Fan Fiction / Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ The Devil's In The Details ❯ Chapter 8 ( Chapter 8 )

Disclaimer: I don’t own Yu-Gi-Oh! or any of the characters therein, nor do I own Demon: the Fallen. Those belong to Kazuki Takahashi and White Wolf respectively. I just enjoy making the little characters dance. *Watches Suzuki and Bahariel tango past* Um, should it disturb me that Bahariel is the one with the rose between his teeth?

Warning: Rated for violence, dark occultism, and language. If any of these offend you or tend to make you uncomfortable, I’d recommend that you stop reading right here.

Akira Suzuki was not an evil individual. He was fairly sure he wasn’t, at any rate. Some of the things that he had done as per the pact that bound his service and use of his body to Bahariel hadn’t been pretty, true, but that didn’t make him some heartless villain. Did it? He shook his head sharply, trying to banish the memory of the conversation he’d just had with the fallen angel and three teens in the other section of the warehouse. But…he could have sworn that he’d seen something in the swirling silver mists around Maharet. The image of his dear Yuki’s face looking at him with an accusing sorrow in those chimerical eyes, almost as though she were asking him, “Akira…what have you done?”. Well, not that she’d use his given name outside of a private conversation between either the two of them or, in better days, between themselves and Bakura.

There was the other thorn pricking at his conscience. Could he really kill one of his former best friends, both if Maharet was to be believed? “Ano, Bahariel-sama?”

Suzuki felt the demon stir within its reliquary of smoky gray and green glass and couldn’t help marveling slightly that so powerful a being resided in so small a thing. The glass was shaped into a stylized puff of wind, no larger than the length of one of Yuki’s delicate hands. “Yes, Akira?”

“Eeto…what will happen to Yuki if you draw Maharet from her? If she decides to refuse your generous offer which would be very foolish of her.”

“Why do you ask, Akira?”

“I’m just curious.”

From what Suzuki could sense, the demon shrugged carelessly. “She’ll most likely die when Maharet is removed from her physical form. Having second thoughts?”

“But you promised that Yuki would be all right…”

“Did I? Hm. No matter. You must realize, Akira, that some things are done for the greater good. My greater good, as the case may be. And do keep in mind, in case the thought of betraying me is running through your little mortal brain, that you are now quite expendable. I will no longer be exclusively dependent upon you once the ritual is complete.”

“I understand, Bahariel-sama. If I may ask…”

“Yes?”

“Why that one? Jonouchi Katsuya, I believe his name is?”

“Because it pleases me.” The way Bahariel said it, as though that answer was a given and should have been understood from the beginning…it was unnerving. Very unnerving.

For not the first time since Yuki’s coma, Akira Suzuki began to regret what he was doing.

*************

The tomb robber’s head was going to explode if she didn’t stop that gods-damned pacing. It was bad enough that his yadonushi was so weak from his sickness that it was hard just to get their body to sit up, bad enough that they’d been kidnapped from the hospital and dumped unceremoniously on the glass-littered floor of an empty warehouse, bad enough that he was lined up like a duck in a shooting gallery next to the annoying pharaoh and the idiot with the buzz cut, but the pacing was the last straw.

“Maharet. Can you get over here to let us loose?” The tomb robber resisted the urge to groan at the pharaoh’s sheer idiocy, although it was nice to see that the girl had stopped her pacing long enough to send him a look of pure incredulity.

“Yami,” she said slowly, enunciating each word carefully as though she were speaking to a child, “I would not be pacing inside of this seal if I could get out.” Maharet placed her hand against what seemed like thin air and visibly pushed with no result. “This is a Seal of Solomon, if I remember my Hermetic lore correctly. It’s practically impossible for anything inside to escape unless one or more of the sigils in the circle is erased or otherwise marred.”

“So we’re screwed.” And there was Honda with his brand of brilliant optimism. It was a sad state of affairs when the tomb robber found it hard to muster the energy from his yadonushi’s weakened body to think of said yadonushi’s acquaintances by anything besides their actual names.

“No, not necessarily,” Maharet said. “Ryo. How are you feeling? Could you stand?”

“I feel like a herd of camels ran over me,” the tomb robber replied in a near-perfect facsimile of Ryo’s voice and speech patterns. It was the same set of vocal cords, after all. “I don’t think I’ll be able to stand.”

“A herd of camels? Man, you’ve been hanging around Yami too long.”

It was hard for the spirit of the Ring to keep from laughing at the cool glare that Maharet fixed on Honda. “Be that as it may. Do you think you’d feel up to…”

“And what might Bakura feel up to?” Suzuki said as he smirked at them from just inside the partition. “Trying to sit upright and fighting the last of that illness at the same time? Bahariel-sama may have been kind enough to end its run through his system before he was taken from the hospital, but Bakura’s going to be as weak as a kitten for a while.”

“Why do you insist upon this, Suzuki? Standing with a degenerate such as him even though you know what will happen to them…what will happen to Yuki when I refuse. You can‘t trust him.”

“And what? You’re saying I should place all of my faith in you, Maharet? If you’d forgotten, you’re as much a demon as Bahariel-sama.”

“No, she’s not,” the pharaoh said quietly enough that the tomb robber almost had trouble hearing him. “She may be cold and lacking in basic social graces, but she’s not the monster that your master is. Maharet, please accept my apologies for doubting your innocence.”

“Apologies accepted, Yami.”

“Ugh, you’re giving me cavities just listening to this,” Suzuki said. “What should we do next, join hands and sing ‘Kumbayah’ around a campfire?”

“Why, Suzuki? Why do you continue to serve him?” The tomb robber could hear an undercurrent of another voice besides Maharet’s in the question, probably Yuki’s. Judging by the way that Suzuki shifted uncomfortably, he’d heard it too. “Do you think that he’ll continue to care about your welfare or your wishes after this is completed? He’s the kind of creature that would discard you on a whim. You’ll be expendable once he possesses Jonouchi. Not to mention that he’s already lied to you once, twice if he told you that he didn’t know that I would attack Yuki’s soul when it tried to return.”

“He wouldn’t harm me.”

“Yuki says you’re not the same. You’re not the person that she enjoyed spending time with in middle school.”

“Things change, don’t they. It’s all Bakura’s fault in the first place. If he hadn’t…”

“None of this was his fault!” the pharaoh bellowed. “Suzuki, face it. Yes, Yuki’s soul was sealed away after something happened at Bakura’s home, but that was no excuse for you to summon a demon from the pits of the Abyss!”

“There’s still time,” Maharet said, silvery images of hope and supplication flashing around her.

“For what?” the lanky teen said. The tomb robber almost thought that he could see a hint of some emotion, be it sadness or sorrow, flashing through the thrall’s eyes. “Redemption? I‘m too far gone for it.”

“Suzuki.” One of the cowled men, this one not as tall as the rest and obviously older, beckoned him over with a wizened finger. “The master is ready to begin the rite.”

“Suzuki, please!”

“Nothing I can do. It will begin shortly.” Suzuki turned his face away from them, seemingly half-watching the other four burlier men move planks away from the partition. The whisper was so low that the tomb robber almost didn’t hear it.

“I’m sorry, Yuki…”

*********************************************** **************************************

-sama: Honorific used to address or to refer to someone of a much higher status.

Eeto: Basically equivalent to “Um”.

Senpai - One’s senior at school or work. The term is often converted into a suffix, like “-chan” or “-san”

Yadonushi: “Landlord”; If one recalls volumes 6 and 7 of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! manga, this is what the spirit of the Millennium Ring calls Ryo in what passes for a term of endearment.

****************************************************** *******************************

Dragonlady222: Good to know I’m not the only one that does that :) Seriously, I know I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: Thanks so much for your reviews! I’m glad you like the story, and I hope you’ll continue to like it.

************************************************************** ***********************

Author’s Notes:

So it’s a bit shorter, later, and a bit more filler than my other chapters. Serious writer’s block and RL, plus the darned llama on top of my computer decided to shut the program down in the middle of this chapter…before silly me had saved the last half. Not to worry, next chapter should be more of the good stuff. By the by, there should be only two chapters left, three at most.


But don’t you just start to feel sorry for Suzuki? Really, the road to hell in his case seems to be paved with good intentions. I originally planned on writing him as one of those villains like Gyokumen Koushu and Ni Jianyi from Gensomaden Saiyuki or Naraku, the ones you just can’t help hating for whatever reason. That changed the moment I started writing Bahariel. And when you think about it, Suzuki thought he had a genuinely good reason/cause/whatever for putting this chain of events into motion…even if vengeance isn’t always noble. Funny how these things tend to write themselves sometimes, isn’t it?

Speaking of how I’m writing the characters, I feel it might be prudent to mention that I don’t actually really dislike Yami. He’s an interesting foil for both Kaiba and Yugi in the series, be it manga or anime. So why did I write him as I have? For all his good points (loyalty, confidence, skill, etc.), he still manages to come off sometimes as an overbearing, almost arrogant individual. (Need I mention the “I‘m going to beat Pegasus!” “No, I am!” between Kaiba and Yami at Duelist Kingdom in volume 3 of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist manga?) I know, I know, he was a pharaoh in his former life. But to someone like Maharet who was actually present at Creation, his attitude, no matter how guarded or well-meaning he really is, is going to make him come off as being (in her words) “a pompous, puerile, patronizing little ass”.

If you’re curious, the references to the “Seal of Solomon” and the “Hermetic order/Order of Hermes” are taken from another White Wolf game: Mage: the Ascension. I don’t remember if the Seal is an actual documented rote or not, but my ST (who absolutely loved Hermetics) made it be that way. No, I’m not a gamer. Really… *insert dripping sarcasm ;) *

But thanks again to reviewers and I hope all you readers out there are enjoying the show!

And, as always, reviews and constructive criticism are welcomed but not absolutely necessary.

Arigato gozaimasu, minna!
Holyllama