Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh, nor do I claim rights to any of the affiliated characters.
Warnings/Notes: There is somewhat graphic mention of bodily injury toward the end of the chapter, if this is offensive or triggering for you, please proceed with caution. I'd like to once again thank anyone who has read, reviewed, or otherwise supported the progress of this story. You are amazing in so many ways. Several of you were correct in guessing Yugi as the speaker of the final 'I love you' last chapter, yay!
Chapter Eight: Entity
There was no telling how long she'd been asleep, but as she woke to blackness the tiny, whispered thought passed her mind. She fumbled through the haze of fatigue, startled by fast approaching sounds. How did I get here? Tea wondered as she stretched her arm out against the cotton sheets of the bed, feeling for its edge. As she sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the taller, wider mattress, one thing became increasingly clear; she was not in the usual bedroom.
Fear consumed her as the muffled tremor of sound became voices. Her heart beat fast and hard in her chest, throwing her forward gracelessly, one pace, two. Her hip collided harshly with the edge of an end table and she sucked in a breath to keep from crying out, grabbing the tender area and clutching to relieve the pain. The voices, both familiar and strange to her, overtook her thoughts in a frenzy of words and hysteria. Go into the closet honey, and shut the door. The only feminine voice became strong and repetitive in a show of dominance against the others. Tea remembered it distantly; the soft drawl had invaded her dreams, coaxing her out of peace and into reality once more.
"What closet?" The brunette whispered lowly, feeling for a doorknob to indicate the hiding place. In the moment she was too panicked to remember the events that left her unconscious, but she still somehow felt that she did not belong there, that the room between her and the abductor at its door was private and special. Turning on the light would give her away, but if she could listen to the woman's voice long enough to hide until he left, she might find a way out.
Shaking hands jerked blindly forward into the door handle. She swung it open and shut again in a few breathless seconds. It'll be alright, don't worry. The faceless voice was teasingly sweet, and at its beckoning, Tea made a seat for herself on top of shoes and against the soft fabric of suit pants. Anxiety rose with a vengeance as heavy footfall gave way to the creak of a door opening. She could not think of escape, only survival. There was no strength of spirit to help her envision her apartment back home, a paradise that awaited her if she could keep quiet enough to fool him. When he finds you, do as he says. It was the last time the feminine voice had any sort of presence in the room. When. Tea nearly choked on the bile rising in her throat.
"Yugi-boy," the American drawled, "Calm yourself, you'll be sick."
She could feel the kiss he pressed to the boy's forehead as the ceiling light was flipped on, brightness leaking through the gap between the closet door and carpet, chasing her feet as she hugged her knees to her chest. He was going to find her.
"Now where has your sister run off to?" His tone was suddenly flat and dangerous; Tea pressed both hands over her mouth and nose to quiet her breaths. "You didn't send anyone else on a game of hide and seek, did you?"
Yugi squeaked in fright, trying to find his voice through tears, "No." He wheezed, "I swear."
Pegasus's purring voice left a shiver stuck between her neck and spine, "Don't worry, I believe you." She didn't just want to run or escape anymore, she wanted to vanish.
"Tea wouldn't try anything like that, she really wouldn't."
"Don't try to save her like you did your grandfather just now, you barely managed that."
Her heartache dissipated at the mention of Yugi's grandpa, "Daddy." She mouthed, the strange woman's voice reverberating in her head, when he finds you, do as he says. "Daddy…" She repeated, though no louder. In truth she did not want to face the man at all, wanted to indulge his wish of being their father even less. And yet she was cowering in a closet, coerced into hiding by the childish fear of being caught in a private room. It was this same fear, she realized, that pushed her to be found sooner rather than later, as if leading him to her would negate the bulk of his anger. She remembered her own father's stern, patient voice saying, 'you won't be in trouble if you tell me the truth.' It was a demand of the five year old, be honest. The strange woman's voice carried a similar warning; give yourself up, it said, surrender.
Pegasus was not merciful like a father, the ache in her cheek and shoulders reiterated that. But if she did not emerge to take whatever punishment awaited her, it would be Yugi who suffered for it. She forced back a sob, and with it, the feeling of wanting to disappear, ceasing to hear, feel, and exist. Deep down, if she made herself admit it, she knew exactly what she was running from: not what would be done to her, but the man who would be doing it.
"I'm here." She choked, because giving up entirely meant leaving the others when they needed her most, because even if Pegasus was the devil, she owed her friends more courage than that.
The world stopped, Pegasus only moved to press a softened finger across Yugi's lips, hushing him. The man seemed like he'd been struck, she could only hope with compassion, or reason, "Tea." He called softly into the stillness.
"I'm here." Before the words had fully left her mouth, he thrust the door open, leaving her blinking in the artificial light.
"Have you lost your mind?" His hands pulled her from the closet and into an embrace. "You had me worried half to death!" She was terrified to find he had not been moved by reason, but by perpetual delusion.
She forced her chin up over his shoulder to meet Yugi's wide, violet eyes. His face was stained with fresh tears and his hair was more disheveled than usual. It hit her all at once that Yugi was not in his bedroom either, but in this foreign, unending space. Her friend's obvious distress pulled her from her musings, but did not provide any filter for the babble that began to seep from her mouth.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. I don't know how I got here and when I woke up I panicked, I really didn't touch anything I – "
"Shh." He stroked her hair patiently, "It's alright now, I forgive you." There was a strange glint in his eye as he stepped back from her, and for a moment she wondered if this man was Pegasus Crawford at all.
"I…"
"I know you slept the day away but you should try and rest." He nudged her gently toward the bed. For a moment she was plagued by the worst thought imaginable. She pictured his body squirming and writhing on top of her, choking her against the blankets to muffle her cries of protest….
"I'm not tired." She mumbled, backing away nervously.
"I know something that'll help." The humming that invaded her ears moments later did little to calm her. As the melody became a song, her knees went weak and threatened to send her crashing to the carpeted floor, she glanced back at Yugi to gauge the distance to the bed, reaching out an instinctive hand to steady herself. She was still grasping for air when Crawford's hands set her firmly on her feet, song uninterrupted.
The dried trail of tears on Yugi's face meant he had been afraid for her, but she still remembered Pegasus's comment about his grandfather, and desperately wanted to ask what had happened. As he urged her into bed beside Yugi, who muttered an apology before turning his back to her, she took in the look of normalcy on the CEO's face. She drew the covers around herself, trying not to blush at the uncomfortable closeness between her body and Yugi's. Pegasus lingered for a moment, giving them one last tender look before crossing the room to turn off the light.
If every fiber of her being hadn't known better, she'd have deemed the CEO charming. But in this room, in this castle, everything was an elaborate lie. In the last moment before darkness surrounded them, she realized that Pegasus's truth would never be hers or Yugi's.
In their world even the lullabies were a lie, and the monsters very much real.
His apprehension upon entering the dining hall was quelled by smoldering betrayal. He had expected his entrance with Yugi and Tea to isolate the group, to breed mistrust of at least some potency, but it had all been needless worry. The entire group had obviously heard news of the previous night's events, and while the blue-eyed CEO sent scathing thoughts into traitorous skulls, the remaining four sat in silent anxiety. Somehow they had managed to communicate with one another enough to relay that Yugi had taken a foolish chance, but were unable to guess the outcome. It had kept them awake with worry and anger, plastered to their faces long after morning had come.
For a few long moments the head of estate was silent, contemplating the holes in his security. Somewhere a rat was letting information slip between captives, whether in sympathy or stupidity he did not care, all that mattered was punishing the perpetrator. For now the offense was little more than a misdemeanor, after all, he much preferred the children grow attached to one another as siblings rather than be divided. But this did not dismiss the fact that job descriptions for Industrial Illusions dictated absolute, unwavering loyalty, and that a breach of contract was something both parties should take very seriously.
He barely sighed, folding a napkin on his lap and redirecting his focus to the children. Seto drew his attention, not because of the raging, defiant thoughts attacking him from the opposite end of the table, but because his face was covered in faint but distinctive stubble. He frowned despite himself. When had that happened?
"Kaiba-boy." He sang out, plate empty and untouched, "I think it's time you let Daddy teach you how to shave." He smiled at the thought of shaving cream in a Santa beard around the younger's face.
"Spare me your delusions Pegasus, if your second-rate bathroom had razors I'd have shaved. I've been a big boy for years." The last sentence was so alive with mockery the younger almost spat it.
"Don't make me bend you over this table."
"First rule of business, don't make threats you have no intention of keeping."
"Oh Kaiba-boy, you really shouldn't test me." He pushed his chair back against the hardwood floor, eyes meeting the child's in a deadlock, "When you wind up keeping yourself from little Mokuba until you're too old to remember him, you'll be begging for more of the belt to tame your tongue." Kaiba set his gaze straight ahead, steadying his hand to take a sip of coffee, "You've already been warned about your smart mouth, this is usually the part where you say, 'I'm sorry, it won't happen again Daddy,' unless of course you want to be punished more severely." Pegasus's gaze was no longer resting on Seto, but on Mokuba.
"I'm sorry...Daddy, for being fresh." Seto muttered.
"And?" The elder pressed, pushing his chair back into the table.
"It won't happen again."
"I should certainly hope not."
Appetite depleted, it was all he could do to pour himself a cup of strong coffee. Almost as long as he could remember he had pictured them no older than eight or ten, though they must be at least fifteen. Save for Mokuba, the treasured youngest, he would sooner be sending them to college than summer camp. He wasn't sure why, these were the exact and only children he wanted, but for some reason it was almost disheartening to acknowledge they were adolescents. He considered calling up the research team to send half of them on a chase for the fountain of youth. But more than anything he wanted Cecelia, some fleeting, tangible embodiment of his beloved. He was trying to barter feathers for gold, and the only thing holding him back from further outrageous demands of divinity, was the knowledge that he was already asking the world.
"After such deplorable behavior I should be anything but generous." He dabbed non-existent coffee residue from the edges of his mouth, "But it just so happens I have business to attend to, take my little rascals downstairs and assume the usual."
The remaining guards, on edge at the mysterious absence of Kyoshi, murmured briefly amongst themselves, "Do you think it's wise to leave them alone?" Croquet questioned, straightening his tie.
"Why not?" Pegasus growled, rising from his seat with definitive arrogance, "You're letting them talk which undermines isolation, if you're all going to fail at such a simple task I'd say it's time you were re-assigned." He held Makoto's gaze for a moment, "Take them downstairs." He repeated slowly, "Where there are not rabbit holes to wonderland, and leave thoughts of babysitting behind. Your real jobs will be waiting." The aging guard looked desperately to the head of security, who less-than-subtlety averted his eyes.
He knows, avoidance screeched. Now what? The nervous clearing of a throat replied. Only the figurehead knew, and he was disappearing before any of his audience had enough chance to process the true intent of his demand.
The room awaiting them at the bottom of the stairs was just a narrow corridor away from the dungeon, constructed from the same impenetrable stone. It was plain, but more accommodating than the cells they had known weeks before. There was a set of metal folding chairs tucked into a conference table, on top of which was a single legal tablet and pen. A test had begun the moment Pegasus spoke, and any inclinations they had about what it might mean were affirmed moments ago, when they were left to their own devices.
"We're right back where we started." Tristan noted, pacing the room. "We have no idea what he really wants and obviously he's leaving us alone to see how many of us break." For a moment he was distracted by the way their shadows danced and mingled in the dim illumination of a single light bulb, hanging fixtureless near the center of the room.
"It was meant to distract us, not divide us." Ryou turned to Yugi and took a seat at the table, "Joey got worried when you disappeared for so long, he tried to explain but we only managed bits and pieces."
The shorter swallowed thickly, "To be honest, everything that happened seems surreal to me. You'll want to sit down." The group hesitated for a moment, but eventually huddled closely around the table. "To make a long story short, I saw a connection in one of Pegasus's cartoons where a symbol on a manhole matched one on a vent in the bathroom. I thought if I could navigate the passageway it might give us some kind of escape route or leverage."
Kaiba jerked forward in his seat, shaking with impending outrage, "You were prepared to lead yourself to safety without a word to the rest of us?"
"No!" Both Yugi and Joey exclaimed, "I was looking for a blind spot, something Pegasus didn't guard as well because he counted on us overlooking it. I could never leave you guys here, and even if I had found an escape, you forget Pegasus still has my grandpa. The whole reason I entered this tournament was to fight for my grandfather's soul."
The elder cast him a hardened stare, unconvinced, "You can cut the 'all-on-this-together' crap. If you honestly had no intention of getting yourself out, you'd have waited until you talked to the rest of us."
"How was he supposed to do that?" Tea snapped in her friend's defense, "We're constantly guarded and trying to tell us about it risks any advantage it may have offered. All of us want out of here, just because he saw a chance and latched onto it doesn't mean he was going to leave us for dead. Don't act like you'd have done anything differently."
"Arguing is wasting time and helping Pegasus." Tristan reminded the two, "What happened Yugi?"
The other gave a nod of thanks, "Keeping right brought me to a section of the castle I didn't recognize. I got out of the shaft, took a left, and followed the corridors until I came to a final divide. To my left was a hallway of servant's quarters, I'm guessing, because one of them spotted me. To the right was a hallway the guard told me was off-limits, thinking I was a lost employee. At the end of the corridor there was a window, but it was too high up and I didn't have time to see what part of the grounds it overlooked. I ran into the last room on the right, the door had a rose and laurel leaves engraved on it." He paused, momentarily suspended in the memory of Kyoshi's body plummeting into the ocean, "I…Pegasus knew I would come. He trapped Kyoshi in front of a connecting door…" He fought with his constricting throat, moisture forming behind his eyes, "If I tried to go into the next room it would kill him."
"Yug…" Joey squeezed his shoulder comfortingly, "Don't sweat it bud, Pegasus is a nut case, it had nothing to do with you."
"He killed him." Yugi forced through closed lips, tears spilling down his face, "I didn't believe anything would happen at first and he…he killed him to prove a point."
The tall blonde put a full arm around Yugi, pulling him close and doing his best to recover his nerve, "Listen to me." He knew he didn't sound brave, but he managed to keep his voice from shaking, "Pegasus would've gotten rid of him regardless, you know that."
Tea nodded through the weight in her chest, "It wasn't your fault."
"So was that the end of it?" Kaiba asked, though they would never confront him, the others noticed the CEO place his hand over Mokuba's in comfort.
"Of course not, I ran off! You think he just let me go with a smile? He has my grandfather's soul and he…he was going to tear up the card."
"What?!" Joey cried out, nearly knocking the table over as he shoved it back in anger, "He didn't hurt Gramps, did he Yug? What about Serenity did he – "
"He put it in his pocket."
"But he didn't tear it?"
"No. I begged him not to, I…I told him…I loved him." Yugi pressed both hands over his face, wiping the warm tears from his skin, "I didn't know what else to do, and for some reason he pulled back."
The cold became intense as minutes ticked away in silence, each person digesting what they had heard. Even Kaiba couldn't blame Yugi for the lengths he went to in his endeavor, after all, for Mokuba he had almost…
"It doesn't make sense." He said, freeing himself from reflection, "He killed a man who meant nothing to you, just to prove he could. But when he had a chance to destroy you he had a change of heart?" His lip curled in disgust, "Something's wrong here. Pegasus has already used emotional torture to his full and complete advantage, there's no way that psychotic buffoon would switch the game around. Unless your grandfather is leverage he's not willing to lose yet, unless he needs him and the Wheeler girl to keep stringing us along for something." He slammed his fist down on the table, "God damn it, why are we here?!"
"We still don't have the answer, but there's one thing Yugi's encounter showed us for certain, Pegasus won't do anything to cause us long-term harm right now. Why is irrelevant if we can use this to buck the system."
"What are you saying, Bakura?" Tristan replied.
"We have to do whatever we can to get more freedom. More freedom means more access, and more access means a better chance of getting off this island. Right now he's pulling his punches so it's as good a chance as any to come up with a strategy."
"He drugged my brother, did you forget about that!" Mokuba spoke up defensively, "We can't just do whatever we want, Seto pushed and Pegasus made him sick, Yugi pushed and Pegasus almost killed his grandpa!"
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but Bakura's right." Tristan cut in, "Sure Pegasus has done a few things to prove he means business, but none of them have hurt us irreversibly. Being sick is far from being dead, and Kyoshi is a far cry from Grandpa. The danger of Pegasus as a basket case is real, the danger of his threats isn't."
"Threats don't have to mean death, Tristan. There are a million things worse than death." Tea reminded him, shocking even herself with the words, "We're back to gaining his trust when he knows all of our motives, and we know nothing of his."
The white haired boy moved his chair back from the table, a hideous screech of metal on stone, "Maybe this will help." Hands on his lap extended into the light, gasps immersing around him as he revealed the gold, glinting trophy.
The small former study was exactly as he'd left it, a few stands of Yugi's hair lingered, trinkets of his victory. If there had not been an audience of remaining guards, he might've picked them up and wrapped them around his fingers to inhale the lingering scent of citrus. As things were, he did not have the time, nor the solitude to allow these distractions. He advanced wordlessly around the trap, and pressing hard against the latch of the engraved door, swung it open to reveal a tiny room.
"Wait here." He called over his shoulder, closing the door behind him and facing the chained item just ahead. Even a few feet from the artifact, he could feel the residual energy of a strong spirit oozing from the inside, filling his mind with tiny flickers of wrath. "Even if you don't turn out to be essential, I can't leave you lying around to be apprehended." He caressed the edge of the object, mocking the thick aura of tangible fury in the room, "I'm no novice, you know. The only thing that can come of you is pain. I've nothing left to lose, there's no sense in me abandoning the eye. But little Yugi, baby Ryou, defenseless children succumbing to the power of things they can't begin to comprehend. That would be a sin against nature." His laugh escaped in a deep, robotic spill, "My sons will not suffer the things I have."
He grabbed the chain, rubbing it against his palm before taking the millennium puzzle in hand. His eye lit up in response, a heat wave crashing through his veins and focusing in a sharp, searing jolt across his forehead. He could see a purple figment, edges engulfed in flame, eye of Anubis on its forehead, beckoning.
"An empty threat, you've no host and you're three thousand years out of practice." A smirk clung to his lips as he pulled himself from the vision, forcing the muscles in his arm to contract into a tight fist, keeping a hand from pressing to his forehead in relief. The door swung open and he moved to stand in the middle of the larger room.
"I have very specific instructions for you." He told the waiting group, pausing to work the middle piece of the puzzle free. "I want you to – " He stopped, doubling half way over as the breath was forced from his body. Whatever spirit inhabited the item was fighting with everything to keep from being dismembered, "I want you to take these pieces and scatter them throughout the castle, discretely." He worked a few more free, undeterred by the elder spirit who had taken on the image of Yugi's body.
"Why not throw them into the ocean or something?" The youngest guard, Yukio, piped up.
"They are instrumental." Pegasus quipped, "This item can't be useless to me, it just has to be thoroughly inaccessible to little Yugi."
"But sir, the current arrangement is very secure, the room is no less a threat to the boy just because he's -"
"That's twice in one morning you've questioned my decisions, Croquet. Do you need a reminder of your place? Again?" The lackey fell silent, face burning as his shame was exploited for the younger, less experienced employees. "I obviously can't trust you to keep him off its trail in one piece, at least if I separate it he'll have less of a spiritual pull to the location, and I'll have more time to do damage control when you screw up."
The head of security took four pieces into his hand, "The rest will remain here?"
Pegasus nodded, making his way into the hall through the sea of curious onlookers, "The placement of the items involves Croquet and I, everyone else go back to your usual duties. Any volunteers can attend the children; I have plans for them shortly." He turned to face an approaching young woman, "Keiko, the ring?" He held out a hand expectantly.
"Actually sir, it's..." Hazel eyes wandered to the hardwood floor, "Gone."
"What?"
"Are you sure you can trust that thing?" Even as Tristan's obvious skepticism became real, Bakura could feel the overwhelming power of the ring, pulling, testing, tempting. The rasping growl of despair evoked a turmoil the boy had fought with for many years. Memories resurfaced in a blood-stained haze, and trembling fingers sent the item clattering to the ground, "Bakura? Hey, Ryou, you okay?" Tristan crouched in front of his roommate, waving a hand in front of unresponsive eyes.
"What's happening to him?" Tea worriedly demanded, to which Tristan could only shrug.
"God no." Tremors split the veil of tension like the soft caress of a knife, ring glowing abandoned on stone floor, entrapping its host. I know you're in there, Ryou. Come back to me. Come back to me. Comebacktome. A sob broke the metaphysical boundary of their two souls, a barrier to the stronger, malevolent half, who he had refused to acknowledge before. Now that his friends knew the horrible secret, and seemed to accept him – the real him – anyway, he could fight off the spirit by refusing him access to his body, at least, as long as he could manage it. But pain tore through his chest like lightning and the outline of the ring began to appear through his clothes, physically, he was too overwhelmed to focus on anything else.
"Knock it off!" Kaiba snapped somewhere to his right.
"That spirit can't hurt you if you don't let it!" Tristan coached, grabbing the boy's shoulders firmly and joining Yugi and Joey's chant of encouragement.
Their voices buzzed around his head, but all he could see was the flash of headlights and the spinning of tires on saturated pavement. A truck, a collision, the smaller of two bodies projected through the windshield.
"Make it stop."
He was sure Amane had pleaded too, in the instant the blurred vehicle hurtling toward them, before glass tattooed her veins and filled her mouth with blood. It was immediate, they told him. His sister had felt no physical pain – now he asked himself if it was being projected unto his living body, if that was the case, if it spared her any agony at all, he would bear this. A low moan left a shudder in his throat. If he could.
"Do you think it's Pegasus, do you think Pegasus made the spirit stronger somehow?" Tea looked to Yugi for any answer he could give.
The shorter of the two stood, paralyzed, behind Tristan, "No…whatever spirit inhabits that ring…it's not like the spirit of the puzzle."
"Enough with the fear montaging! Listen kid, whatever this is really about, man up and face it!"
"Seto!" Mokuba scolded, two hands grabbing his brother's arm and pulling him back into his seat.
He tried not to beg, "Get out." He muttered, weakly twisting his torso, spinning his arms gracelessly as if to emphasize the muted point he had strength left to make. "Get out." Don't keep fighting me, Ryou. I can make this easier on you. I can get you out of here. Isn't that what you want? Don't you want out? He pushed the spirit back blindly. Usually when it appeared, there was a physical representation of the apparition in his mind, but all he could see as the ring burned its usual place into his chest, was his mother's brain swelling against her skull. Even as reality played their voices in greater number and volume, you could smell the putrid, rotting flesh of his memory, taste the blood and decay and -
"If it is Pegasus, we only have a few minutes to figure out what he wants."
"Is that all you can think about right now? Jesus Kaiba!"
"I can't work fucking magic." The CEO snapped, clearly rattled despite his apparently aloof resolve, "Besides the grander problem is motive, I'm beginning to wonder if this family thing is more than a game."
"I know you're more background noise right now, but at least talk straight rich boy!" Joey chided, still more focused on reaching Bakura than on Seto's train of thought.
"Outside of business the man doesn't have a rational bone in his body. I thought even he would have a reasonable explanation for why we're here, but if he's just a pathetic recluse looking for a family, we're at a severe disadvantage. There's no way for us to get to what he wants before he does. We have no leverage."
"There has to be more to it than that, if it was about a family he could just adopt."
"You forget that he's a spoiled, self-serving narcissist who's been living alone in a castle for god knows how many years."
"He as a wife." Mokuba reminded him.
"So he says. I don't buy it for a second."
"So if he lied about his wife it means he likes the way things are, but if he likes the way things are he has to have an ulterior motive." The younger Kaiba was confused by his brother's contradiction, and as the others battled the spirit of the ring, some part of them questioned Kaiba as well.
"If the woman in the paintings rejected him, he's just a jilted artist with a god complex looking to add more people to his cesspool of misery."
"Then why not keep our souls imprisoned?"
"Because what bitter, vengeful lover doesn't want a flock of little white doves to reiterate he'll never be alone?"
Bakura thrashed wildly in his chair, clawing at his throat and chest, "I don't want this." His friends kept the spirit at bay longer than he alone could, but their strength and courage would only hold so long. The slip into madness was close; he could feel it in every burning tendril of his insides.
From beyond the stone door they heard several pairs of footsteps approaching, one a decent way ahead of the others. Fury had made his tone unrecognizable, but as he threw torches and décor from the walls and path ahead of him, there was no question who had come.
"Help!" Tea choked, forcefully quieting herself. Fear for Bakura pushed her to the abductor for guidance, but she was too afraid of the other's retaliation to commit.
"If Pegasus wants that thing, don't you think we should hide it or something?" Mokuba whispered, trying to piece together his brother's logic. The elder wanted to nod, but found he could not. As much as he knewthey needed that ring, he could not ignore the cold sweat of his body telling him to get the fuck away from it.
The door hit the wall with such force it shook the room, Pegasus's body, rigid and heaving from exertion, visibly deflated as he took in the scene. The timid, soft-spoken boy he had bruised the first day was screaming bloody murder. Yugi was crying too, pleading the same way he had the night before, hallow, and broken, and defeated.
He felt Cecelia's soft skin against his own, her hair on his cheek as they embraced one more time in the tomb of false promises. Tears were seeping from Yugi's huge, wide eyes, staining his innocent face the way – the way the last tear leaked from his now disfigured face. Holding her. Pegasus. The whisper nearly brought him to tears again, but his eye focused too hard on the face in front of him to do anything else, it was desperate and contorted and…it was saying something. Screaming.
Mind too stimulated by sight to absorb any other sense, he read the boy's lips. "Take it." He was saying, "Please take it." His eyes traveled to the ring at his feet, what he had come for all along. Some deep part of him was flooded with relief, his child had not found the ring, the ring had found him.
"Enough!" He roared, stepping down on the metal hard. There was a flash of light, a familiar scream and fire, burning him, swallowing him as his eye rest fixated on Yugi. The demonic voice filled his head; you have no place in this. He was not young or naïve enough to back down, you can't have my son, you coward. In a shadow game the two were probably evenly matched, but the entity of the ring did not intend to play fair. Pegasus could force even the strongest spirit out of his mind, memory stealing was something he had perfected years ago, but the ring was invading his soul, enslaving it at the core.
The black figure flipped through his tragedies like newspaper pages, weakening the mortal's resistance quickly by exploiting his grief. And then, all at once, the blonde woman of his memories shoved hard until he was out of the man's headspace, dissolving into nothingness against the stone creases of the wall. He reassembled a tall, shapeless mass and lunged for her before the world descended into silence and the presence faded.
Pegasus dropped to his knees, ring dormant at his side, devoid the spirit who had latched onto someone no longer alive. As he fought for his breath, he shoved it toward the doorway, away from Ryou who slumped forward into his chest. Long, muscular arms fumbled for a moment before clasping around the boy, holding on for dear life.
"It's okay." He crooned, stroking the child's hair, "You're safe." If a tear had not escaped the man's good eye, Kaiba would've dismissed the crack in his voice as strain, "No one will ever hurt you again." He sat cross legged, positioning Bakura sideways and drawing him closer. Palm to the side of his head, he hushed tenderly against the child's cheek, smothering him with soft words.
I never wanted it to be like this. He drew a deep breath to calm himself. If it kills me, there is going to be joy in this house. It was a lie. There was no joy without her.
The millennium ring was a mystery he did not want to unravel. There was a spirit; its nature did not matter, needing a host. In Egypt, the empty shell of an old man lay in wait for this exact type of crisis. The resistance within the item would be gone, he could safely bring it back and the children would be none the wiser. But as he held Bakura, crying and hysterical, he remembered the first tears on his jacket, in a dining room, saying 'please don't hurt him.' He remembered the second tears against his jacket, in a study, 'please don't hurt him.' It would be easier, in many ways, if Solomon Motou was no more, and the spirit of the ring returned to the land of the people who knew it best.
"Get it out of here."
"T-to where sir?" Croquet sputtered.
"I don't care, buy a house and hire a keeper if you have to, just get it off my island."
He was a thief of many things but a child's last hope was not among them.
"If he's two people then we're all two people.
What does that say about identity?"
-Dr. Remy Hadley (House S5 E24 "Both Sides Now")
Don't worry, the group will continue piecing things together next chapter; there is much more to come for all of them (and I do mean all of them.) As always, thank you for reading.
