That looked like a
cable I have but I discovered mine is slightly different. Mine I use for L/R audio. I suppose if you found one like this you could peel them apart. However, mine has tiny connection on each end that prevent peeling. You would need to buy some female
adapters for the long single Male end to create a cable like the one you showed.
You MIGHT be able to use a
Y splitter. If I remember correctly, I do believe I have used the female ends of a Y cable to link up two cords to make a longer one. So I don't really think the shape of the cable determines the direction you are allowed to feed a signal.
In the end, if you really don't need that special cable you should be able to use any crazy combination of cables as long as you end up with the final connections on each end. But thats just a mess and might cost more (hey if its all you can find?), unless you happen to have the right ones lying around to use until you get a nice one.
I've mainly used these configurations I mentioned when dealing with audio. We should test this sometime with my cable or other combo.