Dripping Wings

The hotel Yuugi chose was the one of the most expensive in town. Five stars, thirty three stories, and so notorious that the presidents of other countries often stayed there when they visited. Yuugi had reasoned that a place as nice as the Bella Noté Hotel had better security, and they would be safer in there. Certainly, if anyone got wind that Yuugi Motou was once again romping around Domino, there would be someone after him. Atemu wanted to keep their profile low just as much as Yuugi, but even he could not refute Yuugi's side of the argument. If they could get a full night's rest without sleeping with one eye open, he was all for it.

Even for all of its wealth and luxuries, Atemu couldn't help but think how generic and untouched everything felt. There was no life or personality to any of the rooms, and the sheets and bedding were just a little too stiff to really be comfortable. The clerk at the reception counter had given the both of them very scrutinizing looks when they'd entered, but as soon as Yuugi pulled out the cash and gave them a hefty tip, they were shown one of the unused villas and bid a very good night.

Even Yuugi was glad to be leaving once they had woken up. The gilded yellow walls and rich red carpet did nothing to make him want to stay, even though he'd spent his time in his old world wishing, more than anything, that he could escape the bad part of town and live a life in the lap of luxury. All he could think about as he looked at the marble columns and framed oil paintings was how much he wanted to go home.

It was ten in the morning when they showered and left. The police station was only a block away from the hotel.

Atemu saw, for the first time, Sunday morning traffic. Simply looking at the people stuck in their car as they slowly ambled their way down the street was miserable enough; he knew he'd hate to be one of them.

The police station was a very unremarkable building that was nestled between an office building and a corner market. Some of the windows were covered with bars and placed very high up. Cells, maybe? All Atemu knew was that if they really did need to 'bail out' Jou, he wasn't looking forward to breaking into a prison cell. The less people chasing them out of this world, the better.

Yuugi attempted to straighten the neck of his shirt before he pulled open the police station doors. No matter that he had done nothing wrong, a deep, well learned fear of policemen had been ingrained in his memory. Cops were always suspicious of the punks that lived in the low rent district. Simply walking into the station was practically begging the cops to strip search him for illegal paraphernalia.

The bell jingled as they opened the door. Yuugi walked in with a deep breath, Atemu right on his heals. This was the public entrance, so there was a reception desk right as they walked in. The both of them stopped in their tracks when they saw the police woman that was behind the desk.

"Mai?" Yuugi asked.

The blonde haired woman frowned at him as her eyebrows creased. She tugged lightly on the badge on her chest. "Office Valentine. How can I help you boys?"

Wow. It was almost creepy how many duplicates of their colleagues existed in Domino. Yuugi shook his head and walked up to the desk proper. "We're looking for someone. Jonouchi Kastuya. We were told he'd likely be here."

Officer Valentine's eyes narrowed. "Who's asking?"

"Yuugi Motou."

The look of suspicion was immediately wiped from her face. Officer Valentine's jaw dropped slack. "No fucking shit...Motou?" She leaned closer for a better look. "Damn. It is you! You've had the entire Domino police force looking for your ass for years kiddo."

Yuugi stepped back a bit. "Uh...am I in trouble?"

The police woman looked behind her to her coworkers. "Hey, it's Motou!"

The office went momentarily silent as they looked up. A few more expletives were whispered as people poked their heads up from the cubicles they were stationed in. Officer Valentine looked back at Yuugi, then stood up. "This way, punk. Jou's in the back."

As Officer Valentine started to lead them through the station, Atemu questioned Yuugi through their link. :What's going on here?:

Yuugi shook his head for emphasis as he thought back. :You're in the dark as much as I am. I have no idea why they would be looking for me so much. Or be so shocked that I've shown up out of the blue. I didn't know any cops when I actually lived here.:

Officer Valentine opened up the back door that led to the alley. Before she let them out fully, she gave Yuugi a stern look. "Maybe...maybe you're the help he needs now."

Yuugi didn't get a chance to question her as she let them out and closed the door behind them.

It was Atemu that spotted the blonde haired man as he sat on the steps by the door with a bottle in his hand. It was covered in a paper bag, hiding the label that indicated the contents within. Jou took another swig as Yuugi and Atemu walked over to be in front of him. Yuugi found himself speechless when he found tear tracks down Jou's pale cheeks. "Jou," he questioned.

The man hiccuped. "Go 'way, Yug. I told ya to quit haunting me ages ago." He took another drink.

Atemu frowned. "He's drunk."

Yuugi pulled the bottle out of Jou's loose grip. He ripped the paper bag away and looked at the contents. The bottle of vodka was still nearly full. "Not yet, he's not." In a swift motion that startled Atemu, Yuugi threw the bottle against the brick wall on the other side of the alley. The glass shattered and clear alcohol spilled down the dark bricks.

Jou seemed to have been shaken out of his reverie, because he stood up as the glass shattered, his hands shaking. "...Yug?" he tried. He sounded afraid to believe.

Yuugi looked at him and smiled. "I'm here, Jou. I'm alive."

Jou's green eyes watered over again with more tears. "Oh my God." He quickly wrapped his arms around his long lost friend in a bear hug. "How...?"

Yuugi stood back and held Jou at arm's length. "That's a long story that I will tell you in a bit. But Jou, first things first, why are you back here in such a sorry state? And why the hell did the cops know exactly who I am?"

Atemu crossed his arms and shifted on his feet. The movement caught Jou's attention and he looked over. "Yug, did you have a twin ya never told me about?"

Yuugi chuckled. "Jou, this is my Bonded, Atemu."

"Bonded?"

"Er...husband, if you will."

Jou's eyes widened with shock, and Atemu nodded his head in acknowledgement. "Damn. I...seriously? Never took you for the type, Yug."

"Pleasure to meet you too," Atemu interjected.

Jou shook his head. "Sorry, man. Forgettin' my manners again. Anyway...your questions." Jou walked back over and took his seat on the steps again. "The station knowin' about you, Yug, now that's easy to answer. Six months after ya disappeared, I started looking everywhere for ya, beyond Domino that is. Got myself cleaned up, joined the academy. Eventually joined the police force, and used every ounce of their recourses to find ya. Everyone knows you're the reason I joined. I gained friends here, and they tried to help me. No one ever expected ya to just...walk in here lookin' for me."

Yuugi found himself mildly surprised. He hadn't thought Jou would go to such lengths to find him. "I...thanks Jou."

Jou rubbed his temple with his left hand. "Ah, Yug', your trouble went deeper than I thought it would. Much deeper." He sighed and steadied his breath again. Yuugi and Atemu could see that he was still grieving about something, but what they still couldn't fathom yet.

"How do you mean...deeper?" Atemu questioned.

Jou dropped his hand back into his lap. "I thought it was Gozaburo's gang at first. Debt collector's, ya know? Seemed the most logical place to start. I disassembled every ring he had in the Domino and the surrounding cities. But Gozaburo was just a puppet. There'd been people after ya, Yug. Dangerous people. Ever wonder why you's could never get a good job, get out of the low-rent district? Ever wonder why every time you walked to the cleaner part of the city, people were chasin' ya?"

Atemu watched interested as Yuugi's body stiffened visibly. "You found out?" his Bonded asked.

Jou shivered. "I never thought...still can't believe...they do things to people ya only read in dark science fiction novels. Fantasy shit that's not supposed to be real... they were after you as much as I was, Yug. Every turn I made, they was one step ahead of me, but none of us could find you. I knew they couldn't of killed ya. It wouldn't make sense for them to keep stringing me along, always one inch away from gunning me down or cutting my neck. This time Yug...this time, I went too far." Jou started to cry again. Yuugi went up to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Jou, what are you talking about?"

"They got him...they got him!"

"Who?!"

"Seto!" Jou outright sobbed. "They got Seto! Dead...he's dead!"

Yuugi sat back and tried to absorb the information. Someone close to Jou had been murdered, but the name didn't ring a bell. "Seto who?"

"Seto Kaiba."

That brought a face to the surface. "Seto Kaiba? The billionaire of Kaiba Corporation?"

Jou nodded. "I think I loved him, Yug."

Yuugi cursed. "Now what, Jou? What do you have left here?"

Jou shook his head. "I can't leave yet, buddy. I'm in too deep, now. I've got to get rid of them, once and for all. They're gonna keep killin', and raping, and that stupid crazy sacrificing mumbo jumbo that they do. I can't leave, turn my back on everyone here, cause I know it'll rot the city from the inside out. Even if it kills me, I gotta try to stop them."

Atemu stiffened when Jou mentioned the word 'sacrificing.' "What, exactly, is it that they do that's so hard to believe?"

Jou shook his head. "I dunno if I can explain it right. Energy walls, glowing red and black eyes, knives that can go through fucking walls, it all scares the crap outa me."

Yuugi and Atemu cursed loudly. "I can't believe it. Rouges, here? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I was originally chased here, after all. Some of them had to remain," Yuugi said.

"Indeed," Atemu agreed.

Jou stood up and looked at them questioningly. "Yug, what's going on? Just where have ya been all this time? I've been lookin for ya for seven and a half years. What do you know?"

xxx

Seven and a half years...

The implications were strange. Yuugi had guessed that he'd been gone for the better part of six years, but an extra year and a half had gone by on Domino. That meant that time traveled faster here than in Sekesha.

How long had he really been gone from Sekesha before he was sucked back in again? Twelve years, rather than seventeen? Less? More?

Jou hadn't been entirely pleased that Yuugi and Atemu weren't very forthcoming with information on where Yuugi had been and what he knew about the strange habits of this dark organization that had been plaguing Jou for nearly a decade, but he was content with the fact that he was going to find out soon. As Yuugi had told him, it was much easier to show him rather than tell him, as Jou probably wouldn't believe him if he was told anyway.

It didn't matter what was told to Jou, though, it didn't stop him from being very nervous about taking Yuugi and Atemu directly to the main hideout of this sinister group. Yuugi and Atemu would only call them 'Rouges' to Jou, which was a bit more of a name than 'Them,' which was what they'd been dubbed by Jou.

Oddly enough, not even one name had ever been spilled to identify this group. It was one of the reasons they were so elusive and so hard to find and track. How does one track something without a name?

The gray office building loomed sixty stories above them. It was one of the tallest buildings in the city. Yuugi sucked in a rattly breath as he took in the skyscraper. Oddly enough, it was the building right next to the main offices of Kaiba Corp. "You sure this is it, Jou?"

The cop next to him nodded. "Oh, yeah. I'm sure. But Yug, seriously, this is suicide. No one outside of their groups comes out of that building alive."

Yuugi looked up at him and grinned. "I will."

"We all will," Atemu asserted. "Let's go."

"Hang on a sec," Jou postponed. "We can't just waltz in there like we own the place! They'll kill us on the spot!"

"Why can't we? They can't touch us," Yuugi assured him. "Trust me on this, Jou. We've got weapons they don't have." He started walking directly up to the door.

Jou didn't start following him right away, so Atemu grabbed him by the arm and urged him forward. "Stick close to us."

Jou shuddered as Atemu pushed him up to the front door. "I don't know where Yug found ya, but ya creep me out almost as much as They do."

"Why thank you," Atemu smiled.

Yuugi pushed open the door and walked in without preamble. Jou could only guess where his short, once always terrified friend had gained such foolish confidence, to be able to walk into death's hands without so much as a prayer to protect his rear end.

There were three people in the foyer. One was a woman that sat at the reception desk. The other two were men that stood near the door to the elevator. The looks the three of them received were very sharp, and very suspicious.

"Was there something we could help you with?" the woman at the desk asked. Her voiced was clipped and testy.

"I'm looking for your boss," Yuugi responded.

"He's busy," one of the men responded. They were both in business suits. The one that answered him pulled aside his jacket casually, and Yuugi and Jou noticed the gun handle that was sticking out of the waist of his pants.

Yuugi grinned. "Tell him this is important. From what I've heard, he's been looking all over for me."

Both of the men drew their guns, and the woman shot up and disappeared behind a door that was behind her desk.

Jou covered his head with his arms and ducked as the bullets began to fly. The last thing he expected to hear when the gunfire ended was Yuugi laughing.

Atemu took a step closer as Yuugi kept his shield up. "Our turn," he replied. He extended his hand as if he were throwing a set of dice, and out of his palm a string of shadows leaped out and grabbed the guns right out of the man's hands. Jou realized a fight like this was completely out of his league as the guns were crushed under an invisible weight. They fell to the floor, useless hunks of black and silver metal.

The men went to run, but just as their backs turned shards of what Jou could only describe as pulsing sticks of light were sticking out of their backs. They fell dead instantly. Yuugi lowered his hand. "Told you this would be easy, Jou."

"Jesus...you're one of Them, Yug. No wonder They've been after ya. You're just like 'em."

"No," Yuugi stressed. "I am not just like them. The things that I do are very different from what they do. Jou, I just got done fighting a war against them. We are anything but the same."

Jou only nodded as they entered the elevator and started to ascend to the top floor.

"Yug, this isn't like them. I wasn't jokin when I said they do some nasty stuff. I expect a horrible surprise for us when we get there."

Yuugi grunted, but he didn't comment.

The elevator ground to a screeching halt on level thirty six. The three of them held onto the railings and looked up, as the lights were starting to flicker.

"This can't bode well," Atemu observed.

"No shit, Sherlock," Jou grumbled.

Atemu gave Jou a funny look. "Who's Sherlock?"

Before the cop could further question Atemu's ignorance on the fabled detective, the door screeched open.

None of them expected the room on the other side to be the entire size of the building. They also didn't expect the remaining floors to be non existent. They could see the roof the rest of the thirty some stories up.

They walked in slowly. Very few lights were on. They stopped nearly half way into the massive expanse of a room.

"What in the hell..." Jou started to ask.

A bright white light flooded their vision. Every crevice of the room was lighted in all of its gory details.

Large wings that ranged the color of the rainbow were hung everywhere. From long chains that dropped down from the stories-tall ceiling, from every inch of the walls, hundreds, thousands even, of severed wings.

Yuugi doubled over and vomited. Atemu's face turned green.

It appeared that the wings of nearly every Assai and royal to have been murdered was hung in that room.

"I never even imagined that the source of all of those murders was here, hiding in your old world. Yuugi, even we didn't imagine this was what we would encounter in here."

Yuugi wiped his mouth with the cuff of his sleeve as he stood. "Atemu-"

Whatever he'd been about to say was cut off as a deep voice started chuckling ahead of them. "So...the prodigal son returns. Welcome back...Yuugi."

In the center of the room a very tall man with pale hair and even paler skin stood. He wore a robe that was a soft blue in color. From his back a set of red and gold striped wings stretched out. The wings were not the way they were supposed to be, though. Many of the feathers were missing, and those that remained were tattered and frayed.

This time, Atemu had to fight very hard not to lose the contents of his stomach, too. "Those...those wings..."

The man smiled. "Yes, the wings of the great King Ahknomkanon. Old as they are, they provide a great source of energy for me."

"Those belonged to my father!" Atemu roared. His energy level rose as his anger grew. "You monster!"

The man laughed again. "I prefer the name Darticlous, but monster will also do. Apparently, my underlings have come to call me Dartz."

Jou ducked once again as Atemu threw a flurry of shadow spikes at the man. Dartz only laughed as a barrier was erected around him. It shimmered with red and gold threads.

"Oh, my dear royal, if only you knew the true story." The shadows fizzled away.

"You won't get away with this," Yuugi said. "Heard any news from Sekesha of late?"

Dartz's smile only grew, along with Jou's confusion. "Why yes, my dear boy, I have. Child of the Entities, who could have guessed? This only makes things, surprisingly enough, easier for me. How on earth do you supposed it was so easy to harvest the wings of the most powerful creatures of both worlds, hm?"

Jou spotted them first, but both him and Atemu had no chance of stopping any of them as the darts pelted into Yuugi. Most of them missed, but two hit his right arm. Yuugi's eyes grew wide, then unfocused as his knees buckled beneath him. He crumbled to the floor in a heap.

"I'm sure you can imagine our surprise when we discovered the one weakness of the Assai that even they didn't seam to be aware of. You see, no one really uses iron in Sekesha. There are other, better metals that are used instead. Can you imagine, Atemu? Rust. Rust. It's poison unlike any other for divine blood. Just a few tiny specks of rust entered into a divine creature's blood stream renders them useless. Yuugi's heart will shut down in a few minutes, once the poison of the rust reaches it through his blood stream. His wings, like so many before him, will be added to my collection. The power that they give off is simply amazing."

Indeed, the two darts that had made it into his arm were brown and flaky with rust. Yuugi twitched constantly.

Something in the air snapped. Jou's hair stood on end. The chains dangling from the ceiling began to levitate. Dirt from the floor began to rise into the air.

Yuugi had been told in great detail of Atemu's condition after his first few months in the palace. Some mages were far more prone to go rogue than others. When a mage went rogue, it usually meant their powers took control away from them, and they lost all reason.

Atemu wore four pendants at all times to help protect him. The vision he'd had when he was very young of Yuugi coming to save him had been the last 'fit' he'd had of when his powers left his control. His shadow gift was an angry one, and very often when he was younger, would fight him for control. How it seemed to have a limited intelligence all of its own, no one could answer, but Yuugi's arrival and Bonding to Atemu seemed like a blessing. With a light gifted bonded to him by blood, should Atemu's gift rage again, Yuugi's light gift, the natural balance for shadows, would be able to subdue it.

The fact that his shadow gift had accidentally destroyed a distant village when he was only twelve made it even more comforting to know that something worse wouldn't happen later.

Right now, though, Yuugi had poison running through his veins, only magnified by his divine blood.

Atemu's pendants popped and shattered. They fell to his feet useless. His normal mahogany eyes burned a red so bright they could have been neon lights. The air flew away from him and pushed the wings against the walls. He didn't even say anything as he started to advance on the man named Dartz.

Jou crawled over to Yuugi as the shadows continued to howl overhead. He may not have understood the mechanics of what was going on, but he wasn't entirely stupid. With deft hands, he pulled the darts out of Yuugi's arms and started the squeeze as much blood out as he could. "I know this stuff is all different from what I know, pal, but if there's one thing they teach us about being a cop, it's about knowing shit, and I know poisons. We gotta get as much of that crap out of ya as possible."

"Jou," Yuugi wheezed. His quivering left hand pulled at a pouch by his hip, but could not open it. His dexterity was gone. Jou noticed his hand and grabbed at the pouch.

The little black bag was a hell of a lot deeper than it looked. There were clear rocks, a strange looking powder, and a couple of phials of a strange looking substance inside.

"Rock...phial..." Yuugi groaned.

Jou pulled out a rock. The windows around them burst as Atemu started to yell. He covered Yuugi's body with his own as the glass shrapnel flew. Then he grabbed one of the phials. "What am I supposed to do with this, pal?" he questioned.

Yuugi's eyes looked at his arm. "Rock," he wheezed again.

Jou shook his head, sure he wasn't understanding, but pushed the rock against the wound. "Now what?"

"Phial..." Yuugi coughed.

Jou popped open the phial. He looked at Yuugi again for assurance. His friend nodded as the structural beams around them began to fall. Jou poured the substance on top of the rock. He was sure he had to be getting this wrong. It just seemed too easy.

Yuugi screamed when the liquid hit his skin. The clear liquid turned white and fizzled. It sounded like a chemical burn. The force of the pain turned Yuugi on his side, and his left hand went to cover the wound on his right arm. A soft white light encompassed him. He drew his legs up to his body in a fetal position.

Dartz yelled off somewhere, but the shadows were so thick neither of them could see a thing. "What's happening?" Jou yelled.

Yuugi whimpered as the glow around him started to fade. "Jou...come here..." The blonde man helped him to sit up. Yuugi attempted to catch his breath as more metal framework splintered and collapsed around them. "Atemu's powers...he's lost control. Jou, I have to help him."

"Are you insane?!" he yelled. The wind was getting harsher. "We'll both die!"

"No we won't!" He yelled back. "Now come on!" Yuugi couldn't stand up on his own power, so Jou had to help him.

They had to duck to make it through the storm of shadows that surrounded them. Just as Jou thought they might be getting somewhere, an epicenter of darkness stood in front of him. He could see nothing. He yelled in panic when Yuugi let go of him and rushed inward without another thought. His little buddy had definitely gone insane during his time away, wherever it had been.

Something slid up to his foot. Jou looked down and felt for it. Whatever it was, it had a wood handle, and it was heavy. He felt it some more.

It was an axe.

He picked it up and held it with both hands. Not wanting to stay in the same place in that chaos, Jou moved around the tornado of shadows that cackled and sang.

There! That man that they'd seen just minutes ago. Dartz looked to be fighting a fog of shadows around his neck. His feet were dangling inches above the floor. He appeared to be suffocating.

Enough of this, he thought to himself. Jou raised the axe and swung.

Dartz's head fell off of his shoulders in a shower of red that was sucked up into the wind. His long hair tangled and became dirty as his severed head rolled along the floor. His body flew off as the shadows drug it off somewhere beyond sight.

Part of the roof finally collapsed in. Jou cursed as he looked around. Luckily, he was close to a window.

Or perhaps, maybe not so lucky. He could very easily be thrown out of said window to the ground hundreds of feet below. Either way, he had to get out of that building. Whatever Yuugi was doing, it was beyond his ability to help now. The chains rattling in their harnesses started to give Jou an idea.

With some careful locating of the chains, examining their length, and a little bit of sloppy guesswork, he decided it was his only chance of saving his hide. Jou grabbed one of the chains, wrapped it around his waist and took a deep breath. Then he dived out the window.

He held to the chain tightly as he rushed down the side of the building. He knew the landing would be hell, but it was better than the prospect of getting squashed by falling beams and drywall.

The length of the chain ended, and his body jerked with the inertia of his fall. He was six feet above the ground. Damn, I'm a lucky bastard. He fought with the chains until he was free, then fell the rest of the way.

Bruised, scraped, bleeding, and very cranky, Jou ran as fast as he could from the crumbling skyscraper.

The building imploded. It looked just like a controlled explosion. He could hardly believe the accuracy as it fell. His ears were momentarily deaf as the thunderous noise faded away.

By God, they destroyed the entire building. Jou's little buddy, and that freaky husband of his, were a powerhouse. Looks like he doesn't need my protection anymore.

It was a good ten minutes that he stood there, looking at the destruction with a detached heart. Yuugi, too? Alive, then dead again in the same day?

Two figures started to appear in the dust. Jou felt his heart jump into his throat as he saw Yuugi and Atemu leaning against each other as they stumbled away from the wreckage.

They were both alive. Thank the heavens.