Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh or Supernatural, which is a shame, really.
This chapter will feature a Shadow/Dark Game. Let me just say that this was incredibly difficult to write and I seriously wonder how Takahashi came up with so many random games back in the day. I wracked my brain for quite some time to come up with a Shadow Game not used in the manga and it still falls short of my expectations. The idea came from a puzzle game my own grandpa had. It was an old, bronze number slider game. That thing drove me crazy as a kid. Anyway, something like this has probably been done before but it's the best I've got. I hope it isn't too disappointing. Enjoy!
Chapter 11
"Let's play a game." The Spirit of the Puzzle smirked as the words left his mouth. It had been some time since he'd last organized a Dark Game and a part of him missed it. He had mostly stopped after Duelist Kingdom, not wanting to risk Yugi's safety and knowing that the younger soul did not approve of the harsh way Yami often dealt with enemies. This was different, however. He was certain that the young woman he faced now was being controlled by a demon. If he played his cards right, he might be able to free the girl as well.
The game would need to be a simple one; something that he could create relatively easily and that would not give him an unfair advantage. An idea occurred to him, prompting a small smile to grace his lips.
Yami worked quickly, weaving the encroaching Shadows into the desired game with more than a little malicious intent. The Shadows obeyed, eager for a chance to claim a new victim. The creature before him would sincerely regret bringing Yugi harm.
This was decidedly more than the demon had signed up for. She was a low-ranking demon, often sent to handle grunt work and less desirable assignments. She had groaned when her superiors informed her that she would be tasked with putting an end to the teenage son of Melanie Mutou. The demon had hoped that the job might prove to be a little more interesting when she discovered that the Winchester brothers were keeping close to Yugi, but then he had been almost disappointingly easy to separate from his older cousins.
Things had suddenly become too interesting for her tastes. It was obvious to her now that the boy had another tenant taking up residence in his body. That tenant, who had a rather frightful gleam in his eye, had not taken kindly to her attempts at harming his host. He did not seem to be a demon, however. A human spirit? He seemed different than the others she had encountered.
The world around them darkened and she could feel the heavy magic swirling in the air surrounding them, trapping her in an invisible wall of shadows. For the first time in a long time, the demon remembered what it was to fear. She struggled to appear unfazed by the strange magic and the rage of the Spirit before her.
"Why," she asked with a sneer, "should I play a game with you?"
"Oh?" He chuckled darkly, "I thought a being such as yourself might jump at a chance for a Dark Game. Don't your kind typically enjoy claiming the souls of others?"
She raised an eyebrow, her interest peeked. He was right. A Dark Game sounded exactly like something she'd enjoy, though she didn't really know what it entailed. However, a demon such as herself could benefit greatly from claiming the soul of the strange and powerful individual before her. Indeed, she highly doubted a mortal could come up with something to truly challenge her.
"How does this work?" She asked, smiling wickedly. Her avaricious eyes gleamed with thoughts of claiming her prize.
"The rules are simple," Yami began, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"What the hell is this?" Sam asked the empty air.
In front of him stood a wall of writhing shadow, blocking off one of the narrow alleyways. No sound escaped from behind the barrier and he could make out nothing happening on the other side. It was like nothing he'd ever seen.
And there weren't many things that Sam hadn't seen.
Slowly, Sam reached towards the wall of darkness. Somehow, the shadows converged in this place, solidifying against his touch. He pushed against the wall with more force this time, but, if anything, the ominous barrier became more resistant.
Sam became so engrossed in prodding at the solid shadows that he did not hear the sound of footsteps approaching. As a hand land heavily on his shoulder, he jumped, stifling a yelp of surprise.
"Sammy, what the hell, man?" Dean started at Sam's reaction, having assumed that his brother was aware of his heavy steps. "And what the hell is this thing?"
"Yeah, that's what I said. Have you ever seen anything like this before?"
"Nah," Dean reached forward, hesitantly pressing a palm against the shadows. "This is some weird shit. Where's the kid?"
The younger Winchester shook his head, unsure of his answer. "I don't know, Dean. I lost him and then I found this thing. You don't think he could be behind it, do you?" Concern ran thickly into Sam's voice, though he tried to hide it.
Dean kicked the shadow wall, grunting and cursing as he stubbed his toe painfully against it.
"Knowing our luck? Of course, that's where he is. You think we can shoot through this thing?"
Yami could feel the presence of others pushing against his barrier. He wondered, vaguely, who would be brazen enough to approach the wall of pure shadow. Not that it really mattered. No one could interrupt a Dark Game. The Shadows would not permit it.
He turned his attention back to the game about to begin, smirking cockily.
It was a simple game, provided by the Shadows and fueled by the memory of a game he'd seen Grandpa Mutou play while listening to the evening news. On the ground before him was a large golden puzzle, featuring a series of fifteen sliding squares, each the size of a grown man's hand and carved with a portion of a simple picture. It featured four columns and four rows. The idea was to slide the squares around, manipulating each piece until they formed a complete picture.
The same puzzle was on the ground before his adversary, who looked less than pleased with the task at hand. He could sense her impatience growing already.
"The rules are simple," Yami told the demon. "The first one to complete the puzzle, revealing the hidden image, wins. To keep things fair, I do not know what the picture depicts, either. If you lose, you leave the girl and return to whatever hole you crawled out of. If I lose, you get my own soul – only mine – and you may do with it what you wish. If you cheat, or if you lose and break your end of the deal, you will face a penalty game."
The demoness, brimming with arrogance, knelt and began to move the puzzle pieces around rapidly and without method. She was eager to finish the silly human game and claim the soul of the young man, if that's what he was, now sitting cross-legged in front of his own puzzle.
The Pharaoh studied the jumbled image before him carefully, trying to imagine what the end picture might be. The picture was difficult to make sense of in its current state, though he was able to make out some of the connecting pieces relatively quickly. Slowly, methodically, Yami began moving the pieces. It was crucial to consider the bigger picture and the consequences of each movement as he worked.
An angry hiss to his right indicated that the demon was quickly growing frustrated with the puzzle. She had been rushing and had managed, somehow, to make an even bigger mess of the image before her than before, if that was possible. On the other hand, Yami was making some progress.
It was infuriating, she thought, that he was doing so well with the puzzle while she, a mighty demon, was struggling to keep more than two or three of the images in the proper order.
After a few minutes, Yami was more than half way through with his puzzle. He bit his lower lip in concentration, focused on nothing but the game before him. He smiled absently as he began to make sense of the shape carved into the puzzle. It seemed to be a simple ankh, the Egyptian symbol for "life". The image was oddly comforting.
Seeing her enemy smile, the demoness cursed nastily under her breath. There had to be some way for her to gain the upper hand over the strange man. He had said the game was fair, but she was certain that there was no way he was doing so well without cheating. How could a human, spirit or living, outsmart a demon? A wicked thought occurred to her at that moment and she had to turn her face to hide a vindictive grin.
Why was she playing along with this game? She could take what she wanted, surely. Humans were easy enough to possess, magic or no. She would simply force her being into the boy and take his body for her own. She could overpower the other spirit residing in Yugi's body with ease. Then she would win, and she'd have both souls anyway. What purpose was there in making a deal when she could seize what she wanted? She was no Crossroads Demon. Her word was not nearly so binding.
Of course, her task had been to simply kill the Mutou boy. For some reason, she no longer cared about what her orders were. If she could claim his souls, and magic, for her own then she wouldn't have to answer to anyone ever again.
Yami watched the demoness out of the corner of his eye as she worked. She was too easy to read, he thought to himself. It was painfully obvious from the tense way she moved that she was preparing to make some sort of move against him. He smirked to himself, keeping his eyes trained on the emerging image forming in front of him. When she cheated, and she almost certainly would, she would seal her own fate.
With little warning, the girl's head turned upward, and, to Yami's disgust, black smoke billowed up from the young woman's throat, leaving its abandoned host lying unconscious on the ground. The demon's true form, he acknowledged briefly. The thick smoke crackled with tainted and warped energy. Evil radiated from it, causing Yami to instinctively flinch away from the oppressive aura. He did not, however, move from his seated position. This was precisely what he'd been waiting for.
The dense cloud surged forward, converging on Yami, surrounding his form in its choking mass. He could feel the demon pressing around him, choking his airways and trying to force itself into his body. The very thought of such a thing was apalling. Its efforts were interrupted as the Millennium Puzzle pulsed, emitting a bright and unforgiving light. The light encompassed Yami's entire body, sending the demon screaming backwards in a desperate attempt to escape the painful brightness.
"Sorry, no vacancies," Yami sneered, his voice heavy with revulsion. "You've intruded on my soul and must suffer the consequences." He gestured towards the demon's immaterial form, his palm outstretched and glowing with dark magical energies.
"Penalty Game: Imprisonment!"
The demon screeched in protest, flying backwards through the air and slamming into the wall of shadow that had begun to close in. The Shadows surrounded the supernatural cloud, caging it in an inescapable prison.
A final, agonized scream emitted from the demoness as the Shadows disappeared into nothingness, dragging the corrupted soul with them into whatever hell they could devise.
Yami didn't really care what happened to the demon as long as it did not return to threaten those he cared about again. The Shadows would see to that, of course. They severely punished those who did not abide by the rules of the Dark Games.
All traces of the game disappeared with the retreating darkness, leaving only the unconscious blonde woman and Yami alone in the abandoned alley.
