Wings of Time

Wake Up

As the smaller hand pulled him out, Yami tried to leave all his feelings and pain behind as well. For a while he just stared at his hands as the burning, smoke tasting rain washed the mud off of his arms and dripped off his hair. Why was he brought back here? Why wasn't he left to vanish into peace? Who could be so cruel? Couldn't they see the bodies of his friends scattered about?

He brought his head up, taking a deep breath he hadn't realized he had been holding, but the curse stuck in his throat. Crouching before him, arms draped over his knees, was his Yugi, grinning in encouragement.

"Come on, partner. It's not over yet."

"Yugi, what is this?" he looked over to see that the dead Yugi still lay on the ground. "How are you-are you a spirit?"

"It's an illusion, Atem." And Aleah stepped into his view, beautiful and whole.

He looked back at the other Aleah, still dead, then back to her, and it snapped. He gritted his teeth. "Damn him."

"Yep," said Aleah, smirking. "Damn him indeed. You should've seen the number he pulled on me! If he wasn't a million times my size I'd kick him for all he was worth."

Yugi had his hand out to him. "Wake up time. Let's go and finish this."

Smothering weight gone, Yami breathed deeply, took Yugi's hand, and let him heave him to his feet. He turned back on the sky and raised his hand to it. The millenium puzzle, which he had lost sight of in the mud, gleamed bright. As Yami closed his fingers into a tight fist, the illusion shattered into numberless pieces and the shadows came rushing back in.

The moment they did Yami's knees wobbled and he collapsed, the weakness of before returning. Yugi and Aleah caught him.

"Energy isn't limitless." murmured the sticky voice of Zorc. "And you've only quickened yours and your friends' destruction, little light."

Yami looked up at Yugi, who glowed a brilliant gold, but had sweat on his face. He scowled at the darkness as the face of Zorc was illuminated along with his endless wings and slobbering chest dragon. Usually his first instinct would be to deny anything his enemy said as mere intimidation, but looking up at the face of Yugi, who had truly served him as a light, he couldn't see how Zorc could be lying. While he believed his abiou could achieve anything and had more faith in him than anyone else, he simply couldn't ignore how tiny Yugi looked compared to the monstrous lord of the Shadow Realm.

Without a word the jaw of the dragon dropped and something blacker than the shadows and churning appeared in the back of it's throat. Zorc lifted up a hand, wicked claws outstretched.

"Die, oh little light."

The claws came down right as the dragon belched forth the beam of utter blackness. Yugi, Yami, and Aleah only had time to reach for each other, each with the instinct to protect, before Zorc's attack was upon them. Yami clenched his eyes, arms in front of his friends.

But he felt nothing.

Wondering if his death had been so quick he didn't feel a thing, he opened his eyes.

A tall woman with gleaming gold skin and wings of glass stood before them, radiating the same colorless, plain light of Aleah. Silver hair wrapped about her and the clothes she wore looked a lot like his own as Pharaoh. Zorc's claws hovered a mere inch from her, trembling. The red eyes glaring down were narrowed with displeasure as other people, also like Aleah, of different ethnicities, both female and male, stepped out of the darkness, all radiating that strange light. Looking out at them all it hit him that it wasn't light they radiated, but simply an absence of the shadow realm. It was something else that surrounded them. Something neutral, neither good nor bad, but powerful.