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Every Truth A Lie
folder
Yu-Gi-Oh › General
Rating:
Adult
Chapters:
11
Views:
1,335
Reviews:
22
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Yu-Gi-Oh › General
Rating:
Adult
Chapters:
11
Views:
1,335
Reviews:
22
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own YuGiOh!, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Alice in Wonderland
“What do you mean I’m not?” Mokuba demanded, crossing his arms. “You can’t stop me.”
Yuugi’s stranger grinned. It looked demonic spread across that face. “Watch me.” He began to circle Mokuba, slowly, carefully. “Let’s play a game. If you win, I’ll let you go. If you lose, you’re staying here.”
“How about no game, and I leave right now,” the teen growled.
The flat, icy calm wavered for a moment, before resettling into place. Fiery eyes gleamed. Mokuba remembered the Swords of Revealing Light in his dream, and the duelist who had played them. Fire eyes. Burning pools of liquid flame.
“I don’t think so. I think – ” Yuugi’s stranger stopped, facing Mokuba. They were so close Mokuba though he could feel the heat pouring from the other’s crimson-specked, violet eyes.
A slight laugh escaped the other. “I think the game is mind reading. Tell me – what am I thinking?”
Mokuba frowned. “That’s not a game at all. Besides, I already said I wasn’t going to play.” He turned to leave, but Bakura was blocking the way. When did he move there? Mokuba wondered.
“Too late. Game…start.”
--------------------
/Care to explain why you’re playing a Shadow Game with Mokuba?/ Yuugi demanded, glaring at the Pharaoh.
A shrug was his response. /He wanted to leave. I couldn’t let him./
Yuugi growled in exasperation. /People get hurt in Shadow Games, Pharaoh. Call it off./
/You know as well as I do that a Shadow Game can’t be cancelled once started,/ he replied, apologetically.
At least, Yuugi thought he was apologetic about it. Sometimes it was damn hard to tell. The Pharaoh was quite good at concealing his actual emotions. Very like Kaiba sometimes, in fact…
/He won’t get hurt anyway,/ the Pharaoh added.
Yuugi cocked his head, questioning.
/He’s only trying to guess my mind./
/Now that is the least fair contest I’ve heard,/ Yuugi protested. /You have a million ways around him guessing what you’re thinking, including, using my thoughts! That’s cheating, right there./
/It’s not cheating,/ the Pharaoh argued. /It’s an insurance policy against losing. He can’t be let go, aibou. The Rod has enough supporters as it is. It doesn’t need one more./
Yuugi growled, but really, there wasn’t anything he could do. The Pharaoh was right about the impossibility of cancelling a Shadow Game once it had been declared.
/You promised you wouldn’t hurt him,/ the diminutive duelist put in, slightly sullen.
/And I won’t,/ the Pharaoh agreed. /I’ll just keep him here, aibou. Nothing more, nothing less./
The expression crossing his face wasn’t pleasant in the least.
/Nothing less./
---------------------
Mokuba crossed his arms stubbornly. “I’m not playing,” he said again.
Yuugi’s stranger looked as if he hadn’t even heard him. “I’m thinking of something,” he said, his deep voice low and aggressive. “Tell me, Mokuba, what am I thinking of?”
Everything! Nothing! Mokuba’s mind supplied answers, but he didn’t dare voice them, instead arguing still. “I don’t want to.”
“That’s not what I’m thinking of,” the other answered.
Mokuba half-expected another painful slap across his face the way it had happened before. He flinched when Yuugi’s stranger raised his hand.
The other looked amused. “My turn – ”
“I’m not playing,” he growled in response, pushing past the other. “I’m leaving.”
Something pulled him back, pushed him back so that he was facing Yuugi’s stranger again, unsure why he couldn’t seem to escape. He turned again, meaning to run away, but, no matter where he looked, there were copies of Yuugi’s body, leering in that demonic fashion, eyes lit up with scarlet blood corrupting the violet.
“I’m leaving!” echoed around and around and around, leaving him disoriented. That was his voice, no Bakura’s voice, except it couldn’t be because it was actually Honda’s, and mid-syllable it switched to Seto’s voice, and then he was yelling it, and…and..
Leaving…leaving…leave…
Running forward, he could run forward. It led him in circles, racing around with no destination, swerving to avoid the obstacles that really were people, all staring at him with incredulity lacing their gazes. Just laughing at him.
It was the laughter that hurt the most. He skidded to a halt, stopping his headlong rush to escape. Would Seto try to escape? came to haunt him.
Would Seto want me to abandon him? followed right on its heels.
What ifs, all of them, floundering around in the back of his head, while strong hands gripped his shoulders and pushed him forward, so he was standing opposite Yuugi – no, not Yuugi. That wasn’t Yuugi.
Yuugi’s stranger, red-flecked gaze and all, grinning.
“Think about something. Let me guess your mind.”
He can’t possibly guess what I’m thinking, Mokuba thought desperately. He can’t think of what I’m thinking.
Think of what I’m thinking -
What was one thing no one else had ever gone through? What was something that only he knew, that maybe only he and Seto had ever known?
Lack of family, dependence, addiction, pain, rage. What was something the darkness couldn’t understand?
Friendship, teamwork, hard labor, trust.
Too many things that darkness worked with anyway.
What was it that Seto told me about the fairytale heroes? The villains?
As he recalled his brother’s words, Mokuba accepted that he’d been drawn into a game he couldn’t escape. He would play it out, in his brother’s name, to the best of his own ability, no matter how strange the rules were. If there even are rules, his mind added as an afterthought.
If there even were rules.
“Guess my mind,” he challenged, glaring into red eyes with venom.
--------------------
/That wasn’t fair at all,/ Yuugi grumbled, sitting and glaring in the back of the Pharaoh’s consciousness.
/I fail to see how it wasn’t. I gave him an opportunity. He failed at the task,/ the Pharaoh replied. His aibou’s answering grumble made him smile slightly. /Aibou, he cannot be let go. I am not hurting him. You requested that I would not, and so I have not. But he cannot be let go./
/And why not?/ Yuugi demanded, crossing his arms in a decent impersonation of angry.
The Pharaoh chuckled and ran a hand through his host’s hair. Yuugi shook it away irritably. He didn’t see why Mokuba couldn’t be let go, or why he couldn’t go see Kaiba. There was the possibility of the Rod gaining more supporters, but he failed to see how that was actually possible when all seven of the people wielding Millennium Items had already declared allegiances. What difference would one little boy make in the general scheme of things?
He pointed that out, and the Pharaoh dismissed it with a general all-encompassing statement about destiny and fate. Yuugi sighed. He was getting awfully tired of fate.
-------------------
The crimson-flecked violet flickered back to pure purple before becoming corrupted again. Those eyes stared at him, bored into him for the longest time. Mokuba tried to hold fast to the once concept he believed Yuugi’s stranger could never understand, and couldn’t possibly guess.
Did his face look like he was remembering Gozaboru? He hoped it did, if only to throw the other off track. Did he look like there were terrible memories in his head? Well, there were, but those memories were what had selected this particular concept for him…
“You’re thinking about your brother,” Yuugi’s stranger finally pronounced.
Mokuba glared back in fierce delight. “No, I’m not.”
A smirk was still across that smug face. “Of course you are.”
“No, I’m not!”
“You are.”
“Are not.”
“Are.”
“Not.”
“You’re acting childish.”
“You started it!” He regretted the words instantly. A childish reply, it only confirmed the other’s accusation. “But I wasn’t thinking about Seto,” he grumbled. “I was thinking about unity.”
“You’re unified with Kaiba,” the other acknowledged. “Therefore, in the abstract, Kaiba was in your mind. You were thinking about him, however indirectly. You’re staying.”
Mokuba gaped at him. “Anything could be thought about ‘indirectly’,” he protested. “That would have made me right when I said I didn’t want to play!”
Yuugi’s stranger nodded. “That is correct. However – ” the devilish smirk made Mokuba angry “ – you never said anything.”
So that’s how the game is played? I guess you were right, Seto. Again. Every hero has a villain lurking in him, and every villain can use a hero’s qualities. Villains are just heroes for the other side… But who’s side is he on?
------------------------
Author's Notes:
Attempting to go for something slightly more surreal.
Yuugi’s stranger grinned. It looked demonic spread across that face. “Watch me.” He began to circle Mokuba, slowly, carefully. “Let’s play a game. If you win, I’ll let you go. If you lose, you’re staying here.”
“How about no game, and I leave right now,” the teen growled.
The flat, icy calm wavered for a moment, before resettling into place. Fiery eyes gleamed. Mokuba remembered the Swords of Revealing Light in his dream, and the duelist who had played them. Fire eyes. Burning pools of liquid flame.
“I don’t think so. I think – ” Yuugi’s stranger stopped, facing Mokuba. They were so close Mokuba though he could feel the heat pouring from the other’s crimson-specked, violet eyes.
A slight laugh escaped the other. “I think the game is mind reading. Tell me – what am I thinking?”
Mokuba frowned. “That’s not a game at all. Besides, I already said I wasn’t going to play.” He turned to leave, but Bakura was blocking the way. When did he move there? Mokuba wondered.
“Too late. Game…start.”
--------------------
/Care to explain why you’re playing a Shadow Game with Mokuba?/ Yuugi demanded, glaring at the Pharaoh.
A shrug was his response. /He wanted to leave. I couldn’t let him./
Yuugi growled in exasperation. /People get hurt in Shadow Games, Pharaoh. Call it off./
/You know as well as I do that a Shadow Game can’t be cancelled once started,/ he replied, apologetically.
At least, Yuugi thought he was apologetic about it. Sometimes it was damn hard to tell. The Pharaoh was quite good at concealing his actual emotions. Very like Kaiba sometimes, in fact…
/He won’t get hurt anyway,/ the Pharaoh added.
Yuugi cocked his head, questioning.
/He’s only trying to guess my mind./
/Now that is the least fair contest I’ve heard,/ Yuugi protested. /You have a million ways around him guessing what you’re thinking, including, using my thoughts! That’s cheating, right there./
/It’s not cheating,/ the Pharaoh argued. /It’s an insurance policy against losing. He can’t be let go, aibou. The Rod has enough supporters as it is. It doesn’t need one more./
Yuugi growled, but really, there wasn’t anything he could do. The Pharaoh was right about the impossibility of cancelling a Shadow Game once it had been declared.
/You promised you wouldn’t hurt him,/ the diminutive duelist put in, slightly sullen.
/And I won’t,/ the Pharaoh agreed. /I’ll just keep him here, aibou. Nothing more, nothing less./
The expression crossing his face wasn’t pleasant in the least.
/Nothing less./
---------------------
Mokuba crossed his arms stubbornly. “I’m not playing,” he said again.
Yuugi’s stranger looked as if he hadn’t even heard him. “I’m thinking of something,” he said, his deep voice low and aggressive. “Tell me, Mokuba, what am I thinking of?”
Everything! Nothing! Mokuba’s mind supplied answers, but he didn’t dare voice them, instead arguing still. “I don’t want to.”
“That’s not what I’m thinking of,” the other answered.
Mokuba half-expected another painful slap across his face the way it had happened before. He flinched when Yuugi’s stranger raised his hand.
The other looked amused. “My turn – ”
“I’m not playing,” he growled in response, pushing past the other. “I’m leaving.”
Something pulled him back, pushed him back so that he was facing Yuugi’s stranger again, unsure why he couldn’t seem to escape. He turned again, meaning to run away, but, no matter where he looked, there were copies of Yuugi’s body, leering in that demonic fashion, eyes lit up with scarlet blood corrupting the violet.
“I’m leaving!” echoed around and around and around, leaving him disoriented. That was his voice, no Bakura’s voice, except it couldn’t be because it was actually Honda’s, and mid-syllable it switched to Seto’s voice, and then he was yelling it, and…and..
Leaving…leaving…leave…
Running forward, he could run forward. It led him in circles, racing around with no destination, swerving to avoid the obstacles that really were people, all staring at him with incredulity lacing their gazes. Just laughing at him.
It was the laughter that hurt the most. He skidded to a halt, stopping his headlong rush to escape. Would Seto try to escape? came to haunt him.
Would Seto want me to abandon him? followed right on its heels.
What ifs, all of them, floundering around in the back of his head, while strong hands gripped his shoulders and pushed him forward, so he was standing opposite Yuugi – no, not Yuugi. That wasn’t Yuugi.
Yuugi’s stranger, red-flecked gaze and all, grinning.
“Think about something. Let me guess your mind.”
He can’t possibly guess what I’m thinking, Mokuba thought desperately. He can’t think of what I’m thinking.
Think of what I’m thinking -
What was one thing no one else had ever gone through? What was something that only he knew, that maybe only he and Seto had ever known?
Lack of family, dependence, addiction, pain, rage. What was something the darkness couldn’t understand?
Friendship, teamwork, hard labor, trust.
Too many things that darkness worked with anyway.
What was it that Seto told me about the fairytale heroes? The villains?
As he recalled his brother’s words, Mokuba accepted that he’d been drawn into a game he couldn’t escape. He would play it out, in his brother’s name, to the best of his own ability, no matter how strange the rules were. If there even are rules, his mind added as an afterthought.
If there even were rules.
“Guess my mind,” he challenged, glaring into red eyes with venom.
--------------------
/That wasn’t fair at all,/ Yuugi grumbled, sitting and glaring in the back of the Pharaoh’s consciousness.
/I fail to see how it wasn’t. I gave him an opportunity. He failed at the task,/ the Pharaoh replied. His aibou’s answering grumble made him smile slightly. /Aibou, he cannot be let go. I am not hurting him. You requested that I would not, and so I have not. But he cannot be let go./
/And why not?/ Yuugi demanded, crossing his arms in a decent impersonation of angry.
The Pharaoh chuckled and ran a hand through his host’s hair. Yuugi shook it away irritably. He didn’t see why Mokuba couldn’t be let go, or why he couldn’t go see Kaiba. There was the possibility of the Rod gaining more supporters, but he failed to see how that was actually possible when all seven of the people wielding Millennium Items had already declared allegiances. What difference would one little boy make in the general scheme of things?
He pointed that out, and the Pharaoh dismissed it with a general all-encompassing statement about destiny and fate. Yuugi sighed. He was getting awfully tired of fate.
-------------------
The crimson-flecked violet flickered back to pure purple before becoming corrupted again. Those eyes stared at him, bored into him for the longest time. Mokuba tried to hold fast to the once concept he believed Yuugi’s stranger could never understand, and couldn’t possibly guess.
Did his face look like he was remembering Gozaboru? He hoped it did, if only to throw the other off track. Did he look like there were terrible memories in his head? Well, there were, but those memories were what had selected this particular concept for him…
“You’re thinking about your brother,” Yuugi’s stranger finally pronounced.
Mokuba glared back in fierce delight. “No, I’m not.”
A smirk was still across that smug face. “Of course you are.”
“No, I’m not!”
“You are.”
“Are not.”
“Are.”
“Not.”
“You’re acting childish.”
“You started it!” He regretted the words instantly. A childish reply, it only confirmed the other’s accusation. “But I wasn’t thinking about Seto,” he grumbled. “I was thinking about unity.”
“You’re unified with Kaiba,” the other acknowledged. “Therefore, in the abstract, Kaiba was in your mind. You were thinking about him, however indirectly. You’re staying.”
Mokuba gaped at him. “Anything could be thought about ‘indirectly’,” he protested. “That would have made me right when I said I didn’t want to play!”
Yuugi’s stranger nodded. “That is correct. However – ” the devilish smirk made Mokuba angry “ – you never said anything.”
So that’s how the game is played? I guess you were right, Seto. Again. Every hero has a villain lurking in him, and every villain can use a hero’s qualities. Villains are just heroes for the other side… But who’s side is he on?
------------------------
Author's Notes:
Attempting to go for something slightly more surreal.