luckydragonsfoot | NEGATIVE MEMORY

Eraser was dead. "Hah..." Dead and gone... "HahaHA! WHOOOO! YEAH," he screamed, laughing almost to the point of tears in relief. "YEAH! Did it!"

"Did you?" Katsuya looked back down from his skyward celebration, face growing white as Keith's words echoed around the room. A feeling of cold, of dread, and of endless despair was already beginning to fill him, and the room began to grow darker than it had even before. Blood was falling from the gaping wound on the Eraser's corpse, the corpse that had yet to vanish as it should. Thick, black, oil-like blood, rising from the ground to surround the entire arena, dripping from above and slowly filling the area around them...

"What th' hell," he croaked, unable to speak as the sound of creaking gears and clanking chains met his ears. "What th' hell is this..! What-!"

"Ngh... Eraser's ability!" Ability?!

"Khnhnhnhnhn..." The blood continued to rise, and as it did he could feel himself sinking... Omega himself was already drowning in the dark, never to be seen, while his 'face down tablets' were doing the same... It was all he could do to stay awake, all he could-

'KRREEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!'

"Ngh..!" Screaming... Screaming was filling the air, from no where, from everywhere...

"Did I forget to tell you?" he could barely hear, the blond covering his ears and breathing laboriously in an attempt to hold off the sheer pressure of darkness around him, "Did I forget to mention that Eraser destroys everything on the field when he dies?" Ngh... Gh.-!

"One card face down," he rasped, slipping the card onto his duel disk lest he drop it. He could feel a tablet rise behind him, safe from the power of the Eraser, but even then the blood was falling, Keith was laughing, the sludge was leaping from the ground, encompassing them both-

Darkness... He couldn't see, get him out, get him out-!

Nothing but darkness...

"Fhihihihi..." Keith was laughing somehow, he could still hear him... "This is just as good... As winning-!" Damn it, was Keith even willing to die here!

Darkness...

His sight was gone. His hearing, that was gone too... He was losing his scent, his touch...

And as he held his arms close he shook with fear, scarcely able to breathe.

'It's the feeling of being dead!' someone was laughing, cackling in the darkness around him. 'Now it's your turn to go to hell 'Joey'... Now it's your turn... To die.'

"HnhnHAHAHAHAHA!" Darkness. Darkness...

Help...

The darkness is here...

And the circle is complete.

The elders stand around it, the design traced into the ground with goat fats and ashes. And as the candles burn, he can hear himself speak.

"Please," he cries, struggling to escape the arms that hold him in the center, others moving to fasten ropes around his arms and wrists. "Please... This number will bring nothing good," he warns, watching as the 'perfect' number before him seems to fade into ashes. "My shadow isn't ready," he continues in desperation, "Please!"

The twelve elders stand around him after tying his arms down to stone. He pulls and tugs, unable to reach the cords with his teeth and unable to slip his hands through the knots as he usually could, and in the end he is left sitting in a stiff and forcefully built position in tears.

"Please," he weeps, the candle light flickering on the side with haunting effects. "Please don't do this, please..."

"We gather here today in the presence of our ancestors..." The chanting has started, and the ashes on the ground seem to rise and smoke with unseen power. The boy tries again.

"Please, please, please... Please don't... My heart... My soul... I can see it!" he screams, Neker standing in the corner in fear as he listens to his friends words. "Please, you'll kill us all!" he wails pitifully, "Everyone will die if you do this, I BEG you! GHH-"

An echoed slap choruses around the chamber, with nothing but the candles around the circle to illuminate the source. The elder who brought him here, the elder who did nothing but tell playful stories with shadows at his hands holds the very staff he used to twist the darkness for the scene. Blood now drips from the end, just as it does the side of the boy's face.

And the boy, with his eyes watering and overflowing completely, can do nothing but choke on his misery. "Silence, boy!" the elder snarls, gripping his staff and pulling it back in a single swift movement. "This is for your own good! Today we put an end to your ridiculous stories," he continues, turning to leave the intricate circle without making a single mark upon it, "And to these 'gut feelings' of yours-"

"They aren't like that!" he screeches, pulling at the ropes with renewed strength. "The shadows told me... The heart is the soul is the shadow who knows, please! Please I beg you, please, I don't want you to die! I don't want! I- I..."

"Do not speak as though these demons you've found know the workings of the world," the elder snarls in response, leaving the boy to choke on his tears. "Be silent and allow the ritual to complete itself!"

But the ritual is not meant to be. It is not meant...

"I can't..." His voice quiets and the chanting surrounds him, his strength wasted on futile struggles against his bonds and his voice hoarse from his begging and pleading. His struggling dies and his vision seems to slow, and the boy looks about the room with terror filling his entire being as he feels himself slipping away. "I can't... I... ...Neker," he whispers, the boy he speaks to stepping back and looking to his grandmother for advice.

But his grandmother is one of the elders, and she merely says- 'It is for his own good.'

"I can't..." He can't see...

'I reach into the pits of darkness to pull forth light...'

"I can't..." He can't feel...

'I wield it as my own, as my weapon as my shield...'

"...please..."

'I TAKE FATE INTO MY OWN HANDS AND OUT OF THOSE OF THE GODS!'

And the hands rise from the circle, before the true ceremony begins.

"-!"

As he screams in the room of the tower in the east, he screams in the chambers of the deepest pits of the desert. He holds his head in one world, fingers digging against the skin of his skull, and in the other he throws his head back, pulling at his binds and seeing nothing but white with his wide, dying eyes. "KKKRRHAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

He hears nothing but the hums and screams of the shadows that pull, of the taunting hands that force their way into the depths of his soul.

"rrrRRRAAAAAAAAAHHH!" He feels nothing but the pain of their touch, of their hold, of their force, and sees absolutely nothing at all.

The boy screams until his throat is dry, until his lips are stretched and bleeding. As energies of all kinds rise from the circle to join the hands, illuminating it to a level that stands brighter than even the candles in the room the elders speak falsely comforting words.

'It is for your own good,' they repeat betrayingly. 'It will all be over soon.'

"NNNGGGAAAAAHHHHHH!"

'We will tear your soul free from the shadows-' they tell him soothingly, as though their voices will calm the screams. 'No more will you be tormented by these gut feelings of yours!'

"HHHRAAAAAAAHHHHH!" Tears are running down his face, and with pleading eyes he looks over the crowd, somehow able to see through the veil that has coated his eyes. He cannot hear Neker's screams as the boy asks what is wrong.

He cannot hear what he says as he turns to the elders, pulling on his grandmother's arm in desperation before being thrown to the ground by the annoyed old ones.

He cannot hear his own name as it is called over the air. He cannot hear...

He cannot hear...

The shadows roar.

Liquid darkness rises from the circle at his feet and an intense pain surpassing all that has come thus far, begins to rise within him as the hands pull out their prize. The glow of the circle is unbearable. The elders chants are coming short, and they step back with wide and fear filled eyes as the boy in the center continues to scream and thrash at his bonds despite all their magic and traditions.

And finally the ropes snap. Finally the shadows that coalesced begin to gather within the grip of the darkened hands from the ashes. They take form, and as he reaches out with a hand so does the small black creature that has risen from the depths of his soul.

So does the creature with eyes as red as the evening sun, and scales as black as the shadows of the desert. But as he reaches out, an ebony claw doing the same...

"Bri... Kri... KRIIIIIIIII!"

It falls to ashes at his very finger tips, and the pain returns.

A searing flame across his chest, his hands flying toward it in pain as it threatens to break his very being, as it tears at his soul and mind and spirit all at once, as it shatters what little he has left-!

"NGH..." The elders are running toward him, and the boy rolls back onto his side. "NNGH..." The pain never ends, never stops... It feels as though his body is empty, as though he's dead, as though he'll never move again, and this pain-! "NNGHAAAAAAAAAGHH! GHHAAAAAAAAAAA!" This pain... "GHHHHAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHHH!" This PAIN!

snap out of it. Someone...

'Snap out of it.' Stop...

"Wake up..."

STOP!

"DAMN IT KATSUYA!"

A punch knocks him back in the darkness, and despite the inability to see he brings his hand to his face in pain. "Ngh-!"

"It's about damn time!" a familiar voice growled, the blond looking forward with a grimace.

"Gh... Panther-?" Katsuya blinked and the cat continued to growl, the duelist's eyes slowly widening as he looks around. Everyone... Every...

All of his monsters, standing with him in the darkness...

"N-NGH-" The darkness began to push again but just as quick to react, a scaled hand smacked him in the face.

"Ohhh no you don't Katsuya-jun!"

"OW- What-?" What the hell!

Alligator did that?! "YEAH! Wake up!" chimed the Little Winguard, her summoner grimacing and letting out a yelp as he grabs at the shin she just kicked.

"We're not letting something like DARKNESS take the first one to speak with us in a few thousand years," the Flame Swordsman growled in agreement, pounding Katsuya on the back as the others crowd for their own two cents.

The next to come came from a nodding Ishzark, but it seemed all their voices now chorused on the air.

"THE NAMELESS MUST NOT RETURN!" they roared, bodies almost flickering in the darkness. "Right!" "RIGHT!" "RIGH-"

"OKAY , I'M UP, I'M UP!" Katsuya cried out, arms held above him in defense. "I'm up," he repeats, opening his eyes to look at the blood soaked room around him, the shadows of the monsters now long gone. "I'm... ...H-Hah... HAHHHHH-!" His eyes widen as the blades of the Motor Omega meet his gaze, each one raised and prepared to strike. 'Nikoichi' was used, his mind tells him as he panics, allowing Keith to summon it from the graveyard and-

"Time to die, Joey...~" Shit-!

"Act'vate trap!" he hurriedly cried, jumping to the side as the blades splashed and cut into the bloodied darkness, "Skull dice!" From above the blood soaked ground the tablet for the card spat out a rolling die, the imp within too terrified to even move. Splattering blood all about it as it fell however, the number was clear. "Hah... Four..! NGH-" Too late to dodge Katsuya found himself raising his arms above him for defense, a flailing, blood-soaked Omega forced to return to its side of the field as it scratched the blond's arm. "Hahgh..." He shook himself, oily sludge slipping off his hair and out of his eyes. "Hahh..."

His arm bled but it bled slowly, and as he blinked he found his vision clearing up just enough to see around the black arena. This place...

The 'nameless god's influence was powerful indeed he found himself thinking uneasily, flexing his hand out of habit. And even now while he was awake, he felt as though he was sinking into darkness. But this feeling...

He looked across the field to his opponent, steeling his gaze as the Motor Omega hovered at its master's side. Keith was an asshole, but something told him that there was more to it. A reason for the Omega to say so- And now...

Now that he stood there, looking toward the broken and bloodsoaked man...

"Why?" Keith rasped, shaking his head in a growing sensation of horror that had turned against him so quickly. "Why... Why won't you just DIE!" he wailed, cries met with nothing but a stony glare. "I'm dead... You're alive, it... I can't!" The man grabbed at his head, clenching his teeth as naught but whimpered moans came from his lungs. "Ng... Unnn Uaaaaa... Am I... Again-?" What? "Am I going to vanish... Again?" he asked himself aloud, shaking his head and growing even stiffer as his breathing began to race. "To the pit... Of darkness... To the pit," he repeated with a dangerous tone, "Of DARKNESS... Here... Right here Jonouchi," Keith whispered, expression glazed and possessed as Katsuya watched grimly from afar. "I'm gonna drag you... To the depths of hell," he wheezed, stumbling and taking a step forward despite the thick, knee-high sludge. "I'm gonna... Kill you... I'm..."

"...My turn," Katsuya managed to say, drawing a card and looking across to Keith in silence. "...Keith... You c'n stop yer mutterin' now," he said quietly. "This time, I ain' pushin' you back there. I summon th' Iron Knight Gearfried!" the blond announced, a tablet pushing free of the bloodied ground as steel limbs and armor managed to force their way forward, "In attack mode!" Despite all the blood the monster's metal gleamed brilliantly from the glow of his own power, and with a knowing nod the monster began its charge forward. This was it... "This is th' hit that'll wake you up Keith!" Katsuya announced, Gearfried's blade rising above his head to come forward with the same motions of a downward punch. "NOW!"

"YOUUUUUUUUU!"

"HHHHHRAAAAAAHHHH!"

"Gh-k-"

As though blown away by a fan, the blood dissipated. Gearfried's blade cut through the monster that had risen from the sludge, pushing directly through Keith's chest, and as the American fell back in almost comatose defeat the light came back to the room. Tablets crumbled and sank to the ground...

Any remains of the Eraser were long gone, Katsuya and Gearfried as well walking over to where their opponent had fallen. One look was all it took- there was nothing for the monsters to say now. But with his hands stowed in his pockets he found himself looking over Keith with pity despite what he knew of the man.

"..."

Damn. To think, after all this...

"...Keith," he said almost quietly, the man at his feet struggling to recover from the shadows of the Eraser's blood. "...It's over. ...I know you can't feel th' pain from a monster's hit th' way I can," he continued, looking away somewhat with a swallow, "But a Duelist oughta know what their monsters are feelin'!" the blond shouted. "It's proof that you're alive," he went on, "That you're a duelist, tha' you're-"

-click

Katsuya stared as Keith fumbled with the black disk on his arm, ripping it off and pelting it toward the shocked teen before him. "Not... Done," he growled, insane grin appearing on his face. The Eraser was gripped tightly in his finger-tips, and as it shook he continued to speak. "We aren't done yet... Jonouchi... Duel me," he demanded lowly. "You can wear the black disk... Go on... Wear it... Wear-!"

The teen looked down at Keith numbly before saying one thing. "I can't."

"Gnnhhhghh... Damn it!" he roared weakly, fist clenching and reddening whilst he shook. "DAMN IT! Ngh..!" The fist fell to the ground in exhaustion, and with a tight jaw the American's head fell forward. "You... You..."

"...I can't duel you like this," Katsuya said quietly, eyes looking over the man with an almost dead glaze over the cold pity he felt. "Righ' now... Looks like you've let yerself turn into a demon 'f r'venge... ...An' I think tha' if you didn' have tha' card yer holdin' now, things'd be differen'. I know tha' I'm not th' only one t' believe tha'," he continued. "If anythin', the ones tha' really care are th' only ones who'd know. ...I know... Tha' there w's a time where you dueled for fun," Katsuya whispered lowly, pulling a card out from his graveyard as he went on. "Hard t' imagine what tha' was like," he laughed shortly, "But tha's b'side th' point. This card 's yours," he said with a whisper, tossing the 'Time Machine' to Keith's feet. "I'm givin' it back. Use it t' go back t' tha' time, alrigh'?" he added, turning to leave. "An' when you come back as a duelist instead 'f some demon 'f r'venge... We'll have tha' fight." Keith didn't respond, but even with his back turned to the man he had a feeling that it would be the last time they met- if at least 'like this'. The Eraser fell to the floor- and a hand moved to pick up the Time Machine card in silence.

It was a relief, in a bizarre way. Enough that he was even feeling dizzy, hands gripping the black disk as he took the other one off. Enough that-

"Ngh...!" Both disks clattered to the ground and dully he realized someone would have heard that but a majority of him didn't care. His hands flew to his head as his body locked, collapsing to the ground in a fit of blurred senses. His vision went black, his hearing dim, his feeling dulled...

To any one passing it would seem he'd collapsed in exhaustion. But as his arms move to cover the wounds sustained under the Eraser's acidic breath there could be a few in the world, even the building, that could see...

"Gh... Ngh..." The darkness is still upon them. It's eating away, pulling him in... "Sff... Gh..!" Pulling...

Pulling...

Pull-

He's still in the circle and his body lies limp and prone upon the ground, staring out at nothing. But despite this chaos that has occurred, the elders continue to approach.

'Continue the ritual,' they call confidently. 'With the demon exorcised there is limited time to form the shadow!' As he realizes what they thought had been a demon, Neker's eyes are wide with horror... But it is not to the elders that he looks, and the gaze fills ever more with fear. The elder who gave the order now turns back from where he faced the others, instead looking behind the boy in terror as darkness pushes back from the ashes and the hands on the ground.

The boy does not know what is going on. He does not feel anything, merely disconnection and pain, a blinding pain...

And then as the shadows rise up behind him his eyes widen, a single voice cutting through the dim chaos like a blade through water.

"GET AWAY FROM MY SON!"

The roar rumbles through the air and shakes the very foundations of the cavern, and as the elder takes a single step forward with his staff and shadow the true chaos begins. Snarls of rage meet the air, and screams do the same as the fight blazes through the room amid candle light. The dragon has never been seen in such a furious state, and the boys did well to avoid it. They tread with caution when it looked as though their friend could possibly reach that sort of emotional plane, but now the Elders have overstepped their bounds.

And they will now pay dearly.

For the dragon feels close to the boys- he sees them as his own, and will protect and scold when necessary. The time to scold Neker has passed- Neker already realizes with great horror, what he has done. He already realizes and laments, what his actions have wrought. And so the time to protect arises in its place.

Flames fill the chamber and reduce the first two cloaked ones to ashes, with Neker huddling and ducking beneath the blast. The next two are swallowed whole, with another pair snapped in half. Blood and death is filling the room, and the steady crunch of bone can be heard. Neker runs to the boy while the dragon fights... He runs and stumbles as the elders attempt to flee and escape the dragon's wrath. He begs forgiveness, but the boy cannot hear.

He feels numb, watching everything with disconnected eyes. Without a soul, without feeling...

He's melting into nothing, fading away, fading away and then...

"I'm sorry," Neker cries, pulling and shaking him in an attempt to wake his friend. "I'm sorry," he screams, holding his friend close as the boy's dead eyes stare up at the ceiling. "I'm sorry, -!" He cannot hear his friend, nor feel his touch.

He is already past the veil of death.

"I'm sorry..."