My goal was to finish this last weekend...I do not know why I bother setting goals: especially when holiday drama, adjusting to the "new routing" at work (I refuse to say normal because no one knows what the fuck that is anymore) and an adorable and overly affectionate hellhound who refused to let my type conspired to make this take longer than I expected but I am SO pleased with the result!
Enjoy!
Reckoning
Marik screamed as the meteor's attack struck and Yugi collapsed. An angel in true form, his final plea was for Jonouchi to escape.
Of course, Jonouchi refused. Of course!
Seconds counted down like daggers stabbing Marik in the chest.
Someone was screaming. It might've been Marik. Or Jonouchi. Or both.
A hiss scolded them both for their doubt. A Queen and a Warrior, the Red Eyes Black Dragon summoned the last of her strength and in a blast of fire Jonouchi's life points hit zero and the key holding Yugi's salvation snapped open.
Marik watched through desperate eyes as Jonouchi, ignoring his own key, swung across the platform towards Yugi, enclosed his hand over his key, his duel disk and Yugi's precious puzzle left behind: a golden knight, ready, willing, loving Yugi enough to risk his life for him…to die for him.
And then the anchor dropped.
The scream that tore through Marik was a living thing: a feral, mournful, primal beast that clawed its way out and unable to form anything else but the echo of pure terror as their chains went taunt and Jonouchi and Yugi both disappeared beneath the water. A cold dread paralyzed him as the ripples ceased and the ocean became deceptively calm.
Calm as finality.
Calm as death.
Yugi crashed through the surface of the sea, battered and bruised and barely conscious when Mokuba dragged him out of the sea but alive.
Alive.
Yugi, his beloved Yugi, was alive!
He came awake just as Jonouchi came up gasping and started shouting at Kaiba, proof he was alright. Back to his old self. His true self.
Relief flooded through Marik, so thick and terrible he felt sick from it. It liquified his bones and he crashed to his knees, rose up like bile in his throat and then spilled out as tears. And as relief gave way to remorse and remorse became grief, grief transformed into anger and anger to shame, a horrible, twisted shame until all Marik was left with was the crippling reality that this was his fault.
All his fault.
It was not a lie born of grief or a bargain of protection, it was a simple fact.
This was his fault.
And as he watched Jonouchi approached Yugi, face consumed with apology, saw Yugi's delighted face, that sunshine smile so bright and happy and beautiful that all the darkness in the world would not dare try and dim it: the full weight of his defeat, his sins, hit him with the force of a landslide. A tidal wave of his own making washing him out of Anzu's mind with the anguish of his own guilt.
He abandoned her mind, knowing he did not deserve to see that smile. To witness such an intimate moment. Not after what he did, what he'd almost done.
He crashed back into his own body, his own mind a crumbling, collapsing whirlwind of emotions and debris and came down with such a terrible force that Rishad jumped to his feet. Marik barely registered that his older brother was there until a familiar touch broke through the cloud of his misery and he found himself staring into the warm, compassionate eyes of his older brother.
The dam broken, Marik collapsed in his older brother's arms and wept.
X X X
The creature screamed. A roarous, world-shaking screech of vengeance and indignation and absolute rage. Even as the sound exploded out of it and shadows burst out of it in visual demonstration of said anger, it thrashed and stormed and tore apart anything it could, shifting chaotically between its true form and the mimicry of his beloved descendant. The experience was nowhere near as cathartic in the world of the Rod as he suspected it would've been were the creature still in possession of Marik's body.
Kalm couldn't stop his smile. Or his snicker.
The creature whirled towards him with anger blazing in its face. If you could call the monstrous mess of bulging veins and distorted features a face. It shot forward, the gape of its maw open as if to devour him. Kalim did not flinch. Nor did he look surprised when the creature stopped just before him, apparently no longer caring for the monstrous appearance it had chosen knowing it did not bother this one at all.
You think you've won, Priest. It spat the man's title venomously. It's eyes twisted with absolute derision. No…the word was a hiss, a mad combination of triumph and glee and anticipation. No…we've barely begun! Your precious charge has yet to give up on his quest nor has your beloved apprentice passed a single trial! One more failure and I doubt even Mut will have any faith in him…and that boy….your sweet Chosen whom you all adore…oh…ho the plans I have for him…"
Kalmi schooled his expression into one of firm indifference even as his heart thudded at the thought of the Pharaoh's darling host, Marik's beloved in the clutches of this monster, this manifestation of the beast that was responsible for all of this.
No…Kalim would not let that happened.
"You lost," he said, low, even, dangerous. "And you will lose."
A smile slit the creature's face and curled at the corners: all teeth.
X X X
The rush of being the one to rescue Jonouchi from a watery grave faded the moment Seto realized the sweet-faced red-haired girl with bandaged eyes was his sister. The sister he fought so hard for during Duelist Kingdom. The sister he entered Battle City for in the hopes of becoming stronger. To give her courage. Courage she would need to face the world after her operation with no guarantee that she might see him again.
And yet there she was: fearlessly wrapping her bandages with absolute confidence that the first thing she'd see when she opened her eyes was the older brother she adored, promising to give him the same courage–to face her after the guilt of everything that happened in the last hour crashed upon him and even Yugi's immediate forgiveness wasn't enough to rid him of the grief that came from almost destroying the friend he loved.
Seto looked away and let the shadows conceal his vision, even as he felt Mokuba's hand tug his own. He didn't deserve to witness such a heartfelt reunion. Not when he immediately recognized the shame in Jonouchi's eyes. The exact same shame that clouded his own relief the moment he saw Mokuba imprisoned in Pegasus' dungeon, his eyes bright without a single doubt that Seto would save him. The same shame that flickered when he saw his brother again on the steps of Pegasus' castle and he felt the final piece of his fractured heart snap back into place like a piece of him that had always been lost had found its way home. The first time they saw each other since Death-T…when he all but forced his twelve year old brother who'd always loved and stood by him to face Death.
The shame felt only by an older brother who'd completely and utterly failed the younger sibling who had always loved and admired them.
What would have happened had the Other Yugi not pulled him out of it? Saved Mokuba?
At least Jonouchi had the excuse of being possessed. Seto had not even had that.
And for the first time he realized why Seto had hated him. It wasn't because Jonouchi was an obnoxious delinquent with a deadbeat dad. It wasn't that he was some poor thug working to support said deadbeat. It wasn't that he reminded Seto of himself. It wasn't even that he despised how easily Jonouchi had won the Other Yugi's confidence while he, himself, had had to fight, scrape and claw for the right to even earn it. It was that he recognized in him, someone else who had been raised by a monster…but had chosen not to become one.
That Jonouchi who in so many chilling ways was a mirror of Seto, himself was not the same as him, but not in the way Seto had always imagined himself superior.
One of them was a better man. And it wasn't himself.
"Yugi…" he said evenly. "Tell your other self…that you and your friends have given me 'the answer'." In a flash he once more donned his confident persona and added with just a touch of arrogance. "And I'll be waiting for him at the finals…we can discuss what happened in the alley." The smallest of smirks tugged at his own lips.
"Kaiba," the voice that answered, froze him before he'd even taken his first step and whirled around. Because the baritone command and confident stomps coming towards him did not belong to Yugi. And the eyes that met his were not Yugi's round, compassionately stern violet, but the Other Yugi's sharp, unreadable scarlet.
And right now those scarlet eyes that normally radiated with fire, burned a slow, steady ruby: embers smoldering in a fire just before they erupted.
Only a lifetime of mastering his own emotions kept Seto's face stoic in their presence. "We will indeed meet you at the finals and I appreciate all you've done for my friends today." He responded with such even gratitude that Seto wanted to shriek if only to get a reaction from him.
"And," a smirk curled those lips and his eyes smoldered and burned. "As for what happened in that alley..." The deceptive innocence of that tone was betrayed by the spark that ignited his eyes—
—just as a curled fist delivered a swift, single punch to the center of Seto's gut.
The combination of shock and pain caused Seto to stumble forward, costing him all the dominance his superior height provided. The Other Yugi snatched him by the collar of his coat and dragged him forward so that his own eyes locked with furious cerise. The Other Yugi was a full five inches shy of a foot shorter than Seto but in that moment he might have been the ferocious black dragon herself with how those red eyes burned.
"Do. Not. Ever. Do that. Without asking permission. Again." He punctured each word and the final one with a shove that sent the taller man stumbling backwards. Mokuba helped him to steady himself but the arched brow and unsurprised frown asked more bluntly than any derivative "What did you do, now?" ever could.
When Seto looked up, Yugi Mouto stood in his place and gone was the compassionate loyalty he had shown Jonouchi moments ago. No, the passion burning in his eyes now was a different kind of loyalty: the fierce, protective determination that had burned in Seto the moment he tore those Ghouls apart for daring to hurt Mokuba. "We'll see you at the finals."
With that declaration, Yugi spun on his heels and returned to the shocked faces of his friends all with their own version of the same question, leaving Seto to gather the last threads of his dignity and swagger with Mokuba towards the location of the Battle City Finals.
Of course it was Jonouchi who wrecked it all with a stupidly innocent. "So…what was that about?"
X X X
Marik cried in Rishad's arms until he was exhausted. Even after he ran out of tears and had reduced himself to deep, guttural wheezes to calm himself down, Rishad still held him. He said nothing as the grief and guilt spilled out of the teenager and merely rubbed his back.
He could not remember the last time Marik trusted him with his tears.
The last time Marik trusted him with any emotion other than rage or hate.
Through the sobs and mutterings Rishad would make out the words. "What have I done!" Being chanted over and over inter-spliced with self-punishing phrases like "I'm heartless" but through it all the phrase that sent him into another fit of heartbroken hysterics. "Yugi must hate me."
Only when Marik pulled away, sobs still wracking his body despite his eyes having no more tears to cry did Rishad approach gently. "Master Marik…what happened?"
Marik collapsed again into another guilt-stricken fit of remorse but he confessed everything. Every terrible detail about just how horrencoudly his plan had backfired—and how the man he hated had nothing to do with it.
"They almost died, Rishad, died! My precious Yugi…and Jonouchi…all because of me!" Marik choked on his own confessions. Terror wrecking his entire being as he realized just how close, how narrowly those two young men had escaped death—all because he's allowed his anger and hate to cloud his judgement. "What have I done, Rishad!?"
The man could not answer.
And yet his mind was spiraling with all these revelations. Mark had defeated that darkness. Done so to save Yugi Muto…the Pharaoh's host…the circuits of that fact snapped into place with an epiphany that nearly sent the man spinning…
His younger brother was in love.
Not just some teenage crush or open infatuation but truely, completely and irrevocably in love.
He had no idea what to think of Marik's infatuation before but now? Was this boy truly the key to ending all of this? To undoing the terror that had happened that night…
The key to his brother's happiness? And even if he was…did he have a right to put such pressure on the young man who only knew Marik through letters and wishes? But was that not what love was? A risk? A chance? A hope? and if anyone needed hope…
Deserved hope…
"Master Marik," Rishad approached again, his strong hands gently gripping Marik's shoulders. "Please explain to me exactly what you mean?"
Marik broke "I hurt him, Rishad! I hurt him! Yugi almost died because of me! Jonouchi almost died because of me! Not that worthless Pharaoh but me! You were right, Rishad! That horrible duel was a mistake! I should never have listened to that shadow and now it's too late!" He burst into another fit of tears. "Oh Ra, Yugi must hate me…you should've seen the look on his face when he addressed that stupid shadow and thought it was me? I never should've trusted him! He looked so angry…like he…like he hated me! The worst part is I can't even blame him. RA! WHAT HAVE I DONE!"
Rishad soothed him through a fresh wave of shame. Remorse rolled off him in waves until he was exhausted. When Marik looked up, his eyes shimmering with tears, he looked so utterly defeated that Rishad's heart broke. "Maybe it's better this way…maybe Yugi would be happier with Jonouchi instead…"
Rishad shot up. "Master Marik, no! You cannot give up!" Not when Rishad knew exactly what that kind of grief would do to his younger brother.
"He said he loved him, Rishad! Yugi, he said it to Jonouchi! I should be furious, but I…I can't be…not when Jonouchi was willing to die for him…maybe…" Marik worried his lip, and Rishad saw the conflict warring in his eyes. "Maybe he'll be happier with someone more worthy of him."
Rishad swallowed, his mind scrambling for an answer then deciding to change tactics. "Is that what you wish to do, Master Marik? Give up?"
Marik shot up, eyes flashing dangerously with temper. "Watch your tongue, Rishad!"
Good, Rishad thought. Anger was better than despair at this moment. "I am merely asking what it is you desire, Master Marik." Rishad mollified, head bowed and once more donning the role of loyal servant. "You have spoken quite passionately about your feelings for Yugi Mouto. You're desire to free him from the Pharaoh. I am merely asking if surrendering him to a rival is truly what you want."
"Of course, it isn't!" Marik shot up and grabbed his hair with a scream of frustration and indignation and confusion and uncertainty and remorse and finally, finally, despair. "What else can I do, Rishad?" His face looked so broken that for a moment he looked like the eleven year old boy Rishad had held in his arms all those years ago and gone was any trace of the furious, rage driven young man he had become.
Rishad smiled. "All is not lost, Master Marik. You said so yourself, it was the creature whom Yugi addressed and hated. You he does not yet know…he only knows the you that has remained hidden behind the Ghouls…" Rishad paused. "Perhaps, now it is time for a more…direct approach."
Lilac eyes widened begging him for an explanation.
Relief flooded Rishad so suddenly he nearly toppled from it. "He still wears the gift you've given him has he not? He still has the lettered and flowers Khuzamaa gifted him correct?"
Lilac eyes bulged in understanding and he nodded. "And…his friends already know me as an ally named Namu…I could…I could meet him, talk to him, as Namu and…see if he makes the connection…but…" Marik bit his lip so hard Rishad feared it might bleed. "I don't want to lie to him, Rishad."
"And that is what makes you worthy of him, Master Marik," Rishad explained. "Talk to him. Get to know him. And just as important, let him get to know you. The real you, the true you. Then when you do reveal the truth of your identity and objective to him, he will feel more inclined to listen to the truth. More sympathetic. And it goes without saying but no more threatening his friends."
Hope bloomed in Marik's expression. "It could work…I did promise him Khuzamaa planned to meet him at the tournament." Rishad watched the ideas spark in Mark's eyes. "Perhaps, Yugi would like to receive more flowers…and there may yet be a way to reveal that parasite's true nature without putting my habibi in danger…" Triumph transformed Marik's expression. "Yes, you are right, Rishad."
Rishad watched his master rise, eyes blazing with a new challenge, a new purpose and sighed with relief. It was a risky gamble he had taken and he knew it well, but he knew well the consequences of Marik learning the truth.
"And, Master Marik," he ventured. "Yugi knows only one thing…that he must defeat a man named 'Marik', but he does not know who this man is…" he bowed before his brother, knowing well the weight of what he was about to ask. "Allow me to pose as 'Marik' in your stead, so that neither your beloved nor his friends will be suspicious and you will have complete freedom to pursue him."
Marik smiled. "Very well."
He could only hope Ishizu would forgive him.
So this series is a post Duelist Kingdom Battle City Cannon-divergent/rewrite taking place between Intertwined Two Kings and Intertwined Two Hearts, One Legacy, focusing on Darkshipping and librashipping and will be interspliced between both. So this will be a series rewrite, but will follow the manga cannon with some anime inspirations.
It also takes place in 1996 in order to coincide with the manga (and cause I was a 90s kid)
This idea was loosely inspired by the Doujinshi Malik in Love on Deviantart and my own obsession with Darkshipping that started with the Captive and the Cobra so some chapters will go back and forth between the two pairings and taking place during off-screen events cause I wanna have fun experimenting...BUT THERE WILL BE AN UNDERLINE PLOT! The Intertwined Series has a unified plot so i'll be working on all three together and all three will reveal bits of info so make you you pay attention to those little details ;)
speaking of which...wanna guess what Bakura's got in his pocket?
