Schadenfreude
Author's Note: Enjoy the story and R&R.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to or of the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX series.
Summary:
For Yubel, who knew only grief, solace lies in a simple childhood recollection.
I was born when you were down in the dark, whoever you are. You make me violate you…in this, my apocrypha of promised pain.
When you close your eyes and drift off into thought as you often do, does the wickedness building up inside you not demand to be freed? The hatred and suffering, so rich and inviting in taste that they could fill a regale, rattles around, drowning out your memory of me. Yet I haven't forgotten. No, I cannot let go of your face, little more than I can your spirit, your shadow, or your heart. It is you who sustains me, and in you I find the ultimate feast.
For so long I traveled, always observing, yet never able to tell you the beauty of it all, the endless wonders that orbit the highest heavens. Disdainfully, I began to break, and these emotions overflowed within until the day I came to accept the circumstances of the punishment that had been so cruelly exacted upon me. Farther and farther we sailed, friends parting ways amidst the roaring tides and desolate ice fields of space. Like that stray thought that pulses in the darkest depths of your mind, I became everything and nothing, and for that brief moment I knew but one fact: that this pain-begotten journey of mine would lead me back to you.
The sincerest of words could not express my joy at the time, nor could it touch on my anger, fury, or loathing. Treachery! What I wouldn't do to forego this toxic isolation. But when my descent closer to home arrived, I was unprepared for the ailments of an unforgiving and perilous roadblock, for I endured the heatstroke of a thousand colliding novas, with only my determination to see you again fortifying my weakened and weary state. My skin peeled and blistered before the flame. My bones melted and dripped out my ears. My voice was busted and it was zero hour, I think. I could barely stand, let alone speak, but somehow, I managed to climb up from underneath the wreckage, like an injured lotus gradually rising to the surface of a polluted lake.
Any relief was short lived, however. I fell to pieces almost immediately, and, clasping my side, discovered that half of me was already gone. Shattered, my nails still gripping at the congealing mud, I crawled away from the dusky golden egg – now cracked – that had served as my residence for what seemed to be an eternity. Now I was unbound, set loose from my claustrophobic prison, and aching to return to your embrace.
We are two of a kind, Beloved, created from identical cosmic strings. No matter the distance, no matter how long time drags on, you belong to me, and this is forever. Shoulder to shoulder we control the universe, its dimensions, faculties, and possibilities several like points on a clock.
So share with me this sorrow. Wallow with me in this unbearable sadness. Detest me so that I may admire you all the more. Your spiteful gaze is a welcome change to the silence of solitary exile. Hold me tight. Dig into me with your volt-pronged thorns and let us indulge our lost era together. Do not allow the fun to die prematurely. Instead absorb this destruction, this calamitous explosion of melancholy, and rest atop the wilting demonic roses which I have gathered for you from my light-washed garden of interwoven bramble.
When you wake from the cyclone's departure, with the briskness of allergens expelled by the dehiscence of balsam seedpods in bloom, you will know my anguish. Caught in that resentful circle, how sensuous the damage! You're pulling me under, releasing me to a watery grave, and for that I gladly squirm in nightmarish glee. My center is deriving unmatched paroxysm without clear Akashic recount of the individual blows. Everything that I feel is a phantom blur, yet each swing is precise as it is sensational. The crunch of sinew is real and utterly satisfying, down to the unwinding of discrete strands. Quench my insatiable lust! Show me unparalleled torture!
Do you recall how you ceded me to the pitiless waves of exclusion? A gift passed o'erhead while you were dreaming, and tumbled through the sky to steal me away aboard a barge of twinkling dust. There were no openings in my cell; neither the walls nor the floor yielded to rash abuse. The lurch of a pipe organ sounded on the reverse of the barricade, the instrument's brass whistle stirring the inhuman executioner from its smokescreen-shrouded languor.
An eyesore, it must have deemed me, for Das Abscheulich Ritter harbours no concerns but recompense for its brutal occupation. Brow arched like a devil's ram-horns, a sword rooted firmly in its hind legs, it merely looks on with feigned lucidity. Forcing a growl akin to that of a lumbering primate, the bestial knight looses its lash: a bristled stamen, reared back like a cobra mid-strike. The snake crisscrosses beneath the muck, picking up flecks of dross, uncoiled and twirling in blighted halos of razor wire lattice.
The last trick is performed, and what I want most is at hand. The greatest power, forged only through intense hardship and grand regret, is beyond limitation. The blood of the innocent wets my fingers from your palms, hot as an ignited geyser and fresher than when it was first spilled. As expected, there is none more devious than yourself, and though you have ventured into hell's chambers upon some beacon of supremacy, the truth remains acute: You are a sought-after being whose companionship deserves solely my own.
I have waited patiently, but that wait is about to conclude unconditionally. Dispose of falsehood. Follow me to the whereabouts of eternal misery, agony, and hurt. It is there that we can be joined, arms folded over the other's livelihood. Do you not hear the birth pangs of what beckons us thither? They sound of a creature's death throes. They are cries for our reunion.
You have turned to the premier page of our tale, our chronicle of besetting strife, and while my attention is diverted, another four have been leafed through. Light-footed sprites toil, sifting through the parchment's witchery to catalogue Sun slowly blotted out by its lesser, Moon. Selflessness, delight, profundity, injustice…My devotion is steadfast. Is yours the same? Or, if you reject me thus coldly, then I need not show affection any further. This world is of no importance. For all the harm that went into dissolving your inhibitions, the outcome is disappointment. How awful that you're to blame. You, who could not return my feelings, are just as worthless as all else.
The tower to our fable's terminus looms beyond the rainbow-veiled stairwell, its base dipped in rosewater and obscured by mauve cloud-currents. I ascend the eight steps and navigate the sewn-shut jaws of the cavern to erect the items of sacrament below the cambering buttresses of the monolith's interior. In succession, the Struggler's Bandage, the Epidemic of Giants, the Core of Evil, the Chaos Void, the Garb of Saints, the Caretaker's Furnace, the Deformity of Lycanthropes, the Golem's Lava Rock, the Torchbearer's Prism, the Lord's Excalibur, and the Totem of Guardians.
Last is the statuesque Conqueror, his body spewed forth from his mount's pustule-ridden front, with the lids on his face wearing malefic smiles of their own. The drake is in chains, like a baboon raging in its cage. Each fiery breath it emits bites into its scaled hide proper, the euthanizing fumes pushing Das Extremer Traurig Drachen nearer gulf's edge. The hollow castle there sinks above a volcanic stream. Valkyries ride the event horizon to Valhalla, whilst sonar pierces the stratosphere. This is the end! I'll take your love and unmake all in everlasting unity!
The end of the line.
"Your soul was led astray. I'll leave my own and be here for you always. At that time, should I disappear from this place, I will not care having known that you'll be at peace."
We have to stop. This waltz in thunderclap. I'm out of rhythm, tempo, and uniformity. After what I've put you through, you still offer me the final dance? The tune is doleful, melodramatic, and moody. The music, impervious with intermittent trudges. I do not understand, but you complete me. That's why I'm not scared to cradle you now, in my warmth, as I did while you were growing up. Even though the scars won't disappear, we prance on, along the promenade till dawn.
"Judai…We are one. This means you won't let go of me again, right? With your tenderness and strength, I will someday atone for my misgivings. Together, with you."