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), Body Modification (B-Mod) - attempted, Bondage (Bond) – sort of, Dominance/submission (D/s), Sadism/Masochism (S&M), Torture (Tort)

Pairings:
YYxYBxYM (yamishipping)

Author's Notes:
1. The entire dark fog atmosphere just got weirder. We're now leaving the real world and hitting the, er, black hole that is the Shadow Realm
2. Since no one complained about the prolonged sex scene in the last chapter, I assume it's perfectly fine with you all. For this installation, though, I can't say there's any of that. It's a bit more of a chase sequence tonight, mates.
3. I don't know why I'm saying this, but I do wish you would all try guessing the ending – or at least, what will happen after Yami's last thoughts in the chapters. I DO care about what you think.
4. Oh, and Dances of Seduction will be updated again next week.

That's all for now, my dear readers. Please, do leave a review after reading. Even if it is only to reprimand me for my overuse of knifing scenes.

Some people really ought to stop being greedy, don't you think so?

03. Greed

What man knows as 'darkness' is only an ambiguous term to describe what he believes is hard to understand, mystical, strange, or inexplicable.

It is human nature to do either of two things: to destroy that 'darkness' which he does not understand so that it no longer troubles him, or to learn more about it in hopes of controlling it and harnessing it's powers for his own use. Centuries of endless strife and bloodshed are testament to this. How many times have you looked into big, heavy history tomes and shoved them away in annoyance or disgust – or maybe repulsion? Man's entire history is riddled with murders and massacres, tortures and persecution!

What little good remains in humanity is lost on those in the throes of a passion renamed insanity. Man spits on the tyrant but is angered when he himself is called one such. It is because he does not see past the end of his nose and reality is often vague even to the most intelligent of men. Morals, man claims, governs his every step. Has ever a person been condemned only for his actions, and not the ruthlessness of its execution?

But what prompts man – tyrant – dictator – to commit these so-called heinous acts? What leads him to do what is hard to understand, inexplicably strange, and even bordering on the mystical? There are many great leaders who started out with good intentions, but in the end became monstrous and inhumane. Did they ever have little hikaris to guide them onto the right path? Or were they pure dark beings, the yamis that cropped up to gain temporary dominion over this world?

There are many facets of darkness, each with its own little niche in the eternal inferno that is the Biblical Hell. There, the devils, as is preached in the chapels, mosques, temples, and synagogues, are all waiting to torment the souls of the misled and the sinful.

But what could they possibly do to one whose soul is eternally bound to the land of the living? Like Yami no Yugi's, perhaps.

The Pharaoh looked upon the dark expanse in front of him, reveling in that same darkness behind him, above him, below him, and certainly, within him.

In the very heart of the Shadow Realm, the terrifying calm that was the eye of the most fearful and terrifying storm of all the dimensions, a solid gold palace had come into existence. Walls of gold, gilded doors, furniture of what glittered and gleamed. But then, the sickening twist to it all – peering closely at the gleaming surfaces, ignoring the marvelously painted browns and blues and greens of the hieroglyphics, one could just see the outline of human bones, the reddish tinge of once-flowing blood.

Yami no Yugi was alone – for now. The Pharaoh sat on a golden throne atop a raised stone dais. He lifted his hand in the silence and calm, a single gesture to give life to a ghostly orchestra where no musicians played, but the enticing woodwind and percussion instruments were heard throughout the hall. A slight narrowing of the eyes and the thick, spicy and sweet scent of incense filled the air. Perfection. It was night in the Pharaoh's old Egyptian court, without the annoyances of the actual people bustling about.

It was the work of pure illusory mind power, nothing more, nothing less.

Yami relaxed his body and allowed himself to simply bask in the pure bliss of his little world. Eventually, he looked down at his body. He flexed his boot-covered feet and admired the iron cuffs at his wrists. Leather. The material was rich and thick, but clung tightly to his body like a secondary skin. The sleeveless black shirt he wore had a low V-cut that went all the way down, just above his navel. Two wide black belts crossed his pants just above his groin. The knife the Assassin had created for him, he toyed with in one hand, idly glancing at his tiny reflections in the rubies and onyxes. He raised a finger to his collared neck, deliberately pricking the digit on one needle-sharp spike. He smeared the resulting droplet on his lips, turning them a bright, luminous crimson shade, then licked it up with his tongue.

The taste of his own lifeblood was like ambrosia, a melding of sweet, spicy, sour, salty, and bitter that was just too impossible not to drown in. Blood had always fascinated him, back in the long-gone days of his past, when he had been both a just and fearsome lord. It was an aphrodisiac that never failed to ignite his passion for more of its own kind.

He stood up and stretched, easily tucking the dagger into his left boot. He could feel their presence, but for some reason, he was still alone. They seemed to be enjoying themselves watching – for he knew they were watching – him wandering around on his own. Well, he would let them have their fun. The darkness and silence was simply too divine to disrupt.

On and on Yami walked reading the hieroglyphics and hieratic script with the ease of one who had studied them an entire lifetime – or been alive in the time they had been the recognized written language. It was his life story, told as no other had ever told it before.

Written from the eyes of the only still-living beings that had ever truly known and hated him in that era, the walls told a tale of an evil, merciless bastard who had destroyed everything meaningful to them. There were the wars, the bloodshed, the massacres of thousands that went on and on in Atemu's reign when they should have ended in his father's. It told the story of an arrogant princeling who grew up to be a harsh but somewhat fair ruler. It told of a sovereign who never noted what he considered to be trivial daily matters. It told the story of the deception, the sickening twisting of facts and fiction that led to the sealing in the Millennium Items in that ultimate battle for power 3000 years ago. This was just a summary of all –

Lies and more lies… How childish can they be made by the millennia?

A summary of everything that had happened over 3000 years ago. Corrupted, but a summary, nonetheless.

By the time the Pharaoh had gotten close to the end of the long hallway, he was reading something else. It was like the two devils had decided to play with him. It was the story of the night before, altered to seem like it had happened in the distant past. Or perhaps it had. It seemed centuries ago since Yami had tried to emulate goodness and – thanks to some timely intervention – failed.

He chuckled darkly at the sight of the oasis that supposedly symbolized the park where it had all come to a head. If he hadn't been so suspicious of the pair at the time, he would have been able to appreciate the pains they had taken to engineer the situation so masterfully. Never before had he met two individuals who could so accurately calculate his movements, his rapid turns of mind. The ancient lord walked on, one hand tracing the drawings, keenly aware that it was blood and bones that lay beneath the gleaming surfaces. He gazed upon the massacre of the seedy old men, marveling at how they were here transformed into thieving merchant princes. He broke off, suddenly wondering if Seto had ever retrieved those memory chips, if anyone had ever discovered what had transpired in that back room. And Yugi, little Yugi, certainly he fared well, with all his friends to comfort and reassure him.

At the end of the hall, there was a tall door. It closely resembled the entrance of the Soul-rooms, but it was made of plain gray stone – not gold. It stood out like a bleached, discolored patch on an otherwise immaculate golden tunic. Yami no Yugi approached it, tracing the minute crevices in the surface. Everything he touched, ever since the revival of his true self, had become more rough or smooth, sharp or blunted. It was as if his time as the benevolent Spirit had been spent with glove-covered hands. As he reached up to touch the engraved Eye of Horus, the doorway gave a shudder and began to rise off the ground.

Mirrors. He walked into a hallway full of tall brass mirrors. There was a source of light coming from somewhere in the passage, but whatever it was, it was vague and elusive. So instead, the Shadow Lord walked on. He could no longer sense his two companions' presence. The polished surfaces that surrounded him provided a sort of lightweight blanket to hide the other Spirits' auras.

Everywhere Yami looked, it was his own face that he saw. Nothing but his own blood-colored orbs, his own gold streaked hair, his own slender but muscled limbs and neck. Everything in tones of sepia. A smirk crossed his features.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," he murmured in a darkly playful voice. "I know you are in here somewhere, so conceal yourselves no longer." A dark shadow appeared behind him and he whirled in time to block the deadly blade about to strike down on his spine. "Or I myself will hunt you down."

The Assassin smiled demonically and wrapped his free arm around the waist of the Pharaoh. In his dark violet clothing and swishing black cloak, Yami was reminded of the hunters on the banks of the Nile so long ago. "You've returned then, my god-king?"

"If only to hear your pain-filled cries," Yami leaned close and whispered, "certainly." His grip on the larger Spirit's wrist tightened, and he plunged Marik's weapon right into the tanned one's stomach. The blade sank in less than a centimeter from his liver.

"Anubis!" cried the Death Bringer, carefully wrenching out the blade with a slow, sickening squelch. This was a wound that would not easily heal, no matter how strong the Shadow Powers that one did possess.

The King of Games laughed harshly as he was suddenly pinned to the wall, malevolent, lunacy-filled lavender pools threatening to drown him where he stood. A forceful tongue drove right into his throat. Incisor-sharp canines tore at his lips. Moans and groans reverberated in the stillness as the Assassin probed and did battle with his old lord. A dagger plunged itself into Yami's ribcage, barely missing his left lung.

The Pharaoh breathed heavily, gripping the knife's hilt and attempting to fight the platinum-haired Killer for possession of the weapon. What was pain to either of them, when they could heal most wounds in less than a second? What was the spit-second agony of a stab compared to the surge of euphoric pleasure that followed? It was nothing, and yet it was everything.

The game continued as they raced down the passageway. Yami no Malik's face was lighted up by a sudden malevolent sneer. The Pharaoh could see the beginning of a plan in his lust-darkened eyes.

He had marked the Death Bringer. He had marked both the Death Bringer and the Thief King as his possessions. The reason for the palace's creation could be made no clearer. They wanted to do to him what he had done to them. They would have him for their trophy as he had taken them for his.

It is the hunt for the golden stag that cannot be caught.

Yami laughed throatily and focused his energies. He healed himself even as he ran, then created a narrow passage within the left wall. In a sanctuary brought forth by the mind, he was in his element. The King of Games had soon made for himself a grand mirror maze, one of which not even he knew the ending. He smirked at the raging Assassin as the passage closed up behind him. It would take much ingenuity for the platinum blond Spirit to find him now.

The Thief, however, was another matter entirely. The wily Robber of the pyramids was far craftier than the Assassin, whose powers lay in simply that – his sheer physical force to overcome his foes. The Thief relied on trickery in order to achieve his goals.

Right now, Yami was certain, as he flew down the shifting corridors, Yami no Bakura's goal was him.

Looking in one of the mirrors, the Pharaoh smiled at his own genius. He had created the maze to match the turns of his mind. As long as he kept his thoughts in motion, the maze would shift. Every time the Assassin tried to move down a hall, the rest of the passages would change, making it impossible to retrace his steps. The only ways out were the exits and entrances – and of course, subduing the Pharaoh himself. All of which were impossible to achieve.

As one of the Game King's hands began to trail across the polished surfaces, a knife flew out of nowhere and imbedded itself on the back of his palm. Uttering a hiss of pain, he tried to whirl around without ripping his hand muscles apart. The blade was impaled too deeply in the metal surface and even he could not just pull it out.

"Where are you?" Yami bellowed, craning his neck as far as he dared, at the same time yanking hard on the knife. It was in vain, for his strength was far from enough.

A familiar tanned arm slid around his waist and a thick, though not wholly unpleasant mixture of musk and sweat filled his nostrils. The grip was one tight enough to crush his ribs if it were so desired. The Assassin's deep chuckling filled the air and a warm, wet tongue traced the shell of his ear. In the mirror, Yami could see his captor's eyes shining with triumph. His hand was beginning to turn numb. Again, he tried to budge the dagger from the wall.

"No use, my Pharaoh," Marik said huskily, nuzzling on the smaller man's neck. How could he have healed himself so fast? Or was he just good at concealing his agony? "Once the Thief arrives, we shall return the favor you have so graciously granted unto us." His hand touched the hilt of his dagger suggestively.

It was that gesture that incensed the Pharaoh. They were greedy, he thought. Greedy, greedy little devils. How much more proof of his approval could they possibly want? How much more must he do to prove to them that he was back, as he had been 3000 years ago? They could not accept their place – the ungrateful scoundrels! He had marked them; therefore, they belonged to him! It could never be the other way around. He had been born a prince and crowned a god-king, while their lot had been that of commoners who had risen to infamy. They had no right, seeking to rise above their station! The stag had turned into a lion. The Pharaoh would not be tamed. It was he who would tame.

In a burst of energy, he threw off the Assassin and sent his energy into the mirrored wall in front of him. It dissolved into nothing and he immediately pulled the knife back out through his wrist. He cloaked himself in the darkest of shadows and disappeared further into the maze. His hand, he had no time to heal, though blood was still flowing freely from the open wound and falling to the floor. It formed puddles and left a trail, but that mattered not. The maze was created to be ever-changing, and this now held true for the floors as well. The bricks subtly began to shift and turn in on themselves as the Shadow Lord ran on.

Yami willed the exit to come into existence before him, and suddenly, a hole appeared in the floor. He jumped right into it and plunged into complete darkness.

He was standing on nothing. There was no sense of being upright or the wrong side up. This chamber was also a creation of the mind, that was certain, but it was more complex than the one he had been in previously. The Pharaoh swam forward in darkness too black for even his practiced eyes to see in. Even the rest of the Shadow Realm had more illumination. No sound could be heard, not even the beating of his own heart. In the mortal world, this place would be impossible to simulate. A soundproof room would have that steady, long beep that one hears in the absence of other real noises and even in the darkest of rooms, there was still the faint outline of figures. Here, there was no beeping. Here, there was not even an indistinct shape, no matter how closely Yami held his fingers to his face.

A perverse smile slid onto his lips.

To break me, you must find me.

He moved about further, soft currents of energy curling in wisps around his body. He felt alone, yet knew that was not the case. The Thief was there somewhere, biding his time, waiting for Yami to make that one wrong move that would enable him to strike.

Cautiously, the Pharaoh slid his knife out of his boot, curling his fingers tightly around the golden hilt. He concentrated a thread of Shadow Energy to repair the damage done to his hand. The process had to be gradual. The Tomb Robber could approach at any moment and he could not be wholly preoccupied.

"You cannot successfully take what you cannot see," he taunted into the void. He would set the stage at his own pace, not the Thief's.

Perfectly timed. A blade clashed with his knife in a steely hiss. There were no echoes. Just the pure, magnified sound of steel against steel. It was delicious, and even the slight burning pain in his semi-healed hand was not enough to dampen his pleasure. He could feel the soft tendrils of the Tomb Robber's hair close to his face, the warm breath that smelled of blood. On impulse, he willed light to exist in the room.

Ironic, how hikari still played its part in that grisly game they played.

A single globe of reddish light spun into existence, whirling faster and faster to grow and create a dome of energy just large enough for the two Spirits to clash unhindered within.

In the lighting, the Thief's hair appeared pinkish, some faded shade of red and his skin like the flesh of newborn child. It was a perfectly grotesque image of an overgrown demon child.

"Isn't this fun?" Bakura smirked, one sharp-pointed hand flashing out and grabbing Yami by the hair. He bit down lightly on the Pharaoh's chin and pulled out his blade.

Yami hissed pleasurably like the masochist he was and turned his head this way and that to all the more feel the throbbing pain of the Thief's hold, to embed still further those incisor-sharp nails. A fiendish light shone in his eyes as the Thief drew close.

"I don't know what you've done to the Assassin," the Tomb Robber whispered in Yami's ear, "but he will be here soon, and I don't believe there will be any esca – A-ack!"

He hadn't seen Yami's blade rising up behind him. The blunted top of the knife hilt came crashing down on the base of his neck and he coughed up blood onto Yami's shoulder. It was all the leverage the Pharaoh needed to break out of his hold. The reddish light vanished and all plunged into darkness once more.

The Game King had been right to presume that the Thief would be crafty in creating a chamber. There was no matter for Yami to manipulate; he would have to recreate the entire room from scratch if he wanted another maze. That would mean more time for the Thief to secure him – and for the Assassin to arrive at the scene.

Just as Yami began concentrating his energies on completely shrouding himself in the shadows, there was a sharp prickling at his spine. He uttered a low cry. Sharp nails pierced into his shoulders and a leg wrapped itself around his abdomen. Bakura had found him. In the darkness and silence, the albino Spirit had found his quarry and latched onto it like a starved panther.

"Give up now, Pharaoh," the Thief whispered in a singsong voice. "You know the old Eastern saying about karma, do you not?"

Amusement bubbled to the surface as the crimson-eyed Spirit feigned relaxation. The nerve of the Thief! He was as greedy and impudent as a child in a modern-day toy store. It was wrong, the dark dominant side in Yami's mind was screaming and laughing at the same time. To Marik, he would hesitantly relinquish dominance and control, but the Thief, so long the bane of his existence, now turned into an exotically beautiful companion in his continued lifetime, he would claim ownership of. It was such an absolutely delicious concept that the Pharaoh laughed aloud.

What exists and what could be are two different things.

Bakura was not pleased by the reaction. "What is so amusing?"

Instead of replying, Yami sent his knife slicing down into the Tomb Robber's leg. Even in the darkness, he felt he could see the droplets of blood flying through the air.

Just before they could completely separate, the Thief King managed to plunge his knife into Yami's back, almost grazing his heart.

The Pharaoh summoned forth the red light again and pulled the Thief's dagger out immediately. Another wound he would have to heal, but there was little time for that. The cut in his hand was starting to open up again. Launching himself at his albino possession swiftly, he bit those pale lips and planted a coppery-tasting kiss. Even as the Thief was moaning from the intimacy of the contact, Yami wrapped himself up in the shadows completely and willed himself out of the room –

And was suddenly sucked up and away as if in a vacuum, careen through the air like a fish being reeled in by a line, struggling with all his might and at the same time doing his best to ignore the throbbing pain from his bleeding wounds.

As abruptly as it had begun, the winding currents of air and energy came to a halt.

Yami landed on smooth and silky cloth. He blinked rapidly to accustom himself to the candlelight surrounding him. He was lying on loosely crisscrossing strips of silk suspended over a hundred meters off the ground. The walls around him were circular, and there was a closed door at the far end, just at his eye-level. If he could crawl to it, he could get out of the chamber. He had to be cautious. It would be embarrassing if the Thief and Assassin caught him in such a place, but it would also be dangerous if he made haste. Even with his powers, it would be impossible to heal himself immediately if all his bones broke on the ground far below – if he could still heal himself at all. Eternity in a crippled form was not what he had planned.

He tried to lift his head.

He could hardly budge. His head refused to move off the cloth on which it lay. His arms and legs were likewise rooted to the spot. The room was a huge spider web!

"How do you like our web, Pharaoh?" the Thief's voice came from somewhere to his left. Yami struggled to crane his head in the direction of the sound. He would not be ridiculed and toyed with!

Suddenly, both the Assassin and Thief were hovering in the air above him, twin sneers of victory on their faces. Marik reached down to cup the Shadow Lord's chin, tracing the contours of his cheekbone with his thumb. The Thief settled himself on Yami's stomach, chuckling darkly.

"Like the unwitting fly," the Killer whispered, brushing Yami's bangs aside almost… fondly. "You've been snared in our trap and we won't be letting you go any time soon. You are ours for eternity."

Yami growled low in his throat. Never and never, a thousand times never! He was the Pharaoh and he would belong to no one. Looking at the Assassin straight in the face, he narrowed his eyes. He would not give up willingly. He'd done too much of that already.

"You may have marked us," Bakura was saying, "but that can mean something else, dear Pharaoh. It could give us a hold over you, give us full right to do to you as we will." He stretched himself fully over his sovereign and licked his way up from the god-king's throat to his chin. He bit on Yami's lips teasingly… almost affectionately. "Did you ever think about that?"

When the Game King did not respond, the two devilish Spirits chuckled. "He is too overwhelmed to speak, perhaps?" The Assassin came to hover just above the web directly to Yami's left, resting his head on one elbow. From his position pinned between the web and the smug albino Thief, Yami could clearly see the still-healing wound just to the side of Marik's stomach. He marveled at the Death Bringer's capacity to withstand the burning pain despite the strains of his activities.

"You really mean to mark me as yours?" the Pharaoh asked, his tone scoffing. "To mark a child of Osiris as your possession?"

There was something different about the web now, Yami realized. Marik was slowly lowering himself onto the silk and the Thief's hand was resting on the strip just beside Yami's head. Discretely, the Shadow Lord began to flex his right hand. Yes. His persistent companions had dissolved the energy embedded in the cloth, thinking he would not notice. The King of Games stayed still. He would let them think they had won – for now.

He who is worthy may seize the prize of his choosing – if he should be so blessed by the gods.

Bakura shifted off Yami's chest and the ice-cold blade of Marik's knife took his place. The Assassin looked at Yami challengingly. If the Pharaoh moved, now would be the perfect time to slice out his guts and twist his organs beyond repair, his eyes were saying. A shredded, shriveled mass of redness could be the remains of the Game King's heart; a lump of knobby, slippery tubes could be all that was left of his intestines. Such a clear message the tip of the blade conveyed.

And yet, the very idea of it was so alluring and so playfully imparted that a smile could not help but creep onto Yami's face. He would give them what they wanted. If only to feel more of that strange, bubbling feeling that spread throughout his body and heightened his senses, he would let them have what they desired – at a price. "Do what you will, but let me see something first…" The identical question in eyes of lavender and mahogany only made his twisted grin widen. "The color of your blood!"

The Pharaoh's hand rose up with his knife and suddenly made a deep cut horizontally across Marik's face, just below his eyes. His tongue darted out to lap at the liquid, amidst mingled hisses and moans. The Thief was suddenly underneath his liege lord and his ripped shirt went fluttering slowly to the ground far below. Nip, kiss. Nip, kiss. The pattern went on and on as Yami savagely bit into the expanse of pale skin, creating small wounds with his teeth, all of which he hastened to lick clean. A yank of the head and Marik's bloody face crushed into his, the sensation of his tongue plundering his cavern incomparable to the feeling of blood flowing from a living fountain straight onto the contours of his face. The Assassin shifted, struggled out of the dark vest that covered his torso, and began attacking the Thief's mouth in a manner born of the most primitive of man's instincts. So enthralled and bemused was Yami that he almost did not feel the slow ripping of his clothes and the excruciating pain that shot through his arm as he was twisted onto his back. He was completely consumed by the avaricious way his companions began devouring his body with their insatiable lips.

Brutal and completely primal, the age-old ritual of possession. Teeth bit in and mouths sucked on the flesh between his shoulder blades and near his ass. Then came the knives. For the second time in mere hours – or was it eons ago now? – the deliriously exhilarating sensation of two deathly-sharp points slowly piercing into his back spread throughout his whole body. He could feel the steady flow of combined energy channeling through the blades and onto his skin. It was a slightly different spell from the one he had used before, but the sheer power it carried almost guaranteed it was as effective.

The pain flared and spread in wild currents across the expanse of his back, lightly brushing against his spine. The paralysis was momentary, and although his left arm was suddenly immobile, slight concentration and healing made everything right once more. The daggers twisted off in different directions, beginning the mark from two opposite points. It would not be sealed to his body completely until the lines finally met in the last, central carving. The moment when the binding symbol would be completed was near at hand and Yami could not squash the anticipation. A new emotion was really bubbling to the surface, but it was so obscure and foreign that he partially refused to recognize it.

Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light behind the trio. The spell that had settled over them was broken. All eyes turned to the wide, columned doorway in the wall. The figure in the center was as familiar as it was unwelcome just then.

"What are you doing here?" Bakura snarled. The unfinished mark on Yami's back was quickly fading and healing. The magic could not continue now that the contact had been broken. The Pharaoh himself would have let loose a wail of loss if he had the strength.

The Game King noted the momentary flash of confusion and surprise in the eyes of one he was gradually coming to consider a friend. He was not quite the same person as the one he had been in the past, but his qualities had been preserved, and that, Yami valued greatly.

"A better question," Seto Kaiba replied coolly, eyeing not only the Thief, but the Assassin as well, "is what you two think you are doing. And why, of all things, does it look like the one who calls himself Pharaoh makes no attempt to escape?"

Question but little, o ye of guarded secrets; you come to no good by your bold and shameless prying.