Black Taint
By: Ruriko L. Minamino

Disclaimer:
Yu-Gi-Oh belongs to whichever rich Japanese animator created the series. I’m just using the characters for my own writing fun.

Warnings:
Angst, Threesome, Yaoi, Blood Play (BP), Sadism/Masochism (S&M), Torture (Tort), Unresolved Sexual Tension (UST)

Pairings:
YYxYBxYM (yami threesome)

Author’s Notes:
1. This story popped into my head about two or three nights ago, and I’ve been working hard on it ever since. Strangely enough, it is the result of reading my Physics textbook and reminiscing of the antics of my friend Alzeia, who somehow fell in love with the word angst and writing using her blood last year.
2. Just to stop the incessant reminders from coming in (as I know they will if I don’t clarify first): In all of my Yu-Gi-Oh stories, Marik (Mariku/Yami no Malik/etc…) will always be referred to as the Assassin.I know he’s really just the ‘child’ of Malik Ishtar’s ten-year-old demented emotions, but I long decided that it would be better if Marik had a past, like Bakura and Yami.
3. Also, this is a warm-up exercise for me, as I will finally be going back to Dances of Seduction later this month, with a revamp, to boot.

For information on updates and whatnot about all my stories, visit my blog, the URL of which is in my profile page. That said, I hope you enjoy the fic! Please, don’t forget to leave a review!

01. Lust

Have you ever noticed that it’s always easier to mess up a room than to clean it up? To tell a lie than to tell the truth? To break a promise than to keep it?

Or, let’s phrase it some other way, using colors. White is so easy to stain, and once you’ve stained it, there’s no guarantee that it will ever be the same again. The same goes for blues, greens, yellows, reds, and any other color you can imagine. Why is this? According to the scientists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, white is not simply a color, a kind of light, but a combination of all different lights! In short, white is true light entirely in itself.

But what about black? Black is not simply a color at all! It is in truth the absence of light. Black absorbs all light, making certain that there is no way for it to escape.

Darkness has always been an element in itself; the very complement of light. What is dark cannot be light, and what is light can never be dark. Things can go no other way. To change the essence of darkness and light completely is to destroy it forever. Yes, what is light belongs to light, in its multitude of combined colors. As for black, for darkness, it belongs only to itself.

Yami belongs only with yami. To deny this, to attempt to change what is truly yami, will never succeed. It will only cause complete and utter chaos. It is slow, gradual, and sometimes imperceptible, but it will happen.

But no one ever told this to Yami no Yugi.

In the lost, forgotten records of Ancient Egypt, Yami no Yugi, Pharaoh Atemu, as he had been know back then, had been the most powerful ruler the land had ever seen. His ruthlessness went hand-in-hand with his greatness. He had no goals of world domination – why would he, when he had his own vast kingdom where his slightest whim and word was law? But in what can, in the most delicate of terms, be called an accident, he had become sealed in an ancient artifact. The irony of it! The ruler sealed in one of his own symbols of power.

But that had not been the end of him. For three millennia, he had been sealed in darkness, sealed in the confines of the Millennium Puzzle. Over that time, he accepted his new position as the darkness, the yami of his host – the light (hikari) soul who would eventually unseal and awaken him from his slumber of the millennia. He never questioned this, only waited in anticipation for the time he would be able to roam free in the world again. So he slept on, dreaming of a weak little mortal he could bend to his will as he made a new life for himself. Maybe rule a country or two. For this was his curse, his gift: to become forever, in essence, a Spirit, able to take on bodily form and to exist forever, until the very end of days.

What he never counted on was the full effect of an innocent little soul on his worldly, cruelty-fuelled life. When those wide amethyst eyes turned to him pleadingly – for the lives of bullies, of all things – he found he could do nothing but concede. His sadistic ways were not for this century, the gentle light seemed to say, not with words, but with those bright, expressive eyes.

And so it was that Pharaoh Atemu, Yu-Gi-Oh, Yami no Yugi, leashed tight his powers over the shadows. He learned to smile on light, to imitate it in all its goodness, to attempt to become it. It was sometimes painful for him, but suppress his urges, he did.

He became evermore the ‘good’ darkness. Irony in itself! Called by all ‘Yami’, he was the champion of what was good and right, but his name stood for all that was wrong.

The other two Spirits of the past, the other two unsealed yamis, despised this change in their old bloodthirsty Pharaoh – even more so than they despised him himself for what he had done to them long ago. A cunning, sadistic Thief and a psychopathic, homicidal Assassin, they had been and still were. They embraced the reality of their existences, not rejected it. Even more: they celebrated it.

And in light of an intriguing discovery they had made, they decided to ‘help’ their deprived fellow celebrate with them once again.

This plan was easy enough to put into action. Darkness blends and melds with darkness. Twin shadows swathed in the blanket of the night made their way through the streets of Domino City, their modern-day hunting ground. Twin sneers and glinting eyes kept all mortal pedestrians at bay; who in their right mind would bother what seemed like a pair of malicious-looking young men? It did not take them too long to find what they wanted.

The former Pharaoh was sitting inside one of the noisy, crowded pizzerias in the commercial district of the city, in the company of practically the entire gang of what the two disgusted yamis called ‘sticks-in-the-mud’. There was the bubbly Tea Gardner, vixen Mai Valentine, goof-balls Joey Wheeler and Tristan Tailor, the cocky Duke Devlin, and frowning Seto Kaiba. Both the Tomb Robber and Assassin’s hikaris were there, and in the very center of the gathering sat none other than the King of Games and his innocently-laughing other half.

To the inexperienced eye, the entire gathering was cozy, lively, and bursting with easy camaraderie. Granted, the CEO was trying to remain serious, but it was obvious he was enjoying himself as well. But Yami no Yugi was a different story. He seemed to be chatting and laughing right along with the rest of them, but the two Spirits outside could see the miniscule narrowing of his eyes, his labors at controlling his baser instincts.

It was sickening.

Moving as one, Yami no Malik and Yami no Bakura barged right into the eatery and walked up to the small group. The laughter ceased and all eyes became wary and defensive. None were more so than the Pharaoh’s.

“What are you two doing here?” Malik asked, breaking the silence. He cast questioning lavender eyes on his darker half. Of the three pairs, they were the most similar, and if truth were to be told, the only reason the Egyptian hikari hung out with the others was because Ryou and Yugi did. “Anything planned?” he queried, his tone indicating that he was more than curious – and would not mind being invited to join in.

“Not for this night, hikari,” the platinum blond yami replied. “Bakura and I just want to speak with the Pharaoh for a while.”

“Alone,” the Thief added.

At that, the rest of the group tensed and shot furtive looks at Yami. The crimson-eyed Spirit was regarding the other two yamis levelly. Without a word, he rose from his seat and patted Yugi on the shoulder. A reassuring smile slipped onto his face. “It’s fine. I’ll see you all tomorrow.” With a little wave, he turned on his heel and followed the other two Spirits out the door and into the night.

They walked for what seemed like half an hour until they reached one of the seedier suburbs of the city. Marik and Bakura stopped at a rusty old playground, sneers back in full force. Yami folded his arms across his chest and glared at the pair.

“Well? You wanted to talk to me,” he said in a perfectly calm voice. “So talk.” A casual observer could say that the Pharaoh was completely in control of the situation. But his companions were far from casual observers. They knew their Pharaoh, and they could see the fear and nervousness in his eyes.

Bakura walked up to Yami slowly, and the façade of calm was broken. The wild-haired Spirit took a few steps back and ended up pressed against the bars of a rusting jungle gym. The Thief did not stop walking until he was face to face with his old sovereign. They were almost equal in height. Mahogany met ruby in a steely gaze. A pale hand ghosted up to trace pointed nails down a fair-skinned throat. Yami shivered slightly –

And stiffened when he felt a strong arm secure itself around his waist through the bars. The hold was so tight that the Pharaoh involuntarily winced.

“What is the meaning of this?” Yami demanded, a faint tremor in his voice. The Pharaoh the two rogues had known did not have a stutter in his voice. This would not do at all. “Do you mean to rape me?”

A knife appeared in Bakura’s right hand and Yami’s fears escalated as the alabaster-skinned Spirit slowly relieved himself of his shirt. Legs once sure and sturdy threatened to give way beneath Yami as he felt Marik’s other hand sliding up his right arm. He almost gasped when the tanned yami firmly took hold of his wrist and guided it to the knife. The blade was placed in his now-trembling hand.

“What do you want of me?”

Marik’s lips came to rest just behind his ears and Yami nearly gasped as warm breath bathed his lobe. “To draw on Bakura, of course.”

“With a knife?” There was an almost shrill note to the ex-ruler’s voice. Pathetic.

The sight of Bakura’s evil smirk and the added pressure on Yami’s hand were the only replies. The Assassin moved the shorter Spirit’s hand like a skilled puppeteer, and soon the blade was pressing lightly on the skin in the middle of Bakura’s ribcage. The Thief’s eyes glinted with excitement and he licked his lips, pushing himself closer to the knife.

Yami’s eyes widened in surprise as Marik made him press the weapon into the Tomb Robber’s flesh. The effort was rewarded by a droplet of almost-black blood. It was almost too much for Yami to bear. His attempt to jerk his hand away resulted in the blade being dragged upward and a thin wound forming diagonally across Bakura’s chest. The Thief hissed in delight. A few droplets of blood flew up into the air and landed on Yami’s chin.

Time froze for the Pharaoh as the rapidly-cooling liquid slowly began to slide down onto his neck. But he made no move to wipe it off. Instead, he stared blankly at the blood-coated knife in his outstretched hand.

Pleased with Yami’s reaction, Yami no Malik and Yami no Bakura switched places. The Tomb Robber slid his arms around the Pharaoh’s torso in what could have been mistaken for an innocent lover’s embrace. But Yami’s arm was still raised, the bloodied knife still suspended mid-air in his hand.

“Enjoying yourself yet?” Bakura almost purred. Yami was suddenly acutely aware of their position and realized that there must be blood staining the back of his leather shirt. He jerked slightly and the knife almost flew out of his grasp.

Marik immediately steadied Yami’s hand and stepped closer. The blade was just high enough to be pointing at the side of the psychopath’s neck. He leaned in to the cool steel and smirked down at his two companions.

“You’re starting to get the hang of it again, my Pharaoh,” he said in a darkly teasing voice. “Now what are you going to do to me?”

Violent waves crashed upon rocks in Yami’s mind as he struggled valiantly to remain in control of himself. But when a hot, wet tongue slowly licked its way up his cheek, all concentration was gone. The knife jerked sideward and when Yami blinked there was a thin trail of blood just below the precious vein in the Assassin’s throat. And more blood on Yami’s bare arm.

Dark chuckling filled the air and the two captors pressed even closer to their semi-willing hostage. The Assassin’s head dipped low until it was just grazing Yami’s neck. Blood dripped onto his shirtfront as the Assassin leaned over him to capture the Thief’s mouth in a brutal, searing kiss. The knife was wrenched out of Yami’s hand as Marik sliced down – hard – on Bakura’s arm.

Alarm shot through Yami’s body as he became acutely aware of two things supposedly unrelated, but in this case so completely intertwined he could not block them out. There were droplets and smears of blood all over Yami’s shirt as the Thief reached around him to pull the Assassin’s head closer. The second thing Yami noticed was that he was becoming incredibly turned on by the entire situation. All his senses went haywire as the kissing at his shoulder became more fervent and animalistic.

He could hear Bakura’s growls and moans. He could see the thin layer of sweat forming on Marik’s shoulders. He could smell the blood and the two rogues’ arousal mingling in the air with his own. He could practically feel the power and lust radiating from the feverishly-heated bodies pressed against him from in front and behind. And worst of all, he could practically taste his own desire threatening to drown him from within.

He hissed as his mind came alarmingly close to its breaking point.

Want you. Want this. Need. Badly.

Whole galaxies exploded before the Pharaoh’s eyes as memories flooded his mind. His dungeons. The wails of his victims. His own harsh laughter. His pride and burning ambitions. The thrill of the execution. The lure of the Power of the Shadow Realm. His and his and his alone to control! Ah! But he needed to feel it all again. And again and again. The agony of it all!

But no! What was he thinking? This was not Egypt. This was not 3000 years in the past. He was no longer Pharaoh. He had a hikari to look after. He had friends to protect. He had –

“A pathetic excuse for an existence if you asked me.”

Yami’s eyes narrowed and he turned slightly to the left. Bakura and Marik had finally ended their prolonged make-out session and were both staring at him intently. He had been speaking his thoughts aloud. The Thief was smirking right at him, head resting comfortably on his shoulder as he would on a pillow.

He growled deep in his throat and tried to wiggle out from between his ‘companions’. “You are both trying my patience. It is late. I should be getting back to Yugi’s house.”

“Taking the cowardly way out, Pharaoh mine?” the Assassin asked, snaking an arm around Yami’s waist and down to squeeze his ass. “Has anyone ever told you that you look exquisite in leather?”

Yami’s eyes were wide with shock and a blush threatened to creep up his cheeks. And he was feeling aroused! He was certain the Assassin could feel the problem in his pants by now. The former Pharaoh steeled himself and glared. “Let me go.”

“Why go?” Bakura breathed into his ear. “The night is young and there are better things to do than sleep.” Yami felt the tip of the knife on his forearm and he looked down. The Thief was tracing idle patterns on his skin. No wounds – yet.

“Why are you doing this to me?” the tortured one asked. A part of him was frantic to escape and lock himself away in his soul-room for eternity, but another more virulent part of him was reveling in this exquisite, pleasurably painful experience. It was tearing him up inside.

“Yessss…” the Tomb Robber hissed, nuzzling at his neck. “Come out and play, Pharaoh. We know you’ve just been dying for this. Stop resisting.”

With a strangled sound, Yami grabbed the knife out of the Thief’s hand and brought it down forcefully on his own forearm. Dark blood welled up and Yami’s eyes glazed over with the bloodlust. The knife clattered to the ground and his trembling hand smeared the hot liquid all the way up to his shoulder. He released an explosive breath that could easily pass for a grunt of pleasure. Almost immediately, another blade was pressed against his bottom lip.

Marik’s eyes were glittering with lust as he eyed the blood-covered Pharaoh. Yami stood motionless as the point pressed into his skin. He could feel his lifeblood welling to the surface, reddening his pinkish lips. It burned and stung, but his very soul was singing with delirious ecstasy. The music swelled to a magnificent crescendo in his ears as the Assassin crushed their lips together, demanding entrance. The tongue mercilessly driving into Yami’s throat was hot and slick and – forceful. The kiss was not needy or loving, not passionate or probing. Marik bit down hard on Yami’s bottom lip. The sensation was raw, brutal, and downright painful.

Just perfect.

When they finally broke away, Yami was gasping for breath and trembling even more with violent emotions. He wanted Marik’s lips back on him, but he also just wanted to stand there, staring at the exotic, spice-scented yami, lips coated in his blood. Something was so completely irrational about what was happening, but the one-time Pharaoh couldn’t bring himself to care.

He whirled around and wrapped his arms around Bakura’s torso, leaning lightly into the Assassin’s chest as he pressed the knife firmly into the Thief’s back. One hand grabbed a fistful of the Tomb Robber’s silvery locks and another made a smooth, swift cut up that pale back. Yami’s eyes shone with hunger as he drove his tongue straight into his old adversary’s cavern and plundered it as ruthlessly as a Viking might loot a peasant’s town. One canine nipped viciously, repeatedly at the soft skin of Bakura’s lips, until a droplet formed. The Pharaoh greedily sucked it all up with a sigh.

Yes and yes and yes!

The taste of the Thief was exquisite! Yami breathed in the scent of lotus and the other wild greenery of the Arabic lands. His heart of hearts jumped and reveled in the sensations as he continued to feed his starved senses.

Marik’s strong hands wrenched him away suddenly from the bars and Yami hissed at the loss of contact. But he was soon moaning with pleasure again as Marik pulled Bakura as well. They collapse in a heated pile on the dusty ground, an exotic trio clothed in leather, silk, and dust-mingled blood.

The two knives were now furiously cutting into Yami’s skin, covering his arms with beautiful hieroglyphics the color of his royal blood. His mind was a whirlpool of delirious ecstasy. This was what he had been missing – all the wasted months he had been trying to be Yugi’s perfect knight in shining armor, his shield against all dangers.

Moral uprightness be damned!

He would continue to care for his little hikari, but this… this canvas of sensation covered in rich, spicy blood and thick, salty sweat… He needed no paradise but this in the end. Osiris’ kingdom, he would not even think of again. Hell, he was immortal. There was no death waiting for him anytime soon – or ever.

More. I crave it. More. My soul burns for this!

With a low cry of desire, Yami’s hands grabbed Marik’s knife and rolled around, reveling in the stinging pain in his arm-wounds. He practically ripped the Assassin’s shirtfront with his bare hands and drew the Eye of Horus down the center of that chiseled bronze abdomen. His reddened tongue darted out, lapped, and smeared the blood with relish.

“Yesss…. Ra! Yes!” Marik groaned and arched up into the slippery touch.

The knife, that second deathly-sharp knife, suddenly appeared in the air beside Yami’s left shoulder and he rolled to the ground beside his tanned conquest, watching said blond conquest stab the dagger harshly into the skin just below the Tomb Robber’s collarbone and drag it almost lazily all the way down to the pale flesh just above his pants. Bakura’s hands snaked around the Game King’s chest and slipped under his clothes, sharp nails sending shivers all across the former Pharaoh’s body. Three voices moaned into the night almost as one.

Then, Yami’s conscience came back with a vengeance. Was this simple, guilty pleasure worth losing the battle he had strived to win for so many months? Was the release of his innermost self worth the walk down the paved road to hell that led to it?

“S-stop,” he panted almost painfully. Oh, but he really wished they would go on! But he mustn’t allow –

Yami blinked and found his two fellow Spirits standing up and hauling him to his feet. Twin devil smiles shone in the darkness – the same darkness that would hide them if other people had been passing by.

“Stubborn as ever, Pharaoh,” Bakura purred in Yami’s ears. “But don’t worry. Marik and I will soon have you back to your true self. And we will enjoy every minute of the challenge!”

Their feet barely touched the ground as they slipped in and out of the shadows. A twisted smile was pasted on Marik’s face, a cruel sneer on Bakura’s. Yami no Yugi was a completely blank slate. There was no way of knowing what he thought or felt. It was more dangerous than anything else.

The blood-covered trio crept into an alleyway and, faces shrouded in a thin sheet of darkness, broke open the side doorway of a building. There were four men sitting around a table lit by a single overhead lamp. They were all alike, with their expensive suits and silken ties, their balding heads and oily jowls. By the double doors on the other side of the room were two armed thugs with cruel scars crossing their faces. On the table were an attaché case full of yen bills and a small black box with three or four memory chips resting on orange velvet. On the side of the box was the logo of the Kaiba Corporation.

“Who are you three?” the fattest and ugliest of the four men demanded, getting to his feet with a glare.

Marik and Bakura began to chuckle darkly. The Tomb Robber licked his lips and advanced into the white light. His hand darted out and the knife was imbedded into the man’s chest. It all happened in less than a second. A thin trickle of blood came from his nose and Bakura licked it off the dead man’s face. “Darkness.”

It was like the breaking of a spell. The three remaining businessmen screamed and backed away from the table. The armed bodyguards started forward with a cry and more men flooded into the room. Confusion reigned.

Bakura launched into action and cracked one man’s skull with the hilt of his dagger. He slit another thug’s neck with the sharp edge and twisted the head right off. Marik was tackled by no less than five brawny thugs, but he merely laughed insanely and threw them off, spinning in a complete circle and sending them crashing to the walls. They were down in an instant. The bodyguards still continued to pour in and it looked impossible for them to be fought back. But Bakura grabbed at a long chain in the side of the room and wrapped it around the necks of three of the newcomers. Five more were thrown to the ground as Marik broke bones in their arms, their ribs, and even their spines.

By now, the remaining three oily-faced scoundrels were cowering together in a corner, clawing at the wall and blubbering incoherent prayers to the Christian god they did not even believe in. A shadow was suddenly cast over them and they all turned trembling, pasty faces up to see the Pharaoh’s blank stare.

“W-hat do you w-want?” one of them asked desperately. “Money? Take the briefcase!” The Pharaoh’s eyes never once left his. “More? Do you want more? Anything – just spare us!” His yellowing eyes bulged nearly out of their sockets as he tightly clutched the Spirit’s leather-clad calves.

Marik and Bakura had finished with all of the thugs and now stood on either side of their old sovereign. “You hear that, Yami?” Bakura said mockingly. “He’ll give you anything you ask.”

“Anything?” the voice that escaped Yami’s lips was hollow, emotionless. Without warning, his hand wrapped around the man’s fat-saturated neck and lifted him up with supernatural ease. The devil himself could not have smiled as the Pharaoh did jus then. Hell’s fires blazed in his eyes. “What I want is… your life.”

The King of Games used Marik’s knife to rip right through the businessman’s shirt and thrust deep into his heart. With a studied, inspired movement, he twisted the dagger in the man’s chest and made a gaping wound. He tossed the corpse aside and licked the life-giving fluid off the steel.

Two balls of Shadow Energy appeared in the Game King’s bloodied hands and suddenly the other two executives were nothing more than two piles of bones and slimy, slightly pulsating organs on the ground. A single hazel eyeball rolled to Yami’s feet.

Marik bent over the body of the Pharaoh’s first victim. With a peculiar glint in his eyes, he ripped out the dead man’s already-torn heart. “Just as you once did to that pig of a merchant in Thebes.”

Yami nodded, eyes shining as bright as the blood pooling on the floor. He moaned in delight as Bakura grabbed him by the hair and tilted his face up to the ceiling. The Assassin raised the still pulsating organ above his face and squeezed. Thick, hot blood flowed freely down onto Yami’s skin and he opened his mouth to lap up the drops. Eyes lighted with glee, the other two Spirits pressed closer to him and nuzzled and fondled his pliant body even as the blood flow came to a halt. Marik threw himself at his two accomplices and pinned their blood-soaked forms to the wall. In turn, he thoroughly ravished them, plundered their mouths with a terrible force. He crushed his lips to Yami’s so hard that there was no doubt that a bruise would form by the next morning. Bakura’s mouth was so thoroughly stretched that a thin line of blood was created in the center of his lower lip.

Ecstasy! Paradise of my dark soul!

They made their way down the now completely deserted streets of Domino City, past the familiar sights of the school where the hikaris went, past the Kaiba Corporation, past the pizzeria from earlier that evening. They were the only souls on the street and indeed, had anyone else been around, they would have screamed in horror at the sight the three yamis made.

They turned at the corner and onto the street where the Kame Game Shop stood. Not one person in sight.

Four strong arms wrapped around the crimson-eyed Spirit and sinuous voices whispered in his ears. They would help him rise completely out of his shell. They would give him all he desired. He was theirs just as they were his. Nothing else mattered. Eternity wouldn’t make way for anything less.

Yami nodded obligingly and stepped back from his two fellow Spirits. His posture was proud and erect as he led the way to the front door of the game shop.

The trio stepped into the light of the streetlamp just in front of the Kame Game Shop. But before the self-satisfied sovereign Spirit could even approach the doorway, it swung open before him.

A thin figure emerged from within, barely reaching the ex-Pharaoh’s shoulders, with wild tri-colored hair and large, disbelieving amethyst eyes.

The Pharaoh’s face lit up in a way that showed contentment and a tinged afterglow of his activities.

Yugi Motou’s hand slowly went up to touch his yami’s blood-streaked features. It was quite the poetic sight, like two sides of a warped and twisted mirror. Bewildered innocence staring up at the epitome of darkest sins. Just as it should be.

“Oh, God. Yami? What happened to you?”

Bakura and Marik stood back to admire their handiwork. They knew no greater delight than when their old liege lord lifted his head to the skies and let loose a dark, sadistic laugh. The Pharaoh was back – if not in full, then he was almost there.

I have returned. Never again will my true self be banished by light.