Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Emergence ❯ Shadows and Light ( Chapter 7 )

Disclaimer: Yugi-oh is the property of Kazuki Takahashi, who is a genius. If you aren't reading Yu-Gi-Oh, go out and buy one. NOW! You really don't know what your missing.

Please read Chrysalis before you read this story. Otherwise you might find yourself wondering what the hell is going on. This is the second part of a story arch and while you might be able to understand what is happening, you'd like it a lot more if you read the first part and came back to this later.

Emergence

Chapter 7: Shadows and Light

~*~*~*

Jame and Kaiba

~*~*~*

Jame tossed the ball against the wall, catching it on it's return. It had been two weeks and Kaiba seemed stubbornly determined to keep her as his secretary. Gone were her idealistic notions of lazing on a Hawaiian beach, gone were the happy dreams of pí na coladas sipped under palmy shade, gone were all her hopes of sunning herself into a early skin-cancerous grave.

She tossed the ball again, making sure if thunked even louder against the adjoining wall between her and Kaiba's office. Not that it would really do her any good, he'd brought head phones in today and was probably merrily listening to Bach. The man had an irritating ability to deal with most everything she'd thrown at him so far.

She caught the ball and put in back into it's place in her drawer. It was pretty dull being Kaiba's secretary in all honesty. The office was now neat and organized; the schedule was made out till the beginning of next week in detail and till the end of three months in sketch format, there was even some scheduling done for the rest of the year; all the notes for the last business meeting had been neatly inputted into the computer, cross referenced in appropriate places and sent to all concerned parties; her short hand notes from Kaiba's business meeting with one of his competitors yesterday had been transcribed and a copy had been deposited into his in basket; all Kaiba's letters had been printed and sent out to the mail room; everything that could be organized, arranged, typed, answered, filed, filled out, or otherwise done had been done; and now all she had to do was answer the phone and brush off the few brave souls that timorously tried to see her boss.

She rolled her head against the back of the chair and wondered if the fates would be kind, or if she should give in and take a nap. She glared at the clock, 10 am. She slumped in her seat, eyeing her office irritably. She almost gleefully noticed that there was still a stray smudge of dirt on the window that had been there yesterday. She swiveled her chair around to peer more closely at it with a sense of excitement. Hey! Housekeeping!

.

.

Kaiba nodded to himself as the sound of the ball hitting the wall ceased. It meant his little treasure was busy organizing something or other. He purred happily, sipped his excellent coffee and went back to programming. The last few weeks had been heaven. She was a bit on the spirited side and subject to mood swings, but considering she hadn't attacked him with a stapler, like secretary twelve had, he could manage. All he had to do was remember the last fourteen days of arriving home before dark, to the welcome, if surprised, smiles of Mokuba, Jonouchi and even Yuai, to make all his irritation disappear.

The door opened and his treasure appeared with a nearly gleeful smile on her face.

"Hey, you." She'd given up calling him Mr. Kaiba after the first week and in the last few days hadn't even bothered addressing him by anything besides 'you'. He didn't even rate a capital 'You', he could hear it in her voice. "The housekeeping staff is really lax."

Kaiba nodded not bothering to lift his gaze from his computer screen. "Then deal with it."

Jame almost danced back into her office. Kaiba felt a small smile curve his lips. I wonder if I should sic her on my assistants?

~*~*~*

Yami

~*~*~*

Yami held the writhing creature in his grasp, pinning it against the ground, and coolly slid the cutting edge of his knife down it's face. "I asked you a question, answer it."

The creature shrieked, "I don't know. Honest! I don't know! Please!"

Yami smiled pressing down on the blade, letting it sink into the lavender flesh. It wasn't a really interesting creature, sort of humanoid, slender, graceful, with large green eyes and long white hair. Rather pretty if you wanted to look at it artistically. Yami didn't feel artistic at the moment, the annoying thing had been tracking him for the last few days and he was tired of it. "You mean you were just following me around because you had nothing better to do?"

"I was just following my flock! I didn't mean to bother you!" The creature bucked and wailed as Yami traced a path of brilliant blood down his face.

"For some reason, I just don't believe you." The tip of his knife had reached the juncture of the creature's slender elegant neck. Just one sharp move and there'd be one less annoyance in his life. The shadows hissed, wanting blood. He tightened his grip, feeling a pleasurable rush through his veins.

Yami!

For a second he saw his hikari's small hands covering his, stopping him, his sweet voice echoing in his mind. Yugi? There was no answer. He pulled back, off the creature, who quickly pulled itself to it's feet and stumbled, sobbing away from him. Yugi? My light, are you here too?

The creature was whimpering, slowly backing away from him, it's soft, green eyes darting frantically around for an escape. Yami looked at it, feeling a bit dazed, disconnected. Was I really going to kill it? Yami shook his head, waving to the creature, "Go. Now."

The creature fled, leaving a few small drops of blood on the rocks.

The shadows snarled, disappointed.

~*~*~*

Kaiba and Jonouchi

~*~*~*

Kaiba sighed happily as he opened the door. It wasn't even five in the evening and he was home. His last appointment, the head of his acquisitions department, had cancelled at the last minute due to the unexpected acquisition of a burst pipe and a small flood in the acquisitions office. Jame had had the repair crew on site, the clean up crew on the way, the records salvage team hovering in the background and had been chewing out building maintenance before he even walked out his office door to look at the damage. After which, he had opted for heading home.

He set his briefcase down on the entry table and walked toward the living room, ready for a relaxing evening at home.

"Mokuba! I am not telling you again, you cannot build a erupting volcano in the middle of the living room!" Yuai was pacing around the sofa, all five, shy, delicate, petite feet of her looking like a lion about to pounce on a gazelle.

Kaiba ducked back into the hall out of direct sight, curious how things were handled when he wasn't home.

"Big Brother…" Mokuba scampered out of reach, hiding a large bottle of vinegar behind his back.

"Doesn't want to come home to a oozing volcano!" Yuai dived to the side and scooped up the Playstation. "Upstairs and into the bath or the Playstation is history!"

Mokuba wailed,. "Yuai!"

"Now!" Yuai pulled a cord.

Mokuba set his vinegar down and stomped up the stairs, "It's not fair." He turned and waved a imperious finger at her. "I'm telling Big Brother!"

Yuai yanked another cord causing Mokuba to squeal and flee toward the bath. She smiled as the bath door slammed with a resounding thud and reconnected the wires. Jonouchi, who had been standing on the foot of the staircase, watching Mokuba's retreat, grinned and sauntered into the living room.

"Don't worry Jo. I was careful. Your game's still safe." She set the Playstation down and scampered up the stairs after Mokuba.

Jonouchi threw himself into the recliner, calling up to her. "Thanks, I'm up to level nineteen. It'd be a bitch to get back there."

An unintelligible response chirped back down the stairs.

Kaiba grinned and walked into the living room. "Volcanoes?"

Jonouchi fell off the chair, his mouth hanging open.

Kaiba dropped himself into the armchair, letting the upholstery try to absorb him. He bent over and pulled off his shoes, letting them drop to the floor, then leaned back into the chair, relaxing to the far off sounds of Mokuba screaming bloody murder.

Jonouchi sat on the floor staring at him with wide bewildered eyes. "Se'o?"

Kaiba looked over at him, raising one eye brow.

"Whatcha doin' here?"

"Last I checked I lived here." Kaiba yawned and settled deeper into the chair, still keeping an eye on Jonouchi.

"Is sometin' wrong?" Jo pulled himself back up onto the recliner.

"Not that I noticed. Why?" Kaiba stretched his legs and wiggled his toes, trying to work out the last of the day's tensions.

"Yur home." Jonouchi managed to get his mouth to stop hanging open.

"I noticed that." Kaiba sighed and stretched his arms over his head, then let them fall back over the top of the chair, smiling to himself at Jonouchi's reaction. He could have stayed in the office, finished up on some business, but considering Yuai would be off to the convention soon, he wanted to spend some time with Jo. He could spend most of the weekend that Yuai was away in his office and finishing paperwork, reviewing, researching, reorganizing his briefcase, updating his computer, sharpening pencils, maybe even finally going through all the pens in his desk and tossing out the dead ones. Not that he was going to hide in there. No. He considered it multi-tasking, staying home with his brother, catching up on some work, doing a bit of office upkeep, yes, it wasn't hiding, it was multi-tasking….

Jonouchi sat looking at him in wide eyed wonder for a few more minutes then grinned, bouncing to his feet. "Let's go."

"Hm?" Kaiba grunted as Jonouchi grabbed him and hauled him to his feet.

"Us. Out." Jonouchi pulled him toward the door. "They don't know you're home, an we're out of here."

Kaiba glanced toward the stairs. The faint sounds of Mokuba singing some off key song about everyone being an angel could faintly be heard, then the soft pad of Yuai's feet as she walked around the upstairs, the closing of a door. Kaiba bent and grabbed his shoes and allowed his love to haul him out the door.

~*~*~*

Marik and Malik

~*~*~*

Malik lolled around on the carpeted steps leading up to the bookshelves, his light gold hair glinting in the sun that streamed through the crystal windows. Marik was using the body, so he was hanging around in spirit. "Yami? How much longer?"

Marik trotted down the steps with a load of books under his arm, pausing to pat his hikari's hair before walking over to the table and dropping the load of books onto it. "I'm a bit busy right now little love." He picked up one heavy, thick dusty volume and settled into a comfortable armchair.

Malik scowled adorably at him. "Yami, can't we go swimming or something?"

"Not in cold weather. Why don't you go see what Shadi is up to, you can haunt him for a bit? You like doing that." Marik opened the book and started skimming the index.

"Yami." Malik whined and pulled himself to his feet and walked over to his dark, perching on the arm of the chair. "We never get to spend any time together."

Marik flipped to a page in the book and started skimming, looking for a bit of information that might lead him in the general direction he wanted to go in. If he remembered, this man had written something about an old text that might have the information he wanted. "We spend plenty of time together. You're just trying to avoid Shadi because he threatened to feed you to Amat if you bothered him anymore." Which proves the man has a brain.

"I am not. You wouldn't let him feed me to Amat, so why worry?" Malik peeked out her dark's shoulder looking at the book. "You know you're getting as bad as Isis and Shadi with all this studying."

Marik carefully noted what page he was on and closed the book, then looked up into the pouting face of his light. The boy was too cute for his own good. He pulled him down onto his lap and cuddled him, "Little love I have to study, now go away or I'll lock you in your soul room and leave you there for a week, while I redecorate our room, revamp our wardrobe and dye our hair."

Malik's hand went defensively to his hair. "You wouldn't!"

Marik grinned. It wasn't a nice grin, most people would flee from that grin. Many people who had unluckily chanced upon him during the Battle City Tournament had learned the hard, your-soul-is-about-to-be-ripped-from-your-screaming-convulsing-body lesson that the grin on Marik's face led to nothing but mind-wrenching, soul-devouring horror. However, his light was used to it by now and only felt a small shiver when it was turned on him. "Scram or become a Kaiba clone."

Malik reconsidered and fled.

~*~*~*

Yugi

~*~*~*

Yugi sat holding the phone and riffling through his desk, looking for Honda's phone number. It was silly, he knew it. He knew Honda's number. He could dial it in his sleep, had dialed it in his sleep. He could snag that information out of his head in moments of soul devouring terror. He had dialed it in the dark with nothing but the faint glow of the moon to help him see the numbers. Now, sitting at home, wide awake, in his serene well lit room, with no homicidal world-conquering nuts around, he couldn't remember it. "Where is it? Where is it?"

Papers, rulers, toys, pencils, pens, more toys, a rubber stamp kit with the Dark Magician, an old Pokemon card he'd gotten in a magazine, paperclips, an old dictionary, two crumpled post-ies, a stale pack of peanut butter crackers flew out of the drawers as Yugi dug, but no telephone book. Yugi sat back looking at the mess, then attacked his book shelf, knocking the books down to the floor to mingle with the paperclips and other detritus. Nothing. He went to his closet, dropping the phone on the bed and in a moment pants, shirts, shoes, scarves and a tumble of neck belts joined the group on the floor.

Yugi slumped out of the closet surveying the mess, looking a bit surprised. "This is going to take forever to clean." He looked around and sighing then shook his head, wondering how things just seemed to pile up so fast. One minute he had a clean room, the next it looked like Bakura had thrown a rave in it. "Oh well, better get started now before Grandpa sees this."

He went over and flipped on his stereo, selected his favorite CD and waded in to the mess, humming along with the tune. He gathered up his clothes, sorting them, sniffing a few, then re-hung them or tossed a them into a pile for the laundry. He placed his books and texts back on the shelves neatly setting them in alphabetical order, then rearranged them from biggest to smallest. Satisfied, he sat and sorted through his desk items, and stored them back in their drawers, absently playing with an old Rubik's cube, tossing a small Super Bouncy Space Ball around the room till it nearly broke the window and shaking a snow globe and watching the glitter fall around a tiny Dark Magician. He was still humming when he finally dragged the vacuum upstairs and finished by dusting and vacuuming his room. Straightening his bedding he noticed the phone and picked it up. "I wonder why I had the phone in my room" He shrugged and walked back down to the living room, placing the phone back in it's cradle next to the phonebook.

"Yugi?" Solomon called from down in the shop. "Can you come here a moment?"

"Sure Grandpa." Yugi scampered down the stairs, still humming his song.

Solomon was sitting behind the counter with a small stack of boxes at his side. He was poking through on that was sitting on the counter. Small packs of Duel Monster cards were neatly piled around it.

"Yugi, can you put some of these boxes back into the store room? The delivery man dropped them off and I haven't had time to put them away." Solomon motioned to the small huddle of children that were inspecting a rack of stuffed animals. "It's been busy all day."

"No problem Grandpa." Yugi scooped up the boxes and trotted over to the storeroom.

He balanced the boxes against the wall as he pried open the door then went in, not needing the light to navigate through the room. He set the boxes down then turned to go back out into the shop to see if there was anything else that needed to be in here, but he couldn't find the door. Where the door should have been, standing open letting light into the small area, there was nothing, just a wall. Oh, must have gotten turned around. Yugi turned, again expecting to see the door, but there was, again, just another wall. Yugi spun looking around, no door, nothing, except the dark, dark shadows that suddenly seemed to hiss around him.

He turned around again, feeling creeping panic slip around him like a wet coat. The door had to be here. The store room just wasn't that big! Yugi put his hand against the wall, trying not to notice how the shadows seemed to pulse around him, how they slithered around the boxes of smiling stuffed animals, how they darted behind old display racks. Trailing his hand against the wall he stepped carefully forward. The door had to be there, and if he just kept his hand on the wall, sooner or later he had to come to it.

The shadows giggled, one flexed around his foot, making him stumble. He quickly straightened and kept walking forward, step, step, step. He came to a corner and turned keeping his hand against the wall, occasionally letting it trail along a storage rack, or the faces of the boxes stored there. He came to another corner still, no door. The shadows writhed snatching at his clothes, tugging at his cuffs. Yugi ignored them and kept walking. He had to reach the door soon. He came to another corner. Okay, the door has to be on this wall. Hurrying a bit he kept tracing his hand along, waiting to find the smooth plain of the door face under. He came to another corner.

Yugi whimpered, the shadows snickered, he stepped forward hoping he had just missed it. His foot nudged against a box causing him to stumble again. He came to another corner. No! Impossible! The door has to be here. He kept walking, bumping into boxes, listening to the shadows laugh, his hand trailing against the wall bumping into corner after corner. Tears slipped down his face as he finally slumped to the floor, drawing his legs up and hiding behind his knees. Y-yami, where are you? I'm scared.

The door opened and Solomon stuck his head in, "Yugi, are you going to be in here all day. I have a couple of other things I'd like you to do."

~*~*~*

Bakura

~*~*~*

Ryou rubbed his yami's shoulders feeling the tense muscles, taunt as wires, under his fingertips. His dark had been sitting at the computer searching through the internet since the night before, dragging himself back to his soul room at dawn to collapse on the bed in a bundle of aches and nerves. Ryou semi-dreaded the state the body had to be in. School was going to be special today. "Have you found anything yet?"

"I found a site that goes into minute detail about how to cast spells during sex. That was interesting." Bakura let his head fall forward, luxuriating in his hikari's touch, snuggling deeper into sheets that smelled of Ryou.

"I meant anything useful." Ryou tapped the top of his yami's head scoldingly, then went back to work trying to relax taunt, unhappy muscles.

"I thought it was useful." Bakura felt his shoulders loosen slightly and sighed. "But no, nothing to get a body."

"Could you program your own search bot?" Ryou, satisfied that he'd at least dealt with one shoulder, moved on to the other one.

"Considered it. Kaiba owes me one though, I'm thinking of letting him do it for me." Bakura looked speculatively over his shoulder at his light. Ryou was frowning slightly in concentration as his fingers coaxed his body to relax, his soft hair still rumpled, one delicate lip caught between his teeth, large dark eyes, silky skin.

"Really? What for?" Ryou felt the shoulder he was working on finally relax and shifted down to work down his yami's spine.

Bakura flipped, pinning a surprised Ryou beneath him. "I'll tell you later. Now about that website I found…."

~*~*~*

The man sat on the patio, watching a small flock of birds nimbly walk across the manicured lawn. A small breeze blew in from the bay, ruffling the leaves of the trees and tumbling a few stray flower petals across the steps.

"Is all going as planned?" He leaned back in his chair, enjoying the spring sunshine.

"Yes, all is going very well. Kaiba has no clue that we've already breeched his security." A small folder was placed on the table next to him by his assistant, who hovered timidly nearby. The operative, a rather nondescript man, who was paid well to be nondescript, continued, "We are well on schedule. Shall we proceed with the main phase of the operation?"

"Hmm. Wait just a few more days. There are still a few loose ends to tie up." He waved to his assistant who handed the operative another folder. "I think Mr. Devlin has one more thing to do for us. Send him back to his friends. Make sure he has everything he requires."

The operative bowed, "Of course. Anything else?"

"No, not for now." He turned his thoughts back to the serene scene of his lawn, smiling as a small hummingbird flitted merrily around the tree looking for sweets.

~*~*~*

Review people, it only takes a moment, and I do love to hear from you. What do you guys like? What don't you like? A bit of feedback helps.

DemonandGoddess: Unfortunately, I made the hair toys up. I wouldn't be terribly surprised it they exist. I have some really wild hair toys from Asia that can't be found here, but I haven't seen any Yu-Gi-Oh ones in the States. Maybe on Japanese sites??

Pharaoh's High Priestess: *blushes* Thanks. Yuai does love Yugi, just as Yugi loves Yuai, but things are often a bit complicated when it comes to the human psyche. You'll just have to be patient. As for another Yami/Yugi lemon, if I can I will, but seeing they aren't even going to be in shouting distance of each other for awhile, it will take a bit of time. Thank you for all the great reviews. I wait on pins and needles for them ^_^