"A child made of light be the only soul biggeth to save the beast of the dark. The beast be untamed, the child be an innocent."

The spirit was seated on its throne when the door had knocked.

It looked up, as proud of an appearance as it could muster, and allowed the door to open on its own like it usually did.

"Hello.? This has to be a dream.."

It's the host! Its beautiful host! Coming to see the spirit! The spirit tried to keep a level head.

"Yo." The spirit placed its cheek against its 'hand', which was being held up by an arm that rested on the seat's armrest.

"You.. Look like me." Yuugi's voice quietened, "When the fear goes away I'm going to be more concerned about that."

The spirit seemed perplexed. It looked down at its hand and realised. It had its own skin! Its own face, its own hair and legs! It tried not to look shocked or excited, knowing it might scare off Yuugi.

It looked like it did when it switched into Yuugi's body, and the spirit decided to take pride in that.

"Where am I?" Yuugi asked, pulling the spirit away from its surprise.

"You are my host, my light." The spirit smoothly stated, "This is inside the puzzle. It is where I sleep."

The spirit could tell Yuugi was trying to not look fearful. He stood up straighter and puffed his chest out a little.

"How is that possible?"

"I know as much as you do, maybe just a little more." The spirit lifted one of its legs over the other, sitting in a cross-legged notion.

"I read a book when I was completing the puzzle" Yuugi placed a finger on his chin as he processed his thoughts, "It said there was a spirit.. Is it you?"

"Correct."

The boy scooted back a little. The spirit and the boy stared at eachother in silence until Yuugi spoke again. The boy approached quickly, eyes shining.

"Wow! That's awesome! A real spirit!"

"I do not find it..' awesome', personally." The spirit jumped and shuffled backwards in its seat.

Yuugi tilted his head, "How come? I didn't even know spirits were real! This is so cool! I used to love looking into ghosts and phantoms and stuff but I never truly believed it"

Was this a sense of denial? Humour? Fawning? The spirit didn't know why the boy seemed happy about this arrangement, it felt scared knowing the boy might just be being facetious due to fear.

"Why are you only appearing now? And not when I was doing the puzzle?"

The spirit sighed, "The Millenium Puzzle is an ancient artefact. You solving it seems to have unlocked all the trapped magical energy inside of it."

It was awkward. This tension could be cut with a knife. The spirit felt wary whenever Yuugi looked around, petrified that the boy would find the notes of who it has harmed and who it wants to harm.

"I will be honest, I did not think your reaction would be so positive, Mutou Yuugi."

"You know my name?"

The spirit simply gave a small nod and didn't say anything more.

"Do you have a name?"

"If I had one, I do not remember it anymore, my light."

The spirit covered up its mouth for the last part, cheeks pricked with heat. This wasn't a normal feeling, the spirit thought. It hadn't felt like this before, it was unfamiliar and confusing to the point where it wanted to hide away behind one of the many new doors or walls.

"Poor thing.." Yuugi quietly said, "How long have you been here?"

"158,153,372,860 seconds."

"Sorry... What's that in years?"

"5015 years and 27 days, approximately."

When the spirit said that number aloud, the time spent alone in its prison suddenly felt much larger than it did while being said in seconds. Its heart dropped.

"No wonder you don't remember your name!!"

That happy voice. Yes… That is what kept it going. For the final years of being alone, the thought of being around the ball of sunshine named Yuugi is all that kept it alive.

"Are you why I've been blacking out recently?"

There was silence.

A cold, empty silence. The spirit drew in a fake breath and felt its voice lower.

"Yes."

"Why is it that when I wake up I'm always covered in blood?"

The spirit didn't speak. It looked at the stone floors with pain in its eyes. What should it say? That it was why people have been stabbing themselves?

Yuugi's eyes narrowed, "You aren't dangerous, are you…?"

"Define dangerous."

"Y'know." Yuugi looked deeply into the spirit's eyes, "Like killing people and possessing them and stuff."

"You ask too many questions." The spirit lifted its head up, looking downwards at the boy with a sense of reality, "I have not spoken to anyone like this before, forgive me if your questioning brings me caution."

"Oh. Sorry." Yuugi smiled softly.

"If I am dangerous, what will you do?"

Yuugi thought to himself, "I'm not sure."

"If you fear me, take the puzzle and throw it away." The spirit smiled. It continued after Yuugi's shocked 'what' made it twitch; "I do not want to hurt my light in any way. If you fear me, please take the puzzle and break it, throw it away into the ocean and let my spirit break on its own."

Yuugi didn't speak, the spirit stood up and placed its hands together like a prayer.

"I beg of you, my host."

"I'm not doing that. I'd be killing you, wouldn't I?"

The spirit rolled its eyes, "I am already dead."

"Clearly not, if you can still talk to me."

"So… You do not believe this is a dream, still?"

Yuugi shuffled closer to the spirit, "I'm pretty good at telling when I'm dreaming or not. This feels too real."

"Oh."

After emptiness from both parties, a sudden beam of light burst through the door. The spirit held in its scream, sprinting to the throne and sitting down to check the mind link. Through Yuugi's eyes, it saw a fuzzy figure in white trying to move the body, people yelling and Jounouchi holding the boys hand.

"You should go back in your body." The spirit sighed, "You collapsed and hurt yourself. There is a man trying to touch you. If you want, I can take care of him for you."

"Wait, so I am unconscious?"

"Your soul cannot be in two places at once, now can it?"

Yuugi gave the spirit a big smile, "You'll still be in the puzzle, right? If I go back?"

The spectre nodded confidently, a warm, fluttering feeling in its chest. The spirit gestured Yuugi to the door and followed closely, taking the shadowed form on the outside to observe what was happening.

'I can speak to you from your mind.' The spirit said, echoing it's words into Yuugi's head. Yuugi slowly attempted to open his eyes, feeling the extreme, crushing feeling of pain around his head.

'Can you?' He replied, 'I have so many questions. I'm going to have to ask you about them later.'

Elongated figures of humans smothered and surrounded Yuugi. They consisted of the school nurse, Jounouchi, Anzu and Honda, as well as a few students neither the spirit nor Yuugi knew by name.

'Can I ask you something?'

The spirit had spoken from his mind. Yuugi groaned loudly as he tried to focus; does he focus on the words or the people?

"Go ahead" Yuugi had accidentally responded aloud, leaving the people surrounding him to look at him in an extremely concerned manner.

'I know I have asked this already… but why are you so positive about this? Why are you so calm?'

Anzu took Yuugi's arm, Jounouchi took the other, and tried to lift him up.

"You should go home…" Anzu's voice was low and gentle, "He's been a bit off all day."

She added the last part to a teacher, who agreed to let him come home and told Yuugi that she would be going to the office to call his mother.

'How about I answer that question once I'm at home?' Yuugi finally replied to the spirit; speaking to the spirit through his head needed practice, it seemed.

'Of course, my host.'

'Please just call me by my actual name.'

The two became engulfed in an awkward quiet as Anzu, while tightly holding Yuugi's hand, walked him to the reception and helped him sit on one of the waiting seats outside the exit.

"Get home safely and rest, okay?"

"Y…yeah…" Yuugi nodded. He shivered, feeling his body turn ice cold in a matter of seconds for no discernable reason.

'If you are cold, I had put a spare jacket in your backpack. I placed it there during one of your… blackouts.'

Yuugi jumped. He opened his backpack and looked through it, seeing the jacket the spirit was talking about. The bag was filled with his black jacket, adorned with small belt buckles and straps attached to the arms and collar.

'What do you do during my blackouts?'

The spirit hushed quiet. 'Mainly walk around. I know nothing about this world outside of my room, I had recently discovered how to put things inside storage capable objects, hence the jacket.'

The spirit told a half-lie. It did spend a lot of time being amazed at how the world works - when the spirit first discovered how gravity operated it was so amazed that it sat down and dropped objects for at least half an hour. However, the spirit knew that wasn't what it mainly did during the blackouts… it grew silent again. It knew that if Yuugi found out about the punishments, things would go horribly wrong.

'I can always explain something to you if you get confused.' Yuugi smiled to himself, 'The modern world is super confusing, I bet. I can try to show you whatever you want to know.'

'I appreciate that, my dearest host'

'Call me Yuugi. I beg.'

As they spoke, the words seemed to blend together. Something felt right, both to Yuugi and the spirit, about talking to each other. Like they were finally complete.

"Yuugi Mutou? Your mother's here to collect you."

The receptionist broke away the sense of belonging with her shrill voice. Yuugi dizzily stood up and stumbled to the door, where his mother waited.

"Yuugi! What happened!" She gasped, holding him tightly and slowly guiding him to the door.

'Why did you have to wait for that woman to let you out? Why can you not just leave through the exit on your own?' The spirit asked, patiently waiting for an answer from the boy, who was busy telling his mother he was alright.

'Who? The receptionist?'

'Yes. You could surely open that door.'

Yuugi chuckled to himself – the spirit seemed to be extremely confident in its door opening abilities. 'If I left without the school signing me out, it would be a fire hazard. They would think I'm missing. Also, she can only open the door because she has a key card.'

'I can probably take her down and steal that key card, easy.'

Yuugi grabbed the puzzle with his hands and bit down on his lip.

'Do that, and I might just throw you away.'

'My apologies. This reaction seems to be in my natural tendency, I will try to control myself.'

Yuugi got into his mother's car and strapped the seat belt on. He laughed when the spirit seemed awestruck by the vehicle.

'It moves?'

'Yeah. It moves.'

'Oh my! Much better than a chariot transport! You need not a creature to pull its cart!' '

The boy twitched a little, 'You know what a Chariot is?'

'I seem to, yes. I do not know how though.'

The car started driving, his mother telling Yuugi to stop the shopping bags from falling.

'Maybe you come from an era where chariots were used. If you really are a ghost, of course.'

The spirit twisted its shadow form, so it was laying directly on top of one of the seats, lifting itself upwards, so its form rested on the car wall.

'Can you do any other form? It's okay if not, I just get surprised when my shadow is looking at me.'

'I have not tried. This seems to be the default, but I feel the potential for something more.'

Yuugi kicked his feet, the spirit could feel the slightly incoherent thought process of the boy as he went through his questions and worries one by one.

'About your question.. Before.' Yuugi finally told the spirit, shutting out the noise of his mother talking to him, 'When I was doing the puzzle… I felt like there was someone there, watching me. Sure, I'm terrified, but I don't particularly have any friends and… Talking to you makes me feel whole again.'

The spirit felt a rush of sudden emotion. A fluttering, almost desperate feeling that banged in its chest violently. Yuugi grabbed his chest in response, the spirit must have accidentally relayed those emotions to him. Don't let anything show, it told itself.

'You are… okay with me staying in your body like this? This is bizarre.'

'As long as you don't hurt anybody.'

Those words. The spirit felt another sensation, something in its heart crushed. It felt like someone grabbed its 'stomach' and twisted it, tying it into a knot.

'I promise that I will not.'

No, the spirit's principles and pride wouldn't let him stop. The spirit needed to protect the host, its precious host, no matter how violent the means it needs to turn to are.

'Can I give you a name? It'll give me something to call you by..'

The spirit smiled to itself, its eyes narrowing, happy.

'You're a shadow.. So how about.. Yami?'

'Yami.?'

'It means darkness!'

'Yami… Yami… Yami…' The spirit whispered, getting familiar with the name, 'Yami… I love it, my host.'

'I'll call you Yami, then!'

"Yuugi." The car door opened, and his mother looked inside, concerned, "Do you plan on sitting in that car forever?"

"Sorry mother…"

Yuugi dragged himself out of the car and into the house, ignoring his mother's orders to put away his shoes and instead hobbling upstairs and flopping down into his bed. His head throbbed. He grabbed it in pain.

'Would I be allowed to borrow your body tonight?' Yami asked, nervous. The boy thought for a moment.

'I'm not sure… what do you want to do with it?'

'I… want to clean your room.'

Yuugi shuffled, anxious, 'You're the one cleaning my room?'

'Yes. It is for my host's ease of convenience'

'I'm not sure how to feel about that.'

'I promise you.' The spirit purred, 'I do not care about your tastes in women, the perverted videotapes or how long you wear your socks for.'

Yuugi irked. 'Oh god… By saying that it feels like you care.'

'I do not see the appeal of any of those things. But whatever makes my host happy is good for me.'

'Fine… you can borrow my body.'

Yami celebrated.

It dissolved from its shadow form and slipped back into the puzzle, giving Yuugi a huge scare as the shadows shot out towards him.

It sat in its room and looked at the list of people. 'IMORI, DEAD. USHIO, DEAD. CHOUNO, DEAD. SHOUTARO, DEAD. RYUICHI, DEAD. KEKERU, DEAD. HIRUTANI, DEAD.'

The list carried on and on in sporadic handwriting, scratched into the wall in an almost angry fashion.

Every time someone passed by its host, it would kill them. It would tear their heads off, stab holes into them, contort their bodies so far that it snapped.

Today, it decided to target a few bullies Yami didn't know the names of. It didn't care enough, they were barely important. It knew where they hung out every night, near the Burger World joint. The thought of finally ending their lives make the spirit giddy with excitement, the blood rush made it almost feel high. This was what it was around for. It wanted to feel more pleasure deprived of watching its precious host's tormentors suffer, it wanted to see more people burn to the ground and beg for mercy at its feet.

It wouldn't stop now.

Not when it finally felt alive.

It waited, and waited, and waited, until Yuugi fell asleep. His mother had come in to check on him, tucking him up, so he kept warm. This was perfect, no distractions. Yami waited for the lady to leave, took a hold of Yuugi's body and slipped out of the window again, like it had done every night since its escape. It walked down to the Burger World joint where it knew for a fact the boys were at.

It stood just under a street lamp's light and waited for the boys to notice. It determined each one by a different clothing feature; one was wearing a cap; one was wearing a chunky belt; one was wearing clunky shoes.

"Oi!" the cap man walked up to the spirit angrily, "Oi brat this is our turf, you know that!"

"Yo." Yami grinned, exposing all of its teeth in an unintentionally eerie fashion, "How about we play a game?"

"What? Are you fucking kidding me right now?" The shoes man yelled, "No, we're not playing a game with a loser like you! Fuck off!!"

"If you win, you can do whatever you wish with me, including kill me." The spirit smirked, "And you will receive a heavy cash sum."

"Cash you say?" Cap man spoke again.

Yami showed off a wad of cash, that seemed to pique everyone's interest.

"Let me explain the rules."

As Yami said so, the world fell dark, the floor feeling like it was shifting and encasing them in their own tiny world.

The rules were simple. They would each take turns pulling chains. You can only pull the chains once. If you pulled the wrong chain, a knife would swing down and either slit your throat or force you to dodge.

The game ended once all the chains were pulled. Simple.

The cap man went first. He pulled the first chain, nothing happened. The chain lifted, rattling loudly. Shoes man pulled another, nothing happened. He let out a loud, breathy sigh of relief. The belt man tried to pull another chain, hesitantly, and waited.

"Ha! See! We all are safe!"

"Oh? Are you?" The spirit sat down, shadow tendrils forming from its side and creating a seat for it to relax in.

Just as it said that, a knife swung down with extreme force, slicing the man's neck in half and gushing out so much blood that if the knifes impact didn't kill him, the immediate blood loss definitely did.

The two other men screamed, huddling together in fear.

"What?! What are you?! You possessed bitch, what did you do?!"

"Punished him. No one goes near my Yuugi."

The spirit laughed, the laughter turning into screams of insane noise in a matter of moments.

"You're.. You're crazy! You should be killed, you should be locked up..!!"

"I believe the same for you," The spirit's voice grew low, heavy and merciless, "Sinner."

It went home, listening happily to the screams of men who were busy stabbing each other. A woman walking by saw this event, called the police and said;

"Gang members having a fight."

Perfect. The spirit knew, it would never be caught for this.

At home, it cleaned Yuugi's room, quietly washed off the clothing it wore and laid it on the ground. If Yuugi asked why it was wet, it could say it spilled cleaning material while working. It closed the window, placed Yuugi's body in bed and returned to its own home in the puzzle, the high from the suffering it inflicted making its body tingle and throb satisfyingly.

It spread out on the ground, took some deep breaths and allowed the burning heat to carry throughout its body. It didn't know, at this point, whether it was doing this to protect Yuugi or to feel the incredible sensations it felt from putting people in their place.

Was it doing it for justice? Or for the intoxicating feeling of superiority?

It didn't even know,

It didn't even care.

--

At this point in time, the spirit had done 20 different punishments, all on consecutive days. Every day, it looked forward to the nighttime, when it could finally feel the rush of pleasant agitation. It stopped caring about the consequences after the 15th. It didn't mind how weak it felt after each game, or how weak it gradually got over time. This was perfect. It had its beautiful, angel of a host, and it had its nighttime thrills.

"I'm alive~" the spirit mumbled through gasps.

The moment where it made this remark, it stopped and noticed something new. In its soul room, a standing mirror similar to the one Yuugi had in his room. It had a single crack through the top right corner.

"That.. That is new." The spirit dragged itself upwards, still fuzzy from the pleasant emotion, and stumbled to the mirror.

"When did this get here?"

It had kept its human appearance, though it noticed its eyes had changed to a brighter red. They looked so empty. Just looking at itself stopped the happy feeling, leaving the spirit alone with itself and its negative thoughts.

Why was the mirror suddenly there? Standing in its room and taunting the spirit.

Yami looked away, stumbling to its throne. It laughed its head against the thrones backing and closed its eyes, feeling its heart which raced slow down as it sat in silence. It peeked through the mind link, watching the world silently through Yuugi's eyes. Carefully, It could feel its soul, pressed against the barriers of Yuugi's eyes, watching the boy's every move with intense care.

The boy rolled around on his bed, trying to sleep. His eyes opened just slightly, he mumbled to himself while trying to dispel an unsettled feeling of a mix of fear and anxiety. Yuugi sweated, his arms and skin pricked with heat. Yami fell into the boy's dispersed shadow and used a singular shadowy tendril to move Yuugi's duvet. It peeled away and slipped onto the floor with the ear bleeding noise of cheap fabric rubbing against itself, causing the spirit to think about retreating back to its internal watching post.

Instead, it shifted over to the centre of the room and twisted its shadowed form upwards until it stood up with a painful amount of difficulty. It reached a 'hand' out and looked at it with inquisitive eyes. One by one, the shadow fingers faded away, being replaced with semi-transparent ones of the same colour he was in the mirror. Yami stepped back, the shadows linking its 'feet' to the boy tangling around it like a rope and forcing him to stay where he was.

"Wha-"

Yami gasped, his hand became uncovered, showing off its new ghost-like appearance. It kept going, down its arms, through its body and around each leg, then finally its head. The spirit screamed in pain, the shadows tearing from its form stabbed and scratched it with a tremendous amount of force, so great that it felt like its skin was being torn from the rest of it.

Yuugi jolted awake, pushing himself upwards to see what was happening. He yelped.

"Oh god! What's happening, why are-I- you are-?!"

"My form it is…" Yami wheezed, "It has…"

"Changed…!" Yuugi finished off Yami's sentence and stood up. He could hear the yell of his mother to go to bed, but promptly decided to ignore it in favour of this slightly shocking moment.

"You're like a real ghost now." Yuugi, still somehow half-asleep, stated. Yami nodded as Yuugi continued to speak, "It's a lot less creepy than shadow-you."

"I do not know why such a thing happened… What exactly caused my form to switch?"

"I've only known you for 20 odd days, how the hell should I know?" Yuugi grumbled, dropping back down onto his bed and yawning. Yami edged closer and tried to place his hand onto the boy's shoulder in order to judge him back, so he'd rest against the pillow, but found his hand slipping all the way through without contact. A bizarre, throbbing warmth echoed from the cross-section between where Yami's intercepted hand and Yuugi's small shoulder blade collided. The boy got what Yami was trying to do and laid down, pulling the duvet back over himself.

"What a down-grade." Yami scoffed, crossing his arms, "I used to be able to touch things with the shadows."

"Maybe you still can be a shadow?"

Yami thought hard about that suggestion, his head and body still aching like muscle tears over the sudden change in form. He willed himself to change, feeling his form melt freely into the ground and connect itself with Yuugi's shadow.

"I guess I can transition between the two."

Yuugi rolled over, so he faced the wall, his quiet voice mumbling; "Is being a shadow… comfortable?"

"It was my default shape when you were not around, in the puzzle." Yami transitioned back to his ghostly form and crossed his legs mid-air with an elegant poise. "You can move very freely like liquid. Being human has its perks, but I find each movement painful and awkward. It took me a while before I even understood how walking worked properly."

"Well, it takes humans years to master walking. I'm sure you'll find you mastered it pretty quickly."

They both sat in silence. Yami could feel a part of its mind softening, closing its eyes it could tell that Yuugi was trying to fall asleep again. Its host looked so perfect, with his butterfly eyelashes and the moonlight beaming down onto his soft skin, dyeing his face with a gentle blue hue.

"I wonder what life you left behind…" Yuugi muttered under his breath.

"What does that mean?"

Yuugi turned his body over so he faced Yami and, with sleepy eyes, explained; "Most ghosts are… dead, right? You probably had a whole life to lead before you died."

"I have a few faint images in my mind about a previous life, however they are not clear enough for me to be sad about them." Yami finally uncrossed his legs and tried to 'stand' normally (actually floating just over the surface of the floor, if he didn't he'd fall right through).

"It must be lonely, not knowing who you are…"

As Yuugi mumbled his final sentence he closed his eyes again and tugged the duvet over his head. His usual restful expression returned, the boy succumbing to a peaceful slumber.

The spirit smiled. It approached closer to the boy and sank downwards so its eyes met his.

"I am not lonely, I have you to watch, now."

And thus, it sat with the uncomfortable silence (broken occasionally by a small snore or mumble from Yuugi) until the sun came out once again.

The spirit's face grew even closer, feeling Yuugi's hot breath fade through its form.

It purred, face pickled with heat.

"I will protect you, forever and ever and ever, my light."