Notes: This has certainly been an interesting, different sort of venture. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed or who has read quietly without reviewing! I have more projects in mind for each of these fandoms, so please stay tuned.

Epilogue

Kolchak stepped away from the telephone pole, his tape recorder still in his hand. The street had been perfectly quiet since Yami Marik's banishment, but people would be waking up soon. Kolchak had no intention of being around when they did.

"The police will be relieved to know that Yami Marik's reign of terror is over, although it's highly unlikely that they'll believe how it happened. I can only hope that Yami Marik will stay trapped in the Shadow Realm this time. Ishizu isn't sure how he's managed to escape in the past, which isn't encouraging in the least.

"She says she'll be leaving Chicago soon, moving on to the next city with her exhibit—which includes the staff that started our troubles. However, she intends first of all to detour to Domino City and find out once and for all what's going on there with her brothers. I wonder myself. Hopefully there will be a simple and non-worrisome explanation.

"As she mentioned, she was at the hospital with me a few days ago. It was in the illusion of Yami Marik's that no one remembered her and that I found that she didn't remember being there. I had started to suspect that was the case, but it was good to hear it directly from her."

His eyes narrowed. "I said the terror was over, but that's only partially true. Everyone Yami Marik seemed to have killed, aside from Tony, Updyke, and Miss Ishtar, are really dead. Their loved ones will always feel the pain of the losses he brought about. For them, and for the ones Yami Marik tortured but left alive, it may never be fully over. Yet on the other hand, maybe in time they, too, will be able to begin to heal.

"As for me, it will take a while before I'll be able to really put my experiences behind me. And maybe in some ways I won't. What I went through in my personal game of darkness with Yami Marik brought me to several realizations about myself, both positive and negative. In a bizarre, twisted way, maybe he actually did me some sort of favor. But I don't expect I'll be thanking him any time soon—that is, even if I actually could."

He climbed into the car to finish his notations on the case. "Yami Marik may be one of a kind, but there's still one question that keeps nagging at me. If he could be fashioned from the dark emotions of one particular boy, do all of us have the same potential for creating such great evil? On the other hand, I wonder if we also have the potential to create a counterpart to Yami Marik that would be pure good.

"Either would be imbalanced. I think I prefer how it is with people in this world, where no one is entirely one way or the other."

A trace of a smile passed over his features. "Maybe, after a nice, long rest, I'll have that talk with Vincenzo. And maybe, just maybe, whether Tony will acknowledge it or not, he's gained the slightest hint of belief that something otherworldly has been going on here the last few days." His expression darkened. "Although I can't help feeling that the price Chicago has paid for that possible belief has been too great."

Pressing the Stop button on the tape recorder, Kolchak set it aside and started the engine. The lights had already been loaded back in the car. It was time to go.

"So long, Yami Marik," he said with a mock wave. "So long and good riddance."