The Gift
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And a light that just won't shine in the darkness
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Yugi's head throbbed with a sudden and aggressive pain, both mentally and physically. He was pushed away from the sidelines; the relative safety of the Puzzle, and back into his body.
Being cut from the Pharaoh's link was like being doused in cold water, making him gasp and try to submerge through a sea of dark fog, but never quite reaching the surface.
"Yug!" Joey's hands were there, shaking him.
He opened his eyes and looked past worried faces, to see the cloaked figure chuckling serenely in front of him.
Dark Marik was leering, the Millennium Puzzle and Ring twisted around his muscular arm and swinging close to the Rod.
Yugi felt instinctively around his neck, not really trusting his eyes. The thread of the Puzzle was broken.
"Pharaoh!"
He jumped to see his feet, blind panic overriding anything that made sense, and ran at the creature in front of him, eyes only on the Puzzle.
Dark Marik waved a hand lazily, where spirals of darkness curled free and swirled around Yugi, halting him in his tracks.
It was so cold, and the dark crept up his chest, to his neck and throat, constricting, surely promising death.
Dimly, at the back of his mind, Yugi remembered the Pharaoh talking about the 'Shadow Realm', about how it would not contain a mortal body without killing it first, and then taking the soul away for its own reward.
Maybe this was what it was supposed to feel like. Maybe the Shadow Realm was just a more fantastical word for death, after all.
"Kindly give me the rest of your items," Dark Marik said. "and I won't kill you, or your friends,"
Yugi pulled uselessly against the invisible force, but knew before he sank back to the floor, that it was for nothing.
"Yugi, give him the items. Please,"
Yugi blinked at Tea; she looked terrified and there were wet marks trailing her cheeks.
It wasn't just her; all of his friends' faces were like phantoms; wide eyed and beyond fear. Even Kaiba, who had been observing everything like it might have been a mildly interesting sideshow, suddenly had his back to the wall and a grimace lining his mouth.
Yugi bawled his fists and cursed as he turned back to Dark Marik.
The creature extended a hand, fingers twitching in the air, as Yugi pulled the rest if the Items out of his coat.
"Good boy,"
"Yugi, no!" Marik's cry was hysterical, and he ran between them both. "you can't do this, you can't-"
Dark Marik snarled, a powerful arm lashing out and knocking him to the side with the sharp edge of the Rod.
Marik rolled onto his back, but kept his eyes fierce on Yugi;
"You can't-you can't let him do this! Not after everything we went through...not after this..." the words were swallowed in a sob, and his eyes shut with a sudden stream of tears.
Yugi couldn't bare to look at him, and his arm quivered as he dropped the remaining Items in Dark Marik's hands.
Dark Marik took them without even a pretence of politeness, the snarl on his face only morphing into a grin.
"Good decision, little one."
Yugi watched, the uselessness of his limbs becoming more obvious and frustrating, as Dark Marik walked with intent to the stone slab, and began fitting the items into their oldest home.
Around them, the ebbs of wings were batting around, still too broken apart to truly gather its complete form, and the dark mist around them was thickening, bathing the air with a strange suffocating atmosphere.
There was a flash of pale skin, and then Ryou's voice; "No!" before Yugi realised Marik was back on his feet again.
The tomb keeper leapt onto the back of his darker self, wrapping arms desperately around his neck.
"I won't let you! I won't let you do this!"
Dark Marik moved with a sick kind of elegance, and even laughed, as he swung round, cloak billowing out. His muscular arm reaching up and grabbing Marik's arm. He twisted it sharply, and Marik cried out in pain, losing his hold.
He fell on his back, compromised before his darker self, and the shine of the Millennium Rod flashed only a second before Dark Marik plunged it down to him.
Yugi closed his eyes, expecting another cry, but there was none.
The Rod had impaled the stone floor, barely a millimetre from Marik's skull. The tomb keeper didn't flinch; his face was set, his eyes almost as crazed as Dark Marik's own.
"You've got spirit," Dark Marik said, and then seemed to realise what he'd said with a laugh. "well, you had some Spirit. Pity about that," his mouth twisted, "I know you cared,"
"You-" Marik attempted to lift himself up, but Dark Marik shook his head, and pressed a foot heavily down on his chest.
"Don't get too spunky now. I want you to be around to enjoy the show," he turned back round, to the rest of his frozen audience. "Once the Millennium Items are in place the darkness can truly take over and-"
"Spare us your clichéd little speeches, you freak," it was Kaiba who spoke up, who'd somehow come closer to the group. "You should know that any self indulgent monologuing always ends in defeat, and only buys us some more time,"
Duke nudged him. "Yo, don't tell him that. Now we truly are screwed."
"Like we weren't already." Kaiba rolled his eyes, "No offence, but what does this "darkness" actually entail? Is the actual world just gonna go pitch black? Cos I think humanity might be able to deal with that. In some cases, I think not seeing certain people might be a blessing." he looked unsubtly at Joey.
"Actually, we'd all probably die without natural light," Ryou put in, as if he was chiming into a pop quiz.
"You're all very perceptive," Dark Marik said. "But how about we wait and see for ourselves? I always loved surprises,"
He pushed his foot harder against Marik's chest, and Marik whimpered, his resolve starting to break.
"Geez," Joey murmured, close to Yugi. "This don't look good, Yug."
Kaiba glanced over with a grim face.
"You truly are the Einstein of our generation, Wheeler."
For once there was an edge of fear in his voice.
888
A coolness had wrapped itself around Yami, whether from the Puzzle or Bakura, he couldn't be sure. He supposed he should've been used to Bakura's essence by now, but as it was, he wasn't sure of anything anymore.
Stood like stoic statues, neither Spirit moved. Yami curled his hands into fists, trembling in his own disbelief.
"Why?" was all he could say, as clichéd as it all sounded. "Why would you do this?"
Bakura's laugh was like a bark, echoing all about the corners of the Puzzle. He tossed his head and his eyes gleamed.
"Why do you still ask for a reason, after all this time? Shouldn't it be obvious, Pharaoh?"
"Not really," Yami said, but his mind was contrary, poking at something that probably should have been obvious. He wondered if Bakura could feel the link between them anymore, and if it might pull such thoughts out of him. "How am I supposed to know?"
Bakura shook his head, as though thinking to himself. "I suppose keeping your memories sealed was meant to be a noble sacrifice," he snorted. "How pathetic."
Yami wanted to ignore him, but despite himself he was still taken by the Spirit, and how easily he had deceived everyone. Even Marik.
Ra, Marik.
Bakura had started moving again, pacing up and down the Puzzle like he was quite familiar with it. Yami guessed he would be.
"I knew I'd need the Puzzle intact," the Spirit explained conversationally. "along with the other Items, of course. But this, especially."
"That's why you didn't want me to help you," Yami realised. "When Dark Marik attacked. In case...in case you were damaged inside of the Puzzle."
Bakura smiled and nodded. "well done. You get one point," But then he frowned. "It's unfortunate that couldn't be avoided. Trust you to get involved in matters which don't concern you."
"I risked myself for you. And Yugi, too. We all did."
Bakura gave Yami an odd look, like he couldn't gather the implications. Then he waved his hand, as if to bat such ideas away.
"Never mind, Pharaoh. We're both here now, that's all that matters, isn't it?"
Bakura had gotten closer to Yami; close enough that Yami could see the flecks in his eyes, and realise how different they were now. In the past few days, perhaps weeks, Yami had gotten to know the Spirit well enough to notice things like that, but the absence in Bakura's eyes in this moment was so obvious it would have been unsettling and noticeable to anyone.
"Well," Yami said. "what is the purpose of this? Did you want me here to kill me, Bakura? We are both...already long dead."
Bakura blinked, as if returning from a daydream, and a smile slid back onto his face.
"Why would I kill you? I don't have to do anything but wait, Pharaoh. It won't be long, before the Darkness is all around us, and everything you know and cared about will be destroyed."
A hiss escaped Yami's mouth. He thought he'd become immune to Bakura's brand of taunt, and for a while he had. It had become easier when he saw Bakura around other people, like Marik. Somehow Bakura was never so terrible then.
But how could this be the same Bakura? This Spirit wanted everyone, including Marik, dead.
"Imagine, seeing your face as your precious host falls," Bakura said, his voice deceptively soft, his smile crueller than Yami had ever known it. "How could I deprive myself of witnessing that small pleasure?"
Yami saw red, and launched himself at Bakura.
He managed to drive a fist into the Spirit's gut, but Bakura looked gleeful even as he groaned and hit the ground, catching Yugi's other fist in his hand before he could drive it into his rib.
"What will you do, Pharaoh? Kill me?" he laughed "we're already dead, remember?"
"I wish I could kill you," Yami spoke between his teeth, pinning Bakura's arms back by his wrists, onto the floor.
Bakura laughed again; "When Zorc returns it won't matter. I'll be a part of him again."
"...again?" Yami felt sick.
"Yes," Bakura nodded. "to return to what I was born from, it's what I've waited for, for too long,"
"Is that what all this is for?" Yami's grip slackened and fell away from Bakura's wrists. Bakura didn't bother to move them.
"Are you disappointed in me?" the Spirit smirked.
Yami stared at him.
It seemed so ridiculous. How could he be disappointed in Bakura? How dare he, really? Hadn't he known, all along, what Bakura was? Even if he could never put a name to it, he'd at least always known, by gut instinct alone, that Bakura was bad news.
To be disappointed was like being surprised when you learn that the desert is full of sand. It was...it just was.
Yami turned his head to the side, glowering at the ground. Damn everything, he was disappointed.
"I'm sorry," Bakura mocked. "though we can't all be born of privilege and nobility, can we?" his voice became laced with bitterness, and Yami recognised the hate flashing in his features.
Somehow it was more promising. An emotion that Yami could draw from, relate to, even. Of course he could.
"You know, Bakura, for a while I only trusted you because Yugi seemed to."
Bakura pulled a face. "More fool him, then."
"Ra, even then I was only giving him the benefit of the doubt! But it wasn't just that," Yami said reluctantly. "I saw...I saw how you were with Marik, too."
Bakura narrowed his eyes. "the tomb keeper's involvement was incidental. He doesn't matter."
Yami shook his head, not wanting to believe it. "after everything that happened? After all those times you protected him?"
Bakura looked purely angry, and as if he'd been violated.
"I was protecting the items!"
"Don't give me that! You gave up the Ring when you knew you were in danger! You formed a shield just to protect him. You...you told me you actually cared about him!"
Bakura's body jittered underneath Yami; he was still pinned, but his arms were free, and he threw a well aimed punch, connecting with Yami's jaw.
Though the swing took him off gaurd, Yami managed to keep the Spirit pinned. He grabbed Bakura's fist, pushing it back into the ground, holding the other one down simultaneously.
"It's true, don't deny it!" he growled, and then felt a sharp knee bone connect with his stomach.
Bakura flung him off and barely gave Yami time to recover before he'd pounced on him; and now he had the upper hand again. He looked less victorious and more enraged, though.
"I told you, he doesn't matter. Not anymore!" his fists pummelled at Yami's chest.
Somehow it was better, more karmic, to let Bakura have his rage. If it had to end like this, maybe it was for the best, and bitterly, Yami thought, he deserved it. For as long as he'd allowed a creature like Bakura infect and deceive him, perhaps this was penance and punishment for all of that.
Perhaps it was fitting punishment for them both. In their own ways, they were both abominations, never supposed to exist in this world. Not anymore, anyway.
Yami closed his eyes and waited for whatever fate decided.
Fate was kinder than expected, and the dull pain on his chest eventually stopped, and was replaced with harsh panting. Then Bakura's voice, uneven;
"He-it doesn't matter...I told you."
Yami opened his eyes, noticing the dull sheen crossing the Spirit's skin, and then the way his mouth trembled. The confusing contradiction of a Spirit so evil, and yet it managed to feel something, anything, despite itself.
It was, perhaps, it's own worst enemy.
Yami clenched his jaw.
"Just don't tell me you didn't care. At least for a little while."
Bakura turned his head away, to wipe his brow against his arm for some reason.
"It was...just an experiment. That's all."
Yami stared at him, hands falling away from Bakura's.
"Experiment? You don't experiment with how you feel, Bakura. It just happens."
Bakura hunched forward, as though suddenly overcome with exhaustion.
A long silence permeated the Puzzle's Soul Room, and Yami barely dared breath, in case something related to whatever was happening was disrupted.
He couldn't be sure, but he thought he could feel Bakura's link again, and Bakura was letting him.
Bakura's back seemed to move with a weary exhalation, like he might be sighing, but Yami didn't know. Then the Spirit looked at him, his face almost like exasperation.
"How does it happen?"he asked, as though to humour Yami.
Yami took a breath.
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"How precious, he's still trying,"
Dark Marik's foot crunched down between Marik's shoulder blades, sending another searing pain through the tomb keeper's body.
Marik gritted his teeth, and through unshed tears he swore at the other being, not taking his eyes off the Ring, which hung so close, and belonged to Bakura.
Bakura was not gone.
Marik wouldn't believe it. As long as he could see the Ring, nothing else mattered, except the belief that Bakura was still there.
The weight on his back became harsher as Dark marik twisted his foot deeper against him, and then a cool sensation lined his spine, and Marik took a moment to regain his senses before realising his dark half was teasing a line across his back with the Rod.
Dark Marik chuckled deeply. "I have to admire you for your stubbornness. One of those traits I took with me,"
"You're not a part of me," Marik growled, and wriggled under the weight, managing to gain a little relief. "Not anymore."
The Ring teasingly met Marik's eye level, as Dark Marik bent down to look at him properly.
Marik wasn't prepared for the shock of the close proximity between them, and seeing this off-kilter, sadistic mould of himself made his stomach lurch and his throat close up, like he was being strangled.
Then he understood; Dark Marik's hand was clamped round his throat.
"Such an emotional reunion between us," the grip tightened somewhat. "I can see you're already getting choked up about it."
Marik wheezed though his words; "you don't scare me anymore. I'm not afraid,"
He choked as Dark Marik's hand became a vice, filling Marik's vision with white noise, and making the voices around him muffled, like an old radio station buzzing with interference.
He was going to die, he knew it. And, as he tried to keep eyes on the Ring, dangling right above his eye, he thought of Bakura. He was only sorry he couldn't have seen the Spirit just once more, tell him how much he-
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"Bakura...you told me you didn't like that feeling, that it was difficult. But you couldn't help feeling it anyway. Do you remember that?"
Perhaps Yami was wasting his time.
Maybe this fragmented part of Bakura, whatever it was, was a lost cause. Maybe he was the Spirit of the Ring and nothing else. Maybe he had always been that and Yami was foolish to think otherwise.
But what of Marik? And hands holding hands, and sickness and blood which Bakura had become consumed by for a little while?
Decisively, Yami grabbed Bakura by the shoulders, trying to find a thread of familiar emotion in those pits of eyes.
Bakura looked at Yami with distaste, but neither did he move away from his hold.
"Why do you still try this game, Pharaoh?"
Yami took a breath which was uneven and shaky, "Marik is in danger. If you don't help me, he will die. And my friends, too..."
He trailed off. Suddenly saying the words out loud, and hearing them bounce soulessly (such cruel irony) around his soul room, made everything too real and hopeless.
How could he help any of them now? Stuck inside an object that had seemed to promise so much, now only proving to be his final prison before "death".
He felt his knees buckle, and a sob caught in his throat as he thought of Yugi.
"I'm so sorry," some small part of him reached for his host's link, even knowing it was dead. "I'm so sorry."
"What are you doing?" Bakura said. He sounded repulsed.
"Nothing, it doesn't matter," Yami closed his eyes tight, trying to block out everything else. "Yugi.."
Another essence found his mind then, and at first Yami thought that it was Yugi, but then something cold touched his arm, and Bakura's voice;
"Yugi," the Spirit repeated the word.
Yami opened his eyes to find Bakura's cunning face had fallen into curiosity. His fingers, which were too cold, curled round Yami's wrist, and he closed his eyes.
Yami felt the pulse of a link running through his own, just as it had done before. It clutched at Yami's chest, almost hurting, pulling up random memories, flashes of anything and everything that Yami could remember, since his time with Yugi.
"I remember that feeling," Bakura murmured. "I remember it..."
He flinched away from Yami then, as though he'd been burned and was being snapped out of a trance. He backed up, his face guarded and suspicious.
"Why do I know that?" he spoke angrily. "why do I remember it?"
Yami saw the emotion lit up in Bakura's eyes, the way they reflected something Yami could relate to, something he knew only too well.
He grabbed Bakura's wrist, pulling him back toward him.
"Because you care, that's all it is,"
Bakura pulled viciously away. "don't touch me!" he staggered backward.
He held his head with clawing hands, like he was fighting something within himself.
"I don't...this isn't how it is supposed to be...damn you..." the Spirit turned away. "It makes me sick...feeling those things..."
"Bakura-"
"I though it'd be easy...to forget him..."
Yami knew what Bakura was talking about.
He could see one of Bakura's hands scraping into the stone floor, making his fingernails split and bleed.
Yami reached out and grasped it.
"I don't think it's supposed to be easy, Bakura."
"No," Bakura blinked at him, some sort of pained realisation reaching his features. "it isn't."
In that moment, a weight left Yami's chest, or perhaps it was more the link between them calming down, like a fire starting to die away into ash.
Whatever it was, Yami found himself able to breath again with some relief. A strange sort of relief though; the sort that comes over you when you're on the edge of death and yet you've accepted it and made peace with everything.
Yes, he could accept it now. To know that things might have worked out.
I'm sorry, Yugi.
Bakura's eyes were still locked on his, and Yami noticed they were glittering.
Yami smiled thinly at the Spirit.
"It's okay. I know what it feels like."
"No," Bakura's voice was faint. "not everything."
Then his cool hands curled in Yami's, holding them painfully tight.
A myriad of emotions crossed Bakura's features all at once, and then Yami felt the link once more, surging and stronger than anything he'd ever known.
"Bakura, what are you-"
It was like being winded, only with it came a great clarity, like someone had switched on the lights in a long forgotten room. Yami suddenly saw what had only been shapes and mysterious voices before, and feelings that transformed into vivid images.
Bakura spoke softly; "don't be afraid," and it was bizarre coming from his cruel mouth.
It was the last thing Yami saw before his vision was taken by something new. All the things in that dark forgotten room, coming alive and pouring into his mind. Returning home at last.
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There was a village licked in flames, and people, screaming and scattering like ants, being consumed by the flames anyway.
Yami knew this place.
Amongst the chaos was a small white haired boy, with wide violet eyes. The flames were dancing inside of them. Horrors that no child was supposed to see, and though he was just a child, Yami knew him at once.
The thought had only just resonated before the image flickered and became something else.
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He saw himself sitting on a throne, feelings of pride and a sense of straining responsibility, heavy on his heart.
There was that boy again; but he wasn't a boy any more. He was tall and muscular, but not without the traces of hardship on his body. His face was vengeful and stricken by a scar.
He was carrying a bag of treasures, but far clearer than that was what he held loosely under his other arm; a sarcophagus.
Even before he spoke, Yami knew it was Bakura.
"Pardon the intrusion, dear Pharaoh," his voice was thick with sarcasm. "I just wanted to make an entrance which left an impression."
The sarcophagus was flung before the throne, and the white haired thief laughed in a way which was familiar and made Yami's skin prickle.
"Did I succeed?"
Another figure stepped forward, and though his appearance was that of Seto Kaiba, Yugi's "friend" in the loosest of terms, Yami recalled him as Preist Seto first and foremost.
"How dare you disrespect the Pharaoh like this!" It was odd seeing such a hostile person in recent times suddenly on his side now, but it made sense.
"Believe me, I am returning only a shred of the disrespect your Pharaoh has shown me, and my family, over so many years. Not that it matters much to them any more," the thief tilted his head up to the throne room's ceiling for a moment, and laughed sardonically. "perhaps the punishment you face for your slaughters will never be known by my people, but it will satisfy me, if nothing else!"
The Pharaoh stood up, his eyes wide. "Bakura!" it wasn't like a call for silence, more a sound of disbelief. And so many hundreds of years later, Yami could remember the disgust he'd felt. The guilt, for something he had never even done.
It hurt even more now, only because he recognised the person behind the corrupted thief. The shadow of a human, the touch of something resembling humanity, behind a creature so set on vengeance, so desperate for justice, that he might call on such terrible monsters to satisfy it. No matter what the sacrifice.
"...Bakura..."
8
Yami opened his eyes.
Bakura was watching him, his gaze intense and on the edge of some emotion Yami had never seen in the Spirit before.
"Bakura," Yami said. "I'm sorry-"
Bakura bowed his head, his grip weakening round Yami's hands.
"Don't apologise, Pharaoh. You didn't do anything to me," he spoke like it was a new realisation.
Yami lifted himself upright, so that he was level with Bakura's face.
"But what happened, your village, your family-"
"You didn't do anything," Bakura repeated, and his mouth moved into something like a smile. "except remind me of what I was before."
He leaned close to Yami then, so that his mouth almost touched his ear.
"I must thank you for that, Atem."
Atem.
Yami's body shivered with the word, and how it laced into his mind and seemed to tie itself there.
"Atem?"
"Think of it as a thank you gift," Bakura said, as if that was explanation enough, and then he let go of Yami's hand. "your name, Pharaoh."
Yami stared at him. "...my name is Atem?"
The words had barely escaped his mouth before the edges of his vision began to shake, and then Yami realised everything around them was shaking and falling apart.
"What-what's happening!" he yelled above the avalanche of noise and stone walls, cascading down, threatening to cover him.
"Your name," Bakura said, and sounded remarkably calm. "You can use it, to destroy the darkness."
"What?" Yami turned to face the Spirit, having difficulty seeing him through the flumes of dust and debris crashing around them."what do you mean? How can a name help us to stop this?"
Bakura shook his head. "Not us," he said.
Yami ducked his head, and shielded them both from an explosion of stones. He looked at Bakura in confusion, then felt the Spirit's fingers, catching his shoulder for a few seconds.
"It's alright," Bakura said, and grinned at Yami through the chaos, like it wasn't even happening. "you win again."
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A blinding light filled Marik's eyes and then the entire tomb, and with it, the choking hold on his neck fell away.
There were two figures standing over the slab, and Marik thought he might be dying and his final want had entered a dying dream for the last time.
Bakura practically flew toward him, paying no mind to anything else.
His arms wrapped around Marik's back, in something that was less a hug and more a desperate clutch, like he was trying to affirm that Marik was really there.
The Spirit's voice was soft in Marik's ear; "you're alright,"
Marik wanted to speak, but words were not forthcoming any more. His throat was too dry for that, scratchy, like a sob. He was sobbing.
He pulled Bakura against him, so that their chests pressed together almost painfully, and Marik's hands scrabbled round Bakura's back, twining together.
"...you're so warm," he couldn't help his surprise. He dipped his head against Bakura's sharp shoulder, and attempted to wipe away wet spots there.
Bakura leaned back a bit to look at his face.
The Spirit's eyes were softer; "come now, it's not so bad as all that, is it?"
Marik laughed weakly. "I told you not to leave me, stupid,"
"I never listen to you," Bakura reminded him, his mouth cracking into the line of a smile, and it was dark but honest, and it was one of a million things that reminded Marik that he could never let Bakura go.
"Touching reunion," said Dark Marik.
Bakura turned round in a second, posed like he was going to kill, and Marik didn't doubt it. Close to his side, Marik saw Yami properly, and noticed for the first time that he was himself again; an actual Pharaoh.
"Nice outfit," Kaiba sneered.
Yami didn't pay him any notice. "Bakura," he looked at the Spirit as if he knew something important.
Marik looked between them curiously.
It was an odd feeling, because even before Bakura nodded at the Pharaoh, in way of reply, Marik knew something terrible was going to happen.
"What is it?" Marik tightened his hold on the Spirit's arm.
Before Bakura could respond, Dark Marik was upon him, the Millennium Rod smashing into Bakura's face, and blood flying through the air.
Bakura fell back, but his mouth opened into a laugh, blood staining his teeth.
"You shouldn't be so pleased with yourself, traitorous creature," for perhaps the first time, Dark Marik looked very angry. He turned the Rod on Marik. "or will it please you to watch me kill your last reason to care?"
Marik stepped back, but had long since forgotten his fear. He moved in front of Bakura, holding his arms out.
"If you have to kill me, then do it now. For all the trouble I've caused, for all the pain I've put everyone through. Please, kill me. And then...why don't you leave my friends alone? Isn't it me you want to see suffer, after all?"
"Marik, don't say that," Ryou started, but Joey held him back.
"Yeah, Marik, don't say stupid things like that," the blond said all the same.
"It's alright," Bakura was at Marik's side. "he's no threat to me any more."
"Bakura, don't-"
Before Marik could stop him, the Spirit had launched himself on top of Dark Marik. They hit the ground heavily, and all the Millennium Items scattered across the ground, save the Rod, which Bakura wrenched violently out of the other being's grip.
There was a split second in which Marik expected Bakura to say something, anything, to the Dark Spirit. Perhaps a moment of gloating triumph, a crazed cackle, even feigning mercy. But Bakura had no use for any of that.
He plunged the Rod deep into Dark Marik's heart, and the dark being let out a piercing groan, arms and legs flying out in wild spasms. There was a collective sound of gasps, belonging to Yugi's friends, but Marik couldn't take his eyes of Bakura's sloped form.
Bakura's expression was hidden by his hair, but his hold on the Rod did not slacken, his arms tensed and still driving it through to the other side, even as the other body had stopped moving, and with such determination that despite everything, Marik could almost feel a twang of sympathy for his darker self.
It was then that he noticed the dark creature bound above them was spreading itself out into smoke again. And then, the body which was Dark Marik, was dissipating, turning into smoke too, and joining with the cloud above.
"Is it...is it gone?" Yugi asked meekly. He stood by the Pharaoh's side.
"No, not yet." Yami said, his voice unusually stern. He placed a hand on Yugi's shoulder. "Stay close, and don't look back. You understand?"
Yugi nodded, but looked afraid.
"Everyone else, you need to leave the tomb, now."
Perhaps it was the command of his voice within the tomb, or his renewed appearance as the Pharaoh, but nobody argued. Even Kaiba. The CEO folded his arms and looked at both Yami and Yugi with reluctant distraction.
"I hope you know what you're doing." he turned away. "Come on, Marik."
Marik shook his head. It was out of the question.
"What? No, I'm not leaving. Not without Bakura."
Kaiba looked doubtfully at the Spirit.
Bakura was still kneeling in the spot where he'd impaled Marik's darker self. He'd yet to even raise his head. At the sound of his name, he seemed to prickle, and he looked over his shoulder at Marik. His eyes were wet and he looked tired.
He smiled at Marik anyway. "do as he says, won't you?"
"...what? No! No, I won't leave you here!"
Marik collapsed in front of Bakura, clutching his shoulders, pulling him so that they were face to face.
"I won't- I won't let you go again, do you understand? I won't!"
Bakura's smile lifted a bit. He raised his hand and slowly curved it around Marik's jawline.
"Marik...you're the only human I ever wanted to stay with."
Then he tilted his head, pressing his mouth against Marik's, into something warm and slow, far more gentle than Marik could've guessed. It was typical of Bakura, full of surprises. Not always safe, not always secure, but he was always there for Marik to return to.
In a way, that was all Marik ever wanted.
Bakura broke the kiss, his mouth quivering.
"I will miss you."
Marik stared at him. "Bakura, what do you mean-"
Then something strange, the warmth leaving Marik's palms, the slip of anything solid in front of him, and Bakura's face, becoming paler than it ever was before.
The darkness above was stemming down to the Spirit, pulling him up, just as it had done to Dark Marik only minutes before.
"Bakura, no!" Marik grabbed at the Spirit's top, though it seemed to be disintegrating through his fingers. "I won't-I won't let you go again! Are you listening?!"
Bakura expression became blank, even as he turned to Yami.
"Let go, Marik," Yami said.
"I can't!" Marik felt himself shaking. "I don't want to! I can't..."
Bakura was already standing up, and then Marik realised he wasn't holding onto anything any more.
Marik crawled toward him all the same, arm stretching out, trying to grab at the essence he knew so well.
"No...please..."
"Marik, get back," Yami said. "Please." with a bracing expression, the Pharaoh glanced over at Yugi, and then held his arm. They both faced the huge creature looming into being above them.
At the same moment, whatever remained of Bakura's form flickered and dissolved into it.
Marik cried out, but Yami's voice was louder;
"Atem! My name is Atem!"
His voice bounced all around the tomb walls, and seemed to become louder with each rippling echo. Besides that, the ground was starting to shudder, and a deep roar was penetrating through the ceiling.
Marik should have been terrified. On some level he was; watching the creature that Bakura had called "Zorc" make such terrible, deafening sounds, it's leathered black wings folding in on themselves, and the dark smoke that had become thick as smog seeming to feed back into it.
Yeah, it was horrifying, but Marik knew far worse things.
"Bakura!" He fell through the dark smoke which had once been the Spirit, landing hard on his knees.
"Marik, grab my hand, grab my hand," a voice kept repeating. "urgh, you idiot." Kaiba.
Then the hand caught his wrist, and Marik was roughly swept through dust and screams, just in time to see that the darkness was starting to rise up, slipping through the chamber walls for the last time.
888
888
"Is he gonna be okay? He looked like hell."
"Broken arm never killed anyone, Wheeler," Kaiba said.
"We've had worse," Yugi smiled at Joey, but there was a trace of uncertainty there. "Marik'll be fine. We'll all be fine."
He knew what Joey meant, though. It wasn't about the broken leg.
"I'm gonna get us another drink," Joey said. "I'll get Marik somethin' too. Hospital food is the worst."
Yugi nodded absently. He looked down at the Puzzle. He couldn't feel the Pharaoh...Atem's connection there any more, but just wearing it...it made the possibility seem real somehow.
"You're okay, right?" Tea said, and hugged him for perhaps the tenth time that hour.
"Yeah."
He still felt odd and like he was missing something. Well, he was.
"I hope... I hope he can forgive us."
Tea hugged him for the eleventh time. "he will."
Further down the hospital corridor, Yugi saw Duke and Tristan talking, and Serenity was laughing between them both.
A little way away from them was Ryou. He was holding the Millennium Ring up, not with a sad, but contemplative face.
It made Yugi wonder.
"Hey Ryou," he waved to him. "Can we talk?"
"Sure, Yugi,"
He looked back down at the Puzzle. It made him hope, too.
888
888
888
Could I be any clearer?
Could I speak any plainer?
I need you here
just to lean my way
and fall, fall fall
888
888
A/N:
Took plenty of liberties with the defeat of Zorc. That actual "defeat" was also intentionally vague with what happened between Zorc and Yami, because in the end, this fic was more about Marik and Bakura (as was always intended) and their relationship, than any technicalities with the Millennium Items. I won't lie this was a bit of a chore to get out there, and was always daunting (I hate trying to conclude things, it's always been a struggle). Besides all that, I'm very sorry it's taken so long to finish this. I don't have much confidence in writing these days. There is a little epilogue to follow!
(song lyrics: Razorlight/fall fall fall)