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A/N: I have received such wonderful reviews since I last submitted the first part of this story! :3 It's awesome that you enjoyed it! The voting won for this story, and I am really glad it won. It deserved to have its final part, especially after it received such stunning feedback! :)

i: Your praise and support warmed me greatly. So far ever since I re-joined the Yugioh fandom after a long decade of absence I wasn't sure what to expect but my stories have been well received, and your words are evidence of that. I hope you can still be around to pop over and read this final part so that you are no longer left hanging! It's quite testing, to never be able to read a story's conclusion! And you remind me of myself; looking for character and quality in a story. ;) And plot of course! Yes, both characters did seem to be quite heavy handed in part 1- Yugi with his hasty retreat of his other self's act and Yami with his Punishment Game. So read and enjoy! :)

Guest: Here you go! ;)

YamiKitty223: Hello there! Hope this update didn't come too late! ;)

Please do not persuade me to ship characters, and please tolerate any shipping of any characters.

I write the characters as I envision them. Nothing more.

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When the Bonds break

PART 2

By Dib07

Yugi hoped that time would ease this dilemma. Time was all he really had as a weapon. Nothing else could get him through Yami's door, and no amount of kicking or pleading or shouting worked either.

Yugi hung around for a miracle, thinking that one day Yami would come strolling back into his life and things would return to normality.

And so Yugi tried to live a normal life without his counterpart for awhile. He did his homework. He ate his breakfast and dinner. He helped his Grampa around the shop. He attended school every weekday.

He duelled against Joey during lunchtime and the weekends. Always he wore the puzzle as if nothing had changed. He took the puzzle with him to the bathroom. He took the puzzle with him to bed.

He was never without it.

Sometimes at night he'd clean it carefully, even if it did not need cleaning. And he'd put some music on in case Yami might respond to it.

A week passed slowly in this fashion. And then another.

And Yugi's hopeful prospects began to wilt.

He thought of darker things to bring Yami back. He considered scratching his favourite duel monster cards in a bid to rouse the dormant Game King. He thought of refusing food, thinking that starvation might be the ticket. He thought about cutting into his own flesh.

He even sat with a knife hovering just above his upturned wrist. Several times he just wanted to slash the flesh there. But he hadn't quite worked up the courage.

And Yami never came to intervene as he sat there, holding a knife to his wrist.

Another week passed.

Joey kept a close eye on his friend, knowing like all good friends should know that something still wasn't right, that Yami still hadn't been summoned. Yugi walked through life increasingly depressed. It showed on his face and in his eyes. Soon his school work began to suffer.

Desperate as his friend, Joey took the puzzle from Yugi's numb profile and quarrelled with an invisible entity.

"If you don't come out this second, I'm gonna throw this tomb of yours at the wall, Mister!" Joey was yelling. Anzu stood by, one hand creeping towards her mouth. Yugi just sat with the same blank expression he had worn for almost three weeks. He neither reacted nor seemed to be listening. "You hear me, Yugioh? You wanna be bits all over the dirty schoolroom floor? Because I'll do it! Ya dumb pharaoh!"

He raised his arm up as if he was about to pitch a baseball, and aimed it at the far wall. The rope dangled down his arm.

"I'm gonna count to three!" He barked angrily. "One!"

"Joey!" Anzu warned, "That's Yugi's puzzle! You can't just smash it!"

"Two!"

"Will you look at yourself?" Honda said, looking like he wanted to restrain his oldest friend, yet at the same time seeing this as necessary, "I don't think violence is the answer!"

"Three!" Joey snapped his arm back, about to pitch Yami's heart all over the wall.

Then a voice, gentle and soft, stopped Joey in his tracks.

"No, please." Joey looked down to see Yugi tugging on the sleeve of his shirt.

"But Yuug!"

"It's okay. I know you want to help."

Joey helplessly returned the puzzle back into waiting hands. Hands that closed over the puzzle lovingly.

Anzu and Honda looked relieved that nothing had been smashed.

"Maybe Yami's just taking a break." And Yugi numbly returned to the seat at his school desk to put it back around his neck.

Joey was about to confront him when Anzu pulled him up. "Leave him be, Joey."

"But, but I can't have Yugi stay like this! We gotta do something!"

"I know, but smashing up his puzzle isn't the answer all right?"

Joey gave her a I-don't-believe-you look. Then he backed down.

xxx

I'd never let any harm come to you...

...any harm come to you.

Aibou, if I could take it back, I would! Please! We can work this out together!

No. I'm done!

I didn't think I could hate anything in this world, Yami. But you've proven me wrong.

But you've proven me wrong...

...proven me wrong.

Yugi lay awake in bed, listening to the conversation play out in his mind, and wince at words that were uttered weeks ago.

It felt like longer.

The words haunted him.

Yami's expression haunted him.

Over and over he'd watch himself walk over to the closet. Over and over he would repeat the word 'hate,' and again and again he'd see Yami open his mouth to say something. What could it have been? And then Yami would disappear – blown apart into inky tatters and be gone as soon as the piece of the puzzle was disconnected.

Just. Like. That.

"Yami," he croaked in a hoarse, transparent whisper, "there's only one person I hate in all the world. And that's me."

He said it not in the hopes that it would summon his most cherished friend. He said it because it was true.

He began to know deep inside that Yami wasn't doing this for his own benefit. He wasn't doing this to spite Yugi.

Yami was too proud to relinquish himself to petty quarrelling.

He had done something worse. Yugi was sure. So proud, and so loving of Yugi, Yami may well have been hurt beyond repair at Yugi's reaction; and his words.

And as such, he may have gone crazy with the actuality of his failure. Or, he may have committed himself to the dark.

There was no way of really knowing. Unless Yugi did one last thing.

And that was a desperate thing.

A bad thing.

He considered doing other things instead, but it all came back to that one thing. He was too much of a coward to cut himself. He was too much of a coward to overdose on pills. He was too much of a coward to do anything but one.

Yugi turned to rest on his side, tears dampening his pillow. His eyes fell on the puzzle that he had left resting on the pillow inches from his head. He exhaled a shaky sigh, then closed his eyes in the hopes that he might find some sleep there.

xxx

Blood dripped onto the flagstone floor. A skull sat on the pharaoh's throne: its eyes dark and angry.

Yami was trying to perform magic in the bathroom. He caused the mirror to crack into a wadjet. He wanted to summon dark energy, but it was destroying him. Each successful act of magic ruptured an organ.

"No! You've got to stop! You've got to stop!" Yugi was trying to hold his arms down to prevent him from casting anything else. Yami knelt to the floor, blood trickling from his bottom lip.

"It's fine, Aibou..."

"Nothing's fine!"

A girl had been raped in a remote place close to a forest. Yami stole inside to hurt the man who had done it, but only emerged with destruction and self-loathing in his heart.

The ice buckled and cracked.

Water snared Yugi into a cold and everlasting prison.

Yugi snapped awake and torpidly sat up in bed. The puzzle twinkled in a ray of moonlight that had escaped through the line in the curtain.

Silently he saw Yami open his mouth. Heard his own stinging words. Then he saw himself remove a piece of the puzzle.

He had to do something, or else this scene would play over and over until the very end.

xxx

It was another school day. Though Yugi had woken much earlier the sun was still rising on this warm May morning.

Yugi climbed out of bed and got ready for a new day. The puzzle he hitched around his neck last once he had washed, changed into his uniform and put his school books into his bag. He snuck out the shop at half past eight so that his Grampa wouldn't see him. He didn't want to get noticed for not eating his toast.

He began to walk down the road, leaving the Kame shop behind. The school buses cruised down the road, full of loud children. But Yugi did not head towards the Domino school grounds. He headed towards town.

The puzzle jingled against his chest like a heavy ornament.

The place where Yami had resided in Yugi's heart remained empty. And the abyss was growing like a black hole sucking everything in and giving nothing back.

Somewhere in the street crowd, Joey too was making his way to school early, and was puffing on a cigarette he knew he shouldn't be smoking. A voice or force almost softly seemed to pull at him, causing him to turn his head to look down the road. It could have been a whisper of wind, but Joey looked. And when he did, he saw the tiny figure of Yugi walking the opposite way to school. He was far. And Joey squinted at him. Was it really Yugi?

Joey dropped his cigarette and crushed the burning butt with the heel of his shoe. "What the hell?" And he began marching towards his friend.

The road wasn't just a road. The majority of King's Road was in fact a bridge, also known as King's Bridge. It was the highest bridge in all of Domino, mainly because it was a main conduit for boats as they passed to and from their dock further inland. Yugi came to the balcony. He was so short that he didn't even need to duck under the rails. He stood between the metal pillars, gloomily looking down at the cold, churning waters below. The early morning weather was warm, but the waters down there would be freezing, and black. Visibility would be zero, and there was no bottom down there, and no banks to shore himself up on should he decide against the idea when he was already drowning.

Just looking at the cold, brackish waters as they swirled and heaved made him wrap his arms around his sides. He hoped Yami could sense his thoughts and come out: enter the abyss in Yugi's heart and banish the darkness that crept there. But he never did.

Carefully he slipped his arms from the straps of his school bag and placed it pensively against a pillar.

This was stupid, he knew. He could die, he knew.

It wasn't that he wanted to die.

But so desperate was he to reawaken Yami, that he would do anything, even if it was lethal and mad.

And this was his chance.

He didn't hear Joey's calls as the blond's marching turned into an all-out sprint. He didn't hear the seagulls laconically wailing on the cold breeze. He didn't feel that light, feathery tug on his sleeve.

He leaned towards the edge and let gravity do the rest.

As he dived towards the black, he got pushed down, back into his room. His soul room.

Yugi had landed not in freezing waters, but on his bed.

Though he had sentenced himself, or rather, his body to death, his face lit up with hope and his eyes bled happy tears.

"Y-Yami?"

xxx

The pharaoh plunged into what felt like ice rather than water. Such terrific cold speared his body so suddenly and aggressively that at first he could only stiffen and wince rather than react to submersion. Then a new drive for survival overrode his shock as he was trying to climb to the surface.

/ /Aibou! For Ra's sake! I cannot swim!/ /

It had to be water he woke up in! Out of all his nightmares, all his weaknesses, it had to be water!

His third eye rampaged gold on his forehead, highlighting the water all around him. A spire of black onyx reared upwards from the ugly deep and Yami fetched a ride on it, catching his feet as it raced to the surface. When Yami broke free, he gulped down air even though it burned his chest.

"Yugi!" It was Joey. As Yami looked up, he saw the blond at the railings beside Yugi's abandoned school bag.

"Don't jump in you fool!" Yami yelled. But it was too late. Either that, or Joey wasn't falling for the pharaoh's bravado. The young teen dived into the water with downward poised hands and arms so that his fall was much more graceful.

The onyx shifted and grumbled. Yami uselessly clutched at it, only to find himself sliding back into the water. To be embraced with his vulnerability so swiftly left him in closing panic.

He thought of switching out with Yugi. He was pretty certain his Aibou could swim, but Yugi was traumatised, and too darkened with Yami's absence to be trusted. And Yami's main instinct was to keep Yugi from harm, not to present him with it.

Yami tried the same tactic of summoning fortifications beneath his feet; but having to build them from a depth of forty feet or more tested his endurance. One spire: a weak pillar of bracing rock, billowed upward like a leaning plant. Yami snagged his hands onto it: carrying him once more to the surface. He spat out black water, coughing and choking.

Joey was splashing towards him with keen, powerful breaststrokes.

The rocky column was breaking apart faster: less stable from the beginning. Yami's fingers clawed at its wet, smooth flat top, only to plunge back into the water. His third eye showed him nothing but a vortex of water as it greedily pulled him down. Angry at himself for failing made him reach out into the depths, palm facing outwards. Granite and not onyx shimmied upwards like a reaching finger. But it stopped short and did not ascend any higher.

Swimming was as foreign and as strange to him as space rockets. But he tried anyway, slapping through water without any direction. Fear threw up more power, and as his third eye glowed, all he summoned were creatures borne from his panic. Black creatures sailed silently around him through the water as easily as if they were gliding through air.

NO!

Bubbles exploded through his mouth and nose in a stream that rose upward to a twinkling surface that was impossible to reach.

Then iron-like arms snapped around his tiny middle like clamps and he was thrust upwards. It was Joey. He kicked with his feet as he powered for the surface.

The temptation to forego this agony and switch with Yugi remained, and he ignored it. Never had he switched when the crisis was bad, and had left Yugi to suffer it.

His third eye dissipated and then vanished as he lost strength.

Joey broke the rank surface and heaved in a gasp. Yami could only cough in air while stars benighted his vision in glaring whites and reds.

"Breathe cupcake!" Though in the water, Joey managed with one arm to pound a fist into Yami's back until he could hear the pharaoh draw in breath.

"Dear Ra..." Despite Joey's help, he still found himself vomiting up water.

A boat was coming their way. It was painted red. It was the coastguards.

A life ring was thrown into the water and Joey swam over to grab it whilst tugging Yami with him.

xxx

Yugi thanked the coastguards. Despite trying to commit suicide and still quite wet despite the spare clothes he now wore with a towel about his shoulders, he looked like the happiest little boy they had ever seen.

Joey assured them that he'd stay with his friend all day and not let him near any bridges for awhile. The coastguards were reluctant to see the two boys go. They naturally insisted that they go down to the hospital for checkups.

"Jesus Christ, kid!" Joey was saying as they were walking back from the docks. "You wanna explain ta me why you just decided to jump off a bridge? I should get you home."

Yugi ignored the question and asked one of his own. "You saw him, didn't you?" He needn't have inquired Yami's proof of existence. He felt him once more in his heart. Finally the piece of the puzzle had joined together. Yami's emotions were all over the place, and it made Yugi giggle simply from the joy of feeling him there. Yami may be panicked, a little angry, and quite confused, but none of that mattered.

Because he had him back.

"Yeah, I did." Joey returned thoughtfully. "I did. Poor guy. He didn't exactly deserve to wake up in water. Wait a moment... Don't tell me you jumped to get him..."

Yugi nodded, unable to lie. "It worked, didn't it?"

Joey stopped him by grabbing Yugi's shoulders and spun him round to face him. "You're telling me you tried to kill yourself to bring him out? You could have actually died!"

"Yet here I am."

"You idiot!"

"That's what Yami's thinking right now."

"And did you know why he avoided you so much so that you felt 'forced' to leap off a fucking bridge? I should strangle the bastard!"

Yugi shrugged and the tears began again. "I... I don't... I don't... k-know..."

Joey cursed and brought him into his arms. "Let's have a hot drink first, okay?" Joey gave him a look, then shook his head. "Man, if you ever do something like that again I am gonna kidnap your Grampa. For reals."

xxx

"Mou hitori no boku..." Yugi brushed against his cheek. He had forgotten that one could cry in the realm of his spirit.

"Yugi." Yami returned without love, or warmth. He stood tall and strong in the doorway of his tomb door with one hand resting on his hip. His eyes were narrowed in anger.

But love filled Yugi. Unconditional love. And it made him cry all the harder. He didn't care if Yami was angry, upset or to blame for his suicidal leap. He was back. "Mou hitori no boku!" He crossed the threshold at a run and squeezed his counterpart tightly. So tightly he could feel bone beneath his cobalt clothing. Hugging him was rare. He could only do it in their secretive chambers deep in their hearts. In the real world, Yami was but a ghost who could only observe unless he chose it necessary to possess Yugi for a duel.

"Aibou..." Yami pushed him away. "You failed."

"I... I failed? I failed what?" His bright distress turned into confusion as tears ran down his cheeks.

Yami's anger mellowed and his eyes were no longer so narrowed. "You failed the test."

Yugi sniffed. "I don't understand. How can I fail, when I have you back?"

"At such risk to yourself!" He suddenly shouted. "You must never again step into danger like that, Yugi! Do you hear me?"

"I can't promise you that. If I did I would be lying to you."

Yami's voice softened. "Aibou, there may come a time when I won't be able to come to your aid. There may come a time when the danger is greater even than I. You are most precious to me. If something should ever happen to you, I am destroyed. Understand?"

"Then why did you leave me?" Yugi protested. "Why did you go?"

"Aibou..."

"Tell me!"

Yami gave him a soft, gentle smile and knelt down so that Yugi didn't have to peer up so high to see into his eyes. "You are the Chosen and I earned your hatred, your distrust. I didn't wish to exist with such knowledge, spirit or not. I'd rather die all over again than see your disappointment."

Yugi shook his head. "But I was wrong! I..."

"No. you weren't wrong. I killed those men against your wishes. And so I made a terrible error. When you removed the piece of the puzzle I decided to test you. I wanted you to live your days without me. For how can you live with me, Yugi? Knowing that I can cause pain to you, as well as joy? So I decided that you did not need me, nor shouldn't need me. So I wanted you to live as before, but without me. You have your friends now, and your family. I am but a hindrance. And all you had to do was prove that you are better than me, and live. But you failed my test as soon as you stepped off that bridge."

Yugi started miserably crying again. "Why c-could I n-never feel... y-you?"

"I banished myself. I didn't know if it could be done, and if it didn't, then I would sleep for an eternity. So hurt was I that I didn't care for my existence."

"How c-could you think t-that way?"

"Aibou, without your approval, and without your light, I just want to die."

More tears flooded Yugi's eyes then and he fell against Yami's chest, crushing him tight.

Yami was a bold duellist. Some could even say arrogant and pompous. But all it took was one wrong word from Yugi, and Yami's world collapsed inward.

"Then you dived into that water." Yami whispered, "And I woke up. And the next thing I knew, I was living in your body, with all that water. Do you love me enough that you would kill yourself?"

Trying to find inner strength for them both, Yugi leaned away from Yami's arms and smiled even though tears glistened on his cheeks. "Yes."

Yami seemed to sigh regretfully. "Why? I am but a wraith who has deemed itself unworthy."

"Yami, we all make mistakes. And yes I guess I failed this test you had for me, because I need you. I will always need you. I need your wisdom, your guidance. I have my friends, but you different. To me you're very real. Don't you... love me too?"

Yami smiled sheepishly as if confessing such things was strange to him. But he gave Yugi the answer he had wanted to hear so badly.

Yugi smiled and all his tears were forgotten.

Yami stood up straight, still looking grave.

Yugi could but laugh. "Your aggression needs some work!"

Yami nodded.

He quietened down and added on a much more serious note, "You'll never hurt another person, right, Yami?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die." Yami said, gesturing at his sternum. It was a phrase he had learned.

Yugi took both his hands in his. "I want us to be together, always."

"Yes, Aibou. Remember, you are the Master. I am but a servant."

xxx

I want us to be together, always.

A few days later Yugi was sitting at a burger stand with Joey. Since their little debacle after the King's Bridge incident, Yami had been much more receptive and gentle. Yugi spent as much time as he could with him, even in class.

Joey was still a little suspicious. He gave Yugi long looks as if checking to see how mentally stable he was.

And so, while Yugi sat with his best friend, he dived into the spirit room to check up on Yami, who did little else these days but stay attentive.

"I want you to have some fun, mou hitori no boku. Joey's waiting."

"Aibou, what?"

Yami was pushed into reality without warning. Joey was looking at him curiously. "You just did the switch-a-roo thing, right?" He asked.

Yami looked around curiously. The burger joint smelt thickly of meat and sauce. They were sitting at a table by the window and he was wearing Yugi's set of spare clothes.

Joey continued. "Yuug told me why ya did it. And yer both crazy, but I can't stay mad. Yugi tells me how guilty you still feel."

"He can tell?" Yami asked worriedly.

"Yeah. He's like a regular news bulletin, telling us how you're feeling all the time. Anyway, here." He lifted his burger towards the pharaoh. "Wanna bite?"

"Joey! It that beef?"

"O' course it is. What did ya expect it to be? Ostrich?"

Yami cringed.

"Well, it's good to have ya back, Yami." Joey said. "Now, about this whole beef thing. Red meat: delicious! Pork, even better! You ever tried bacon?"

"Sacrilege!" Yami snapped back.

Joey gave him a vague I-don't-believe-this-guy look. "You wanna go for the salad then?"

Yami nodded gingerly. "What is this salad? Is it a special kind of... plant?"

Yugi watched this play out from Yami's heart.

He smiled in the darkness.

THE END