FIC: Road Blocks (Chapter Eight)

[spirit_of_allia]

Title: Road Blocks
Author: ShadowSpirit
Email: HPFerret@aol.com
Feedback: :D
Rating: High PG-13 for almost-constant YnB language
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Pairing(s): Fadeshipping (Jounouchi x Yami no Malik), future darkshipping
Chapter: Eight
Summary: They took him away... Couldn't they see? Didn't they realize that he was still wanted by someone? Of course not. Of course not, they were so blind... but... he had to get him back. He just had to.
WIP: Incomplete
Word Count: 3883
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or any of its characters. This is not used in any way to make money. Please do not sue me. Thank you.

Yami no Bakura can break too. Heh… heh… He’s like… berserk right now though.

[Story Hub]



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Road Blocks
Chapter Eight

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There was such a blast of magic radiating from the front of the building that even Jounouchi, who had no magical talent, could sense. It jolted him upright, sent him sprawling to the floor with a twist of the hip, tangling legs with the nearby coffee table. Eyes, wild and wide, stared at the front door of the Kaiba mansion. Someone was angry, and they were here. But it wasn’t the same dark magic that Yami no Bakura had nearly throttled him with; this was different, and softer. Except for that raggedy anger he felt from it.

He was about ready to take a step back from all these magical people, just like Kaiba wanted out. He was wondering if this was starting to be bad for his health.

Slowly, he untangled himself from the floor and stood up, moving carefully towards the door. Sure, it wasn’t his household, but he was afraid of how leaving this person alone would affect the place. But Kaiba was suddenly down the stairs, shooting a dark glare at Jounouchi as he pulled open the door.

Standing there, looking heavily upset, was Isis Ishtar. Jounouchi quickly sank back out of view, but knew that it wouldn’t matter. She already knew he was here.

To his credit, the Kaiba CEO was trying his best not to be gripping his head in pain. Jounouchi realized he was looking worse than the last time he saw him.

Isis, for all her abilities to understand the future, even without her Sennen item, did not seem to know everything that had happened in the past few weeks. She merely had sensed the bursts of energy. “What have you done?” she whispered, but behind the softness was her authority that few could argue with.

“What are you talking about?” Kaiba answered evenly. Jounouchi wondered if he was a masochist; some things would make more sense that way.

“What am I talking about?” she repeated, then stepped in without invitation, forcing Kaiba to move back. She did not take her eyes off of him. “I am talking about the heavy waves of the Shadow Realm that have been billowing from your location, along with others, in the past few days. That’s what I’m talking about. You have had something to do with it; there is too much magic of the ancients for one person alone.” She finally glanced at Jounouchi from the corner of her eyes. “And you. What is your part in this?”

“Um, well, you see…-”

There was a loud crash from the upstairs. Kaiba cursed under his breath and rushed up, leaving Jounouchi alone with Isis. Just great. He rubbed the back of his neck, chuckling nervously, inching slowly away from the woman as she turned to fully face him. She wasn’t Yami no Bakura - he had to remember that - she wouldn’t blast him away with that dark, evil magic. It wasn’t who she was.

But Jounouchi was still terrified. “See… see… we, um…”

“Spit it out, Katsuya. What has happened?” Family resemblance at all?

It came out quickly. “We kinda dragged Mariku out of the Shadow Realm and attached him within Kaiba, and Yami no Bakura made some deal with Kaiba that he’d give him the Pharaoh if he helped, so now Yuugi is in the Shadow Realm and Yami no Yuugi is unconscious on a bed.” He slapped a hand over his mouth. He could distantly hear Kaiba yelling, but he couldn’t tell about what.

“…You did what?” It didn’t look like the answer she was expecting. Stunned, she continued, “Who’s idea was this? Why?”

“Mine,” his voice cracked with a small squeak. “I got Yami no Bakura and Ryou to help me. Bakura was the one who did the ritual. Why? Because I love him. …Uh, Mariku that is… Not Bakura.”

More news that she hadn’t known, more that her tauk never had alluded to when she had it. If she had focused more on the bigger picture, if she had kept it instead of giving it to Yuugi when she thought it stopped working for her, would she have foreseen this? Would she have seen how Jounouchi would have been effected if Yami no Malik got sent to the Shadow Realm, buried deep with a shovel by Yami no Yuugi?

Would she have cared?

Probably not.

She recovered, albeit slowly. “You attached his soul, to Kaiba’s?”

“Eh, yeah…”

“…” Light dawned in her eyes, even if it wasn’t in a good way. She looked to the stairs where Kaiba had disappeared up, a worried expression crossing her face.

“We didn’t plan it to be permanent… Just to pull him out, and then separate him from Kaiba…”

“And how do you plan on that?” her voice clipped.

“Ummm… well… our original plan kind of backfired…” He wasn’t sure what it had been, but whatever Yami no Bakura did wasn’t how things were supposed to go. The spirit had been more frazzled, more crazed than Jounouchi had ever seen. “I don’t know, you’d have to ask Yami no Bakura about it, if those two are doing ok. They kind of…collapsed. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

She was trying to calm down. What else was wrong? Sure, he understood that she was probably upset that they pulled out the spirit from the realm, but really, she couldn’t have been completely upset just because of that.

“Seto Kaiba’s body is not meant to store multiple souls. You cannot simply glue another soul into him for your own convenience and assume that he’ll be fine.”

“W-What do you mean…?”

“His soul is deteriorating. You’re destroying him, and with the host, the High Priest and Yami no Malik go with him.”

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"I told you this wasn't my fault, Ryou!" the spirit snapped. "THIS was NOT supposed to happen! He was not supposed to come out looking like that!" he roared. "Ohhhh, no! Don't you fucking dare look at me like I wanted this! I DID NOT WANT THIS! You hear me?" His eyes wildly locked to Seto Kaiba standing in the doorway again. He thought he got rid of that Priest? “Get the fuck out of here!”

Kaiba scowled and slammed the door shut, realizing that not dealing with the problem was better for his health.

"What are you talking about? Of course this is something you would've wanted! You'd feast over the entire idea!"

"You don't know a fucking thing about me, Ryou Bakura! You're just a fucking shell! You're barely linked to my goddamn mind. You don't know a GODDAMN THING!"

There was a groan from the nearby bed. ".....Yuu....gi...."

Yami no Bakura quickly shut up, drawing in a hiss and staring at the body for a long moment, then locking eyes to Ryou again. "I'll continue to help that damn puppy. I'll get that retched spirit out of Seto Kaiba's head. Then the Kaiba will think he'll be in his little safe box again, having everything he wants." His eyes suddenly darkened, an almost crazed look filling them that seemed as though the Shadow Realm was adding its fill to them. "And then he'll have another thing coming to him."

The spirit turned away.

Weakly, Ryou managed out, "What?"

"Me," Yami no Bakura answered, looking down on the body.

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“What do you mean? I don’t get it! How can that possibly happen?”

“Dark magic, you fool! You’re trying to force an evil spirit into a good -”

“Stop it! Stop calling him evil! This is why I didn’t go to you and your brother for help, because this is the reaction I would’ve gotten! He’s only how he is because you people made him that way! There’s nothing different from him to Yami no Yuugi!”

“The Pharaoh is a good spirit -”

“He is not! You’re deluding yourself! His nature may seem better than Yami no Malik’s, but he’s had more time to grow! You weren’t here when he first roared his mighty head! The fact that he was Yuugi’s dark half was blatant back then! You wouldn’t have been backing him up!”

She quieted on the subject, for now. There were more important situations at stake. “Either way, pulling Yami no Malik directly from the Shadow Realm does not only take him, but it takes the mist surrounding him and chains it around a part of Kaiba’s soul in order to hold the new spirit in place. That mist is going to continue eating away at the fresh, soul of light, hoping to corrupt as much as it can on this plane of existence. Once there is nothing left, Yami no Malik will no longer have something to link to, and as he is simply a spirit, he will cease to exist. The Shadow Realm will not take him back.”

“Darkness is always seeking light, always chasing it, just to be able to hide there,” Jounouchi quietly whispered. He shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “Did you know that before we did the ritual, he was trying to make contact, but only other spirits could see him - he was in the light: streetlights, high beams, just trying to be noticed, because I was going crazy without him here, and no one would understand. No one cared to even try and understand.”

“So you went to the most competent one in the dark magic. Who only helped because of the blow he was able to take at the Pharaoh.”

“That’s not - … I don’t know. Maybe.” He hung his head. “I’ve seen him go mad before. But how I saw him after they had split Yuugi and Yami no Yuugi, it was pure insanity. He would’ve crushed the entire house in on them by the force of the Shadow Realm, like he wasn’t even able to control it - he was that out of it.”

“He is not a character to ever remain the same.”

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Cold iron was the first feeling to register through his senses. Unpleasant; his first thought. He groaned, tried to shift around, and found it difficult to move much. He cracked open an eye, caught sight of a blanket pulled up to his chin, and atop it and his stomach, sat Yami no Bakura, cross-legged and calm. The cold iron moved from proximity after he showed a sign of life. He saw the other spinning a small pipe in his hands idly.

“What -” his throat was dry and strained, “- are you doing?”

“Ah, see, we were all out of blankets, so we went for the next best thing.” The spirit smirked. “Morning, sunshine. What do you remember?”

What did he remember? Even the question didn’t get far; it bounced through the innards of his mind, came back around with the only realization of emptiness. Shock and panic registered. He forced his throat to work for him.

“Where’s Yuugi?” he gasped.

“What do you remember?” the spirit repeated.

“I -” but what about Yuugi? Where was Yuugi?! Why couldn’t he sense him? Why was he… why was he alone? He needed answers! What did it matter what he remembered? He needed to know! He tried to calm down his breathing; the sudden gasps hurt his chest, and the weight of the other was not helping. Weight… it meant Bakura was in control right now and Ryou was in the recesses of their shared mind. Something he didn’t have anymore. Something that was lost. What did he remember? He remembered Yuugi. More… more… He… He remembered being taught a card game he had never heard of by the boy in a quiet café, and then everything else was fuzzy. He quietly relayed this information to the other and then let his eyes slide closed. His head hurt so much… so much…

“Ouch, that’s it?” the spirit questioned, looking appalled. “Poor thing…” Perfect, he smirked. “I suppose I should fill you in then -”

“…Where’s Yuugi?!”

“I’ll get to that, I’ll get to that! Sheesh. Talk about impatience.” He tossed the piece of pipe to the other bed in the room. “Alright, look. Things have gotten a bit crazy, see? The pup friend of yours and the Kaiba got together and made some freak of an agreement. Apparently you and the pup got into an argument a few days ago or something? Well, that became a real blow to your alliances, ’cause he got pretty damn pissy about that.”

What are you doing? Ryou’s thoughts cracked in, like the static over a radio channel.

Using my resources. It’s a good life skill, you should learn to take advantage!

But -

Shut up, Ryou. I’m busy. Let me work, dammit.

“I don’t know how they managed it, but they managed to wake up the High Priest in Kaiba and manipulate those powers. I think their deal was something like this: a bit of a trade of, really, Kaiba would help the pup get Yami no Malik from the Shadow Realm as long as he got you. Well, you can imagine that Mr. I-Don’t-Believe-In-Magic had trouble handling the High Priest’s powers, so when him and the pup tried to extract you from your lighter half, things got messy. You ended up a bleeding pulp of unconsciousness and Yuugi ended up trapped in the Shadow Realm -”

“…He’s what?!”

“Shh, shh, relax! Ryou convinced me to do a little melding and we were able to put the poor brat in a bubble, so he’s safe for now. You better be happy, we got pretty scraped up doing it!” He paused in order to let the new information was over the other. “Yami no Malik is now linked within Seto Kaiba. But y’know, he can’t stay there.

“So… what it comes down to… Well, I’ve got a bit of a preposition. You can imagine the power of the High Priest; I’ve always been a bit weary of it in the first place, and with it being barely controllable, I’m not in the mood to double-cross the Kaiba prick, or, well, say no to him. He’s got Ryou and I roped into trying to split Yami no Malik from him without harming either of them like what happened with you and Yuugi. And Kaiba plans on killing you if Ryou and I fail. Now… it’s not like I’m all mushy over you dying or anything, but the only person I’m comfortable in killing you, is me. So I’m taking offense here, see? My preposition? You help me in finding a way to divide the two, and I help you stay alive.”

You’re a real bastard, you know? Ryou snapped. He just smirked internally.

“You can’t survive on your own,” he added. “You’re no longer a spirit, if you hadn’t noticed. You’ve got your own body again, and it’s barely starting to recover from what happened. You even scared the bloody doctor away - thanks a lot, by the way, Ryou and I needed him still! - said he hadn’t seen anything like you before. You’re so great at doing that to people. Bloody annoyance. How about it? Maybe even if I don’t go completely insane, I’ll even fetch your Yuugi, hm?”

You can’t possibly think he’ll agree…

He’s desperate. He doesn’t know what’s going on, and he’s an outside source. We need someone like that right now. We need to find a way to separate those two, and I’m out of ideas at the moment.

Who’d think you’d ever admit to that.

Shut the hell up!

Now Yami no Bakura could feel the smirk from Ryou. He hissed and glared off to the side, then remembered he was still waiting for an answer. “Well, then, Pharaoh? I know you’re injured and all, but I really don’t have all day.”

“Yami no Malik shouldn’t be free…” he whispered.

“That’s a great ideal and all, but you do realize that if he doesn’t get free, you die. And hell, my life is threatened here too. The High Priest who was loyal to you isn’t in this - it’s his power, in the hands of CEO Seto Kaiba. You want to deal with that alone? Fine, have a ball. Without your health and without Yuugi, you don’t stand a chance.” He shifted to get off the bed, counting seconds slowly in his head, then smiled when he heard a small sound come from Yami no Yuugi.

“Wait.”

“What?” he met the other’s uneasy eyes with a dull gaze. Without Yuugi, everything was off about the Pharaoh. Yami no Bakura knew how to get him.

“I’ll help you. I don’t care about my life, but Yuugi should have his.”

“Hm. Well, to save Yuugi, you would probably need to be living still. I mean… I might be able to weave my magic and breakdown whatever the Priest did and give you both your own bodies, but… I just don’t know…”

“Whatever. I don’t care. So he lives.”

Yami no Bakura nodded, trying to hide his smirk. “So he lives.”

There was a knock on the door and then it opened. Jounouchi Katsuya looked anxious. Yami no Bakura spat curses in his mind and was off the bed quickly, quickly glancing back at Yami no Yuugi who was caught between worry and a glare. “What do you want you wretched pup?!” Yami no Bakura yelled, honestly upset, but for reasons only Ryou could understand.

How are you going to pull yourself out of this one now?

“Ummm… well, I just thought you might want to know that Isis is here…”

“Oh, how nice of you to say so! Did you bring the paper for her too like you do for that damnable Priest?!” he roared, and then was quickly charging towards the startled blonde, who backpedaled into the hallway. Yami no Bakura followed closely, slammed the door shut behind him when he was out, and came at the boy’s face hard with a punch cutting across.

“W-What - Bakura - what - what was that for??” Jounouchi stumbled and collapsed against the wall. He stared, uncertain to what just happened. He is not a character to ever remain the same: Isis’ words echoed in his mind. Which side of Yami no Bakura was this? Was it the true - was there a true side? - or a new one? “And what were you doing in there…?”

“Business,” he hissed, “that you had no business interrupting. What did you tell Isis?” He reached down and grabbed a handful of his shirt and pulled him up. “What did you tell her?!”

“S-She knows… everything… really…”

“Fucking hell…!” He was shaking with fury. His mind was jumping over hurdles; plotting and refurnishing plans. He couldn’t do it here though… Yami no Yuugi could hear too much, and the tomb robber couldn’t afford the Pharaoh catching onto the truth so soon. Still holding Jounouchi tightly, he dragged him down the hall until he found an empty room and threw him into it. “Do you even know how to keep that mouth of yours shut?!”

“H-How do you keep anything from that woman…?”

“You lie! That’s how! She doesn’t have that fucking tauk of hers anymore; she has magic, sure, but not all-knowing! You lie to her, she doesn’t know the difference, unless you have a poker face worth shit!” Which he did not doubt was the case.

Just what exactly was he planning on getting out of all this again? Pain and torture to everyone surrounding him? Or maybe he was just bored. Everything had calmed down again since Yami no Malik was banished and that just didn’t seem right for a city that held the majority of Ancient Egypt’s magic. He lived to stir chaos? Yeah, that was it.

So what if Yami no Malik had screwed him over at one point. It was Malik himself, really. He doesn’t talk to the Ishtars anymore. … And now Isis was here, and the pup squealed. He hit the other in the cheek again, then leaned back and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “I can’t believe you. Does she know the Pharaoh is here?”

“No… I just kind of said that he was unconscious in some bed…”

“Good. One bright thing out of your whole hodgepodge of mistakes… She can’t know that he’s here. You can’t see him, either. If he’s out of the room, stay as far from him as you can. It’ll be bad for your health if you get too close; what’s coming off of him… it’s like radiation. As a spirit, I’m unaffected. Ryou is slightly, too. But he should avoid him too. And Kaiba… Kaiba wouldn’t be able to handle it. Even just a few moments near him could give you all kinds of cancer; that’s why the doctor was so terrified and went for the hills.” Lies; delivered as seriously as Yami no Bakura could do. Enough to scare Jounouchi.

“About… About Kaiba…”

“What?”

“Isis… she says that his body is deteriorating or something. That the shadow energy is eating at his soul and once that’s gone, Yami no Malik dies too… and some priest…”

“Isn’t that just great news!” the spirit burst out laughing. Hyena like. Hysterical. He stared, eyes slivers like a snake, poison within them, at the mutt. “You really made sure to pick out the worst plum of the grove, didn’t you?” The laughter ended abruptly. He straightened and flicked off some lint from his jacket and scowled. “Try and get a word with Mariku. See if he has any ideas. I’m going back to my business. Don’t you dare fucking interrupt me again.” He left the room. Jounouchi remained there, lagging, then bolted and called down after the other.

“What about Isis?”

“Get rid of her!”

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Seto Kaiba already did, somehow. Jounouchi didn’t really want to know what was said, or what was done. He drew in a breath, thought about Yami no Bakura’s demands about lies and the like, and turned to the Kaiba. “I need to speak with Mariku.” Know what you’re talking about. Keep an even tone. “If you let me, it could mean figuring a way to separate you two. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t try anything. That’s just a bit… weird.”

Kaiba snorted. He looked as though he was trying to find a way to argue with him, but when it seemed he couldn’t, he looked away and after a moment, his composure changed.

“This is becoming frustrating…” came the distorted voice.

“I know… Even Bakura is idealess at the moment… he wants to know if you’ve got anything…”

“Eh… well in between battling the High Priest for space I’ve been trying to think. Being in this mind is worse than Malik’s.”

“Did you come up with anything?”

Silence passed. Jounouchi didn’t mind it so much; it would have been completely peaceful if there weren’t lives at stake.

“That place… away from the city where you made contact with me… Maybe there’s something else there.”

Jounouchi nodded. “Yeah, you’re right! That’s gotta have something that can help…!”

“Just don’t bind my soul to a rock, if you don’t mind,” he smiled wirily.

“No shit! I can’t exactly go kissing rocks, you know.”

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