Chapter 45: A Rope in the Dark
"Fool!" the spirit of the ring raged. "Do you realize what you've done?"
Added to the roar of the shadows, Nakhti's voice was just that much more noise, and Ryou had ears for none of it.
"So punish me," he said to whatever noise cared to listen. "But I'm not leaving until I find what's lost."
If only his knees had managed the strength of his voice. The darkness swirled around him, engulfing him, filled with gaping red skulls like so many sharks hungry for blood.
"You've interfered with a shadow game." If Ryou didn't know better, he'd think Nakhti was more afraid than angry.
Ryou hadn't meant to interfere. Or, more accurately, he hadn't really considered his actions interference. He'd only realized he could help Marik and tried to. Perhaps if the ring came with an instruction manual, it wouldn't be so bloody hard to navigate. The discovery of what was "allowed" through trial and error was not a roller coaster he enjoyed.
One of the skulls halted an inch from his face, and Ryou did his best not to tremble.
"You like deals," he managed, swallowing. "Let's make a deal."
The spirit was at his side at an instant, all his hackles raised. "Don't be so eager to deal in the dark."
"I thought you weren't my friend. Then don't be so keen on advice."
"Forget friend—you're my legs, you blasted cream puff."
Ryou kept his eyes on the skull. He heard the voiceless whispers in his mind, as he had before. This time, they called not for a price, but for:
Play.
Play what?
It could only be a shadow game. Was it possible to win against the dark itself?
"I'm only looking for Marik," he said. "The real Marik."
Play.
Would winning save Marik?
"This is foolishness of the highest order," Nakhti barked. "I won't be dragged in with you."
Ryou shot him a humorless expression. "I'm afraid you haven't much choice. After all, I'm your legs."
To the dark, he said, "I accept."
Yori searched in the dark.
"There are two sides to the soul," Shada had told her. "The first is the known soul, the Ba. It is your conscious attributes, the mirror of you people see reflected in your physical form. Most people believe it is the only soul if they believe in a soul at all."
She wrapped her free hand around her bracelet, focused her mind, reached into its depths.
"Like the dark side of the moon, the second half of the soul is obscured and unseen, even by the self. It is the unconscious attributes, the deepest fears and passions, the monster within. It is the Ka."
The tingling was in every part of her. Likely it was bullheaded determination and nothing else that still anchored her to the world, just like the time she'd walked out of a hospital two days after collapsing a lung. Bullheaded Determination was probably the title of her nonexistent biography.
"This is the true power of the Millennium Bracelet. This is the power we wield: to reach within the human self and draw out the Ka."
A distant sound echoed in the dark, like the rushing of a flood. Yori steeled herself, and she willed the sound to meet her.
"But in order to command any Millennium Item . . ."
The wave crashed against her, encompassed her, and it was not the crashing roar of a flood, but the wailing roar of a sea of shadowed souls. She saw flashes of red swimming in the deep, heard the blended noise of a hundred whispers.
". . . You must first make a deal with the dark."
She braced the legs she couldn't feel, ordered her tingling throat to obey.
"I need a weapon," she told the blackness.
Weapon, it purred back. She heard the glee, the satisfaction.
She'd heard the shadows whisper instructions to a shadow game before, but this was different. The instructions came as a set knowledge, an impression, like she was only remembering the rules to a game she hadn't played in years and the dark was what triggered the memory.
This wasn't a human voice, but it was a voice all the same. It pierced through the tingling, cut to her very soul.
As the shadows passed through her, she saw a vision of herself, saw the power the shadows would allow her to command, saw the fever-glow of Osiris's eye across her forehead, saw the red of blood in her eyes. She felt at once the thrill of supremacy and the terror of insecurity. This was a shadow game now, and she knew the rules: The dark would answer her call, but if she couldn't control it, she would be swallowed whole.
She'd seen Yami with those red eyes before.
She'd seen what he could unleash on a person, the regret he felt afterward.
She'd also told him she wasn't afraid of the dark—now was the time to prove it.
"Bring it on," she said.
And the dark came rushing in.
The camp was just enough of a safe haven for Yami to catch his bearings as a player. By the time he returned, the campsite was being raided by bandits, and several of the soldiers had already been killed. Yami rallied the rest to defeat the bandits. After the fight, he sat beside the fire to tally his resources.
Three characters. First, High Priest Akhenaden, who was mystically skilled: heka attacks and a guardian monster that could be summoned twice in a game. Second, Captain Omari, who was physically skilled: thrown spears for long-range attacks and a bonus to close combat.
The final character was a spy among the thieves' village. His abilities were unknown and his character tablet warned he was just as likely to double-cross as to provide accurate information. His name was Nakhti.
It wasn't the most glowing lineup. Along with his player characters, Yami had the encampment of soldiers—essentially pawns. And he had the recipe for victory: 99 souls, fresh in harvest, dark in purpose.
He would have to fight his way into the thieves' village and sacrifice a hundred people to form the Millennium Items, all before Marik killed off his characters and soldiers.
His stomach had turned at the first three kills in this game. To manage 99 . . .
But he had to. This was the only way to save Yori.
He grasped the chain of the Millennium Puzzle. Even when it wasn't visible within the game, he always felt its presence, the weight that never left his neck, the curse that allowed him to play at mortality but asked heavy prices in return.
He closed his eyes.
The game's night was drawing to a close. Before it was gone, it would be wise for him to play his spy character, to scope out the village. But suppose Marik was waiting for that, waiting for him to abandon the character commanding the soldiers, the character capable of the most powerful attacks. Perhaps it was better to go in blind—
Something tickled his senses. Like a voice calling for him.
Yami jumped to his feet, circled to look at the camp, but nothing was out of place. The NPCs were mostly asleep, and those that weren't were hardly lively, not without a command from him.
He closed his eyes again, focused on the puzzle.
And all at once he could see her:
There was nothing but darkness surrounding her, and she couldn't be real, not when she bore none of the marks of recent medical care, not when her skin was unmarked by scars. But her deep eyes caught his, and his heart flipped all the same.
"Yori," he croaked.
He tried to move; it broke the illusion. Forcing a deep breath, he steadied himself once more, tied himself more fiercely to the puzzle.
And now he noticed how her eyes were tinged with red.
And his heart flipped for a different reason.
"How is this possible?" he whispered, voice still hoarse.
She lifted her arm, displayed the glowing Millennium Bracelet. The Eye of Horus flickered across her forehead like a TV channel coming in and out of signal.
"It didn't come with an instruction manual," she said, "so I'm pressing buttons blindly."
Somehow they'd intersected, her reaching with her bracelet and him with his puzzle.
She was safe. That was what mattered. He could hardly breathe past the realization, because no matter how he'd quieted it, part of him had feared the worst.
"I'm coming for you," he blurted. "I just have to beat Marik, and then—"
She shook her head, cutting him short, dropping his stomach to his shoes.
"I knew you'd try to save me," she said. He couldn't tell if there was warmth in the assessment or not. "But there's not enough time. You'll have to trust me to manage this one myself."
He looked into the darkness beyond her, saw its texture, its depth. It didn't all belong to the shadows; some of it was a nothingness he'd never seen. All the same, he recognized it.
She was out of time.
He couldn't reach for her.
Couldn't do a damn thing.
"Relax." Everything he loved about her shone through in one wry smile. "I won't tell you to have fun. But I'll tell you to fight your hardest—"
"—and I'll tell you to win," he finished.
That was it. The connection severed like someone had cut the wire.
She had. Because she had more pressing matters to deal with than conversation. And it was selfish of him to feel unsatisfied even if he'd imagined a much different reunion.
As he opened his eyes to the firelight, saw how drastically it had dimmed next to the coming dawn in the sky, his shoulders sagged. If he wasn't saving Yori, what was his purpose here?
Yuugi.
Marik had told him to choose. Apparently the choice had just been removed.
. . . But why was Yami playing by Marik's rules to begin with?
He'd been so frantic after Yori's loss. Instead of thinking of solutions, he'd rushed headfirst into the only one that presented itself at the time. A shameful strategy. Not at all the usual creativity he brought to the field.
He remembered the spirit of the ring's question, and for the first time, he truly pondered it:
If you go to battle against an all-powerful opponent, what weapon do you choose?
He'd faced hopeless matches in the past: Kaiba, Pegasus. The cards and strategies changed each time, but some factors were consistent. His confidence. His trust in Yuugi.
"High priest." The NPC guide had approached. "We await your command to strike."
No, Marik wanted the straightforward play. He was always taunting opponents to take it, the way he'd taunted Kaiba to win a duel by simply using the rod.
Marik's taunts . . .
Yami remembered Marik's taunt after Yuugi's disappearance, remembered Marik leaning close atop the Duel Tower, lowering his voice to say: Close your eyes and wish for it very, very hard. Maybe it will turn out you have some power after all.
Yami looked down. The faint outline of the puzzle shimmered as he gripped it. The way he'd seen Yori had happened once before, during his duel with Pegasus. After Yuugi's collapse, there had been no way for Yami to protect his mind from Pegasus's eye, yet when Pegasus peered into his mind for the identity of his final facedown card, he'd been blocked by a wall of Yuugi's friends. Joey, Anzu, Tristan, Ryou—there was no explanation for their presence, no way they should have been able to interfere in the shadow game, yet they appeared all the same. Without them, he would have lost the duel.
There had been so much happening at the time, Yami had taken the miracle with gratitude and never paused to dissect it.
Was it the puzzle that had drawn them in?
"Pressing buttons," he murmured. He'd done very little to experiment with the puzzle. He used it to manifest in the real world, used it for shadow games.
Just recently, he'd used it to reach Kaiba's mind while the brunette was overwhelmed by the rod. And had someone asked, Yami wouldn't have been able to explain how he'd done it. Simply instinct.
The items were a set: They all summoned the shadows, they all darkened their users.
The items were unique: Only the rod could control minds, only the eye could read them.
If you go to battle against an all-powerful opponent, what weapon do you choose?
He stared at the faint outline of the Eye of Horus across his puzzle.
If Yami were to go to war with a god, the only weapon that might achieve something would be an item that bore the mark of one.
He closed his eyes.
Wish for it very, very hard.
He reached for a connection he couldn't see but that he felt in the depths of his soul.
Maybe you have some power after all.
It was instinct. Catching a rope while blind. With Kaiba, he'd drawn himself toward its end. In the duel with Pegasus, he'd drawn its end toward himself.
He did the latter.
And when he opened his eyes—
—he saw Yuugi.
Note: Life is busy with a baby, but I'm still chugging along. I hope you're all doing well.