryou's arm.
Yami limped over, obviously having had the same brush with 'Hell' that Mariku had.
"What in the Shadows took you so long!" Bakura snapped, turning away from the other three as Mariku turned his attention to Malik's cheek, salving it with his tongue.
"I had to make it a game so that she couldn't feel the power." he explained irritably. "If you could survive for five minutes, you won."
Bakura snorted. "That has to be the most pitiful excuse for a gam you've ever come up with, Pharaoh!"
"Well excuse me. It sure saved your ass in the nick of time!" Yami snapped. "Now the question is, how to we get home?"
"I'll take you!" a familiarly innocent voice piped up. Bakura turned to see Ukemi and Zangan through the thinning ash. "Daddy and I are going back to Hell for a while anyway."
"What about the volcano? Are we sure it's safe?" Ryou asked worriedly.
"It's been calmed." Zangan said flatly. "It will cause no harm."
"Come on!" Ukemi said, reaching for Bakura's uninjured hand. With his other hand he was holding Yami's shirt. Malik, Ryou, and Mariku mad a chain off of him, and they flickered into the streets of Hell. Ukemi paused.
"It's yours, you know." a purring, cheerful voice Bakura recognized spoke out. Filora was lounged against a wall, fiddling with one of the riveted strips on her wrist. "Hell, I mean. You got rid of Lucifer. You two," she pointed lazily at him and Mariku, "can stay forever."
Ryou's eyes widened. "Bakura, you wouldn't–"
"'Course we won't." Mariku answered for him.
"Yes, I suppose we can put up with the Pharaoh if we go back to Earth." Bakura sighed melodramatically. Yami glared.
"Fine." Filora said, just as offhand.
They disappeared with Ukemi.
Bakura looked around where they had reappeared. It was the Kame Game Shop, to his slight chagrin. The old man at the counter started when they appeared, eyes going wide as he took in their appearance. Bakura sneered.
Clothes that had been fine were singed tatters. Moonglow and sunshine hair were mad dingy grayish-black from ash. Pale and golden skin was smudged, grimy, and shiny pink spots erupted where burns had occurred. The Pharaoh was not in much better shape.
"Hi, Grandpa." Yami greeted, limping forward to lean on the counter. "Did you miss me?"
"What on Earth happened?" Sugoroku exclaimed. "You look like you went through a burning building."
"Worse." Bakura said, smirking.
"Try volcanoes and Hell!" Malik put in. Sugoroku stared at Yami for confirmation and started when the teen nodded.
"Well, we should get you fixed up!" the man declared, coming around the counter.
"Uh-oh." Malik muttered.
"Run time." Mariku agreed. They burst into a sprint with Malik half-dragging his yami. Bakura followed with Ryou, leaving a stunned Pharaoh and the Game shop owner.
"Looks like somebody's squeamish about being fussed over." Bakura teased the Egyptian, leaning over to kiss him and vaguely aware of Mariku doing the same to his hikari.
"What, and you aren't?" Malik asked as they broke apart.
"Depends on who's doing the fussing."
They were getting plenty of stares as they went down the street covered in small and large burns, Mariku limping slightly. It didn't help that they were in a shifting group of switching pairs.
"There's just one thing." Ryou spoke up as they approached his apartment. "Why didn't you stay? You could have ruled Hell, the two of you. I know you've always had that kind of ambition. So why come back?"
"Yadonushi..." Bakura shook his head over what he was about to say.
"Who needs Hell when you have Paradise?"
"You know..." the woman beside him, who could, he supposed, be generally referred to as his wife, said. He didn't respond, waiting for her to continue.
"They're arguing about who's going to rule Hell now, in the State building. The thing is, all their candidates are incompetent losers."
Zangan blinked at this.
"And I should care... Why?" His emotions had been buried for so long; ever since he came to this pathetic little planet which matched him in years. The ambition that had lead him to try to take over his planet had been buried.
Ukemi, his son, appeared next to him, grabbing onto his pant leg. The boy was a little shadow of him, but he was always cheerful, excitable, living. He had not been changed to a block of stone like his father.
"What was Mommy talking about?" he asked.
"She said that I should go take over Hell."
"Mm." the boy said, biting on a finger. His large red eyes stared up at Zangan, though he didn't bother to look. "Maybe you should."
"What?" Zangan actually bothered to look down at the shadow clinging to his pants leg.
"Well, nobody else can do it right." Ukemi pointed. Out.
Zangan dwelled on this thought a bit.
Hell had none of the insurmountable annoyances Earth had, like languages and religions. (Really, why did the people need so many of those things, anyway?) Hell's annoyances were just the people, and people, even fire spirits, could be whipped into shape.
With a whirl that sent his black robs flying dramatically, Zangan set off for the State building.
The squabbling masses of candidates looked up as he entered, flinging the doors aside with little care for decorum.
"What are you doing here?" one squawked.
"Who are you?" a particularly uninformed one asked.
Zangan smiled, a cold, merciless expression. Those who were laughing at his appearance, the child clinging to his leg, or anything else, hushed instinctively.
"I am Zangan Kazan. Those who do not wish to die, follow me." he announced. He saw several of them shiver as those who knew of him hurriedly told those who didn't.
No one hindered his passing as he advanced to the head of the crowd. They were all too busy trembling in fear.
Good. It was about time somebody started ruling in terror around here.
OWARI
A/N: Well... I'm sorry about any cheesy lines in here... (and there seem to be a lot... ) and the sucky action scene. I fail at battles and I know it.
So, no matter how much this entire story sucked, here it is, finally finished.
A great big thanks to those few who actually read it. I'm sure I chased a few people off with the OC's. I'm sorry. I just really like those OC's. There wouldn't be a story without them. (sweatdrop)
