crossover from hell

[spoke]

Copyrights care of Takahashi Kazuki, and Sunrise, Inc. from my end at the moment.

But the smoking remains of my brain are all mine! ;p

The first thing he noticed when he opened his eyes was that his hands felt sore.

The second thing was that his shoes were getting soaked. He took in a deep breath and shook his head a bit before he even tried to move, and then he realized his hands were sore because he still had a death grip on the crystal. Hissing, he pried them loose and retrieved the crystal out of the water at his feet. He didn't catch himself licking the blood off his hand until he'd stood back up and started at the sight of his fingers an inch from his face. "Stop that!"

~You were going to get your hand clean how?~

It was laughing at him. He shoved the crystal into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. "Oh, I don't know, I'm standing in a pool of some sort - maybe I could just wash my hands!" Muttering, he wrapped his hand and pulled a knot in with his teeth - and let go slowly, as his mouth dropped open.

How had he not noticed a yellow sky? Yellow. With stars everywhere, more than he'd ever seen on the clearest nights at home. And there was a city in the distance below them, whose roofs matched the sky entirely too well, and rivers.. in fact, he was standing in the shallows of one. He ignored the spirit laughing at him as he stepped out of it and tried to shake some of the water off his shoes.

He ended up taking them off and wringing his socks out as well. By the time he started climbing down he could swear the voice would've been tapping its feet. Or his. Except that he wasn't about to let go control now. The way the place looked was tickling at his mind. There was something... not quite familair about it. But something. Like he'd read about it in a book or something, except he was fairly certain he'd never read of anything like this place.

***

Past maybe the third waterfall, Ryou saw his first spirit fly by. Playing a flute.

At which point he ducked back into a cave and he knew, he knew his eyes had gotten way too big but he didn't care. He peeked out and stared until he felt sure the thing had gone past, and then he checked his pulse. "Okay. That can't be a good sign, but I am still breathing. I am." And not taking deep breaths just to reassure himself of that fact, either. He pushed himself away from the wall and started climbing down again.

~What is your problem?~

"... I think I opened a gate to hell, is my problem!" Laughing. Stupid thing was laughing at him! He gritted his teeth and ignored it as he kept heading down. He was going to ignore it, he was and he was not -

~Yadonushi. Stop panicking! This is not hell, that would look like... well, I'm not sure what it would be like. But I would know if we were in hell and this isn't it.~

"Oh how would you know?!" He yelled. A pause as he felt it gloating, and considered how highly he ought to rate the stupidty of having said that. "...You would only know if we'd gone to an Egyptian hell!" He looked up as he heard footsteps. Really, very heavy footsteps. That sounded like metal. And ducked around some rocks to watch a rather large person in odd armor go by.

"Full body armor." He muttered to himself, peering up over the rocks as it went by. "Odd..."

***

~Where are you going?~

"How should I know?" He whispered, staring down at the... people moving around the boats. "It's not as if I've ever been here before. I just thought," he shrugged, pushing his hair back out of the way, "well, it is a city. Maybe I can find a person there to ask questions of."

~Not those things.~

"Well of course not! ...What do you mean, things?" He frowned. They looked like they were wearing armor...

~Not wearing it, yadonushi. I think they are the armor.~

Ducking back, he hissed, "What do you mean, they are the armor? There has to be something wearing it!" And now it felt like it was grinning. There were times he really wished the voice had its own body, just so that he could slap it.

~You think so? But I am the Ring, so to speak.~

"And I'm wearing you." He griped. Griped, didn't sulk and he wasn't going to. He reminded himself of that as he pushed off the rock he'd been resting against and started walking. There had to be some way inside and around the water...

***

"We have a problem." Ryou muttered.

~Oh, and it's we now?~

"I don't know how to get back, you know." Ignore it, he reminded himself. Don't let it goad you.

~Of course you don't. I told you, didn't I? Not to get in over your head.~

"Well if you had talked to me, instead of leaving me to find answers on my own!" Instead of using me to find things for you, instead of watching me put myself through this for kicks.

~Does it never occur to you that maybe I don't have your damned answers. Hmm, yadonushi?~

He could have screamed, if he hadn't been worried about the armored things. The arrogance of it, to be angry at him! As if "As if you've even told me half of what you know! As if I can't feel you constantly holding back things, while you go rummaging through my head whenever you feel like!" He was breathing too heavily, now. Glaring at nothing, because the damned voice was getting to him again.

~And I always will, won't I? Because you want me to know things, yadonushi...~

"No I d- I don't, don't you even try - " His head jerked up as he felt it, "No!"

~You're tired, yadonushi. We both know you are... why don't you let go, hmmm? Let go and let me find the way out.~

The Ring was glowing, gently. He shifted, looking down at the light - it hardly shown at all, nearly blended into the colors of thier surroundings. "I could do that."

~Yes. Why don't you then?~

Wary, curious. Waiting for his response. He swallowed. "I.. I don't want to sleep. I mean, I am tired and I - " he was gritting his teeth and it had to look awful, and it might have been a touch of hysteria that made him wonder what Yugi-tachi would think if they could see his expression, but. "I think you can use it better than I could, but I don't want to - to wake up not knowing what's happened, what you've been doing with my body. And... I don't even know if this is possible, with the Ring. But Yugi remembers what's happened when his other self is in control and."

He'd changed his mind. He didn't want the voice to have its own body, didn't want to see the expression that matched that horrible gloating laughter. ~Well now. I for one have no objection to trying that. Yadonushi.~

Watching him, still. Waiting. ~Go on, yadonushi. Let go.~ The softest, most whispering tone he could imagine it having. ~We both know you know how.~

***

He looked at his hand for a moment. The boy's hand. The bandage was stained a little, but not enough for more than a taste. He licked it anyway, to see if he'd react.

And laughed when he felt the stir of annoyance. "So it worked, did it?"

~I. Yes, I think so? You can hear me, right?~

Stupid yadonushi. "I'm responding to you, aren't I?" He stretched, pushing away from the wall the boy'd curled up against as he did so. And paused to stretch again, just to enjoy the feeling of it. Odd, though, how it felt as if he should be blushing. Was that his host's emotion?

~Do I? Did you just?~

He chuckled as he made his way out of the cave and down amoung the boats. The shadows here felt odd, difficult to manipulate, but he could manage not being seen by those lumbering things. And that was enough to work on, while he waited for the boy to figure out what he wanted to ask.

~I feel like. I have no idea how I feel. Except distant. Does it always feel like this?~

"Do you want to know something, yadonushi?" He asked, amused. Half amused and half annoyed and mostly not caring at all. "You have the most amazing talent for asking questions I don't know how to answer!" Not the boats, he decided. Too dangerous, the way the stupid things kept inspecting them.

Then he noticed the horses. And yadonushi definetly felt that grin.

~Ohh no. No, I don't know how to ride horses you know!~

"It's a horse. What is it going to do, eat you?" He laughed again as he started working his way towards them. One of the horses, and he wouldn't have to worry about walking wherever the Ring directed them to go. "How can you not know how to ride?"

~I don't really like horses, thank you. They're big, and clumsy, and they don't listen to me and ~

"Yadonushi? You're an idiot." He ducked around an armored thing and looked at the horses. Damned strange colored horses, but otherwise not so different. "They're beautiful, strong and a whole hell of a lot faster than you or me." And he would have laughed at the feeling of yadonushi staring open-mouthed, if he hadn't been coaxing the horse he'd chosen to come away from the others without making a fuss.

***
~Well?~

He was... hovering. It was a rather strange feeling, as if the boy were just about to reach out and touch him. Which thought made him smirk as he scratched the horse's neck. "It looks like we're going into the castle." He looked up. "And I don't think we can wait for nightfall. We don't even know this place has a night." He turned the horse around and started back down to the gates. If he waited for a large enough group, and drew the shadows in tightly enough...

Risky. But there wasn't any other option.

~You're doing it again.~

What? "What now?"

~You felt ...I keep feeling an emotion from you, or emotions, that are different.~

"Different how, yadonushi?" Shit. Don't want him thinking I can't tell what he feels. Just can't tell what he means, is all. Stupid yadonushi... "if you want answers, you're going to have to be more specific." Ha, and didn't that annoy him. "Why don't you tell me how I feel, hmmm? Tell me how it feels to you."

One thought so soft he almost missed it. ~The way you do?~ And then, louder. Although not by much. And almost stuttering-hesitant. ~Good. It feels like you feel good.~

He was not going to scream at the boy. He was not going to get caught by these thing because he'd picked a damn fool for a host. But he'd damned well better be feeling how pissed off he'd just made him. "I told you that. At the fucking beginning, yadonushi. The Ra-damned start of all of this!"

Silence. Nothing but silence, and cold. If the little bastard had any clue how had hard it was to hear him when he did that, they would never have been able to talk.

Comments

[shusu.livejournal.com]

Whhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

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