Chapter CXI: Ritual

"You caused quite the stir coming here so suddenly," Ryou laughed, looking at him sideways and shaking his head. Yami thought of snow dunes, stirred by the wind as it fluffed up and fell back with the movement. He wondered briefly how quickly the snow from the mountains would move down to the valley, and when the flakes would begin to cover everything in its blinding blanket. "You okay?"

Yami hesitated for a moment as to what he should say. His eyes narrowed briefly before shaking his head slightly. "I need your help with something," he said instead, bypassing the question altogether to attempt taking control of the fear thrumming through his veins. His mouth felt dry and cottony, as if he'd swallowed sand, and his fingers were trembling as he looked around for a moment.

"Name it."

He wished he could have thanked him for the lack of hesitation, but somehow his throat threatened to close and he couldn't make the words come out. For a long moment, he traced his fingers along some of the feathers and collection of herbs, stored in clay pots with written symbols—letters, Yugi had called them, when he'd said that his name was a combination of theirs—and some small imprints of leaves and stems. Somehow touching them made everything seem more real and he wondered for a moment if any of the pots his fingers ghosted over might truly be involved in the ritual he wished to partake.

"I need your magic."

Ryou blinked and froze in his peripheral. He seemed to process the words for a solid minute, then very slowly shook his head. "What? Why? You see things on your own, without outward help."

Yami nodded. "But I need…more. I need to see more. And no matter how hard I've tried on my own, I can't…find the solution." He looked over. His friend was paler than usual, staring at him with dilated eyes, as if Yami had confessed to some kind of terrible murder. There was a small sprinkling of dew across his forehead, but the smell that came to him was salty, as if his skin were weeping ocean water. Yami considered him, listened to the spike of his heart as it raced in his chest, and saw the tightness of his breathing. "Ryou, you have to help me."

The shaman stared back at him for a moment, expression pinched with alarm and fear, and Yami wondered what he had to look like himself to make him take that expression. "I…I've never done a ritual like that, Yami. I'm not experienced enough to."

Yami shook his head. "You'll try with me then," he answered quietly, "because this cannot wait any longer. D—my sibling attacked J—the God Dragon of the South's mate. He went after him and he nearly killed him and I barely managed to save him. I have to know what the God Dragon's son saw in the water—about me. About what I'm supposed to be able to do. You don't understand. I can't… Yugi and Atem will die if I cannot do this."

Ryou flinched as if he'd struck him when the God Dragon's name came out. Yami had the impulse to roll his eyes and snap at him, to beg he aid him in this quest. But the words died in his throat. The shaman had lowered his head, thinking rather than denying him. For a long minute he seemed to just stand there, wondering and likely rallying himself up, and Yami waited as patiently as he could. He did not snoop through his thoughts, nor did he attempt to influence him with further pleading. He did not even think to step closer or touch him, as if it might stir him to action.

"Fine. We do this…but be aware I don't know what you're looking for, so this… Yami, this entire thing is going to rely on you. The herbs and the magic will act as a conduit, but you have to know what you're looking for, what you want from this quest. If you don't know what you want or what you seek, it'll kill you."

He blinked once, long and slow. "I know what I want," he snapped before he could mind his tone. "I want to save my fathers. I want to see the next sunrise."

"Which matters more to you? You'll need that to ground you more than the other."

Yami opened his mouth, but the words never came. He couldn't think straight. What did matter more? Surely his life had to mean something. He'd been given one for one reason or another. It couldn't just be that he was meant to be sacrificed—could it? Had Atem been wrong when he'd insisted there was another way? And what about protecting him? What about…?

Yami looked to where Ryou was grabbing the herbs from their containment jars. His eyes widened, burning as if with smoke, when he noticed each had been one his fingers had come in contact with. Had Ryou done it on purpose? Or had something drawn him to those particular clay pots? His stomach lurched as the shaman scooped several dried leaves, grabbing a single golden stone from a nearby perch atop the wooden structure resting beside him.

He crushed them down to almost nothing, the dust so fine Yami almost wondered how it could have ever been a leaf to begin with. Several more were added, each a single one that glimmered and shone like gems despite their wizened forms, and then crushed similarly. The dust had turned a strange, shimmering teal almost akin Timaeus's eyes, sparkling in the limited torchlight. Ryou considered it a moment longer, then looked at Yami.

"Do you know what you want most?"

Yami paused and searched his face, for a moment unable to weigh the two, and then nodded as his heart raced and lodged itself in his throat. He was shaking when Ryou reached for his hand and cut a long line from his palm to his middle fingertip, the wound just large enough it oozed blood like a puddle forming. Ryou flipped his hand, letting it drip slowly into the bowl of herbs, and the mixture turned from sparkling green to a hideous broken brown that turned ash gray and then black as water trapped beneath the ice.

The golden shard was dropped into the bowl a moment later, then retrieved again. Ryou reached forward, the weeping mixture gathered from the tip of the stone onto his finger, and drew something across Yami's forehead. Two more were put upon his cheeks, just beneath his eyes, and then Ryou lifted his hand.

"Focus on the cut. Heal it."

Yami blinked, but his eyes felt oddly unfocused and there was a strange weighted sensation that came through his limbs as he tried to think. Heal it? He considered the blood that continued to well across his skin, seeping into the cracks and crevices, and he wondered if Atem had ever seen something similar. He wondered if Yugi had watched blood drip from a wound in the center of his palm, or if he'd tasted herbs as potent as these smelled. His eyes continued to burn, his vision wavering and dancing.

And then he blinked again.

Yami's eyes rolled up in the back of his head and his body surged forward.

The sensation of falling was not unlike dropping into water from a height. It was not unlike a dive to the ground from high in the air. It was not unlike watching a beetle struck from the air with a paw.

It was not unlike a stone tumbling from a ledge. It was not unlike a raindrop hitting a pool.

Yami was isolated in the sensation, as if he were drowning beneath it. Somehow he knew he was falling, that he himself had dropped in his human form and struck the ground. And yet the sensation never left. He felt as if the fall were infinite, as if the world were too far beneath his paws to ever catch him. He thought of snowflakes, drifting through the air as sometimes they broke apart into smaller pieces or joined with others and grew that much larger. He thought of dew gathering on the blades of grass, swelling as it trailed downward and another dropped from its former height. He thought of pebbles as they were discarded from atop a ledge, of leaves drifting through the wind and nearly touching the ground but swept up and away in sudden gusts. He thought of flying, of the air as it caressed his scales and both guided and assaulted his senses with new and vibrant scents.

He had no idea how he fell.

He didn't know if he was plummeting straight downward or if he were diving.

He didn't know if he would land on his paws or his back or simply die from the sheer shock.

But abruptly he felt as if the world came rushing toward him. Yet, as he looked around, there was nothing to see. Darkness swelled and surged about around him, as if teasing him as it danced about in his peripheral. He bristled and looked around, and for a split second he tasted something bitter and scathing upon his tongue, and his mind raced. He thought of blood, of the metallic stench as it had cloyed in his nose and made him dizzy. He thought of his father watching his brother, golden eyes glittering with anger, and the way he'd been so prepared to offer his life just to ensure Yami's own.

He blinked and his eyes widened as they spotted something moving about.

It was a small red dragonet, braced against the ground. Its claws were dug into the dirt and the eyes glowed with anger. It raced forward suddenly, surging upward into the air. Its claws braced on either side of the throat its teeth clamped upon and blood surged like a river. It flowed eagerly toward his paws and drenched the tips of his claws even as Yami attempted to step back away from it. It painted the keratin, rising higher and higher to swallow it all, and then it began to grow even more.

Yami watched it swell, stomach lurching and mouth watering with disgust as the smell made his flesh tingle. He panted, unable to stop himself, as the blood rose and surged upward. It came to his chest and he almost could have cried out had he a voice any longer. But something about the image before him seemed so…familiar.

His eyes shot to the dragonet. It was clinging to a dark gray dragon's throat, claws sunk into the flesh alongside their brilliant teeth. The victim slashed at it, trying desperately to shake it, brown eyes flashing like mud puddles—

"It didn't happen like this," Yami snarled, bristling and shaking his head. The blood stopped at his neck, as if afraid to go any higher. He bore his teeth. The hatchling released its grip and sprang to the ground. The blood receded abruptly, swallowed away by a ground that looked suddenly to be a meadow of intense red to rival Atem's scales. He raised his head and lashed his tail. "Who…?"

Someone chuckled behind him.

Yami whipped around, snarling and baring his teeth once more. For a moment he thought to lash out, fear clawing at his insides, but the impulse died again. Immediately he reconsidered. The beast before him was too large to even consider laying a paw on. It towered over him as Atem once had when he was first born, so large it seemed impossible to even see the brilliant eyes that twinkled in the darkness. He blinked, lashing his tail again, and backed away with a growl.

Where was he?

"Do you not recognize this place, Yami?"

He blinked and cast a small glance. The meadow was endless, the grass bathed in red like live flames, and the flowers which bloomed seemed to wink and sparkle and dance across his sight. He thought of rubies, crushed into a fine powder and smeared across white petals. And then he thought of the stars, the infinite heavens stretched far overhead. He thought of the way the light bounced off the water as the sun began to rise or set, how the sky took on a million different hues to reflect its coming and going.

But mostly he thought of blood.

Mostly he thought of fresh, weeping wounds.

He turned back.

The dragon stood, looming over him as if he were nothing but a speck of dirt before the mighty throes of a river. Yami could see brilliant golden eyes, glowing like twin suns, burning into his as the seconds passed. He thought of Atem, but the moment passed as quickly as it had come. Somehow Yami felt as if his lungs were too tight to utilize and his head spun as he stared up at the monster before him.

"Where…?"

"You traversed here before, in order to save Timaeus," the dragon snarled, studying him. His lips peeled back to show brilliant white teeth the size of Yami's head, with a much larger set on the outside and one smaller inward. The gums were a hideous shade of blue-black, and the indentation of its teeth were highlighted by shadows that looked so deep they might swallow everything about them whole.

Yami shivered, fighting the tension in his limbs. A…a Uria?

"Who…?"

"You do not need to ask such foolish questions. You know who I am," the dragon spat, but his voice seemed amused more than angered. After a moment the world seemed to gust about him, the grass and flowers twisting and writhing, and Yami swore he saw something like lightning bite through the air beside him. He swore he saw the jagged, cutting edge of the element as it plunged toward the ground, but when he looked there was nothing but darkness, pulsing and hungrily lapping at what should have been the sky.

Yami turned back and froze in place.

The Uria stood taller than him still, so large he could have dwarfed Atem or the Leviathan even at a distance. The scales were a garnet color, dark and glossy like the heart of a ruby, with a brilliant slate gray set of layered scales along his throat that looked like flat stones sharpened to arrowheads and laid upon each other. Glowing golden eyes peered back from a head so large it almost encompassed the size of Yami's spine. Claws the size of human lay spread about the ground in groups of four, flattened against the ground where the hooked edges looked ready for evisceration. The tight folds of its wings were raised and tucked upwards where the joints were forced to the ground by its fused paws, and the back limbs were lower to the ground along the knee and the hocks well developed with raw muscle.

He blinked stupidly once more, eyes widening until his heart felt it might thump out of his chest.

"Do you truly not recognize me?" the dragon growled, and Yami saw drool begin to gather along the edges of his immense teeth. He did not look as scornful as he sounded, though there was an edge of amusement and perhaps utter annoyance in his tone. The dragon snarled softly, picking his way around him.

Yami turned to watch him as they began to circle each other. The Uria loomed over him, slow and stalking, and for a moment it looked as if he might lunge for Yami at any moment. But it faded almost immediately after.

He lashed his tail and Yami stared at a feathery design not unlike his own. But there were no hidden blades within the scales, no special arsenal hidden away for a quick death blow.

Yami struggled to wrack his brain, but nothing came. He shook his head slowly, unsurprised when the other male began to circle him once more. An image formed in the back of his mind, of a single golden egg the size of a pebble. It lay about the darkness, glimmering despite its endless surroundings, and after a moment it began to crack. From its depths came light so blinding it seared through the dark. But the two elements could not kill each other completely, and a shadow stretched where the light could not touch, swarming about the side of the egg and surging downward to the ground once more.

Fire came, then ice. Blue and red surged forth, slamming into each other and writhing.

Land rose. Water raged.

Yami stared blankly at the Uria, even as a million things darted about the back of his skull. His eyes burned, as if he were staring straight into the sun, and his mind scrambled for answers even as animals burst through the insistent pulse of fire and ice as they slammed into each other endlessly. In the red flames came a brilliant burning shape, one of large wings and immense teeth and claws and a long body and tail. It landed on the ground as the ice spat a creature forth to mirror it, small and dainty with long limbs that looked utterly defenseless.

His eyes stretched wider and his body tightened with shock, then uncertainty. For a long minute he could not comprehend the vision before him. A dragon launched itself at a human atop a horse. They rolled, a spear lodged in its side, its teeth biting through armor and shield alike. The horse tried to kick and failed and the dragon and human tumbled over the side of a cliff and down into the darkness. They hit a ledge, rolled, and then sprang for each other once more.

Blood pooled and dripped from heavy wounds and the sounds of war beyond them made the world seem to shake.

Yami felt as if his head might explode. Even as the visions danced about and slowly worked their way to nothing, his mind scrambled to explain them.

Yet, the most impossible explanation seemed the only one.

Blood coated his tongue and threatened to glue it to the roof of his mouth. His head spun and his vision swayed for a single second. His body quaked, driven numb even as it burned with shock and disbelief. His lungs were too tight to breathe and everything inside of him felt as if it were pulsing with pain…

He lowered himself into a bow, horrified, and whispered, "Amun."