(A/N: Written for an LJ community where you pair a character of choice (Kaiba Seto) with ten other characters. This is for Yami no Malik.)

Kaiba Seto does not have patience.

Kaiba Seto, when confronted with a matter that is taking too long for his liking, loses his temper.

Kaiba Seto does not forgive.

But one thing he could, would wait for was power. If it was not immediately available, it could be made so. It was being made so now; objects and spells and items and all things were slowly coming together. Slowly, certainly, but coming together. That part was what mattered, the progress.

That achingly slow progress was not unlike the lurching towards the end of the half-dead world, in the city whose name was slowly being forgotten as its population dipped closer to nothing. Nothing was everything; nothing was where the new world would start. His world.

Kaiba Seto, becoming God, knew patience.

---

"We're still looking for the same thing? A perfect one.” A scoffing sound. “Brother, we won't find any." Yami no Malik grinned at Malik over his shoulder, stepping lightly through the rubble in a different section of town from the one they'd been exploring yesterday.

Malik sounded weary; he huddled in a large oilcoat and replied with only marginal exasperation, "We aren't brothers." He'd give anything to be finished with this if only so he'd be welcome to stop spending his days with Yami no Malik. He didn't even care, at this point, if he'd have to lick Kaiba Seto's fucking boots as long as he'd have some peace from this creature. (Well, and he did care, but his mood was foul enough to betray him.)

"You say that every day, but it does not change--"

"Yes, I know." Malik snapped irritably, "We're still looking for bomb shards." That was all. That was it.

Yami no Malik smirked. "Bodies"

"... What?" Malik finally looked up to him, his gaze suspicious.

"That's what we're really supposed to find." Yami no Malik grinned again; the expression was awesomely gruesome with skin covering only half of his skull. "He thought you were too squeamish to know."

Malik stiffened. "They did, or you?"

"You cried when you first crawled out of God's bed." Yami no Malik's tone was accusing, knowing -- he was only out to win the argument, and there was no sympathy in his words.

"You've never been forced!" Malik snarled; Yami no Malik had no form at night, he couldn't possibly understand how revolting that man was, "He's like ice!"

Yami no Malik's grin crept back, the expression secretive. "I did last night."

Malik blanched before he stumbled to false confidence, "Impossible. You dissipate."

"I had enough will to drive a knife through his hand." Yami no Malik said delicately, though the words masked a pure venom Malik could feel in his own blood.

"... You never said."

"Secrets, brother, secrets. You have yours and I have mine"

Malik's mind wandered to the days he'd spent in the rooms in the basement, the one that smelled of old poison and the one where Ryou Bakura now lived (the only room where God did not dare to tread); he changed the subject, "God said bomb shards."

"The left said bodies." As if that statement was enough to complete the argument, Yami no Malik moved on, continuing his haunting song from the previous day. Malik shook his head and tugged the hood of the coat back over his head as the rain started up again; he wasn't about to disobey the direct orders he'd received (much as it irked him to submit to them) but Yami no Malik... and Yami no Bakura... he didn't trust either of them, but he trusted Yami no Bakura the least.

Which meant that Yami no Malik was likely telling the truth.

They were both surprised, some time later, when a man stumbled out of an alley they were walking past. The man was short, half the hair sheared off his head, and foaming at the mouth – clearly mad. He went for Malik, clutching at his jacket's collar and babbling, “Are you from the tower? You people are, you both are!” He caught sight of Yami no Malik's face, half bone, and shied away somewhat, though without loosening his grip on Malik's front. He cried out loudly, angrily, “Demon! Demon!” He turned back to Malik, seeming desperate even as the Egyptian shoved him backwards, “Bring us light! Saviours, harbringers! We want our future returned to us! Where is my son? Oh let him live in your oasis!”

He went on, now speaking only to the air and the building in the distance where Seto's headquarter's were, which the man kept referring to as the tower. Yami no Malik wandered away from him, though not far, no longer singing and with an irritated expression on his face. Malik watched him warily, eventually asking, “What are you doing?”

Yami no Malik had stooped and chosen a palm-sized chunk of concrete from the ground, now rising with it clutched in his hand. He grinned in that same disturbing way as he had previously and walked back over to the man without answering Malik. He kicked the man in the knee and then the ankle, causing him to scream and then fall over, writhing and still screaming about Yami no Malik being a demon. The man was not unlike an insect, Malik reflected, annoying and more than useless. There weren't even flies left in the city to rot the bodies of the dead.

Yami no Malik placed on hand in the man's mouth and raised the bit of concrete over his head with the other. Malik turned his head as Yami no Malik brought the concrete down in a swift striking motion. Out of the corner of his eye, though, he saw the man's legs spasm, then twitch, then, after another sickening splat of concrete against wetness, go still. The rain, now falling more heavily, made it so the blood ran and pooled around Malik's boots not unlike a stream might; he looked up at the darkening sky, and sighed again. “You expect me to carry it, don't you?”

Yami no Malik's laughter was as disturbing as it ever was, “Squeamish, brother?”