Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh is the intellectual property of Kazuki Takahashi and Konami, and is being used in this fanfiction for fan purposes only. No infringement or disrespect is intended by this fanfiction.
.
Description: In order to use a tool effectively, you must understand what its proper use is.
Prompted by Round 5 of Season 8 of the FFnet Fanfiction Contest, Dollshipping (Dark Bakura and Dark Necrofear). There are faint echoes of other things in here (to those that speak the lingo: Tender, Deal, Late, and Somber), because sometimes fiction imitates life, and life tends to draw very smudgy lines.
.
.
Mirror rorriM
by Animom
.
The Endless Void was an ideal place from which to begin observation and manipulation of the vermin, but as corporeality was necessary to achieve success, the Darkness needed always to find a suitable Vessel.
Adults were almost always unsuitable: those whose souls were neither too cluttered nor too small almost always had monumental wills or low intelligence. Children worked much better as vessels, but fewer and fewer of those that appeared in the marketplace had the useful skills of ages past – or if they did, their freedom was choked by bonds to siblings and parents. (Mothers were especially troublesome.)
Generations of minions, scores of decades … and then, finally, there was a soul, fragrant with grief, echoing with despair, empty of all but a tiny flicker of life.
The perfect Vessel at last.
.
"Why so sad, sahib?" The merchant's eyes, shadowed by his hood, seemed to flash impossibly red at the thin, middle-aged man in dusty khakis who had walked past his table.
Taken by surprise, the man turned and answered more honestly than was prudent. "I'm worried about my son," he said, his voice almost swallowed by the noise of the midday bazaar. "He's been having a hard time of it lately."
"Ah yes … I can see the hole in your spirit, and in his as well," the merchant said. "I have waited many years for a family such as yours. Gentle souls distanced from each other by pain."
"Say again?" the man asked sharply, but the words make him think of his son, the pale pre-teen who had been like a ghost in the months since the loss of his mother and sister, withdrawn and listless. "What nonsense are you about? Trying to trick me into something?"
"No, no, sahib, not at all!" the merchant was quick to reassure. "I just meant that you and your son are the only people in many many years that seem to me worthy of this." He reverently lifted a bundle into sight from beneath the table and began to unwrap it, revealing a large gold openwork talisman. "It is said that this can mend the heart of anyone who wears it, so well that it will seem that they have received a completely new one."
For a moment the man looked down at the talisman, dimly glowing in the shade under the merchant stall's canvas awning, and his face softened, yearning; then he pressed his lips into a thin, angry line and shook his head. "I'm sure you make a good living, tricking ignorant tourists, but I'm a Professor of Archeology: you can't fool me with such a poorly made counterfeit! What is this meant to be? a Second Dynasty funerary breastplate? You probably have a hundred more of these in the back of a donkey cart somewhere!"
"No sahib," the man protested, "there truly is no other like it in all the world."
The professor's eyes narrowed. "Then why sell it to me?"
"Because the Almighty is telling me that you must have it." The merchant's eyes were wide, his tone fervent. "And so in His name I give it to you freely. I ask no payment, other than your promise that you will give it to your son to wear. To repair the hole in his heart."
The professor stared down at the talisman, frowning. "Ridiculous. He's a refined child. His tastes are nowhere near this tawdry." He touched the wedjat in the center of the Ring and murmured, "And it's unlikely to do him any good."
"But sahib, is that not what a parent does?" the merchant continued, watching the professor carefully."Snatch at every chance, no matter how small, to help our children when they are threatened or in pain?" He added, sensing that his customer was finally wavering. "Sahib, it is a gift. What harm could there be in a gift?"
In the end the professor counted out thirty piastres and dropped them onto the rags that had wrapped the talisman. The coins pooled in the folds of the cloth like a miniature river of silver.
.
In order to use a tool effectively, you must understand what it does, what its proper use is: a sickle is not an adze. Therefore the Darkness watched the Vessel, learned its language and nature, the details of its world: it was called Ryou, it was intelligent, it spent most of its time alone painting tiny statues, its mother and father were absent. During most of its waking and all of its sleeping its soul huddled, unmoving, in a small room not much larger than a burial chamber.
This suited the Darkness well. It began to emerge, at first when the Vessel was sleeping, and then more and more during its waking hours. Only when the Vessel was alone, and at first only for a few moments; but then, as the body became more familiar, he took it over more and more often, mastering its use for walking, talking, eating, defecating. The Darkness spoke often the word "Bakura" aloud in order that this word might become familiar as yet another of its many names, and soon it was so.
.
Dear Amane,
It was sunny today. I went to the park and sat by the pond. I saw Alphonse, leading a row of ducklings. I suppose we should call him Alphonsa from now on?
He stopped writing. He wondered if being a duck parent was difficult, but the idea of "parent" pulled him back and down, towards the howling pit, and before he could stop himself he wondered what sort of mother Amane would have grown up to be.
This thought was his undoing: he wrapped his arms around himself and rocked back and forth miserably in his chair. He wanted to see them, even if it was only one more time. He couldn't remember what they had talked about in the week, day, hour before they died: had he told them he loved them? had he said goodbye? had he said anything at all?
He swiped at his eyes. No. he hadn't. He remembered damn well what he had said, because he hadn't said anything. There had been the jingle of the car keys, his sister's laugh, the rustle of their coats, the sound of the door closing, and he had been grateful for the silence, the end of the distracting noises they'd been making. He must never forget to keep that memory foremost, because they would never make noise, ever again. His mother would never again rattle the flour tin while making pie dough. Amane would never again show him her dolls and insist that they were his nephews, chattering on and on about going to the park with Uncle Ryou and feeding the ducks. He had been relieved that they were gone, because he had wished for the house to be quiet for once, but now, like King Midas, he knew how awful it could be to get one's wish.
Killing himself wasn't an option – dying with such a grievous mortal sin on his soul would keep him from Heaven, and he'd never see Mother or Amane again – but he could certainly hope for a disaster.
.
The most irksome aspect of the situation – for now that he was corporeal he was subject to certain human emotions – was the irony. Had one of the Vessels he used in days of the ancients proved unsuitable, it would have been simple to discard them and find another: in those days new Vessels had been plentiful, easy to find, and eager to do what was needed … and yet those Vessels of long ago had also been sturdier and less complicated, and thus never would have suffered from this weepy malaise in the first place!
As always, it was simple: if he could not easily find a way to cure this Vessel's longing for death, he would simply push the wisp of Ryou aside until he had gathered the other Items and accomplished his Ascension.
Bakura sat at the desk. An easily-broken locked drawer was filled with images, various combinations of a man, a woman, and two children. The boy was obviously his host; the girl was smaller, much younger, with the same strange white hair. The sister, "Amane" he supposed. Beneath the images was a battered flat box, decorated with ornate swirling letters: O U I J A. Inside the box was a folded board, a large flat crystal in a wooden frame with pegs on the bottom, and a large portrait of the girl sitting outdoors. She was smiling faintly, a doll in her lap. The blue ribbon in her hair matched her dress. Bakura was puzzled by the contents of the box at first, until he looked at the booklet of instruction for the OUIJA and understood that Ryou was using the board to contact the dead – the dead sister, most likely.
So irksome.
He shoved the box and the images back into the desk, then left Ryou's chamber. The father had, as always, left an envelope with a stack of money and a letter for his son before he left on his latest expedition. Bakura tossed the unread letter aside and ventured out into the world.
.
The city was a thousand times larger, and a hundred times noisier, than any he had ever seen, but in the hearts of the humans around him he could sense the same glorious Darkness, the hatred and desperation and pain that was his element. What he felt now – the word was "impatience" – at the thought of drinking their souls.
The Ring pulsed.
He looked around, trying to find what it was reacting to. Small buildings, stores. No temples, no processions. No one who might be a High Priest.
He held his hands up, willing it into solidity. The Ring was uncertain, but he followed its uncertainty into a small green building.
An old man looked up as he entered. "May I help you?"
"Just looking," Bakura said, and as he turned to go he saw something familiar inside one of the long glass coffins: the Crawling Dragon. On a small square of paper rather than a stone slab, to be sure, but it was unquestionably – He stepped to the case, amazed to see so many powerful ka gathered in such a small place.
"Do you play?" the old man was asking.
"Play?" he repeated, his eyes flicking from Crawling Dragon to Spiria, Gadius, Devouring Scarab ...
"Duel Monsters," the old man said. "It's what all the young people are playing now."
"It looks intriguing," Bakura said, surprised to feel a stirring of interest from the timid soul inside him. "Do you have more of these?"
"Of course!" the old man said heartily, setting two wide trays on the glass. "Take all the time you want. The prices are per card."
"And how is this played?" Bakura asked as he rifled though the cards, pulling out those he found familiar or that appealed to him while he pretended to listen to the old man's long-winded explanation. Attack, Defense, Trap, Magic, Life Points … "Yes, it's certainly very interesting, this game. Where did it come from?"
In reply, the old man took a magazine, flipped a few pages, and then turned it around for Bakura to see. "This is an article about the man who invented it. Maximilian Crawford. Goes by the name of Pegasus."
Bakura hardly needed the barely-visible glint of gold in the man's eye socket to know that Pegasus had one of the Items: the needles of the Ring, burning into his chest, had told him first. So this Pegasus had gone collecting in the Shadow Realm, had he?
"Are you ready?" asked the old man, holding out his hand. "To put together your deck? I see you pulled out quite a few cards."
For an instant Bakura felt that the old man was familiar, but of course that was nonsense, and so he handed over the cards and several pieces of the paper money.
"Good choices," the old man said, fanning out White Magical Hat, Morphing Jar, Chain Energy, Man-Eater Bug, Just Desserts, Electric Lizard, High Priestess, and Change of heart.
Bakura smiled. "I'm sure I'll pick up more as I get better at the game."
.
He doesn't need to go to card stores anymore, with their dull wares; instead, he visits the source, makes sure inspiration is given; and then acquires the result.
Destiny Board, Dark Door, Spirit Shield, Dark Spirit of the Silent ...
He is creating one just for Ryou today.
"Everyone is looking at me. Everyone knows I'm not right."
A sky full of eyes.
"And pretending to be me every waking moment? Going to my classes, talking to my friends, my father?"
Magic and trap, defense and attack.
"Why won't you just let me die, then, instead of keeping me prisoner!"
An impenetrable castle atop a razor-edged crag.
The Dark Sanctuary.
"I can't allow that," Bakura says, laughing. "You taught me the meaning of family."
And then the final piece of their tableau comes into play. Between the headstones she comes to them, floating, her bound thighs ever virginal, her sterile breasts offering no succor, the ka of every young girl struck down by violent death. She carries rage and sorrow and the lost potential of maidenhood and the knowledge that she is loved best in death; behind her, like a halo, is the faint outline of a little girl with a blue ribbon in her hair. She is Fear and Regret and Loss and Darkness.
She is perfection.
"See Ryou," Bakura says, "I've found your sister for you."
.
.
~ The End ~
.
Reviewers, please don't reveal the twist in your review?
.
Author's Notes
I was pretty sure I was going to have to drop out of this contest around the time this prompt was announced, but oddly the idea that weaseled its way into my consciousness was so persistent that I was compelled to put it down as soon as I was able.
First off, I very much apologize for how badly I might have mangled Ryou and Dark Bakura here. I know very little about them, don't read stories involving them, and had limited time to research. Also I had eight years of accumulated random thoughts about them, and they all sort of escaped into this story. I'm also willing to bet that the twist at the end has been thought of before, so my apologies for that.
Anyhow …
Since it seems that there is no universal consensus on exactly what YB is (or rather, when he is who), I sort of went with the "he's an avatar of Zorukh" theory. And also the "most of the time we see Ryou, it's Dark Bakura running the show" assertion. ~ I did some canon fudging: for example, I found out just before I needed to post that in the anime (not sure about manga) Ryou's father gets a card along with the Ring .. and the scene here just doesn't encompass that. ~ I subtly implied that, if Pegasus could "look into" the Shadow Realm and see the spirit monsters/ka that inspired his cards, Dark Bakura could "send" Pegs visions of the cards he wanted him to create. (And then I suppose some secretly evil minions at I2 would ship these special, limited edition cards to Bakura .. yeah, that fetches pretty far. Oh well.)
I realize that the end is rushed, but I hope that at least some of the idea that sparked the story for me – that, at the moment of her death, DN became Amane's ka – came through, and that the connection between DN and DS - the latter only able to be played if the former is in the graveyard – wasn't too belabored.
And finally, yes, there are sentence fragments and odd punctuation. This was, at times, deliberate.
(04) 11 Nov 2010 ~ tweak AN