So this fic references my previous fic, Delusions, you'll be less confused if you read that one first.
...
Bakhura landed on his back. Hard. That alone left him winded, but the next impact, not half a second later, made him want to retch. He gritted his teeth, it wasn't as though he could have screamed even if he'd been so inclined, and squeezed his eyes shut tight, trying to regain his equilibrium. He was distracted however, by the weight that had landed on top of him stirring.
The person who had slammed down on top of him struggled to their hands and knees over him, coughing and gasping, clearly winded as well, despite having their fall broken by Bakhura. The lucky bastard. Was it Malik? The Ring had been sheltering a fragment of his soul as well.
Slowly Bakhura managed to get his lungs working again and he cracked open his eyes to see who was crouched over him. It wasn't Malik's face that greeted him, distorted with pain and fear, but Ryou's. Bakhura rather thought he had mixed feelings about that. He moved his elbows under him and pushed himself up a bit. "Where the hell is Malik?" Bakhura whispered hoarsely.
"I-I-ah," Ryou stammered, glancing around wide-eyed. "W-what is this?"
"The Shadow Realm," Bakhura answered, sitting up fully and putting a steadying hand on Ryou's arm. The boy was shaking uncontrollably, both terrified and cold. Ryou looked back at him and suddenly recoiled, a horrified little sound catching in his throat. Bakhura blinked in surprise. "What?" he asked.
"That thing! It's on you!" Ryou gasped, pointing.
Bakhura suddenly became aware of a weight on his shoulders and a constriction around his torso. His eyes darted to the side and he came face to face with the faintly glowing red eyes of the snake. He scowled at it, hiding nervous agitation behind anger. "Who the hell invited you?" he demanded.
A sibling... the serpent hissed and Bakhura noticed an unusual tone of contempt in the creature's voice. And I will not be forgetting it...
Bakhura snorted at it. "Ah? The thing infecting Malik is one of your buddies then?" he asked and then tried to pry at the coil wrapped around his waist.
Friends are for humans, the serpent answered with a sniff and tightened its grip in response.
He let go of the snake and panted helplessly. It eased its hold again once he stopped trying to remove it. "Stop it! Let go of him!" Ryou pleaded at the snake, looking ready to cry.
Silence, human! it snapped at him. You would do well to remember that I am far stronger than you in this place.
"Shut up!" Bakhura managed to slap the snake in the head and it hissed angrily at him. "You don't talk to Ryou!" he growled.
The snake quieted and tucked its head down on Bakhura's shoulder, as though it planned to take a nap. Bakhura glared sideways at it for a moment before turning his attention back to Ryou. He held out a hand and Ryou hesitated, looking at the snake, then he took the offered hand and squeezed it tightly. He was shaking just as much as he had been before.
"That bastard... sending you here too," Bakhura grumbled, lacing his fingers with Ryou's and pulling the boy closer to him, but he couldn't hold him without Ryou having to touch the snake. Even if he had been able to, he doubted it would make any difference to protecting Ryou from the chill of the Shadow Realm. "... It's because you have my Ren..."
Ryou nodded, his eyes still darting around to every strange, hollow sound and odd current of not-air. "P-probably shouldn't ha-ave let m-Malik see that-t..." he mumbled and then shook his head. "B-but I'm g-glad I'm with y-you. I'd b-be m-more scared if h-he had s-separated us."
Bakhura smiled softly. "But you wouldn't be freezing," he pointed out. "The Shadow Realm is no place for someone like you."
"I c-can hand-dle it!" Ryou protested.
"I wasn't thinking that you couldn't," Bakhura said, looking away and feeling ashamed. He should have been more prepared, he shouldn't have let Ryou get dragged into this. "Just that you shouldn't have to. You're better than this."
He could feel Ryou looking at him, but didn't meet his eyes. "Y-y- Aren't you c-cold?" Ryou whispered after a moment.
"I'm used to cold," Bakhura replied, shaking his head slightly.
"W-what do we d-do now?"
"... There's very little we can do." Bakhura looked back at him finally, just for an instant, and then returned his eyes to the ground, mentally kicking himself again for letting this happen. "Malik's parasite put your body into limbo. And he's blocking the Ring somehow... If I can't find another window to crawl through..."
Ryou's fingers tightened around his. "... W-well, let's w-walk th-then," he said quietly.
"Ryou, it may as well be a hamster-wheel. You can walk in the same direction for a million years and you'll never get anywhere. This place isn't spatial, it doesn't follow the laws of physics. It's infinite."
"... W-walking can h-help keep w-warm." Ryou tugged on his hand. Bakhura looked back up at him, feeling even more helpless and weak because Ryou was taking lead when he was plainly terrified. He reluctantly picked up his feet and started following along beside his host, walking hand in hand through the endless darkness.
...
Clouds of shadows and darkness billowed all around them, making it impossible to guess how far they could see, whether their vision faded into darkness or was obscured by mist. Fine, bone-dry sand shifted on what constituted 'ground' here, receding under their arches and making their feet ache all the more as they walked. The landscape was featureless, never seeming to change as they walked and walked. Ryou had pressed closer to the Thief, despite the serpent's presence, and now clung to his left arm, hugging it against his side and ignoring where his shoulder brushed against the snake's frigid scales.
He was still shivering; it was still cold. He had the urge to just burrow into the Thief's arms, that horrible snake be damned, and fall asleep. But that was the worst thing to do when you were cold, he recalled, falling asleep. If you fell asleep in the snow, that was the final stages of hypothermia, and you wouldn't be waking up again...
He looked up sharply and blinked, when his eyes caught sight of a small variation in the landscape up ahead. He strained his eyes and the figure ahead resolved into a person, crouched on the ground with their back to Ryou and the Thief. "There's somebody there!" Ryou exclaimed. He dropped his Thief's arm and sprinted forward.
"Ryou! No! Ryou, stop!"' Thief shouted behind him, sounding panicked.
Ryou knew in the back of his mind that he should be listening, that the Thief knew this place and Ryou was probably running headlong into some kind of trap, but some part of him was just so sure it was okay. "Hey!" he called as he ran.
The person's back straightened up and their face turned back to look at Ryou. He felt a flood of relief as he recognized the person. It wasn't some shadow-monster trap thing, it was Kujaku Mai. "Mai-san!" he shouted, feeling almost joyful at this discovery.
Mai stared at him, looking startled and disbelieving as she climbed to her feet. "Bakura-kun?" she asked in a shaky voice. "What are you doing here?" she said and then her face pinched up a bit in a nervous, fearful expression, "Although, come to that, where is here...?"
"It's the Shadow Realm," Ryou answered in a voice that sounded calmer than he felt. "The other Malik sent us here."
Mai started to nod and then glanced behind him and her eyes widened a bit. "Us?" she whispered.
"Ryou!" the Thief grabbed him from behind and pulled him back, putting himself between Ryou and Mai, glaring at her accusingly. "Damn it Ryou, do you know how lucky you were? Never run off like that again! She could have been a thing!"
"I- I'm sorry," Ryou stammered. "B-but it's Mai-san. If we'd gone around or something, she would have been alone..."
"She's not our problem," the Thief snapped.
"... Thief, nobody should have to be alone in a place like this..." Ryou whispered, staring down at the dark sand under his feet. He heard the Thief growl softly, but he didn't argue with the statement.
"... And you must be the other Bakura..." Mai said in a quiet, curious voice. "Which begs the question, what is that?" Ryou looked up to see that she was pointing at the snake wrapped around the Thief's body.
"Bite me," the Thief snarled at her.
"... It's evil," Ryou answered quietly, and sought out the Thief's hand again, feeling colder without that small connection.
"I see," Mai's voice was quiet and appraising. The Thief growled again, like a dog warning her to keep out of his territory. "That's very interesting, but what I'm more interested in is how we got here and how to get out of here."
"We can't," the Thief said in a flat, cold voice.
"It's- Thief was sent here during Duelist Kingdom and he got out, but that's when I was still in the real world and he could follow our connection..." Ryou said quietly, curling his arm around the Thief's and leaning into him for comfort.
"We're stuck until I can figure out something new or somebody kills Malik," the Thief said darkly.
Ryou took a sharp little breath. "N-no, he's not- I mean, they wouldn't kill him would they?"
The Thief glanced sideways at him momentarily. "Don't waste your energy worrying about someone who abandoned you to save himself," he said quietly.
Ryou bit his lip and looked at the ground, leaning closer to the Thief. Malik had a selfish personality and he never seemed to consider anyone else, but they'd known that from the start and it wasn't something he deserved to die for...
"... Your body is still on the other side," the Thief said, addressing Mai again. "That could be an escape rout, though I doubt you could figure out how to use it."
"And I don't suppose you'd tell me," Mai's voice sounded skeptical and a little irritated.
"It's not something I can explain."
You could use her, the serpent's non-voice whispered suddenly and Ryou flinched, looking at the creature, its head was now lifted again and hovering next to the Thief's ear. You could take the female's body. It would be a perfect vessel. It's ripe and empty. And it offers an exit... Destroy her Ba and use her body to regain our foothold in the human world.
Ryou felt a fresh chill run down his spine. He stared at the snake and then at the Thief, and then he glanced over at Mai, who looked scared, with her eyes wide and her lips pressed thin.
"... I'm not leaving without Ryou," the Thief said quietly, not bothering to look at the snake.
Fool! The boy is useless! the snake hissed furiously.
"Shut up!" the Thief snapped, his hand squeezing tightly around Ryou's.
You never could take care of yourself properly. I've always had to do it for you, The snake hissed venomously, and then it opened its wide, fleshy mouth and suddenly clamped down on the Thief's throat. Ryou screamed in horror. The serpent's red eyes flicked up to him as it released the Thief's neck and then it lunged for Ryou.
Ryou screamed again, terrified as the reptile's head shot towards him, and then it was pulled away, the Thief's hand clamping around the snake's neck and wrenching it back, away from Ryou. He gave it a hard twist and the coils around Thief's midsection suddenly sagged and fell limply to the ground. He pushed it away from his body and stepped clear of it. The Thief snarled down at it, his teeth showing and eyes wide. "You don't talk to Ryou and you don't fucking touch Ryou!"
The snake glared back up at him with one eye, its neck now looked very broken but it wasn't dead. Ryou stared down at it, shaking from more than just the cold now. He found himself suddenly being pulled into the Thief's arms and he closed his eyes and let out a little sob of relief, digging his hands into his double's shirt and clinging for dear life.
"What the hell is that?" Mai was demanding. She sounded really shaken now, but Ryou couldn't pay much attention to her, he was busy worrying about his Thief.
"It- the bite!" he whispered, drawing back to check on the Thief's neck.
"It's fine," he replied dismissively.
"No, it's..." Ryou trailed off, looking at the two puncture-marks near the Theif's collar, the flesh around them was darkening, taking on a nasty blue-brown like decaying flesh. Ryou lifted his eyes to take in more of his Thief and he noticed a cold, black mist clinging to the Thief. "It... it bit you," he whispered helplessly.
The Thief shook his head. "It's all right. It's just a gesture. It can't really do anything."
Ryou looked back into his Thief's eyes, feeling chilled by the red luminescence they had taken on. "It's not all right," he whispered.
"I'll be fine." The Thief shrugged him off and looked back at Mai, a cold, calculating look in his reddened eyes, as though considering a difficult algebra problem. "... But maybe I can use her," he said slowly.
Mai's eyes widened and she took a step backwards. The Thief surged forward and grabbed her wrist, halting her retreat. "Let go!" she shrieked.
"What are you doing? Let her go!" Ryou gasped. He caught the Thief's arm.
"I told you I needed to find another window, Ryou," the Thief said quietly. "She is that window, and I'm going to get both of us out of here."
"But what will that do to her?" Ryou demanded. Mai looked like a deer caught in headlights now, frozen to the spot and too scared to even yell.
"It'll probably kill her," the Thief answered without feeling. "Don't worry yourself about it, Ryou. She's just one human. There are seven billion more."
"Bakhura! Stop!" Ryou shouted and he could see the Thief twitch. Ryou knew that he possessed that name, the Thief's Ren, and when he invoked it, it gave him some kind of power over the other soul.
Do it! the snake shouted from its place on the ground. You will obey no master but me!
"Shut up!" Ryou and the Thief both yelled together, glaring at the serpent. Ryou could feel the Thief trembling slightly, as though fighting with himself.
"Let Mai-san go, Bakhura," Ryou whispered and his Thief reluctantly complied, releasing the woman's wrist and stepping back.
Mai staggered back a few paces, her eyes wide and fearful, staring at the Thief. The Thief swayed slightly, his brow pinched, and then wrapped his arms around Ryou, letting his knees buckle and dragging Ryou down into his lap. He was still trembling as he buried his face in Ryou's shoulder.
Ryou hugged him and stroked his hair softly, still battling his own shivers, but feeling much warmer now in his Thief's arms.
"... It seems like your situation is a bit more complicated than your friends think," Mai's voice said quietly, and Ryou froze.
He turned his head and looked at the woman, feeling his stomach clench nervously. She'd tell them. Of course she would, and then they'd ask him questions that he couldn't answer... "You're not..." he stammered. "They wouldn't understand." He closed his eyes and shook his head.
"Not even Yuugi?" Mai asked. "It doesn't seem too different from him. Well, except for the snake."
"Especially not Yuugi. It's not the same at all..." Ryou whispered, pressing his nose into his Thief's hair and squeezing his eyes shut.
"All right," Mai said, and it sounded like she shrugged.
...
They'd been walking, maybe for days, maybe for weeks, maybe years. The original thought was to put some distance between themselves and the snake, but now it was just walking for the sake of walking. They weren't going anywhere. There wasn't anywhere to go. The landscape was infinite and miniscule. As though they were walking on a treadmill. It was less terrible with someone to talk to, but Mai could think of a lot of people she would rather have been trapped here with.
Someone halfway sane, for example.
Although, seeing the two Bakuras as separate entities, walking side by side across the endless dreamscape, instead of one very bi-polar teenager, was a bit easier. Their personalities remained consistent now. She could depend on them to be the same people in five minutes as they were right now, no more switching back and forth. They looked nearly identical, true, but the physical mannerisms, the way they held themselves and the slight difference in their gaits, made it easy enough to discern them.
Bakura Ryou was chattier than Mai had known him to be before. She supposed he was the kind of person that liked to listen to other people talk, but since he and Mai were the only ones keeping conversation afloat in this vast abyss, he was doing half the talking now. Because the other Bakura was maintaining, for the most part, a stony silence.
He was like a junkyard dog, Mai thought. He was quick to snap and definitely a fighter, but most of his bluster seemed to be concentrated on being over-protective of his twin-person. That intrigued her, combine with the way she'd seen the 'other Bakura' protect Bakura-kun during their match against Yuugi. What creeped Mai out was the red eyes and the black haze he'd had around him after the snake bite, like some weird 'cloak' effect in a video-game.
The cloud had faded now, and Mai wondered faintly if his eyes were the same color as Bakura-kun's again. The dark, dead-looking flesh around the bite on his neck seemed to be spreading, very slowly, and the two spots had merged into one hideous, fist-sized patch, but he didn't give any indication that it hurt. He seemed to have mellowed out and wasn't making any homicidal suggestions anymore, so Mai ventured to address him after a while. "Hey, what's your problem with Yuugi anyway?"
The other Bakura glanced up at her from under his fringe with a suspicious glare. There was a moment of quiet in which he seemed to debate whether to humor her with an answer or not. "... I don't give a damn about the boy," he answered at length. "It's the Pharaoh I want."
Mai raised an eyebrow. "The Pharaoh? Fancy!" she laughed. "I'm guessing you mean that other guy who lives in Yuugi's head? What did he do?"
The other Bakura's eyes narrowed a bit, and Mai noticed that there was still a faint hint of red to them, but again he decided to answer. "He massacred my people, including the women and children, without even declaring war."
Mai almost laughed again because it sounded so absurd at first blush, but caught herself in time, looking curiously at the other Bakura's serious expression. She was just about willing to believe that ancient Egyptian magic was tied up in this whole mess now. Hell, look at where she was. Or where she wasn't? Was nothingness an is or an isn't?
"... Bummer," Mai offered. "So now you're both possessing high school boys three thousand years later. What's up with that?" She lifted her arms and tried to stretch her back. All her muscles felt so stiff and sore; how long had they been walking?
"The Pharaoh interfered with my vengeance," the other Bakura replied calmly. "This is the result."
"Hmmm," Mai hummed, nodding. "And what about you, Bakura Ryou? Are you just along for the ride?"
Bakura-kun started slightly and looked up at her again. "I'm not sure what you mean," he murmured. "I'm just an ordinary student."
"No epic plans for revenge or anything?"
"No, of course not. I- I don't have any enemies," he stammered.
Mai grinned at him. "Of course you don't! Sweet kid like you!" she said and twirled a finger in her hair. "You sure don't like that snake much though, do you?"
"That's not a person," Bakura-kun said darkly. "It's a thing. And I just want it to go away."
"What is it?"
"A thing, didn't you hear the first ten times?" the other Bakura snapped at her.
"Sure, but I was hoping for a more specific noun," Mai replied with a shrug.
"Well there isn't one."
"Fine," Mai waved her hand dismissively. "It's a thing. Whatever."
"... You're not going to tell Yuugi, are you?" Bakura-kun's voice asked tentatively, drawing Mai's attention back to the soft-spoken boy. There was fear in his eyes, Mai noted, and not just the general creepy-crawlies that this non-place gave you, subject-specific fear.
Mai sighed, gazing back ahead of her. "... I guess it's none of my business, is it," she said quietly.
The other Bakura gave her a contemptuous snort that made Mai grin and almost laugh.
...
Ryou was asleep. As they both were only souls in this place, sleep really wasn't really necessary, but Ryou often took comfort in napping when he was overly stressed, and so Bakhura held his boy against him, trying to keep away the chill as much as possible, and let Ryou sleep. Kujaku was leaning back-to-back with him for warmth, which he found vaguely intriguing. Either she was an exceptionally trusting creature or she just had an inflated sense of her own ability to defend herself.
They'd finally stopped walking some indistinguishable length of time earlier and sat down to 'rest.' This plot of sand and darkness looked exactly like every other inch of sand and darkness they'd walked since arriving here. Kujaku was humming softly to herself and Bakhura could feel the vibrations of her voice through the connection of their backs. He wasn't sure why it was relaxing rather than annoying.
"I'm a murderer, you know," Bakhura said quietly, breaking the suedo-silence.
"Really?" Kujaku asked in a voice that only betrayed curiosity. "Killed anyone recently?"
"... I'm not sure..." Bakhura mused. "I left a man bleeding and severely beaten a few weeks ago. He might have died, if no one found him."
"Wow," Kujaku hummed a thoughtful note, as though mulling that over. "Why'd ya do that?"
"Do I need a reason?"
"Do you have one?"
"... He was a pervert," Bakhura relented. "He attempted to assault my host."
"Guh," Kujaku shivered exaggeratedly. "Then as a woman, I thank you for taking one of those creeps off the street."
Bakhura blinked in surprise and then raised an eyebrow, turning his head slightly to look over his shoulder at the woman. He could only see her hair and an ear though. "So then you endorse capital punishment, I take it?"
"It's not that, necessarily," Kujaku said slowly and Bakhura could feel her shift a bit, maybe adjusting her legs. "It's just that, I guess I see rape as the worst crime there is..."
"Worse than murder?" Bakhura asked curiously.
"... Murder's pretty awful, but y'know sometimes it's hard to discern between murder and vigilante-justice. Kind of a lot of gray area there, so it's hard to make any generalized moral statements about evilitude," Kujaku explained slowly. "And, y'know, when you're dead, it's over, right? But someone who gets raped... that never ends."
Bakhura was silent for a while, contemplating her answer, then he asked, "Were you raped?"
"... My roommate in college was," Kujaku said very softly. "She killed herself three months later. Stepped in front of the train in one of the older stations that doesn't have the anti-suicide fences."
"I see."
Kujaku cleared her throat and her voice became strong and confident again. "So you said you were a murderer. What do you kill for?"
"... Vengeance," Bakhura said.
"So that falls on the vigilante-justice side of the fence not the creepo thrill-seeker sociopath side," she decided.
"It is very thrilling, though," Bakhura countered with a smirk.
Kujaku laughed. She was a very strange woman. She seemed to be amused by just about anything. "You care about Bakura-kun a lot, don't you? It's funny because everybody seems to think he's some kind of helpless victim that you're abusing or something."
"And you're not going to tell them differently," Bakhura said coldly.
"Hm? Mm." Kujaku shrugged and was quiet a moment. "Hey, that snake, where did it come from?"
Bakhura tensed a bit. He didn't like talking about that thing. He didn't like thinking about it. He didn't like the sneaking suspicion that it controlled him in ways he couldn't even recognize and that whether he listened to it or ignored it, everything just seemed to make it stronger. "... My sahu. My... body."
"Your body?" Kujaku asked skeptically. "Your three-thousand-year-old mummy-body?"
"No, not the corpse, that... I don't know what happened to that. The Millenium Ring is my body now." Bakhura shook his head, frustrated with the way modern people didn't seem to understand that their soul was made up of more than one piece. "Ryou calls it a 'soul-room,' it's where my spirit draws strength from. The snake is always in mine."
"So... It's a parasite living in your 'body.' It's a glorified tapeworm," Kujaku summarized. "A tapeworm that tells you to kill people... Oh my god! That would make an awesome body-horror movie!"
Bakhura stared blankly ahead, bemused by her analysis. "... What?"
"So then, maybe it's just stuck in the ring the same way you are. Huh. How did you get in there anyway?" she asked.
"... I asked the Gods for an immortal body so that I could complete my revenge."
"... And so they put you inside an inanimate object?" Kujaku's voice was a bit odd, as though she was scrunching up her nose. "What a bunch of dicks."
This time Bakhura was the one who started laughing. Ryou shifted a little in his arms as though he might wake, and Bakhura calmed down. "You're very free with your words, Kujaku Mai," he said at last.
"I don't believe in being all meek and mild like the bride every mother wants their son to marry. I'm a feminist, or maybe even a female-supremacist!" Kujaku declared proudly. "I like my men on their knees!"
Bakhura chuckled.
...
Ryou opened his eyes and gasped like he'd been under water. He sat up and panted, squinting at the light and staring around his soul-room. What the hell just happened?
He stood slowly and scanned the room. It looked like it always did, except that he was alone. The Thief wasn't there. Ryou shook his head and strode over to the door. They must have just been thrown back into their own soul rooms after they'd returned from the Shadow Realm, he reasoned, reaching for the door and pulling at it.
It didn't budge.
Ryou frowned and adjusted his grip, trying again. The door still wouldn't slide back. Worry started prickling at Ryou's stomach and he pressed his fingers against a paper panel. It didn't give way like paper should have. He narrowed his eyes and brought his fingers to his mouth, licking them and then returning them to the paper and scratching at it with his nails. It tore away, just like wet paper should, but behind it was a pane of what looked like steel.
"... What the hell?" Ryou murmured to himself. A strange panic rose within him and he started tearing at other panels, finding more steel behind each of them. In a sudden fit of terrified rage, he grabbed hold of the wooden frame and tore it backwards, all the torn paper coming with it and revealing a blank, steel door behind it, with no handle or visible latch. Ryou stared at it, dumbfounded and scared.
It was then that he heard a bolt slide back and his heart leapt. The door opened and the Thief was there, staring back at him. "Oh god!" Ryou whispered. "You're okay! I was so scared when I couldn't open the door!"
"Shut up. "
Ryou blinked, startled by the odd command, and watched the Thief's lips creep up into a smirk, apparently amused.
"What are you-" Ryou started.
"I said shut up!" the Thief shouted and slammed a fist into Ryou's cheek, sending him falling back onto the floor, shocked.
Ryou stared up at him, confused, but didn't try to speak again, and the Thief looked slightly disappointed. As though he'd been hoping for another excuse to hit Ryou. "You," he said, pointing an almost accusing finger. "You go take care of this body and play with your little friends. I'll see to you later." With that, the Thief turned and strode back out of the unfamiliar door and it could be heard locking behind him.
Ryou slowly climbed to his feet and tested the door again. It wouldn't open. He stepped back and stared at it for a while, frowning. That... that had been the Thief, hadn't it? It had to, who else could it have been? He shook his head slowly and glanced upward. If his body had been unoccupied for an untold period, then it probably would be in a pretty sickly state. He couldn't get the door open to go check on the Thief, and so he might as well look after their physical self for now and consider what was wrong with his counterpart later.
He sighed, feeling uneasy about leaving but not seeing a better choice, and drifted up towards consciousness.
...
"Yuugi," Mai called quietly as Jonouchi settled down and declared that it was time for lunch. "... Can I talk to you?"
Yuugi gave her a surprised look, pointing to himself. She nodded, smiling. "H-hey, I'll catch up to you guys," Yuugi said. The other high schoolers gave him curious looks but obliged in leaving the room to just Yuugi and Mai. "Is... something wrong, Mai-san?" Yuugi asked cautiously, crouching down next to her hospital bed.
"Not for me," Mai said, shaking her head. "I just... I think you should know that I saw Bakura there."
Yuugi blinked. "In... the Shadow Realm? The other Malik sent him there a day after he sent you, only, his entire body..."
Mai nodded, giving her pillows a few slaps to fluff them up and scooting up to the headboard so she could sit more comfortably. "Yeah, he said. But, y'know, the funny thing is, it wasn't just the kid."
Yuugi looked very serious and bit his lip for a moment before asking, "The other Bakura was there too, you mean?"
"Heh." Mai shook her head and ran a hand back through her hair. "It's funny that you say it like that, because, y'know how you've been thinking that there are two different people in the kid's head?"
Yuugi frowned, puzzled, and tilted his head slightly. "... Yes?"
"There's three," Mai said quietly. "Well, not quite, because one of them isn't a person, per say."
Yuugi blinked again, taken by surprise. "What... do you mean?"
"I mean, there's Bakura Ryou, and then there's also this guy that he just calls 'Thief' and looks more or less just like him," Mai said slowly, "and then there's a thing that hangs onto Thief. Like... a demon-parasite thing. It was trying to give him orders. It told him to kill me."
Yuugi stared at her, frowning thoughtfully as he processed that. "But... he didn't... just like when he protected Bakura-kun in the duel..."
"Oh he's mad protective of the kid! He was fawning all over him! That's what stopped him from attacking me, was Bakura-kun getting in there and arguing with the demon-thing," Mai explained.
"So..." Yuugi tilted his head and seemed to be listening to something that Mai couldn't hear for a moment before shaking his head a little. "So... he's not a bad-guy?"
"Well he's a really pissed-off guy," Mai said with a shrug. "He says he's got to get revenge on the other you for something or other." She skirted that subject as quickly as she could; she didn't want to pass along any accusations of genocide, based on unsubstantiated hearsay. "But he's definitely human, and even kind of reasonable when you talk to him for a bit. And that other thing is definitely not human."
Yuugi nodded slowly. "... Thank you for telling me," he said quietly.
Mai shrugged, smiling a little. "I told him I wouldn't, both of them actually, but I think somebody really needs to know. I think they're both in way over their heads."
Yuugi nodded again. "But the other Bakura, he's inside of the Millenium Ring, right? And the parasite-thing is also in there?"
"Right. He said it's his 'body' or something."
"... Sahu?"
"Yeah, that's it." Mai nodded.
"... That... should mean that he can leave it for short amounts of time, he just has to go back there to sleep..." Yuugi said slowly. He frowned and paused, seeming to be listening again. "So... if I just make sure to keep the Millenium Ring safe and away from Bakura-kun, the connection will fade and he should be okay."
"And what about the other kid?" Mai asked, gazing at the wall. "Whatever he's done, I don't think he deserves to be alone with that thing."
"I... I don't know..." Yuugi said in a quiet, sad little voice.
"And I'm guessing Pharaoh doesn't have a fix either," Mai said with a sigh.
Yuugi nodded. "He doesn't really know how the Millennium Items work."
And that meant that the 'other Bakura' would just fall through the cracks. Mai closed her eyes and leaned back in her pillows, letting out an irritated breath through her nose. It wasn't fair, but it was one of those injustices there just isn't a good solution for.
...
The door opened and then slammed shut again behind the imposter. Bakhura glared up at him from where he was crouched on the floor of his cell. His double smirked down at him from the platform in front of the ancient door. "Oh don't sulk,' he said. 'It's disgustingly human. "
"Where's Ryou?" Bakhura asked through gritted teeth.
"I told him to look after the vessel," the former snake said with a shrug. "There's all those stupid little needs human bodies have that I really don't have time to concern myself with. Besides, I think it's rather past time that you and I had a little chat."
"Well maybe I don't feel like chatting," Bakhura snarled.
The former snake descended the stairs, giving him an appraising look. "I really have given you too long a leash, haven't I?"
"I'm not your dog," Bakhura spat.
The creature just gazed at him for a moment, and then it moved so quickly that Bakhura only saw a blur coming at him from halfway up the steps, until suddenly a foot planted itself in his gut. He choked, doubling over in pain. "You've forgotten, haven't you?" it said, leaning over him. "That boy has rotted your mind and made you soft. Do you even remember Kul'Elna anymore?"
Bakhura didn't respond, he just curled up on the dirty floor, bringing his knees close to his core. The thing grabbed a handful of Bakhura's hair and pulled his head up, trying to force eye-contact. "Kul'Elna? Remember? The first time I saved you?" it hissed. "I was the one who befuddled the minds of Pharaoh's soldiers and hid you from them. I was the one who gave you the honor of being the chosen one. I was the one who nurtured you and saw that you grew strong."
Bakhura didn't say anything and didn't look at it. "Pathetic," the thing said, letting Bakhura's head fall back to the ground and turning on a heel, pacing as it continued. "And when you begged for eternal life, I granted that wish! I gave you the power, the means to seek your revenge! And a second time, I gave you life!" It turned back to him suddenly and delivered a hard kick to his ribs on the right side. "Am I not a benevolent god?" it demanded. "I have granted you all you could ask for and still you rebel like a petulant child! "
It put its hands on its hips and gazed down at Bakhura silently for several seconds. "But you weren't always like this," it said in a gentler voice. "You were a good little boy once. You did what you were told. You were my obedient pet until your diseased little fuck-toy interfered." It crouched down next to him and brushed Bakhura's hair back with a hand, smiling softly at him. "Did I not teach you that affection is a human weakness that you, as the avatar of our lord, are above?"
"D-don't touch him," Bakhura whispered, glaring back up at the thing.
It frowned and grabbed his hair again, lifting his head a few inches off the ground and then slamming it down hard. "You misunderstand who is the master here, Bakhura," it said quietly. "I will not kill your toy for now, as he remains useful to me for a while longer. But you," it took hold of his chin and turned his face upwards, seeming to study it thoughtfully. "You will require some reconditioning."
Bakhura flinched and squeezed his eyes shut, pulling in tighter on himself as the former snake descended over him. He bit back a yelp when he felt teeth digging into his neck, longer and sharper than the soft, fleshy teeth of a snake. He tried not to whimper as what felt like liquid fire started spreading through his veins. The burning moved quickly from his neck to chest and all the way out to his fingers and toes and into his head. When the snake finally released his neck, Bakhura's entire body was wracked with pain and all he could do was curl in on himself more and shake.
...
A/N: Oh, I done fucked with the status-quo! And Zork-Bakura is now in play! Season 5 is so confusing, playing the count-the-Bakuras game. Most people seem to count three, but I see four, there's Ryou passed out on the stairs (for an entire season, wtf, writers?), there's Thief-King, there's Honda-Bakura and there's Zork-Bakura up at the table... And then a possible 5th when Zork-Bakura makes a new Thief-King out of Kaiba-pieces? What the hell? Five! Five Bakuras! Ah Hah Hah Hah Hah!
Though personally, I hate hate hate 'Zork'. He is a giant ball of WTF and where the hell did they even get him? Well, I'll tell you where they got half of him. Zork's resume was stolen straight off of Apep (The Enemy of Ra)'s desk, including his shadow-crap, power over eclipses and thunder storms and physical description being a huge, black dragon/snake with red eyes. So in general and in all my ficage dealing with him, I make the general rule that the name 'Zork' isn't going to be showing up in my fanfic, it's going to be Apep, because I am a mythology nerd. So mote it be.
Anyway, this plot thread/universe is from here continued in "Interlude," so y'all can go and read that now. But first, be a good reader and REVIEW!