Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Winter Solstace ❯ One More Year... ( Chapter 1 )

A/N: Hiya! *^.^* Hayashiba-chan heeeeere~~!!! Didjya miss me?? thought so! ^_^ so, here we have… another fic! Yay! RM, RY, MY, BYY, BYM, YMYY officially RB MM YY SJ. The Ancient Egyptian names are made up, most likely NOT Egyptian, and that's irrelevant anyway, so who cares? Go ahead and use them, because they're not canon in the LEAST.

Disclaimer: Don't own now, never owned before, never will own period.

Summary: Ryou, Malik, and Yuugi are "hunters" and have their eyes set on Mariku, Bakura, and Yami. Yuugi-tachi need to have Yami-tachi dead before upcoming Winter Solstice, at a 1000 year mark of when three magi from ancient Egypt were sealed. Solace to the Shadow Powers that run rampant.

WARNINGS: OOC, AU, TWT, angst, shounen-ai, language, bashing, light light light horror that isn't even horror, fluff, cross-dressing and the occasional OC. Enjoy.

~*~

"Winter Solstice"

01/20

~*~

Once, in the time of ancient Egypt, there were three very powerful leaders, all of whom were Magi. Sekhut, the Pharaoh; Namut, the King of Thieves; and Mehktis, the Prince of a different country. Once, all three were together and, in the heat of a duel between two of them, the High Priest Set and his apprentice Jehktu (accidentally?) sealed these very powerful magi away. With their disappearances, came the supposed death of the powers that only they possessed: the Shadow Powers, which enabled them with a power that could destroy the world. Now, these three magi all had extensive harems; beforehand, others had taken care to kill any firstborn with the inherited Shadow Powers, but in the confusion that followed after the supposed death of the three magi, (several) firstborn were granted with the Shadow Powers. And these firstborn had more firstborn, and they had more firstborn, and after almost 5000 years there are still humans that possess the Shadow Powers. It is a gene that lays dormant until every Winter Solstice.

At the age of 16, the dormant Shadow Powers will rise only if they have been handed down firstborn son to firstborn son. (if a daughter had been firstborn somewhere, then that line would end.) these direct descendants are hard to find, but when they are they must be killed before Winter Solstice. Every 1000 years after the three magi were sealed, at the VERY MOMENT they disappeared (which was Winter Solstice), the Shadow Powers would awaken (this is called Solstice). It has happened before; with devastating effects. There are those that know about all of this; they are the ones that go around killing the direct descendants, they are the ones that alone can sense the dormant Shadow Powers, they are the ones that wiped the history books clean of the four Solstice, 1000 year marks, before.

They are the indirect descendants of the three magi. They that know this have been trained, all their lives, to find and destroy any direct descendant that possess the Shadow Powers. Lately, they have been getting more and more active, more and more desperate, as the next 1000 year mark draws closer, ever closer, and there are still direct descendants out there…

- Ryou's POV -

[ MISSION: Stuck-up Royal-Blooded Bastards

NAME

Mutou Yami

AGE

16

OCCUPATION

Student, performer

LOCATION

Domino City, Japan

NAME

Rabuka Bakura

AGE

16

OCCUPATION

Student, performer

LOCATION

Domino City, Japan

NAME

Ishitaru Mariku

AGE

16

OCCUPATION

Student, performer

LOCATION

Domino City, Japan

EXPLANATION

Royal blood

MISSION OBJECTIVE

Destroy

THIS MESSAGE WILL SELF-DESTRUCTIVE IN FIVE SECONDS

*bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep…* BOOM! HAH! YOU'RE DEAD, RYOU! MUA HA HA HA!!!!! ]

I rolled my eyes and deleted the email.

"What is it?" Yuugi asked from the other side of the table, where he had been watching me closely.

"This message will self-destruct in five seconds," I quoted, closing my laptop with a short sigh. Yuugi laughed.

"Ahh, Malik just can't help himself sometimes. But we love him anyway."

I grunted. Currently, Yuugi and I were sitting at a small round table behind a large Italian restaurant. The table was fairly small, and situated by a balcony overlooking a magnificently blue bay; today it was windy and threateningly dark and rumbling clouds hung low overhead, so even if there were any other pedestrians eating at the same restaurant they were huddled closer to the entrance.

We would not be overheard. I sipped my Italian soda, staring out over the water and the enormous city across it distantly. Yuugi, too, gazed at the large suspension bridge behind me, connecting the city-crowded island to the more suburban island we were occupying now.

"You know…" Yuugi began vaguely, "I don't think I can remember a time when I've felt this relaxed."

"Probably because Malik's gone," I replied dismissively, and Yuugi laughed.

"You two. Honestly."

"What?" I asked defensively. "Well, he IS loud and obnoxious, you can't deny it! Not to mention rough and mean."

"Rough and mean, eh? Is THAT why you dumped him?"

I flushed. "And what about YOU?"

This time Yuugi blushed, and then we both laughed.

"He's such a playboy." Yuugi sighed.

"I wouldn't doubt his loyalty if it were love, but everything between us was lust."

"Mm. Same. But now the three of us are just friends."

"With certain *nightly* advantages."

"Oh, of course."

We laughed again and kicked each other in the shins for the pervertedness.

Another comfortable silence settled between us.

"Say, Ryou," Yuugi said at last.

"What is it?"

"Would you consider going steady with me? For just a little while? If it doesn't work out, we'll go back to being regular friends. With nightly advantages."

I blinked and thought it over. The same idea had occurred to me, as well, and I'd considered asking Yuugi many times before now.

"I'd love that."

"Great!"

I laughed at the happy look the teen across from me had.

"Then we'll pretend that this was our first date."

We gazed contentedly at each other for a moment, before Yuugi turned his head to one side and asked, "What was the email about? Did Malik find one?"

"He found three."

"THREE?!"

"Yeah. Domino City, Japan."

"JAPAN? I thought he was going to check Cairo out again? Where'd Japan come from?"

I shrugged. "Beats me. But that's our Malik for you."

Yuugi sighed, and pushed his empty milkshake glass away with a light clattering sound. Thunder grumbled and the wind picked up harder.

"It's going to rain. Come on, sweetie, let's pay for the Italian crap and call Malik. He left a phone number." I stood, and with my laptop under one arm and Yuugi's fingers threaded with my other hand, darted across the balcony, down a patio, and back into the main restaurant just as there was a crack of lighting and it began to rain. We paid at the front desk and then left out the front entrance, staying under the small roof that covered the entrance steps.

There Yuugi gave me his cell - it had international free on weekends and mine didn't -- and I dialed the number that Malik had provided in his beforehand email.

"Oy!" came Malik's voice after several hundred rings, a wrong number, and a bitchy operator. "I'm accepting MAJOR long-distance charges here, this had better be good!" his voice echoed, signaling that he was indeed overseas.

"Sorry, Malik!" I shouted, bending slightly so that Yuugi could shield my phone conversation and laptop from the wind and rain. "Just got your message!"

"Geeze! It sounds like a storm over there!"

"IT IS, STUPID! JUST TELL ME HOW YUUGI AND I ARE SUPPOSED TO GET OVER TO DOMINO CITY!"

"TAKE A PLANE!"

"WITH WHAT MONEY?"

"WHAT'S IN YOUR POCKET!"

"I'M NOT GOING TO GET TWO PLANE TICKETS IN COLD HARD CASH! THIS IS AMERICA! THE FRIGGIN EAST COAST!"

"WHAT? AREN'T YOU IN BRITAIN?"

"NO! YOU WENT TO CAIRO IN EGYPT, YUUGI WENT TO THAT TOWN IN CANADA, AND I WENT TO THAT ONE DINKY PLACE IN AMERICA! STUPID!"

"ARE YOU AND YUUGI TOGETHER?"

"YEAH! IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE!"

"WHA-" Malik's next words were lost, even though he was shouting to be heard over the phone. I waited for a pause in the phone static, and then caught Malik's, "-ONLINE. I'LL EMAIL THEM TO YOU."

"WHAT? EMAIL WHAT TO US? MALIK? HELLO?" the line was dead. I swore and turned Yuugi's cell off, giving it back.

"What'd he say?" Yuugi asked, also shouting over the rain.

"To check my email again! Come on, let's get to the apartment!" I tucked my laptop into my ankle-length black leather trench coat, pushed my sunglasses farther back on my nose, and took Yuugi's hand. The two of us darted into the storm.

- third person POV -

"Hello? HELLO-OOO, RYOU?" the line was dead. Malik sighed and turned his cell off, just as his laptop finished booting up. Muttering to himself what a waste of money that phone call had been, he found two plane tickets from some random place on America's east coast to Domino City, Japan, his current location.

He emailed them to Ryou, and then commenced pacing around his small hotel room, looking out at the dark sky of Japan.

It had been a shock, certainly, when he'd found that there was still somebody in Cairo… well, in Egypt period, since all the hunters had combed that area thoroughly… a direct descendant. Certainly, it had been a good idea to check the city out once more, something that took two agonizingly long weeks to do.

Yuugi had gone to a small town in Canada. Ryou had gone to one of those cities in America. These were all places that they'd raked through together in the year before, and right now they were simply double checking. Three hunters are WAY better than a solo. It didn't take as long to check out every soul present and attempt to find a Shadow Power that was buried beneath tons and tons of DNA because it hadn't awakened yet.

In all truth, Malik reflected, he probably would have missed Mariku altogether if the direct descendant hadn't been 16 years old. The Shadow Powers surfacing and stretching, attempting to take hold of Mariku's soul and become one to search for the magi that had once birthed it, long, long ago… Malik had run smack into the blackness those shadows created.

But it was not yet Solace, and they could do nothing to Mariku. He being the typical moron human would never notice. Unless, of course, he went at Solstice and stupidly surrendered himself to the shadows, but then, every direct descendant did that at Solstice.

Stupid humans. Not that Malik wasn't human as well, but honestly…

Malik had soon found out that, yes, Cairo, Egypt WAS still stripped clean of direct descendants and Mariku had only been visiting for a couple of days to drop off his older sister and miss a day of school filled with nothing but tests.

Malik had followed Mariku around for over half a day, pissed that the older teen wouldn't hold still long enough for Malik to read his soul thoroughly.

And then he realized that Mariku knew he was being followed and kept up a good, jerky pace on purpose.

This pissed Malik off even more.

So, being the ever-patient boy he was, Malik chased Mariku to a less populated spot, tackled him, snarled at him to hold still, and finished with a dramatic kiss. (kissing tended to put your victims into shock, but not Mariku, Malik soon found out…)

Because Mariku, for some *strange* reason, didn't like being kissed by a complete stranger in the least…

SO, after several punches, kicks, curses, and (oddly enough for one who didn't know Malik), kissing…

… eventually it ended up as just kissing…

…and Malik clean forgot to read Mariku's soul properly.

He forgot to do it while making out, forgot to do it while fighting some more, forgot to do it while going out for a nice meal together, forgot to do it while making out again, forgot to do it while just talking in Mariku's hotel room, forgot to do it before, while, and after doing MORE than just making out (if you catch my drift, hentai), forgot to do it while at the airport, and JUST REALIZED he'd forgotten to do it RIGHT AFTER Mariku's plane disappeared from sight.

Malik, realizing this, swore a few times, swore some more, walked up to random people and said very derogatory things to them, got in fights (coming out as the victor every time, frustratingly enough), and finished the day by swearing loudly at things in his motel room and ripping the bed into shreds.

The next day he woke up, swore, bought a plane ticket to Japan, and left the next day, still muttering nasty words to himself.

Nobody wanted to sit next to him during the flight.

He'd arrived in Tokyo and had to spend a few hours on his laptop, reviewing the Japanese language. (he knew how to speak so many languages that they tended to get muddled up, and a, say, Spanish-speaker would not understand if Malik said something in Spanish, French, and English all in one sentence because he couldn't mentally separate the languages.)

Then it took another few hours to find a currency exchange, and even longer to find a place called "Domino City."

He had had to spend the night in Tokyo, and took an early bird plane the next morning, straight to Domino City, where Mariku had said he was from. (That had been during the Long Talk in the other teen's room back in Cairo, in which Malik dreamily stated he lived There, in Cairo, and Mariku explained he was from Domino City, a place in Japan.)

Another day was spent looking for a suitable apartment. (it was during this day, wandering around Domino City and making mental notes, that Malik walked through several more soft, barely noticeable, black marks in the air from awakening Shadow Powers. He found an apartment and concluded that there were three.)

Three direct descendants in the same place. Was Malik the only hunter there?

But, in the week that followed, he figured them out: Mariku, Bakura, and Yami. He didn't stick around them long enough to be noticed, only long and close enough to figure out their ages and any jobs they might have.

And then he'd emailed the information to Ryou, knowing that Ryou would forward it to Yuugi, and waited.

Malik wasn't particularly surprised that Ryou had called the next day.

And so there he was.