Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Shadow and Light ❯ Chapter 1

Author's Notes:

Meh.

 

Warnings:

I define Yaoi thus: boy meets boy(s), boy like boy(s), boy chases and/or rescues boy(s), boy bangs boy(s). If you have a problem with guy/guy relationships and sex, I suggest you go away. Other than that, watch for rape, angst, blatant abuse of shadow powers, excessive cursing (Bakura's a main character, people), and Anzu bashing. If I have a lemon in the chapter, I will say so at the beginning of said chapter.

 

Disclaimer: The doctors told me I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh. DAMN THEM!

 

Chapter 1

 

“This can't go on forever. Sooner or later, your strength will give way. And you'll be left all alone. Help is not coming, Atemu.”

The room was a cold one, both in temperature and in looks. Sheer gray stone walls, stone floor, with no visible door or window. Three lanterns burned with a yellow, flickering light, hung in opposite points of the vaguely square chamber. There were no decorations, no sign that it had ever been inhabited, save one.

A stone chair, more of a throne really, stood on what could be considered the far side of the room - the side furthest away from the unsteady light of the lanterns. Heavy chains built into the arms and base of the seat bound its occupant securely. The chains had been there as long as the chair had - millennia - but they still shone as though they were newly forged.

The woman standing before the throne was a tall, imposing figure, elegantly built. Her hair was a rich chestnut, cut just below her chin and fly-away. Her face was proudly beautiful, with sharp, proud features, graceful eyebrows, and a full red mouth. Her eyes, though, were the disturbing feature - dead black, so black that one could not tell where the pupils left off and the irises began. Dangerous, compelling eyes, easy to drown in.

“Do you still believe in those foolish values - loyalty, honor?”

The man's eyes flickered open for the first time, and he looked rather amused. “Foolish, are they? Who won the last battle, Anzu?”

He was in his early twenties - a human of great beauty. His hair was crimson and black, spiking up sharply with golden bangs; fine, dark eyebrows arched over black-lashed eyes that were the rich crimson color of the rarest rubies. Tanned skin that never paled, never grew sickly under the influence of the dark chamber gleamed. At the moment, a mocking half-smile lifted the corners of the full mouth that gave his face a deceptively vulnerable look; his eyes showed no emotion.

“You did, I believe. But who's sitting on the throne of imprisonment, Shadow Guardian?”

“Why do you call me that?” the man countered in a lazy tone. “I no longer wear the Millennium Puzzle.”

“Do not play me for a fool.” The woman's lower lip curled. “The Puzzle is a symbol, a means to an end. If you have not yet realized that, you are a greater idiot than I thought you.”

“Your insults are unimaginative, Anzu.” Atemu closed his eyes again. “You're beginning to bore me.”

“Am I, Prince?”

The man's eyes snapped open, and his entire expression heated with anger. But when he spoke, his voice was cold, devoid of emotion. “I set aside that title, and all other claims, when I chose to accept the power of the Shadow Realms. You know this.”

“You could not completely set it aside though, could you?” the woman shot back, having found the chink in his armor. “It is in your blood, your love for the land your family was chosen to rule. You could no more look upon it with the distance the Shadow Guardians are supposed to show to all lands, than cut out your own heart. And there lies your flaw, Atemu. You care too deeply about the people you were chosen to protect, in particular those of your own kind. You were tied too closely to it all.”

The man laughed tiredly, once again closing his eyes. “You would think that a flaw. But you are mistaken in one aspect, I think. Yes, I cared more for my own people at first - how could I not? The humans have suffered the most in this war, Anzu, and that is a simple fact. But the key phrase here is `at first'. Humans learn, Anzu. Slowly, through pain, and loss, and suffering, but we do learn. I learned.” His smile remained, but the mockery was gone from it; in its place was a certain ruefulness, a self-recrimination. “I was an idealistic child when the Puzzle glowed for me. I hadn't ever thought that other people besides humans might have problems.” Bitterness touched the smile now, too. “Oh, I learned.”

“You learned, but not enough,” Anzu pointed out. “Otherwise, you wouldn't have walked into my trap.”

“I knew it for what it was. I'm not that stupid.”

“And you still came.” Anzu shook her head at him, scolding.

“The lives of those people were more important than my freedom.”

Anzu sneered, and turned away to magically transport herself out of the chamber.

“Anzu.” She glanced over her shoulder. “My strength won't give way.”

“Every living being has a breaking point, Prince. You'll reach yours soon enough.”

Atemu paused thoughtfully, then shook his head. “No, I don't think so.”

Driven to curiosity, Anzu turned back. “And why is that?”

Atemu smiled, and this time it was a full, easy sort of smile. “Because I still have the one thing that's kept my people going all these years, Anzu. I have hope.”

Anzu snickered. “Hope - peh. That concept is even more foolish than those other values you believe in so much.”

Atemu's smile widened. “Hope can be a fool's game, or a person's salvation. I just have one. Hope, that is. I don't need any more.” He leaned back in the stone chair and actually appeared to relax. “He'll come for you. And a day will come when you will regret locking me in this cage outside of time.” His smile grew mocking. “Regret is what one feels when one's face is being ground into the dust, isn't it? I wouldn't know, but you would.”

Anzu went rigid with fury. “I will find this hope of yours.” She hissed it slowly. “And I will crush it before your eyes.”

“He,” Atemu corrected, “not it.” He smiled again. “My hikari will destroy you, and he will tear down every last work of evil you have ever created.”

“We shall see.” In a blaze of cold, black fire, Anzu vanished.

“Yes,” Atemu said aloud musingly, “I suppose we shall.” He reached out mentally and conjured an image of his innocent hikari, Yugi Mutou. He had been permitted one vision alone of what his hikari looked like, and treasured the image fiercely. So much like me, and so different at the same time…

What little he knew of his hikari told him this: that Yugi Mutou had the gentlest soul in all the world, and was a master of all games. Yugi was the only one alive that stood a chance of breaking the many complicated spells that wove around and through the chamber of imprisonment.