Hey guys! Hope you all are doing great! Thanks to Aya El maghrabi, zero25, and HermioneSakuraGardner07 for your lovely reviews! You people are so fantastic, and I really appreciate you dropping a comment! Speaking of which, Aya El maghrabi, I hope you did have an awesome birthday!
Hope you enjoy!
I do not own YuGiOh.
From the kitchen, Yami peered worriedly at Yugi, who sat placidly beside Grandpa on the sofa in the living room. He had said very little since waking up that morning, but that which he had said had been most concerning.
Yami sighed deeply. He had hoped and prayed for his dearest friend to rouse, but now that he had, it seemed that he had only gained new worries. The Pharaoh had sent out a call to all their friends, informing them of the news, and the group was headed over at the moment.
He hoped the sight of familiar faces would bring Yugi out of his strange mood. Half-heartedly, the tall youth prepared a breakfast for Yugi and their friends, throwing together a hodge-podge of food that would have to sate everyone's appetite. He stared down at the plates he had filled with an assortment of half done toast and burnt eggs and wondered why it felt so hard this time.
He had saved the world before, many thousands of years ago. He had saved it several times since in this era. But faced with this newest crisis, Yami honestly felt half-defeated already.
Perhaps it was because he only felt he was half of himself anymore. As a spirit, he had not had his memories, nor his own true name, but at least he had Yugi. The young boy had raised him up from his wretched existence, selflessly sharing his life and body and mind with Yami.
With Yugi there, an ever present murmur of kindness echoing across his soul room, Yam had not minded his emptiness and darkness, his lack of identity.
But now they were separate, two distinct people with two distinct bodies and minds and lives, and Yami found, to his shame, that he begrudged this change more than welcomed it.
The slam of the front door drew him forth from his grim musings, and to his surprise, he heard a veritable horde of running feet.
Joey tumbled into the house, followed by Tristan, Tea, Mai, Duke and Ryou. Yami smiled as he realized that all of them must have come the instant they heard the news to get there so quickly.
They stood frozen in front of the sofa, obviously overcome by emotion.
Yugi slowly smiled up at them, the awareness in his eyes swimming back from whatever world it had been lost it.
"Hey guys," he said simply, and the stasis holding the group broke. Tristan and Joey pounced on him, and Tea alternated between bawling her eyes out joyfully and yanking on the two bigger boys to make sure they didn't crush the much smaller Yugi.
Once everyone had squeezed in for a hug, Yami entered from the kitchen, carefully balancing his ill prepared plates of food.
"Good morning," he greeted them quietly, and was startled into laughter as Duke, Tristan, and Joey descended upon him and immediately began shoveling food into their mouths.
"Boys!" scolded Tea. "Yami is not a table for you to eat food off of! Take a plate yourselves and sit down!"
"Although if they did make a table shaped like Yami," Mai speculated unabashedly. "The sales would go through the roof." She high-fived Duke, and even Tea had to snicker at that.
They arranged themselves around the room comfortably, all of them facing Yugi. Yami had briefed them on the boy's fragile mental state in his phone calls to them earlier, so everyone was careful not to push the small boy.
They spoke of simple, pleasant things: how happy they were to have him awake, how much they had missed him, the fun things they would do now that he was better. They talked about Kaiba, and how silly he was being by still trying to deny magic despite having a double. They talked about good foods they had eaten recently, and Grandpa complained that he hadn't had nearly the same assortment of fun snack foods in his youth.
"And lucky you, Yug'!" Joey crowed. "School's almost over now; in just a week we're off for summer break!"
"Break?" echoed Yugi, and to Yami's despair, his violet eyes began to cloud again.
"Yeah, summer break," repeated Joey, but his usually chipper voice faltered as he noticed the change in his friend. "Yug'?"
"He's breaking it," Yugi replied, his face growing still and pale. "He's ripping it up, shredding it away, and it's such a sad, sad thing."
Understandably, the jovial mood of the room quickly turned leaden. No matter what they did, Yugi would not come back from that strange place in his mind again, and smiles quickly turned to pinched expressions of concern.
It was to this atmosphere that Isis, Rishid, and the Kaibas arrived; Isis having bullied Kaiba into providing transportation for her and her brother.
She swept into the room like the lady of power she was, dark hair trailing behind her. Both Setos looked suspiciously miffed at having their entrance upstaged, but luckily Mokuba was present to keep them in check.
The Priestess acknowledged them all with a gentle nod and soft smile, but after that all her attention was for the slight boy sitting on the sofa, purple eyes lost to his surroundings. Gently, she touched her fingers to his temples, mumbling soft words under her breath. Yami stood at her side, fingernails digging red crescents into his palms.
At length, she drew her hands away, mouth pulled into a foreboding line.
"Well?" Yami prompted. "Do you know what is wrong with him? Is it because we sustained his body with magic while he was unconscious instead of taking him to the hospital?"
The woman shook her head. "The magic we wove around young Yugi did only what we intended it to do," she denied. "And it was for the best, since none of the doctors here, learned as they are, would have understood his symptoms. No, this is something else."
"What?" Yami demanded, understanding that he was being rude but unable to quell his desperate need for information.
Elegantly, the woman turned, facing Ryou. "When you were separated from your Spirit by the Scales Master, I assume that it was agreeable to you?"
"Yes," Ryou blinked. "I was unhappy that he got his own body, of course. But it was more than a relief to have him out of mine…"
Isis nodded gravely. "Which is why you are not in the same state as Yugi."
There was a collective murmur of interest in the room, and Yami reeled at the implications.
"You're saying…" he started, and Isis nodded gravely.
"With Ryou," she explained. "The desire to part was mutual. The Spirit of the Ring wished for his own body, and Ryou, quite understandably, wished to be rid of the spirit. So when the Scales Master ripped them apart, there was no issue. But in the case of you and Yugi, my Pharaoh, the parting was made violent by the fact that neither of you wanted to be parted from the other."
"This made the separation quite traumatic for Yugi, since he was the original host body. And then, right after the separation, he had to duel with the Scales Master by himself despite said trauma….it seems to have had several effects."
She paused for a second as Yugi shifted, his eyes slowly focusing in on something behind her. Yami held his breath, but the boy made no movement beyond that, and the Priestess continued.
"One, it activated his own latent magical ability."
"Whoa!" Joey interjected wildly. "Yug' has magic?" Mai hit him over the back of his head, and he whined out an apology.
Isis favored him with a small smile, a glimmer of amusement in her serious eyes. "Yes, Joseph. Actually, most people are born with magic within them. Not a lot, mind you, and in these times almost no one can learn to use it. Yugi, though, actually has a good deal of magic within him."
"But how did I never sense it?" wondered Yami, racking through his memories for some clue as to his friend's hidden talent.
Isis smiled wider at that, a wondering, innocent smile that gave insight into how she might have looked as a young girl. "That is because Yugi has Light Magic, not Shadow Magic," she answered, a note of awe in her voice. "A very rare gift indeed, even in your time, my Pharaoh."
The group of friends looked upon their shortest(but only physically, for in their minds he rose beyond every single skyscraper) member with pride and love.
"I always knew he was special," Joey mused, and Tea snorted, jabbing him in the side with her elbow.
"Is that why you always used to choose him to steal lunch money from?" she ribbed good-naturedly. Her eyes were glassy though, and she kept sniffing suspiciously, Ryou discreetly passed her a handkerchief.
"Oi!" Joey objected. "That was only the one time!"
"Mostly because after that Tea used to chase you away with whatever came to hand," Tristan grinned, joining in on the teasing.
"Hey, you were bein' chased too!" Joey protested. "And I still have the scar from when she chucked that encyclopedia at me!"
The Setos simultaneously grinned at this(Mokuba had chosen a better candidate for companionship than they had thought).
"But what were the other effects you were talking about, Ms. Isis?" Tea inquired, leaving off the teasing as worry filled her heart.
Isis frowned, then, a grim change from her earlier smile. "Magic is a volatile thing," she explained. "And being that Yugi didn't even know he had magic when he activated and used it in the duel, there were, ah, complications. His magic seems to have tangled into the natural energies of the world, and it has taken his mind there as well."
"So what, he's like, one with the universe?" One Seto remarked skeptically. Mokuba scrumptiously kicked his shin when Tea winced at the phrasing.
"In a manner of speaking, Priest," Isis replied lightly, and everyone knew her use of his past title was her own way of rebuking him. "Fortunately, this will not last long. Now that he is awake, his body will serve as an anchor for his mind, pulling him back from the energy of the world. He should be fully returned in several days."
Yami felt his knees go limp with relief, and he heard Tea heave a sigh of the same. Joey and Tristan both adopted goofy grins, and Mai whooped unreservedly while Ryou, smiling widely, handed another handkerchief to Duke, who unashamedly blotted at his eyes.
This feeling here, in this room, with all these people, this feeling was home, Yami realized dazedly as he stared at the silent Yugi, memorizing all over again the curve of his nose and eyebrows and wild fall of his bangs. His dearest person was going to be alright, and his friends were here with them to celebrate that.
Suddenly, the boy felt much more optimistic than he had. He could do this. He would defeat Marik and Bakura, and things would go back to happy normality, all of them laughing and living and free.
Bakura grinned malevolently as he stared over the results of his work. It had taken considerable effort to acquire some of the ingredients(this era was full of people selling stupid things like cellphones instead of practical items like fresh blood or ground bone) and it had taken even longer to find a suitable space. He had needed somewhere that would remain undisturbed for months, somewhere large and sheltered from weather, and most challengingly, some where close to a ley line-one of the natural currents of supernatural energy running the earth round.
Finally, he had found a place that satisfied all criteria: an abandoned mine shaft in the forest outside of Domino. Deep in its bowels was a large flat area that had resulted from a washout, and it was there that Bakura had done his work.
His eyes narrowed in cruel delight as he surveyed the large runic magical circle he had assembled, carved through the dirt and into the rock beneath, and painted over with blood.
The air above the circle burned with darkness, roiling with a purple miasma that whispered quietly, sinisterly. Bakura stood fearlessly in the center of the elaborate design, heedless of the tendrils of shadow that curled up his ankles and brushed lovingly at his deep tan skin. The whispering grew in volume, voices growing distinct. The tendrils became bolder, rising up to clutch at the gleaming Millenium Ring clutched in the thief's hand.
"Soon," he promised the chorus of wailing voices. "Soon, we will have our revenge."
He pushed a wave of power into the circle, smirking as it lit up with red light. He growled with satisfaction as the circle gave him increased access to the magic forces of the earth. Most importantly, it allowed him to connect to the barrier he had perceived between this dimension and another, a dimension he was not familiar with. Of course, that wasn't the interesting part about the barrier; no, it was the way the barrier had been fluctuating over the past few weeks, growing weak enough to permit passage through, then strong enough to prevent any passage.
The barrier itself was composed of a massive amount of life energy, suggesting it was not a natural occurrence. No, someone, or, more likely, a multitude of someones, had collaborated in the creation of this barrier.
Too bad for them Bakura fully intended on tearing it down.
It had grown very weak the former night, and he took the opportunity to tear into it using his magical circle, stealing away a hunk of the energy that went into its composition, and sealing it into the runes.
The barrier had regained much of its strength in just a few short hours, receiving an influx of life energy. However, it was not as strong as it had been, and it was only a matter of time before it grew weak enough for Bakura to be able to leech off more of its power.
Very soon, he would have enough power to implement his ultimate plan of revenge, laying waste to the Pharaoh and the world he held so pathetically near.
"Soon, my people," he soothed the ululating whispers. A smile touched his lips, dark and cruel and terrifyingly hopeless, the smile of a man whose only possession was vengeance.
"Soon, Zorc…."
Marik practically danced with excitement, hidden in an alley a block away from the GameShop. It had taken him hours and hours and tedious hours to track down the Pharaoh but he had finally located the powerful spirit turned man. Man made of flesh, and blood, and bone. Such happy things. Right? Marik thought he was supposed to find those things to be happy, or as close to happy as he could feel.
Any second now the Pharaoh would emerge from his strange dome like home. Any second. Marik was sure of it. Only he was less sure of it than he had been an hour ago, and even less sure than he had been an hour before that.
He had seen several people go into the house, and he had contemplated attacking them. But that had seemed weird somehow, so he kept standing in the alley. Waiting to exact revenge. For what he wasn't sure (for leaving behind a legacy that wounded a child so badly that he, Marik, had been created from that child's hurt and rage? For banishing him to the Shadow Realm, where his very being had been ripped apart and drowned in the darkness?)
Those were pretty good reasons, he thought, and the Egyptian enjoyed the rush of fury and hate that came with his resolution of condemnation, so familiar, so validating in a world he felt no connection to.
Except a desire to destroy. A very strong desire to burn and rip and generally eradicate. That was Marik's primary connection to the world. Suiting, since he was made of such emotions: anger, malice, hate, and a generous dollop of unstable magic.
The man made of anger, malice, hate, and unstable magic kicked at a spare bag of trash in the alley and wondered if maybe he should sit down; his legs were getting tired.
Then his senses prickled; the Pharaoh had at long last emerged from his weird blue shelter! Even better, he was headed Marik's way! Marik peeked around the corner.
There the man(of blood and flesh and bone) was. Taller than Marik remembered, and tanner. Also, had his eyes always been red? He looked uncomfortable in his skin, and Marik resolved to peel it from him.
He basked in other such thoughts of breaking and hurting(what he was good at, all that he knew), and he drew deep from the well of his own twisted power, summoning forth the Millennium Rod. He grasped it tightly in his strong hands and breathed in the heady scent of its might.
When the Pharaoh and his friends(did he never go any where without them?) were close enough that he could pick apart the sounds of their footsteps, Marik whirled forth from the alley.
He pointed the Rod at their startled, stunned, stupid faces(he hated these people, he did he did he had to), and then he attacked.
AN yay Marik! Just a heads up, some of you thought I was pairing Tea with Yami. That's….not the pairing I had in mind, and I'm afraid it's not going to be happening. As you can probably tell, I have never really been able to see Yami as being with anyone but Yugi, mostly because I feel they balance each other out so well. So sorry to you guys who were expecting that!
Thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a great week!
Next time: Marik receives physical therapy for his crazy(also known as he gets punched) and discovers new purpose in life. Also, you might find out the name of the vampire. Or you might not! I'm a bit protective of him….