*EDIT I realized only after the seventh chapter that some formatting from this chapter didn't carry over. I fixed that.

I have a bit to say about this story, here at the beginning. First of all, my ideal iteration of Yami and Yuugi's relationship is intimate platonic. How I see them, they are soul mates in a literal sense; two halves of a soul and they might best be described as asexual partners. I write from this perspective, then. This means that as a reader, you can interpret what I write as a very close platonic relationship, as I do, or as a budding romantic relationship, which I really don't mind. Personally, I don't mind actually shipping them together at all, that just isn't my favorite iteration of their relationship.

I love Yami from Season 0, but I also love concepts that don't exist in Season 0, so I sort of mashed the two together. Yami is... dark. That's what 'yami' means, after all. But he's also a generally good person. So that's what you can expect here. This story is from his perspective, so it is an incredibly subjective retelling of certain events. If you find some parts confusing in the way they're told, then that's just the way his brain works. It's all intentional. You're supposed to feel what he's feeling, even if you wouldn't agree were the story in the third person.

I say all of this because the above is sort of the purpose of this story. I wanted to write from a heavily biased perspective about a pretty grey-moral area. So, if you're the type to leave reviews, I'd be really appreciative of feedback on my grey-moral study here. This is big practice for my book.

Thank you! I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, but I do hope you like the story! It's written out entirely and I will be posting chapters about once a day, as I want to read some feedback and respond to it in the updates. I haven't' decided whether or not I'll put in an epilogue, so I think I'll decide that based upon the feedback I get throughout.

Enjoy!

The darkness was so thick and eternal that even the memory of sensation left me. I couldn't remember what it was like to see, I couldn't even remember what seeing was. Touch, smell, sound… they were all concepts that skirted the edges of my mind, telling me that such things exist, but not that I'm even missing them. The power of language faded long, long ago. All I have left is the vague sense of consciousness riddled with nebulous concepts and ideas that I can't even express in thought. The only things I was sure of was that I was in the darkness, and that somewhere else, there was light. Whatever form of knowledge that took in my mind was incapable of elaborating any more on that. The only thing I felt was the desperate need to be free.

Then I felt something new. Not with my nonexistent eyes or with my nonexistent skin, but with the pull of the darkness itself. What used to feel as if it stretched on forever suddenly started to have space. Distance. Room. As time went on, I became aware of boundaries slowly being built around me in the darkness. These boundaries were… they weren't the darkness. They were something else, which my lack of memories stubbornly kept from me. They were important.

They rose slowly. All around me, creeping along from one direction. Compared to the eternity I'd spent in the darkness, these boundaries appeared very quickly. And yet, I spent so long there that time meant nothing to me. The only context of time I had was the inconsistent erection of these mysterious and powerful boundaries.

Then I became aware of other sensations. The more space was created in this darkness, around me, the more I felt the pull of consciousness. Suddenly I had a reason, a purpose. I thought about these boundaries. I inspected them, I felt them – they felt cold, which was interesting because I had no concept of warm – and I began to count them.

The darkness seems to be confined to these boundaries. This cold wall that had begun to encompass me alerted me to the idea that there was something beyond them. I peeked around the corner, through the spaces that were still empty and full of darkness. But all I saw was more nothingness. However, if I retracted to the inside of this clearly three dimensional boundary and moved close to the wall, I could sense things beyond it.

I have no ears, and yet I heard things. I heard soft noises, filtering through this wall. They were muffled, and I couldn't even tell if they were words or just meaningless noises. I had no real body, and yet I felt a gravitational pull toward one direction. I had no eyes, and yet I knew these boundaries glowed brightly in the darkness. I could see. I could hear. I could feel. Thousands of years alone without memories or convention drew the curiosity from me, and I even went to lick the walls. They tasted like metal.

After so long, even if I wanted to leave this slowly closing shape of walls I couldn't. The pull of it all kept me there. The walls weren't just a hallow shell around the darkness it entrapped, but it filled in from the inside too. It went straight through me, banishing the darkness and entrapping me. The eyes I didn't have began to see hazy images. I saw… stairs. Many, many stairs, but I still knew no up and down. The noises got more clear and distinct, the sensation of cold settled into my nonexistent bones, and when I reached out to touch the edge of theses boundaries, I felt warmth.

There's only one last window into the darkness. Beyond the walls, the darkness didn't exist. Out this window, it stretched on forever. Behind me, deep within this labyrinth of stairs and halls that were almost solid enough for me to walk in, there was a single room of darkness that felt like eternity. I ignored this room, I avoided it and pushed it to the back of my mind. Instead, I stared out this window with frustration; why does it not close?

I'm so close to escaping this hell. My thoughts are with me, I feel my heart and my lungs. I can breath, though not easily, and I can almost touch the world around me. I'm so close to being free, and yet whoever is putting this Puzzle together has stopped. By now, I am fully aware that there is a soul out there, on the other side of these walls. A soul that is almost always there, and whose voice I have begun to identify from all the others. This is the soul that is freeing me, and while I have no memory outside of the darkness, I knew this soul was important to me. However, for the first time, I felt negative emotions toward that soul. Why did they stop? Why do they not complete the Puzzle? Free me! Have they begun to realize I am in here, as I've realized they are out there, and they've decided against releasing me from this darkness?

I took my position close to the edge of this Puzzle. I closed my eyes to block out the hazy, blurry image of stairs and halls and walls. I listened. If I concentrated, I could identify words.

"They don't deserve this."

I exhaled slowly and deeply. This is the soul. This is the one I have grown attached to; the one that shines so brightly that I can feel it with every sense. I don't know who they're talking to and I don't know who they're talking about, and I didn't care.

"Are you volunteering for their punishment?"

The context and the meaning of the words evaded me, but the word punishment bothered me.

"If you'll stop hurting them."

I frowned. Hurting? This I knew – somehow – to be another sensation, and yet I have yet to feel it.

"Have it your way."

Something bothered me about what I was listening to, but I didn't understand it until moments after. Then, I knew what 'hurting' was. I felt a sharp pain in my stomach, then on my arm. My head hurt, and it spread. It didn't stop; it kept going. But I didn't get frightened; I got angry. I was feeling this pain, and yet as I took a deep breath and moved farther from the edges of the Puzzle, I realized I felt no pain. I could still feel the echo of it, with each new blow, but it became clear that the soul that carried this Puzzle was the one being attacked… and that made me angry.

Then, it stopped. My fury did not die down. I felt the need to do something, anything, and yet I was still removed from the world this other soul inhabited. I could do nothing.

The window into the darkness disappeared. It was filled in with the same cold metal the rest of the Puzzle was made of. This last piece felt different. With it, the hazy world around me became sharp and clear. My feet touched down on the ground. I felt my heart skip a beat – I had a heart! – and my muscles seize up. I no longer had to strain to hear the outside world, and I no longer had to squint to see the light of the other soul.

Everything hurts.

I am pissed. Someone has dared to attack my light, and there will be hell to pay. A door had come into existence in front of me, at the very edge of the Puzzle, and I used it. I used it with every sense of my being, with so much energy and power that I only saw what lied beyond it for a split second. The next second, I could feel wind and pain, cold and stone.

I got up. I'm covered in bruises and blood. The clothing I wore was roughed up and dirty. A large person had their back to me and was walking away. Behind me, there were two other people, conscious and also roughed up. They were clearly not the target of my anger. I knew not who they were, and I didn't care. They were meaningless to me; the object of my fury was walking away without a scratch on him.

"Stop." I spoke out, hearing my voice for the first time. I felt energy coursing through my veins, my muscles poised to action.

The behemoth of a man stopped walking and looked over his shoulder to me. He raised his eyebrows and lifted his chin.

"Did you want more? Or perhaps you'd decided to give me the money?"

I didn't know what money was, nor did I care. However, I was fully aware that the energy and power in my limbs would not be enough to combat this offender, who dared to hurt what was mine. I thought quickly of a dozen ways I could return the favor, but ultimately none of them felt right. None of them felt plausible enough to insure the body I currently wore would not be more damaged.

I felt a weight around my neck and glanced down, seeing a golden Puzzle shaped like a pyramid there. I looked back up to the rotten creature. I accepted the knowledge of the world around me that came with the brain I now had control over to construct the perfect revenge plan.

I grinned. "You want the money? How about we play a game, then?"

"What are you talking about?" The inferior human demanded. I am too eager to cause him pain in the worst way. I didn't wait for small talk; I channeled the power of the Millennium Puzzle to initiate a shadow game.

We were tied by a single rope, very long, and between us was a lamp post. We hung from it on either end down the side of a cliff. The object of the game was to reach the top, where the money was. Each step upward would sent the other downward. The number of steps was dictated by whatever card the participant chose, as the cards were sutured to the wall we walked along, always one within reach.

He cheated and fell. The money disappeared, for it was fake. Revenge felt sweet, but now it was over, and I had the conscious thought to investigate life.

I have ten fingers and ten toes. Shoes, pants, a shirt and a jacket. I am short, and I am cold. It's dark, but not like my history. There are lights in the sky like dots. There's another light in the sky, large and round that provided quite a bit of light to see the buildings and streets around me. This is the real world, and the body I inhabit isn't mine. It's his. Yuugi's. I learned the name from the inferior human, and I immediately adopted it. It is not my name, and yet while I inhabit this body, it is the only one fitting.

Yuugi. Who are you? I know nothing more about you than that you had just been attacked and that for whatever reason, you thought it important to complete this Puzzle which hung around my neck now. I held it gently, feeling a deep connection with it. Its powers had come naturally to me. It is mine… but it isn't. It belongs to Yuugi… and Yuugi belongs to me.

Yuugi had a home, but I knew not where it was. So, I retracted back into the Puzzle, giving him control of his body again. Now, I was entirely aware of everything around me. This space inside the Puzzle which I now call home, and the space around my Hikaru which he calls home. I could sense him; I could feel his confusion upon waking up in a strange location, alone. When I'd forced my way out of the Puzzle to take control of his body, he'd been knocked out. Perhaps that's better, so he doesn't yet realize I am here. I would like to learn more about Yuugi, and the living world, before I approached him anyway. The fear that he would reject my presence, inhabiting his body and mind, should he learn of me was strong. I did not want that, so, I settled deep in his mind and waited. I stayed there and I observed.

I watched him walk home and I committed the location to memory. I felt his reluctance and fear as he likely ruminated over what had just taken place. I listened as he spoke with an elderly man, who had seemed concerned about his being out so late. This man he called 'Grandpa', and I filed the name and face away as someone who was not a threat.

He took the Puzzle off and went to bed. It laid on his desk, but the distance from him gave me an uncomfortable feeling. I left the Puzzle again but found him too distant to control. Instead, I appeared in the physical world as a ghostly apparition. I'm transparent, but I can move about this room with ease.

I inspected it all but found little interest. Of course, I ended up standing over the bed and looking down at the young human that had completed my Puzzle. He was fast asleep, eyes closed and with the blankets up to his chin. Still, I knew nothing of him, and yet, I felt a deep sense of attachment. He is light, he is my Hikaru. This boy is now under my protection, and I won't be having another incident like that just hours ago.

After watching him for over an hour, I retracted back into the Puzzle to explore it. There were hundreds of halls and doors, staircases that lead nowhere, and many paths that inverted gravity. Behind many doors were traps so dangerous that my spirit was nearly lost many times. But with my quick reflexes and sense of impending doom, I managed to stay safe. Eventually, I found the door from earlier. I sensed that I was at the edge of the Puzzle. This door is ancient and decaying, just as much as every other door here, and yet this one was somehow different.

I put an open palm against it. It felt neither like wood nor metal; it was stone. Memory of what I'd seen beyond it excited me, but something about the situation made me nervous. My heart beat heavily in my chest. Opening this door meant leaving the Puzzle, and yet I knew I wouldn't be entering the physical world. Not without doing it on purpose. The first time had been a coincidence; I had left the Puzzle in two senses of the word at the same time. But now, I had no reason to enter the physical world. Now, I want to see what else there was in here.

I cracked open the door. I could see an endless pathway, stretching far down a hallway that felt different from the ones behind me. It held a darkness that was familiar; one that terrified me. I opened the door farther and looked the other direction to see the exact same thing. But across from me, on the opposite stretch of wall… was nothing.

There had been a door there! Another door, but this one had hung open and had light pouring out from it! It had been too quick of a glance to see what was inside, but the sight of it had thrilled me, and now it's gone!

Frustration built inside of me and I slammed my own door shut. I screamed, stopping to let it echo meaninglessly back at me. I'm alone here. I am completely alone.

I shouldn't have such long AN in future chapters. But, another fun little tidbit; this story is an amalgam of several other, shorter stories I've written. So, I haven't been neglecting the other stories I have published here just to write this. This is more just finishing three or four stories I already had, then filling in the blanks.

A question for you guys: What do you think of my take on Yami's time in a broken Puzzle? Have you imagined it differently?