I did it! I did not expect or plan to write another chapter, but I just started and it was incredible! I'm slowly getting my mojo back for writing but this project has been phenomenal to just mindlessly free write!

I'm extremely proud of this chapter and how inspiring the Manga has been!

Disclaimer: This is inspired by and has dialogue based heavily on the dialogue in YuGiOh Volume 13 by Kazuki Takahashi


The Red God

"You're 'doll's' seen better day, Marik," Yami snorted in disgust, staring down the bold, gangly creature before him: all papery skin, sagging bones, and vacant eyes. Limps hung loose at its side and even its head lolled: a marionette on a hook, waiting for its master to once more play with its strings and give it an imitation of life. "Not the most dignified bearer of a God."

Marik's voice barked out a laugh in response, a ventriloquist act with this corpse as the dummy. "This mime went insane years ago when he killed his parents," Marik explained without guilt or pity. "Locked his consciousness away out of guilt, an empty vessel so to speak. But for me there's no better weapon."

Yami snorted, hands clenched: all derision and disgust. "You brainwash people, is that it?" he snapped, furious. Every Ghoul he'd ever fought had been a terrible person before and after Marik, but even they did not deserve to have their minds wiped, their memories distorted, taken away like they were trinkets to be used and thrown away.

Not when he knew what it was like to have none. "I will not let you get away with it!"

"The mind is more fragile than the body!" Marik snapped defensively, furious he had to explain himself to this creature of all things, but Yugi was within the puzzle, Yugi stood at its side, and he wanted, needed, Yugi to understand him. "Imagination can eat up the mind. People are influenced by what they see and read, out of that, people can create an entire split personality. Others even think they hear "God"." He snorted, then smiled, but the Doll's features distorted it, making it look lopsided and sinister. "When my overwhelming charisma and dominance combines with a person's internal image of 'God', it's easy to control someone." he bragged, parroting the very words he'd been told so long ago.

A smile slit his face. " That's the power of the Millenium Rod." he said and felt its power coursing through him, a golden radiance reminding him only he was worthy of the power of God, of the title Pharaoh whom all of Ancient Egypt saw as a living God. "My mind literally dominates them...their thoughts, their senses...their memories…" He spoke the last part with a particular mocking that he couldn't recall thinking.

Yami's eyes narrowed, sharpening with a heated fire. One that promised revenge and retribution. It twisted Marik's gut, filled him with a lecherous shock of hunger he did not recognize and wrote off as hatred, even as the Rod pulsed hungrily at his hip, a ravenous hunter eager to hunt and capture and devour.

Then he smirked. "You can catch me," Yami mocked, all cool confidence. "But can you beat me?"

Marik threw back his head with a laugh and the Doll mimicked it, a vicious bark of sound. "Of course, I can! I'll kill you, Pharaoh , and then I'll go after Kaiba and take his card…" and free Yugi from your selfish impudence .

The thought filled him with a giddy sense of excitement. He could picture it all: the three God Cards in his hand, the title of King bestowed upon him, Yugi at his side, a Queen and confident, the world at his feet and the sun on his face, the wind so rich that it would take him a moment to recognise the taste as freedom.

Free…

The word was a goal, a hope, a hymn, a sacred promise and an ultimate reward.

Free...I will finally be freed from the curse of a thousand years...and then I will be free at last!

Both men donned their duel disks, shuffled their decks and at last, the first part of the climax that started three thousand years in the past began.

They matched each other's opening move: one face down card, one monster in attack mode: trap for trap, strike for strike.

Marik snorted. "Playing it cautious are we," he mocked. "Or cowardly." With a triumphant howl he revealed his next move, fusing his two monsters together and revealing the card that Yami had mistaken for a trap.

"Quick attack!" Yami gasped, realizing his mistake.

"I don't fear my opponents or their cards," Marik said, all mockery was gone from his voice. Instead he spoke, sharp and serious "I'm not the type of duelist who plays it safe and never attacks unless he's sure he has the upper hand…" He had lived his entire life that way. And it had amounted to absolutely nothing: only pain and misery.

It was only when he'd taken a risk, the first in his life, dared for once to live that things had changed...for better and for worse.

"I'm not a coward like you who's afraid." He launched his attack, his monster charged to destroy.

But it was not surprise or even rage that graced the Spirit's face.

Instead, Yami smirked, all triumphant expectation, as he revealed his own spell: DeFusion.

Marik could've screamed.

As his monster vaporizes into smoke and ash, the Spirit stood among them, arrogant and commanding as any God. "I'm sure you've already planned your next move, Marik." Yami's smile curled at the corners, his blazing eyes all fire and confidence. "I've already planned for the move after that."

Marik laughed. "This is fun."

He'd cast his stone, tested the waters and watched it ripple waiting to see what shape it would take. If the vessel was shallow. He knew full well of Yugi's skills, his Yugi's skills, the skills he had no doubt this stranger exploited, but it seemed the false King had some depth to him as well.

But it did not matter. For he would throw the stone.

He knew the allusion was lost on the false King, a disappointment, but all the better for him. He would show him how water, shapeless and purifying, could become an impenetrable shield.

He played Revival Jam.

And felt an atrocious swirl of hunger in his gut when he saw the imposter's face contort with a shock of understanding when he realized what Marik planned to do. That his strategy to stop that plan had already failed.

And Marik as the false King, the spirit of the supposed Pharoah, watched in horror behind the spike bars of Nightmare Steel Cage as token after token appeared, each an eager and willing sacrifice for an ultimate level monster.

"Well, Pharaoh ," he spat his title as if it were dirt on his tongue. "How do you feel now that you're locked up... imprisoned ?" The word was a harsh accusation. "Humiliation? Despair? Sorrow?" His voice lowered, dangerous and dark. "That's how I've felt my whole life. That is the fate of the tomb guardians."

Something like regret flashed across Yami's face.

Good , Marik thought, let him feel guilty. It would make his victory all the sweeter.

He saw the terror flashing across Yami's face, the panic, and he drank it all in like a fine wine.

At last Marik was ready to throw his stone...A stone with the name of a God.

And its name was Slifer.

X X X

The God's arrival was a thunderclap: a sky blackened by storm clouds and heralded by the crash of thunder. Lightning flashed in dangerous streaks from the sky to the ground, Seth's fire at its finest and most dangerous, and in an enormous, fiery electric bolt of crimson lighting, the creature appeared.

A beast so long, so large, it dominated the entirety of the sky until Yami's entire world was the long serpentine slither of a crimson body. It glowed scarlet in the light, its back a mountain range of powerful spikes, its underbelly that of a serpent: black and plated. Its two enormous wings stretched across the sky in full span, blocking out the sky. Its two long arms protruded from its side, flashing deadly white talons each as long as Yami, himself. Its dragonic head was massive: all tusks and blazing yellow eyes, but worst of all were its mouths. Plural. An enormous gaping maw of sharp teeth was open as it dove towards him, so fierce and so hungry was its roar that for the briefest moment Yami feared it would devour both he and Yugi whole, and was grateful for the steel cage's protection.

And there above the first jaw was a second mouth: two more rows of sharp teeth like a crocodiles: white teeth filed to sharp points.

It was massive. It was monstrous. It was marvelous and...magnificent, in a fierce, ancient way he suspected that all Gods must be, for even in this form it carried itself with dignity. Commanded respect as well as fear, triumph as well as terror, and there upon its brow, it was crowned with the shimmering sky blue jewel of sovereignty: proof of its position and its power, its role in the universe.

Slifer, the Sky Dragon of Osiris, God of the Sky and Storm and wielder of Seth's Fire.

Yami could not have imagined a creature more worthy of being called a God. Or at the very least the Avatar of one.

Even as it terrified him, there was something memorable about it. Something so achingly familiar that Yami's heart once more leapt to life desperate to cling to its remembrance though recognition failed it.

Something about those burning yellow eyes, like two golden suns that filled him with warmth and protection, those crimson scales whose smooth looking texture made his fingers tremble with familiarity, something about its long, serpentine body that squeezed him tight, but with no fear of strangulation, rather it felt comforting like a hug.

He could not recall these sensations or the memories that produced them.

In that moment, as Yami starred, transfixed and terrified by the mighty creature before him, all he could think of were those terrible burning eyes looking at him hungrily. All he could see were those terrible teeth and horrible claws that could tear him to pieces without a second's hesitation. All he could feel was the slicing heat of the lightning that produced it and threatened to burn if Yami dared to get too close.

This...this was a God. And it was his enemy.

"That's right, Pharaoh ," Marik howled with triumphant laughter. It echoed in Yami's mind like the drumbeat of a death march. " This is one of the three god cards. Take a good look at its power!"

Yami did look and all he saw was power: power so fierce and blinding that it hurt to look. Until this moment, Yami thought he understood the color red. Red was fire, red was blood, and the endless crimson sands of the desert that belong to Seth. Fierce and passionate and vigorously, unapologetically alive, a roaring fire or fresh blood spilled across a battlefield, a promise of warmth and life or destruction as it saw fit. Red was a wasteland of death and hardship, beautiful as it glittered in the twilight of dusk and the fiercest protector of all Kemet and its people.

He'd thought he understood power: power was confidence and glory, earned, not taken, given, not stolen. Power was the way one swaggered into a room, commanding the attention of all with a single look, a single stare. Power was the smile and the glint in one's eyes and the smile that never faltered, never changed in the face of struggles or hardships. Power was outwitting an opening so completely and utterly without uttering a single word, without raising a single voice.

He thought he understood fire: fire was life and destruction. Fire was Seth's lighting filling the sky with the promise of flaming rain. Fire was the golden sun of Ra and the fierce stolen eye of Heru as he uttered a battle cry. Fire was Sekhmet, ferocious as she led an army of demons upon the enemies of Kemet and the hot, oven air of the red desert that threatened to choke its enemies and yet warmed the land with its heat. Fire was the light of passion and desire, the embers of a candle burning in the dark and the spark of will and the fight that never surrendered. Fire was the swirl of smoke and heat, the red tongues of temper and rage and protection and the ferocious lioness who would defend her pride to the death… and the conflagration that would destroy all with its passionate rage.

The metaphor has been used to describe him plenty of times, though he could not remember who'd used it.

This strange new world held a multitude of definitions that was all that and more. This being was all of that and more and Yami realized that power, fire, red, all those things that had been used to describe him in the past were nothing but polite metaphors when in comparison to the unrivaled, undeniable, unwavering might and majesty that was this beast. No, true power, true fire, true red, was Slifer the Sky Dragon.

Yami stood there. Frozen. Unable to move and not because of the steel cage. Fear. Actual fear he had not felt since he felt Yugi's soul being ripped away from him...since fire threatened to separate him from his beloved forever, since the monstrous Shadow had threatened to devour him and take him back to the darkness he hated.

He could feel it: Slifer's power pouring out of its very being and rippling the air, the very fabric of reality with its might.

H-How... the word froze in his throat, unable to be voiced. How can I even beat this thing...it's like the very earth trembles when it moves.

"You can't". Yami could hear the smirk in Marik's words. Envision the smile slitting his face, curling at the corners, twisting his expression with vicious triumph. "No one can beat it! Every duelist is powerless against Slifer's infinite attack power! Yes, Pharaoh, even you !"

I can't lose. Yami swore to himself through the haze of panic and fear. I cannot let aibou die, I can't lose my memories forever. But it was becoming harder and harder to focus as the great beast stared down at him through eyes like hot burning coals.

Yami took a breath, resolved himself. He processed the information he'd been told. Tallied the attack points of his monster, Slifer's and their conflicting strategies.

All while Marik mocked "What's wrong. Pharaoh? Has the terror paralyzed you to the point you can't draw a card?"

Yami chose to ignore the insults, and it's playful derision. He took a breath, steeled himself and resolved "I won't lose this fight."

And drew a card. Played his hand. Kuriboh, the ever loyal soldier in defense mode, stood bravely even in the face of a God.

Yami ended his turn, shivering at the loss of the cage, vaporizing in a cloud of steam and smoke. His only defence against the might of a god, gone in a single instance.

Now he was left alone to fight a God and the madman who controlled it.

He watched in horror as his strategy failed and Buster Blader fell under the indomitable might of Slifer's fiery breath and teeth, Marik's mocking laughter and the terrible quivering of his own heart in his chest.

X X X

"Mr Kaiba! We've located Slifer the Sky dragon!" The words shrieked in Seto's ear. He stopped and listened, memorized the coordinates but stopped when he heard the name of the duelist engaged.

He could have laughed. He could've screamed. Instead, he did neither. Instead, he smiled and ushered Mokuba to follow him.

A smile slitting his face. "Yugi…" But not Yugi, the other Yugi. The only one worthy enough to challenge a God. To challenge him.

He did not know the Gods were watching him, having cast their dice not upon their reborn Prince and the young man who wielded the spirit of a monster, nor the thief who had made so many deals, but him...eager to see if their gamble was worth it.

They could only hope that he didn't fail them.

X X X

Across the city, something like lightning struck Ryou in the chest, galavanting all his senses with a terrible familiarity and panic. The Ring pulsed wildly against his chest, not asking, but demanding permission. Separating himself from Jounouchi, Grandpa and Anzu, he allowed Bakura to take over.

The tangled prongs gasped and dashed wildly about as if unable to control or make sense of the power it sensed. Bakura felt it, too: the nameless dread, the shaking of the very earth that did not move, the heaviness of the air as if the fabric of reality had shifted.

Looking up he caught the sky darkening as if a storm approached, heard the rumble and saw the flash of lightning, but saw it cyclone and accumulate in a single location: a creature summoned from sky and storm, lighting and fire and the very forces of the heavens and understood, immediately.

"Oh..." He dragged his hand over his face.

The Red God was back.

And this time, it wasn't the King's.

"FUCK!"


I am VERY proud of Slifer's appearance this chapter: I wanted to capture that sense of terror he fills Yami with but also capture the sense of familiarity he can't quite grasp because Slifer is HIS God...

I'm also proud of Seto this chapter and the cameo I was able to give Bakura because, of course!

And as always Mark is an absolute BLAST to write!

Part three of his will be up soon! i make no promises but i am on a role! but First i need to get back to editing Timaeus ;) Wish me luck!