Their souls belong to him, and their shadows as well.
._._.
Whatever it was that the handcuffs were attached to was too sturdy for the darker Yuugi to break, but he had been able to push the blindfold off of his eyes by rubbing the cloth against his arm. The room of his imprisonment was a not particularly detailed or telling location: the walls were a rather neutral gray, and the floor beneath his bare feet was the cold of wood. There was only a single door leading into the room, several feet away from where the other Yuugi was chained, and other than himself the only thing in the room was a small stockpile of damaged musical instruments. The handcuffs were looped through the eye of a bolt on the ceiling, but when the other Yuugi tried pulling it out the cuffs merely dug sharply into his already sore wrists.
He was momentarily surprised to notice that whoever had gone through all the trouble to clothe and kidnap him had not thought to take away the bloodstained Millennium Puzzle, but he was grateful for the oversight.
For now, it seemed that the only thing he could do was wait for someone to come in, at which point he could challenge him (or her, it didn’t matter) to a Dark Game. He thought briefly about his promise to Yuugi, to refrain from the Games unless Yuugi approved, and he shook his head, frowning.
“I’m sorry, aibou,” he whispered, closing his eyes. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Yuugi would never know of this, he decided. He had been tormented for too long without respite because of the dark Yuugi’s failings, and he would not allow Yuugi to be hurt and to fear for his safety within his own home. Again, again, again he had failed, and he swore that when all this was over he would somehow reseal himself inside the Pyramid. What use was he when he could do nothing right?
There wasn’t anything particularly intriguing to examine in the room, but all thoughts of exploration through shadow and spirit were banished instantly: leaving would pull Yuugi to the forefront, and Yuugi needed no more anxiety. For now, he could only wait. Conveniently, he did not have to wait long.
The sole door had opened, and the other Yuugi instantly recognized the man who crossed the threshold. His perfectly styled hair, his smooth jaw, that light dusting of make-up, his obscenely rich anachronism of an outfit: Sasori Tadashi, the father of the twin girls who had killed Jounouchi, had shot Yuugi, and overall he who had tried to rig the world so unjustly against Yuugi’s innocence. The dark Yuugi nearly trembled in rage, a snarl on his face. This man would die.
“Hn, you’re awake,” said Sasori, his voice still that perfectly balanced tenor that made the other Yuugi want to rip his throat out using only his hands. The door clicked shut behind him.
The other Yuugi did not ask him questions – why he was here, what was going on, why Sasori was doing this – for they were obvious and did not matter. The other Yuugi made sure the barrier between his heart and that of Yuugi’s was shut tightly, so that his mercy would not seek to spare this man, too.
Sasori stood a few feet away now, but bound as he was, the other Yuugi could make no move against him.
“I’m surprised, I admit,” said Sasori lowly, his voice balanced and perfect and emotionless, “that the killer of my children was such a small and fragile-looking boy—”Sasori’s hand smashed into the other Yuugi’s esophagus in a sudden choke hold upon him, and his coughs were ragged as the musician – a petty, stupid musician – continued, “—but that was simply an act to get an innocent verdict, wasn’t it?”
The hand on his throat squeezed tighter, and the other Yuugi’s eyes bugged open as he struggled to draw any air, any air at all into his lungs. He couldn’t even gasp, and he knew this wouldn’t be happening if they’d just left the damn choker on, wouldn’t be happening if he’d been paying attention at the Game Shop, wouldn’t be happening if he could just Dark Game the bastard, but could not if he couldn’t even speak! Spots were dancing in his eyes, and the other Yuugi’s fingers twitched helplessly.
The pressure eased marginally, and the other Yuugi was able to choke down one shuddering gasp before he felt the perfectly curved, manicured nails dig into the flesh of his neck. Grimacing, the other Yuugi bared his teeth in a snarl, feeling more rage at this moment than ever in his life before; in response, Sasori’s face contorted into a pained, angry thing, like Chono had – but this face was hiding a madman, and there was more at stake here than a puzzle and a name.
“There was no one more precious to me than my daughters,” Sasori raved, his free hand now clutching the blond streaks of Yuugi’s hair. He gave a hard twist, sudden and painful, and the pressure eased on his neck just enough beforehand that the other Yuugi could not stop the pained gasp that escaped his throat. Sasori smirked at the sound, once more squeezing.
He couldn’t breathe – the blood was pounding forcefully in his skull, and everything within him burned – but the hand was relaxing, making to pull away. No, no, it was just moving to squeeze again, and the other Yuugi couldn’t get air into his lungs fast enough, couldn’t get words out, couldn’t do anything as he felt the hand clench against his throat once more. Not upon it, not choking, but against, and pulling away, but even as he realized what was happening the hand twisted in his hair again and the words were a pained cry.
The other Yuugi thrashed, desperate and crazed, but with his limbs bound he could not stop Sasori from forcing his head down, could not stop the man from tugging at the leather cord, could not stop him from taking the Puzzle from him, still stained after all this time with so much blood. He could still sense Yuugi’s heart, of course – there had been occasions where even he had removed the Item to play a Dark Game – but he could not feel it next to his own, could not call for Yuugi, even had he not put up the thick blockade between them. Panting, pained, even attempting to speak causing him to recoil in injury, he would not be able to stop the man from leaving with the key to his partner as he appeared to be doing now, backing away from the other Yuugi with the leather cord wrapped tightly around his hand.
No! he chastised himself sternly, you are not helpless! Just because he holds the Puzzle does not mean he wields it. You still have time! All he could do now was stall, and hope he got a brilliant idea soon.
“Weren’t you at the trial?” he asked, the words difficult to say, quiet, and painful in his throat. “Your precious daughter killed her sister, and herself.”
Sasori did not seem to hear him, but he’d stopped moving away (that was good, that was good, but the Puzzle was too far away for the other Yuugi to actually use it, either), his full attention devoted to the Item. He trailed one manicured finger down the Pyramid’s edge, and the other Yuugi was seething. How dare he? Aibou was in that Pyramid, and this filthy bard dared to touch him?
The other Yuugi felt the trickle of blood running down his arm from his chafed, cuffed wrists, but he ignored it, glaring at Sasori with unmatched depths of utter hatred. “Your children were monsters, just like you” the other Yuugi spat, struggling to keep himself from coughing, “and they deserved to die.”
Sasori’s fury was instant, and he was storming back to the captured Yuugi, and his smirk was small as it cut into his cheek. Just a little closer, and he could call the fatal words, but just as he opened his mouth he realized exactly what would happen, and he had only enough time to call upon the Item for his own protection before the Pyramid of God swung and collided with his skull. Involuntarily spitting blood, dazed and shaken, the other Yuugi was grateful that he’d been fast enough to prevent the Item from bludgeoning him to death in the single blow. He could not have stopped the Pyramid’s sharp edge from cutting into Yuugi’s face, nor the darkness and the spots and the pain that surged from the moderately cushioned blow, but he was still alive.
He felt the blood roll down his face like sweat, and blearily he tried to focus his gaze on Sasori, who was now swinging the Puzzle, building momentum in the makeshift flail, and from the blur of the gold he knew he’d be lucky if the next blow merely sent him unconscious. He was mostly sure he’d survive the hit.
Sasori Tadashi let out a cry of anger, his perfect voice cracking, and the howling whistle of the Puzzle cut through the air jumbled in the other Yuugi’s dazed thoughts, and all he could think was miss, miss, miss, and he heard more than he saw the change in the trajectory of the spin, but something went wrong.
Snap!
His eyes darting open, the other Yuugi forced down his dizziness and stared in abject horror as the Puzzle was set flying, the torn leather cord trailing behind it like the tail of a star, and he could feel the scream down to his bones long before the fraction of a second between the Pyramid connecting with the solid, soundproof wall and the instant the Puzzle shattered, pieces of star-gold scattering from the place of impact.
All the other Yuugi could see was Yuugi, Yuugi, the closed bond between them vanishing between heartbeats, and all he could see was the blood running into his eyes, and all he could hear was his own scream as all the world around him seemed to fall into darkness.
._._.
Yuugi dreamed. It did not feel like a dream he had dreamed before, but the newness did not make it invalid. He was dreaming a memory, or part of a memory, though he saw nothing. He dreamed of voices, innumerable and limited, cold and lost and full of sorrow, as though their song were a lament or a hymn. Yuugi tried to focus on the words as he followed them through the dream, as few as there were, but they slipped through his ears like quicksilver, like the pattern to the perfect combination move, and Yuugi let the elusive words go.
According to his dream-memory (which was completely different than actual memory, of course: like in dreams where Yuugi knew he could fly, or what the secret names of playing cards happened to be), he had been told by his other self, the Pharaoh (a missing word echoed here, contained nothingness, repeating around him), to come here and wait for something.
Yuugi knew he was dreaming, for he had to walk down his pathway of memories, watching the story of his life etch itself onto the blank walls, to reach this darkness. All was darkness, and still those voices sang sweet words Yuugi could not hear. He knew that he was supposed to have something that would chase away the shadows here, but the weight of it was missing.
The voices were getting louder, their hollow words pounding against Yuugi, and he was not even able to walk straight for the sudden dizziness he felt. There was a cry, and dream-pain lanced through Yuugi as light slowly filtered into the room, or was the darkness filtering out? Yuugi could not help the anxiety that tore at him. The darkness had been comforting, and safe, and as the light revealed more of the room, the less well Yuugi felt.
This room was not meant to be seen, not by Yuugi, not like this. Yuugi did not want to see these guardian statues, did not want to see the golden sarcophagus that seemed to shift as he watched (it was supposed to be black, and the other Yuugi had been there, needing rescue), and he certainly didn’t want to meet the bearers of the voices he’d followed through the labyrinth. There were only seven of them, but sometimes it was double that, and sometimes it escalated to fifty, or a hundred, and also no one at all.
One of them that was always there (except when he wasn’t) smiled at Yuugi, breaking away from the others that faded into shadow or crumbled under his gaze.
“Hello,” said the boy who sometimes was a statue, but mostly was just horribly disfigured with burns and cauterized flesh and would sparkle in the hateful light. “Are you supposed to be here?”
Even though Yuugi felt a great terror steal through him, he nodded. “I was told to come here,” he remembered the Pharaoh pointing him to the darkness, smiling softly with a tone of reluctance; “to wait for something good.”
The boy smiled with ashen teeth. “Did you now? That changes things.” The boy who was not a boy approached Yuugi then, and though Yuugi wanted desperately to recoil, he smiled back.
One of the other people – a woman, a matron, who wasn’t a person, and wasn’t really there – smiled at him kindly in return. “You seem weary, child. Come. Give us your name.”
“Yuugi,” he said with a half-bow, surprised and frightened, terrified but smiling regardless, “Mutou Yuugi.”
Even though he was dreaming, sudden fatigue fell upon his shoulders then and he staggered, but there were many, too many hands holding him upright then, cold and weak and crumbling under his weight. They began leading him forward, and he was grateful that they were being so thoughtful, but internally Yuugi raged, and screamed in terror. He was not meant to see this coffin, these people, was not meant to see the lid slide away, knew that what lay within that box was not meant for him. Yuugi had never felt more frightened of anything in his whole life than he was of this golden sarcophagus, surrounded as he was by souls who should not be here, but he smiled at them all.
The boy who was not actually there nodded at him, and all the hands fell away. Yuugi approached the sarcophagus without hesitation. The singers, the guards – all burned and mangled and cauterized flesh and lobs of gold – bowed to him as he approached the box, whispering words he didn’t understand.
He was shaking and crying with fear. He was smiling, and climbing into the golden sarcophagus, laying down in the terrifying darkness.
As the statues, seven and one hundred and fourteen and no one at all began sliding the golden lid shut, Yuugi screamed in terror, thrashing, trying to free himself. Yuugi crossed his arms over his chest, right over left, and though he held no tools of God he felt them within his hands. The last of the scarred faces were lost to the sealing of the lid, and though he wore them not he felt the weight of binding gold upon him. Yuugi wept and shook in the darkness that was too full and too empty all the same, crying out to be released. He closed his eyes calmly.
After all, he was only dreaming.
._._.
The other, darker Yuugi – or, since there was no other, lighter Yuugi within him, was he the only Yuugi now? – hung limp from his shackles, his eyes unfocused. The Puzzle had been shattered, and in such a state he could not call upon the magic of the Dark Games. Without those Games, he had no means to escape. Without the Puzzle, he had no means to recede out of the forefront, had no means to speak with his partner, couldn’t even feel that bright and brilliant heart next to his own. The blood continued to trickle down his arms, down his face, and his body was chilled from the pathetic garments he wore, but what did it matter? Sasori would simply kill him, and melt the Puzzle, and there was nothing he could do.
Was there no end to his failings? He had wanted to seal himself back up into the Puzzle – but he could not even protect it long enough to do so. If he wept, he could not tell for the blood in his eyes.
Resigned so to his fate, the dark and lonesome Yuugi nearly missed the subtle chime, the quiet clinking of metal against metal.
His eyes refocused on the world around him, and an arrow of malicious hope stabbed his heart. Could he really have been so foolish as to—?
Looking up, the darker Yuugi felt his face curve up into a pained and terrible smile. He was! Against all logic and reason, Sasori Tadashi was trying to reassemble the bloodstained Pyramid of God. The solitary Yuugi could not directly control a Dark Game, but he could—
“Don’t even bother trying to solve it,” the dark, malicious Yuugi sneered at Sasori’s back, letting his weight fall entirely on the cuffs so he could rock from side to side like a pendulum. “It’s impossible. You may as well give up.”
When Sasori turned, his expression was nearly dazed, and the dark Yuugi grinned, his lips cutting into his cheek and his whole expression sharp like a knife.
“It’s not hard,” Sasori argued, his hands possessive over the gold; “all the blood is on the surface.”
The dark Yuugi hummed, closing his eyes. “I bet you won’t even get three pieces to stick,” he murmured, goading. Sasori laughed, and the dark Yuugi merely hummed a little brighter.
“I bet I’ll have ten in five minutes.”
The dark Yuugi just smiled, relaxing. “All right.” Although the dark Yuugi could not control the Dark Games without the assembled Pyramid, the Millennium Puzzle itself was a Dark Game, and attempting to solve it constituted one all the same. That Sasori had set a willing limit was only setting himself up for failure. He would never be able to solve the Puzzle, not in a thousand, thousand years. Perhaps, of the forty-nine pieces, Sasori might connect those ten, but only those: the Pyramid, like his heart, would remain desolate.
To expect him to connect even three pieces in a year was beyond his skill. To expect him to do it in five minutes was laughable. To expect him to connect those ten in those five minutes was suicide. That was the curse of the Puzzle, it seemed: anyone who came into contact with those shattered pieces lost all sense of reason in the desire to solve it, and only one had, or could ever, overcome such trials.
The dark Yuugi, still bound and bleeding, merely watched as Sasori became further enamored and frustrated by the gold, watched the way his fingers would hesitate and stray too long on pieces that would never fit together. He smirked, that dark and cutting expression Yuugi could never wear.
Sasori was not thinking any more – merely sliding his skin across the gold, falling under the darkness of its beauty and violence and material worth. The dark Yuugi waited, smiling, even as his heart lay breaking in his chest, the steel of his grin trying to solder the organ back together.
Four minutes.
._._.
A heartbeat in darkness. Two. A dozen. Seventeen. Three hundred. A billion.
Seven. Eight.
The darkness stretched for eons, but snapped in only a moment.
His eyes had not even gotten fully adjusted; when the lid slid open once more, his eyes did not water in the brightness.
“Who dares,” asked a voice that may have been his own, “to cut into the holy dark of slumber?” His council surrounding his sarcophagus, all seven of them, their collective countenance that of retribution. He tightened his grip on the crook in his hand. “Speak!”
“A foul and greedy heart attempts to trespass upon the holy heart of you, great star,” said his most trusted councilor, a man with eyes as cold and as dark as the middle-night waters, but if he stared too long those eyes seemed to also be gold. The man had a name – they all did, of course – but he dared not recall them.
“He trespasses, great star,” said another, a dear and respected female voice, and he closed his eyes. “He must face the holy judgment of God.”
He nodded, rising to his feet, allowing them to guide him from his resting place. The hands that braced his weight were cold and solid to the touch, even as they crumbled away like sand.
“The Pyramid is scattered, and shall remain so for eternity,” said a voice that may have been his own, “but my judgment is swift, and just. Come! Only through unity can this criminal face his consequence – lend to me the door from this chamber, that I may remove the threat to this most sacred sanctuary.”
His six council – no, seven, there were seven here – gathered around him, prostrated before him, and the glitter of gold in their skin grew brighter in the well-lit chamber. Briefly his gaze lingered upon the walls’ murals, those accounts of his mortal life beneath the blessing sun. He remembered those days well, even if he thought not of the words or names now. He knew his own, that knowledge which no one else could claim, and it was enough.
He closed his eyes against the story and the shine of the gold around him, and he allowed himself to be pushed towards that trespasser against his ordained rest.
He would face the consequence of awakening God.
._._.
