"Enough of this. Enough of your treachery, your cruelty, your heart break, your vicious attempts to make me your perverse play thing"
Yami bowed his head, prayed for strength, inhaled, and grunted as he raised his shields against the Puzzle. His fingers curled into evertightening fists, his body eerily warm against the power he was summoning.
The Puzzle's wry chuckle of amusement was infuriating, if Yami was still able to be provoked. Yami's only response was his eyes narrowing to amythest slits, their violet shade darkening to nearly black, as his lips twisted in the gutteral incantation that seemed to be radiating from his very core.
The Puzzle's laugther abruptly ceased with a hiss of suprise as the Pharoah's fingers unclenched, to easily grasp the twin radiating globes of light that were spiraling between his hands.
The Puzzle grew uncharacteristicly alarmed when it attempted to break Yami's shields, and found itself bouncing off as if it were flung. Yami did not flinch. Indeed, he did not even respond. The Puzzle drew back, raising its points to dagger's blade, fed by its endless pool of the Pharoah's misery, and then flew upwards, wings arching outward, the golden phoenix with talons splayed toward Yami's heart.
"You cannot destroy me, my Pharoah."
Yami's eyes slowly opened, a glint of violet sunrise against the dark falling down around him, as he raised his arms in a high arc, the blinding white heat bathing his whole flesh in its glow.
Yami's left eyebrow cocked itself over the right, as his lips curled into a triumphant smile.
"Who said that it was you I seek to destroy?"
Yami raised his hands high, then encircled himself in a pearled pillar of sheer, white flame. A broken soul, cheerfully roasting itself in the uncertain promise of escape.
The last sacrificial offering to the darkness in the hope of mercy in exchange. Yami felt no pain, no seering burn as the flames danced gently over his flesh, engulfing his arms, and eveloping him with the comfort of an embrace.
He heard the Puzzle shriek in outrage, saw its talons bathed in bleeding gold, glittering off his own flame, as it splayed wings out and shot downward in an attempt to snatch him away from the ever-growing circle of heat.
The Puzzle spiraled high, and dove into the center of the pillar of fire. The fire flickered, danced, then flared into an inferno. White light engulfed the golden walls, the world itself seemed to be burning down, before just as abruptly, the fire vanished. The Puzzle was left staring stupidly at its empty walls, its empty talons, and the dead gold of its walls. Where a charred corpse should be, there was nothing. No smoke, no ash, not even the smell of burning. The Pharoah was gone.
Yami found himself going from being flung in the air and flying blindly through the blazing light to being unceremoniously dropped on his behind with a dull thud.
Trembling, he drew his limbs inward, panting for breath, making no attempt to assess his situation until he could breathe and stop the thundering heart.
Sensation slowly trickled back, darkness gave way to light, and he gulped in horrible waiting as he braced himself to open his eyes. His spine was no longer pressed back against the indifferent gleam of gold, and his arms were no longer shackled down by their glittering shackles of his rank of Pharoah. Curiously, he opened his eyes, and gaped in awe of what lay before him. He raised his arms, and stared at the strange garb he was now dressed in. His arms were shielded by sleeves of deep blue, his bare shoulders covered by the odd jacket. He opened the front of his jacket, and his eyebrows shot upward at the sight of his chest being clothed by the black tee-shirt made of the soft material. He was even more mystified to see his legs swathed in the harsh, dark denim jeans that went to his ankles. He grimaced as he tried to move. It was nothing like the flowing garments he had worn in Egypt. Yami raised a foot, and gaped to see his shoes. Gone were the sandles. His feet were hidden by the heavy boots that glittered with silver buckles. Buckles...what? His hand ventured timidly to his throat, and he gulped hard when he felt the black leather collar with its iron spikes, held secure by the cold buckle as he brushed it with his fingers. It was the type of adornment a royal hound might wear, but certainly not a son of Egypt. He raised his fingers to tentively touch his head. He felt the soft mass, and was relieved to see the familiar blond bangs draped over one eye.
He rose, unsteadily, and was suprised and relieved to find that some of his energy had already returned. Eyes narrowing, he looked over his shoulder to survey the strange surroundings, and most of all, the troubling questions of how he had survived, and where was he now?
He paused, to listen, to sense something. He did not feel the cloaked menace of the Puzzle, or longing nostalagia, so he knew that he was not locked in another memory.
Had he inadvertently destroyed the Puzzle in his botched attempt at suicide? Yami raised his wrists, and gazed at the unmarred flesh, in wonder. His own scars had faded!
He was too far alive for it to be another of the Puzzle's traps.
Yami sighed, in wonder, at the freedom of that cursed thing being gone. He felt alive, clean, unburdened, and so free.
The walls were white, as purity, lit within some pearled radiance, and the ground was a deep violet velvet, comforting to his feet, and warm. He ran his fingers on the ground, and grinned to discover how inviting it felt. Gone were the dark corridors that spiraled out into dark oblivion, and gone was the hopeless uncertainty and taint of the torture.
His new home-he loathed to call it a prison- was one bright clean room, humbly white, and inviting. It was glorious.
Was he finally in the afterlife? He did not know, and it did not matter at the moment.
This was a place of peace, he sensed. He drank it all in, the sweet inocence, the serene warmth he had not felt since he was a child. Bittersweet nostalgia and longing, both aching in their pain, but bueatiful in their passage gently flowed through him, without the Puzzle's vicious twists on his dim recollections of the past. The time in the Puzzle had coiled his sense of self until it snapped ruthlessly, slowly mutilated by the teeth of time, and his own growing anguish.
Yami pondered the strange objects in the room, musing. There was a small, narrow bed, piled high with pillows of blue and white, the quilt warm, and the sheets cool.
It was a far cry from his own golden canopy bed with its gilt of precious metal, and arching pillars, but it was sweetly pleasant. Here was a bed that was far more comfortable than cold and asture. Yami surveyed the various toys that were scattered at random. The glowing glass marbles, he recognized, having played that as a child.
Yami stared in astonishment at the large, strange box that sat on a table. It was silvery-grey, the metal cold to his touch, with a square shaped pain of opague glass, and an odd series of what appeared to be buttons down its left side. He ran his fingers down the side of the box, trying to figure out its purpose.
His musings were cut short by the flicker of emotion that reverberated through his being, and echoed through his core. Yami instinctively cringed in alarm as he hastily raised his shields in reflex against a potential attack. It was unnerving, but he could not detect any threat from any visible source. It was an eerie sensation, as if the emotion were radiating from outside himself.
Yami was further confused to note that it was a strong connection without any violation, a link of light that did not threaten to warp into a nightmare. It was enchantingly refreshing-whatever it was.
Yami cringed when he felt the peaceful curiosity that withdrew itself rather politely when it sensed Yami's fear.
Perplexed, but relieved, Yami exhaled the breath he had been holding. Whatever this new presense was-he was reassured that it was most certainly not of the Puzzle. He shivered, and was amazed to feel the warmth timidly engulfing him.
"Thank you...who or whatever you are."
