Marik hates the Pharaoh so much he could just kill him. Character death.

Rating: T
Genre: Oh my god, I hate the limited genre section on .
Disclaimer: I don't own it; not according to this legal system.
Warnings: Death death death. And one swearword.

A/N: I wrote this some time ago, before the Abridged Series warmed me towards Yuugi. Poor boy. This is probably the closest to canon I will ever get. Guess what korosu means?

殺す( ko · ro · su )

The night was his. When it was dark, when the moonlight lay sullenly in slivers on the floor, he alone stalked the halls. There were things you couldn't see in the night. Things you could only sense. He was one of them.

At night he felt alive. Thoughts slipped in his mind, through his fingers. He laughed involuntarily. It made him clutch his stomach and bend over, howling. The sound bounced off the walls.

And it was times like these (every night) he would stop and think, What's stopping me from killing the Pharaoh?

Tonight, as always, he asked himself, What's stopping me from killing the Pharaoh?

And he shivered in delight when a voice coldly answered, Nothing.

Usually he loved nothing more than to hear the sound of himself filling the halls, the measured footsteps. But tonight he became silent. A ghost. He was like a ghost, wasn't he? Or he had been. Yes, a ghost. A ghost without a body for so long, until now.

The child was asleep, his golden bangs forming a halo around his face. So innocent, so unaware of his fate. The Puzzle was hooked onto a bedpost, slowly spinning about in the invisible wind. Tch. Far too easy. He stretched his arm out and quietly removed it. Yuugi whimpered quietly.

And he wrapped his slim fingers around gold.

Suddenly the Pharaoh bolted upright in the bed. "Marik!"

Lazy plum eyes met flashing crimson. Marik delicately covered a yawn with his free hand.

"Look, Pharaoh." The voice of indulgence. Marik leaned forward, and unconsciously the Pharaoh leaned back. "I've played your childish card games for long enough. And as much as I love to say that I'll be the victor, I'd say we're pretty even, wouldn't you?"

"You'll never get away with this," the Pharaoh hissed.

"Yes, yes, you keep telling me that." Marik rolled his eyes. "Just shut up and agree with me."

"Goodness will always prevail over the forces of darkn-!"

"All I heard was that yes, we are even. But listen, dear Pharaoh, there's one thing I can do, that you can't."

"Ruin others' lives, you insane bastard?" the Pharaoh hissed. Even he had seemed to have tired of his good versus evil rhetoric.

"Such language! Well, that is part of it." Marik laughed. "Have your little Puzzle back, Pharaoh. I tire of this."

The Pharaoh caught the Puzzle with both hands, and quickly hung the chain around his neck. He was just about to look up and give Marik a suspicious scowl when he suddenly felt icy metal in his heart.

The ice began to burn like a thousand fires.

His eyes almost rolled into the back of his head at the agony, as it spread from his heart into each point of his body.

"Oh, but you are predictable," Marik hummed. He wrenched the blade of the Millennium Rod out of Yuugi's chest. Then he yanked the Puzzle back from him, causing his head to jerk forwards and bang against the golden pyramid, before his entire body slumped forwards. A bloody red rose blossomed across the blue coverlet.

Marik looked upon the tiny body, the corners of his mouth twisted like the ends of a wrapped sweet. There was no laughter now – he wanted to enjoy the moment in quiet. Yuugi was still twitching imperceptibly. If you listened close enough, you could even hear the soft ragged gasps that preceded death.

Oh, he knew he was delaying the inevitable. Yuugi was dead, yes, but the Pharaoh's spirit was still inside the Puzzle. But he'd deal with that later. There was nothing quite so satisfying as, ah, solving a problem, and besides, he was sure the idiot Pharaoh would be absolutely devastated at the loss of his aibou. Crushed, defeated, a broken man.

Wouldn't be much of a challenge. He almost regretted killing the host.

A/N: I took some liberties… Hey Takahashi, what happened to all that psychpaths on their killing rampages. You replaced them with card games. For shame!