Disclaimer: (holds up signboard) I wish I owned Yu-gi-oh, Gundam Wing, Yakitate! Japan and Getbackers. But I don't. So I only drool over them. The random people they rob from will be my property, though.
Author's Notes: Hello, I'm Hypnotic Prism. This is my first multi-crossover fanfic. I am DESPERATELY praying you will like it. Constructive criticism is welcome. Flames will be ignored. And please read and review—reviews make me very happy. :) PS. I know this crossover, if you look at it through timeline, is not plausible. Gomen. But pretend it can happen for one minute. Aheheh… As you might've noticed, I rewrote the whole thing, but this is because I think this way will be more…descriptive, and will properly capture the atmosphere they have, and will properly tell the story of how they became what they were.
Warnings: This is shounen ai. If you don't like it, feel free to hit the back button.
Vespers: The Shrouded Diaries
Chapter One - Ryou, The Kindled Angel
When did I learn to become what I was…?
I always thought that I'd be the straight-lace, more or less upright sort of person—between me and Bakura, someone had to be—and would be that way for a long time in coming. I did my homework, passed my assignments more or less on time, I was respectful to the people around me and my elders… I would've been the goody-two-shoes that everyone would be on the brink of hating. Maybe somehow, I hated myself for it as well.
Bakura told me many times how weak and pathetic I was, just because I was good. He said that nice guys finish last, and that I was too nice for my own good. These sorts of lectures were usually punctuated with yet another bruise to add to the collection that littered my body. For a long time, it had gone that way. He proved how stupid it was to be nice by being the vicious one, hurting me when he felt in the mood for it—and that was a very common mood.
And although around my friends, I continued to 'defy' those lessons… who would've thought that somewhere deep inside, I might have listened? Few people know that I actually know what it's like to drink and be drunk off my ass for about a few days following. Believe me—Bakura is a lot easier to deal with when you're numb and you couldn't feel anything. So maybe there was a truth in what Bakura said. I learned many illegal ways to escape his torment.
Becoming a Vesper was the most illegal—and most effective—of all.
Before I was more or less safe from my psychopath of a yami, I experienced the longest years of my life, alone in a house with Bakura. Like I said, I sought every possible way to escape him—all of them lasting only for so long and then I'll have to face painful reality. And some of them I dropped, because hiding the effects of those bad habits was also difficult to hide from my friends.
So…I was a guy who had a lot of things to hide. And I hid them all from everybody, not wanting to ruin the perfect little image I'd made for myself—it was, after all, all that I had left.
This only meant that I had nowhere and no one to run to when the trouble got so deep that I couldn't get out. And on the darkest of those days, I ran headlong into the darkness and never looked back.
The first part was always hazy. But from what I can recall, I came home from school miserable. The bullies had been waiting for me again, and they beat me up and took my food. My assignment had gotten wet in the gutter and got so soggy that it went into pieces so I couldn't get it submitted. The teacher reprimanded me in front of class. My friends just told me it was tough luck, that it was all right, I'd do better next time and laughed. I know they meant well, but they just waved it by…
We had three tests that day—two of which I hadn't properly studied for. It was raining hard all day and I slipped on the way home. Some people laughed. I ruined my notes in the wet. And when I arrived home, I found out that the entire place was a mess because Bakura was in a bad mood. There was no food in the fridge to eat, and Bakura used me as his punching bag again, but not before telling me to clean the whole place up.
So obviously…that day was worse than many others. But it was also the day that I decided was the best thing that could've happened to me.
After Bakura's beating, I regained consciousness on the cold kitchen floor. He hadn't bothered to do anything about me. He just left me there. The hope of someone miraculously coming in to help me was something I had long since crushed. No one ever heard me scream, so I didn't do it anymore. Even when I cry, I don't make a sound any longer.
I looked around myself, and saw that everything was cold and dark. Bakura was nowhere to be found, and, yet again, the place was in shambles. And surely, when Bakura came back, he'd haul me from where I lay to make me clean it up. Thunder and lightning blazed on outside with the onslaught of frigid rain. And I knew that if I didn't leave now—right then—I was going to die. Bakura was going to end up killing me, and this day was it. I just knew it had to be.
Now don't get this all wrong: This thought was something I entertained many times now. So I wasn't taking this seriously. It was just a thought I passed through my head to make sure that I was still functioning. I only realized that I was actually really going to die when I had gone unconscious, and awoke again in a large stream of my own blood. I could feel the strength eking out of me, and I naturally began to panic. Because if I died here with this giant mess on the floor, Bakura was going to come out of nowhere and bring me back to life just so he could beat me up AGAIN.
Yes, my life that been going that badly, so much that the irrational made perfect sense.
I don't know how it happened—maybe the lightheadedness mixed with terror was doing it—but somehow I pushed myself to my feet. I couldn't walk properly so I had to hang onto things. I knocked down a chair before throwing myself onto the back door—and wouldn't you know it, right into a muddy puddle. The rain poured down over me—the heaviest, coldest rain I ever felt in my life—and I was grateful for it. The cold rain robbed me of feeling, erasing the pain. I couldn't feel anything anymore.
This was when things get hazy in my memory. I recall seeing the streetlamps in a big haze, their lights in a halo around them, textured by rain. I had gotten pretty far, I assumed, because I had managed to get to where traffic was whizzing by with their red lights like comets in the darkness. To this day I never understood what drove me to leave that house. Maybe it was because I didn't want to die somewhere where no one would care. Or simply…I wanted to know what it was like to be embraced by rain again, without anything to worry about.
I made it through the streets, stumbling in the dark, looking for a drugstore or a hospital—the latter, hopefully, because I only had a few coins with me and I couldn't buy a first aid kit (remember, I'm not thinking straight)—and I couldn't even remember who I was, much less where I was at all. All I knew was that it was a part of the city that I could never recognize. But everything eventually did go dark, and I collapsed. My last thought was that of the water that I hit when I fell. I had always been afraid of drowning, and I wondered if I would, before I blacked out.
Everything came in cuts after that. I guess I was going in and out of consciousness. I remembered opening my eyes and seeing black sidewalk and the puddle I was half in. I saw the rain. I also saw the bottom half of a little white buggy car that had stopped at the curb, and feet were running towards me. I couldn't understand what the voices were saying. My every blink seemed to bring them closer—that awful misconception of amount of time passing when one was half-asleep and half-awake—and I heard a few words I did understand.
"What happened?" the voice was hushed horror. "Is he dead?"
"Don't just stand there," came a slightly deeper voice, sounding urgent. "Help me with him!"
I closed my eyes again. When I opened them, just a crack, I remember feeling strangely warm and cold at the same time. I was lying on something that was like leather. It was a seat of someplace—a restaurant. The lights were warm yellow, and there was urgent talking.
"—talking about?" was what I woke up to. "He's half dead, Paul. We found him like that—we didn't do anything."
"He's just a kid…" came a woman's voice. "I've never seen anyone this hurt, not even in Mugenjou…"
But I fell asleep after that, and I didn't know any more. After that, I woke to a bed in a room of beige walls—which looked like a makeshift clinic. It was all very bare, mostly, but it was clear enough that it was a place of treatment.
At the moment, there was only one person there—a boy, or, as far as I could tell—with red hair, wearing a jacket with the word "Volts" sewn onto it. He turned around and saw me awake, and smiled. "You're awake. That's good. We thought we weren't going to make it."
I just blinked at him, surprised. I recognized nothing at all. "…where…am I? …what happened?"
And here, Ren told me exactly what happened, exactly as how he'd heard it from the testimony of those who had been kind enough to bring me there. I had never expected to get myself involved with such strange people. Perhaps it was a blessing that I hadn't woken, as I would've thought I was hallucinating. But they were real, and I owed them my life.
I had passed out in a street in the less frequented parts of town. It was not a place that anyone should be in unaccompanied in day or night. I had probably lain there for a good couple of hours, unconscious and broken, until someone with very sharp eyes managed to come along.
Two young men had been riding in the buggy car that I saw. One of them was named Ban Midou, and the other, Ginji Amano. It was Ban who had been driving, and the one who had seen me—nothing more than a silver flash in the dark rain, catching the headlights of the car. It was the first time my silver hair had done me good. And Ban had said that it was just as well—I was so caked with mud that if he hadn't looked hard enough, he wouldn't have seen me at all.
He stopped the car instantly.
"Ginji, look," he said, alarmed. "Someone's out there!" without even waiting for an answer from his friend, he'd gotten out of the car, and was heading to me. Ginji followed along after him and then spotted me. He was horrified to see my condition.
"What happened?" he choked. "Is he dead?"
"Don't just stand there!" Ban snapped back at him—by then, he was over me. "Help me with him! Get the blanket at the back of the car!" He turned to me. "Kid! Kid, come on, say something!" Of course by then, I was unconscious again. He lifted me up into his arms, and Ginji, now with an umbrella as well, wrapped the blanket around me. And with Ginji carrying me, they brought me into the car and drove off.
During the whole ride, Ren said, Ginji stared at me with mounting alarm, as I continued to lose blood. I had been extremely pale and limp in his arms, that twice, he thought I had died. Ban was calmer, stating that they couldn't make it to the hospital at that rate, and that I should be taken to safe ground.
They took me to a place called Honky Tonk Café where they and the rest of their collection of very unusual friends—as unusual as they were themselves—went to see each other or hang out. It was an odd choice, but apparently an effective one. There were a few of them in attendance.
The proprietor of the establishment, a man named Paul, was surprised to see them come in this urgently. Ban took charge of the situation at once. "Natsumi! Get a first aid kit! Paul! We need blankets—fast!"
The sprightly high school waitress of the café, Natsumi, bounced to life and did as told. Paul was less nimble. He stopped to stare. "What happened to the both of you? Who is that?"
"There's no time!" Ginji exclaimed as he lay me on the couch. "Hurry, he's dying!"
It was then that the other people in the room took action. It was two men and a woman. The woman was named Sakura Kakei, and she hurried to me. She and her brother with her, Juubei, were doctors. She swept my wrist into her hand to check my pulse.
Ginji looked at her worriedly. "Well? How is he?"
Juubei was blind, but very perceptive. He shook his head. "Not good. He really is dying. How long has he been this way?"
"We don't know…" Ginji answered. "Pretty long—I've never felt anyone so cold before."
The other man with them, a vivacious persona by the name of Haruki Emishi, less perceptive than the rest, was little more than aghast. "I don't believe this… This kid's been beaten half to death! How could anyone do this to a girl?"
"It's a boy, Emishi," Ban rolled his eyes—to emphasize the point, he opened my shirt, as they had to get me out of my soaking clothes. Haruki looked a bit abashed but continued to help. For the next thirty minutes, there was nothing but the two doctors and the rest of them coaxing me back to life.
When they were sure that I wasn't about to die on them, they pulled back and let out sighs of relief. "It's not enough, though…" Sakura pointed out. "We'll have to get him to a hospital."
"Are you boys about to go and tell us what you'd done to him or what?" Paul then said, crossing his arms over his chest from behind the bar. Ban had glared at him.
"What are you talking about?" he growled. "He's half dead, Paul! We found him like that—we didn't do anything!"
"He's just a kid, though," Sakura said softly, looking me over. "I've never seen anyone this hurt, not even in Mugenjou… And you all know how that place is…" she looked back to the others. Ginji was particularly thoughtful about that remark—he was once a resident of that infamous city himself. I only found out later that I was actually in a clinic in that city.
"I don't think we can leave him alone just yet…" murmured Ban, looking me over as well. "From the looks of him…where he came from hadn't been friendly."
"You've taken a particular interest on him, I take it," Paul smirked, raising an eyebrow.
Ban had been drinking a cup of coffee. He didn't put it down as he looked at Paul over the corner of his eyes. "I've seen a lot of things happen to kids… I don't like seeing it happening again."
"What's this?" Natsumi tapped the ring that hung around my neck—it never left me. "It looks…kinda expensive, doesn't it?"
"Solid gold," Ban said again, not looking up. "I thought he may have been beaten up because he was mugged, but he had his money in his pockets, however little, and that trinket was intact. Whoever did this to him…" he took a slightly shaky gulp of coffee, "…they did this to him at home."
"Then we can't let him go home," Ginji said fervently, looking at his partner.
"Where do you propose we take him, then?" Haruki asked. "The only place we've got as option, besides this place, is…" He purposefully let himself trail off there. He needn't continue.
"Mugenjou…isn't it?"
They looked up as the bell tinkled, and the person that was to change my life came in. It was a very beautiful person, tall, dark-haired and elegant, with threads wound around his slender fingers. Bells would tinkle when he moved. Juubei rose to acknowledge his leader, and the man he was devoted to.
It was this person, actually, who had been listening through a single delicate piece of thread that hung on Haruki's button. It was he said that it would be most prudent if I was brought to the clinic he knew in Mugenjou and that there, I would be safe. And that for a while now, he had a bit of a project, which he believed I would, if I conceded to the job, be perfect for.
Ban and Ginji weren't sure about it, knowing what Mugenjou was like, but they knew that person and trusted him, and so they agreed, with the others, to take me here, provided that they would be able to keep a bit of an eye out for me.
I think I cried a little, when Ren told me that. All my life, I had been surrounded by people who knew me by name, knew what kind of color I liked, knew what little it took to make me smile—even what it took to break me. Even Bakura—he knew what to do to make me shut up, to make me talk, to make me do things. Everyone I had, up until then, knew a good bit about me.
But I was delivered from death's grip by pure strangers…people who never even knew my name. And they even continued to look after me, to make sure I was safe. Not even the people I knew as my friends did that for me.
I was not told the beautiful person's name—the person who changed my life—no matter how much I would ask Ren. He said that he had been expressly told that I was not to know his name until he told me himself. And he held him in the highest of regards, assuring me that whatever he had planned, it would be to help me.
I think I stayed in the clinic for a few days, and when I was able, Ren took me for a walk down the dim, dusky city known as Mugenjou. It was a very strange place—a perpetual ghetto, as it was—of people who seemed to live in fear of everything, under the control of something greater. I learned that this place was a hotbed of the strange and the unusual, where people with extreme talents, supernatural gifts, reigned like kings. Literally. Leaders of gangs, the greatest gangs, were referred to as Kings, and the greatest of them all was named Raitei. He wasn't around very much anymore, apparently—there was a bit of secret in that—but I was being taken to couple of those kings now.
Ren was under the protection of the great gangs, so the dark elements in the city kept their distance as we walked boldly down the streets. And finally, we arrived to our destination. It looked like a very large warehouse of several floors, and it was given a clear berth by the people, in the same way people would steer clear of the lion's cage in the zoo. Ren led me in, telling me not to look so worried.
It was pure darkness for a bit, when the door closed, and I learned to adjust my eyes to the dim light. For a while, we seemed to go through endless walking, until Ren told me to stop. Wherever we were, we were 'there'.
The first thing I saw was the light of a laptop. It was dim blue light, and I heard the sound of rapid typing—so much that it could've been superhuman in speed. That sound was being made by a boy at the other end of the large hall, with a strange set of goggles over his face. I stopped, blinking at him. He looked around my age.
He looked up at us, and then smiled, slipping off his goggles. "Hello there. You must be the one."
I felt my face burn. I had never received this much attention in my life. "I'm…sorry… I…really don't know what's going on."
He seemed to be studying me intently with incredible pale blue eyes. I felt my face flush for all different reasons—he was very handsome. I learned later that I wasn't the only one who thought so, hence, this was forgivable. He suddenly smiled at me. "I can detect just the littlest bit of an accent in your words. So it's true that you're foreign…"
No one had ever noticed that before. I didn't either. I smiled at him. "I'm…half-British."
He nodded, leaping down from his perch of computers. "I know. I studied you before you came in. I know all about you already."
"Makubex-sama is a hacker," Ren informed me quietly. "He's extremely talented in the field of technology. He can find anything about anyone at any time."
"Makubex…?" it was a strange name, and I blinked back to the blue-eyed hacker. He was smiling at me, walking towards me. "Ryou Bakura is your name…high school level…half-British, and you like Duel Monsters. In fact, you participated in several competitions, but another of the games you are proficient at is Monster World. Am I right?" He held out his hand.
I shook it timidly, staring at him. "You're right…"
Makubex smiled again, still looking at me, but he spoke to someone who was behind him. "Well, then…if it comes to that project you're talking about, I think he's perfect for it."
I was confused about this for a moment when the beautiful person I had told you about appeared in a patch of light a way off behind Makubex. It only took me one look before I was entranced. I had never seen such a pretty person before in my life. And in Ren hadn't assured me that it was a man, I would have sworn that he was a woman.
He was approaching us, flanked by two people who kept close, like knights would to a princess. One of them, the brunette, I would learn later as the same Juubei Kakei who had been one of the doctors who treated me. The blond well-built one was named Toshiki Uryu. Both of them were devoted to this one person in the middle, and I could see why.
That person smiled now. "I told you… I knew the moment I saw him." That person walked up to me, smiling in such a way that I immediately knew I could trust him, and that with him, I was in no danger. His every move was graceful, from the shifting of his fingers, to his walk as he sauntered up to me. "Are you feeling better? You looked very awful when you were found…"
"I'm fine now…thank you very much," I answered, nodding, unable to take my eyes off him. "I…really don't know how to thank you… You all saved my life."
He smiled and shook his head. "It's quite all right… From what we've found out about you, it's high time that you got rescued, hm?"
"What do you mean…?" I looked up at him, puzzled.
He looked at me with steady brown eyes. "It's not only nationality and hobbies that Makubex has found out about you… From what I can tell…you haven't had it very easy…"
By now, I realized that the only people left in the room were I, Makubex, and this person. Ren, Juubei and Toshiki had quietly slipped away. How they did it without anyone noticing, I wouldn't know. And I really couldn't pay any attention to anything other than the person in front of me.
He reached out and touched my shoulder where a bruise still lay hidden under the shirt. "How often does he hurt you…?"
I wanted to ask how he knew, but the words wouldn't come out. It felt like in such a place like this, knowing such things is commonplace already. Tears were welling in my eyes when I said, "…all the time."
"Why don't you tell anyone…?" he asked, looking concerned.
"Because…if I did…he would kill them, and me…" I turned away with a short laugh. "…in fact, being gone from the house so long…I think he might just be ready to kill me…"
"From what we understand, there was no movement in your house for the past three days," Makubex looked at me, puzzled. "I don't think he's around…"
I shook my head. "It doesn't work that way… You have to…" I paused, trying to figure out how to explain it. "You have to know him to see him… That's what he is…some sort of spectre…and he chooses when he'd show himself."
"Do you think he's in your house, then…?" the person asked.
I gazed steadily at them. "Is it a mess inside? Does furniture break?"
Makubex looked puzzled again and glanced to the pretty person then back at me. "Yes… I had been wondering."
"He's home, then."
Talking about him this way, my yami seems to sound like some malignant poltergeist that refuses to leave and no amount of exorcism could extract. Unfortunately, he was something much more real, much more dangerous, than that. I touched the ring on my chest. "He lives in here… Though as of now he had separated himself for a while. He has…very strong dark powers. But he is trapped within this."
The beautiful person nodded at me. "I see…" he looked at me again with a bit of a smile on his face, as though trying to reassure me. "Ryou… I asked you to come here…because I wanted to make you a proposition."
"…a…proposition?" I stared at him. "…on me?"
"Yes…" he nodded. "You see, I have a little…project, as it were. And it calls for the recruitment of individuals with rather…singular looks."
I was completely baffled. I stared at him again. "What do you mean?"
Here, he laughed and turned to me in a flutter of bells. "What I mean to say is…do you know that you are a very pretty person?"
I winced. All right…a few times already, my yami had told me that I looked like a school girl. And because of that, I was a wimp and horribly pathetic. He poked fun at me for my fair skin and long hair. I wondered if this was what that person meant. "I…think so."
"Oh don't worry, it's a compliment," he said, patting my shoulder gently. "I need exactly that kind of people. If you don't mind my saying…I mean ones that don't look like they can do harm at all. Gentle…attractive people."
"Well…I really can't do harm on anything," I stammered, not really knowing what he was getting at. He only seemed to grow more amused by the minute. He said, "I can tell you're getting confused. I should tell you right out."
He looked to the wall behind me, and then sighed. Then he said, "Ryou, I think this is a way to help you at the same time. I want to ask you…to be part of a group of agents. It is a small organization which I will be the leader of, agents who…would be more like underground guns for hire."
I gaped. "…what—me?"
"Yes," he nodded, not batting an eyelash. "I've studied you, and you're…fitting for the job." He glanced at me. "Other than looking completely harmless, you know several languages in the world. Secondly, you already have a great knack for acting and secrecy because of all the things you hide, and secrecy to this entire operation is a must. Third…" he looked levelly at me now. "…you are a talented thief."
"I—" I choked on that. I thought no one but me knew that. "What?"
"Aren't you?" he kept looking steadily at me.
I glanced away, not really sure if I ought to say it. "…I need to get out of the house, out of my room somehow, when I am locked in. I didn't know how I managed, but I pick locks… And they open. I learned how to move quietly, when I escape, so much so that I could walk up behind someone and they wouldn't know I was there. I learned how to snatch at things rapidly, and hide them, before they could be taken from me…because if I didn't, he would take them, and…"
The person smiled. "Exactly." He began walking around me again, wafting his fragrance. "The agents will do all sorts of things…be assassins, bodyguards, thieves, retrievers, guides… Anything that would be the class of "dirty work" here in the underground. You already have some of the skills needed for the job, though it came about not in the fashion you would've liked."
No one would've liked it. "I…see…" I came to sense. "But—but I can't be that! I can't—it's—" I stopped, because both he and Makubex were now watching me, waiting for what I had to say. I turned crimson, and I managed to say, "it's—against the law…"
"Oh don't worry—you won't be caught," Makubex said calmly. He looked evenly at me. "Ryou…I think you won't disagree when I say that you've already seen a lot of unlawful things in your life to worry about a few more. This one in particular can help you."
I looked up at the pretty person at this. He said, "I will train you. You, and others like you. You will be trained how to fight, how to shoot, how to dodge, and how to use your skills to the best of their capabilities. You will be stronger, faster and more intelligent than you've ever been. And Ryou…" and here he looked at me with intense brown eyes. "…the things I teach you can protect you. From him."
I felt my heart thud heavily in my chest.
He was still looking hard at me. "I offer you sanctuary from him, with me, and the rest of the agents that I hire. You will also never be weak again, after this, if you agree to be one of my agents."
"Think about it, Ryou…" Makubex said in a low voice. "…if you choose to return home now…in your current state… There will be no saving you from his fury. At least…if you learn…you will have a chance to defend yourself."
I bit my lip. This was the strangest most dangerous thing anyone had ever asked me to do. To be a murderer was something I had never seen myself doing. To be underground, working against those in power. It was a fearsome task ahead of me. It would be cheating death daily. I was terrified of guns, of being caught, of being hurt and punished. So many things could happen that I was afraid of. I would never be normal again.
And then, I thought…I was so tired of being afraid. All my life—as far as I could remember—I had been afraid of so many things. Everyday I lived in terror of Bakura's wrath. Everyday, I was scourged for sins I did not do. Everyday, I was struck down for a weakness that I was born with. And everyday, power was dangled in front of me by those who had it, bending me to their will, causing me to submit.
And…I was so tired of that. I don't want to be weak like this anymore. I don't want to live an existence of constant fear. I want to learn what it was like, for the first time, to be the strong one. To know that in spite of everything, I have strength inside me that I could use to protect myself against the harsh reality that there was nothing lawful or legal in a world that could not even look into the eyes of a friend and know that they were being hurt.
Power was now being offered to me. It was probably the one and only time I would be given this chance—to work against a system, a life, that have had me under its thumb for as far as I could remember.
And I was taking it.
I looked up at him. "I'll do it."
He gazed at me steadily. "Are you sure? If you say yes…there's no taking it back. It will be difficult, this road…" He watched me.
But I already knew my answer. I looked up at him, feeling every bruise in my body, feeling weak, and wanting something else. "I'm tired of being afraid. I…I'm tired to being pushed around, being hurt. I want to know what it's like to be strong, and to hold a few cards of my own. If I let this chance go…I might never have it again. And I'll die like that, as weak as everybody has been telling me that I was. I don't want that. I know it'll be hard, and dangerous. But living a life as I've had…I'm ready to take just about anything."
"It's a hard choice to make…but you look as though you've made it," he slowly smiled at me, and held out his hand. Slowly, like I was in a dream, I took his hand. He shook it gently.
"You may call me Elegance. And from now on, you are a Vesper."
That was how I got myself into this. I became a Vesper that day. An In-Training one, but a Vesper nevertheless. I wasn't to return home at all, which was just as well for me. Whether I came home now or next week, Bakura would be there, hating me and wanting to kill me, so I presumed that I would just return when I was at least remotely physically able to defend myself.
My training began when I was fully healed. And it was then that I found out that I was not alone. I wasn't the only Vesper at the time. There were already two of them, both as new as me, and both about to be taught how to become Vespers as well. We would all be trained at the same time, and I met them there, in Mugenjou—the place which would be something of a 'home away from home' for us all.
We were given different names, which we were to call each other when we talked of things about this job of ours. Though Elegance said that it was to our discretion whether or not we want to tell each other our real names, Elegance never told us his real name—I only found out later why.
There were two other boys with me. And as Elegance said, they looked gentle and friendly, like they could do no wrong. But they were recruited for reasons that stunned me, and we were all friends quickly.
There was a blonde one, with aquamarine eyes, whose name was Quatre Raberba Winner. He was very rich—an Arabian prince—hence his callsign, "Prince". He was very kind and friendly, and he played wonderful violin. He played on occasion, which was a sound so beautiful and so alien in Mugenjou that people stopped to listen. I played the piano to accompany him sometimes. He behaved very much like a well-bred European boy, and I found myself relating to him somewhat. For all he looked so nice and sweet, however, he was deadly. He was trained in the military before. He was swift, could shoot with devastating accuracy, and already knew some hand-to-hand combat. He knew how to operate and pilot all sorts of things, from jets to tanks, and he even had his own personal army to boot, devoted to him.
The other one was the most intelligent boy I'd ever met. His name was Shigeru Kanmuri, and he too was friendly, although he had a bit of a saucy streak to him, which caused him to be called, "Cat". His hair was soft pink and he had these incredible lavender eyes that belied nothing of some of the things he could do. Besides being an incredibly talented—as in, world class, unbeatable—baker, he was a genius who had graduated at Harvard food sciences at the age of sixteen, giving him exquisite tastes and observation skills. He was also a computer freak—a hacker—and a science whiz. He and Makubex could spend days talking about science. But what was more—the thing I couldn't believe—is that he is heir to a powerful yakuza clan. It was an heirship that he didn't want, but had no choice upon.
So there was a soldier, a hacker, and a thief found in the three of us. But nothing could've prepared us for the training that Elegance gave us.
Makubex used something that we had never seen before—it was sort of an environment generator. It showed us a fake world that was so very real that it was terrifying. He said, that if only one percent of our brains believe this simulation, we could get hurt or die within it. This was where Elegance began to train us for our new "job".
It was rigorous—ridiculously rigorous—so much so that we would go to bed wasted and so tired that we would be asleep before we hit the covers. And we would wake up the next day to do it all over again. Day by day, we began to improve. As Elegance promised, we became faster, stronger, deadlier, with each passing day. I learned how to shoot and when and why to do it. I had never fired a gun before, but sometimes during the training days, I fired nothing else.
We were taught how anything and everything around us could become a weapon we could use to our advantage. We turned obstacles into support, and, little by little, Mugenjou became our playground. We were avoided but respected in the streets, because they knew who we were and that we were under the protection of Elegance. We became closer to one another as we became better at our work. And we learned how to fight with dependency on one another. As Elegance said, we were our own sanctuary from the world we all ran from. We continued to return to our lives though, when we were able (I still needed to go to school, after all), but every day, we would return to the dark underworld to resume our training. My friends never noticed a thing.
Then one day, something strange happened. Shigeru had been missing for that day, so Quatre and I were left to our own for starters. We were playing music on the violin and the piano when the door suddenly opened, and Elegance came in with Shigeru. But Shigeru was different. He was pale, stiff and shaking, and he was forcing himself not to look that way. He seemed stunned, like he saw something that he wasn't supposed to see. Elegance didn't say anything, but he just handed us Shigeru's gun (it was warm, recently used) and told us there were no lessons today—we were just to look after Shigeru and make sure he manages to calm down right. He smiled at him in a way that looked like he was proud of him and at the same time, worried about him.
We never asked what had happened, and neither one of them, neither Shigeru, nor Elegance, told us what had happened. Quatre did ask, but Shigeru just smiled faintly and shook his head, saying that it was something he was being silly about. And we let it go at that, and after that, Shigeru went back to normal, as always.
I found out, for myself, as all Vespers were supposed to, what had happened. It was a day that followed me around all the time—I would wake up in the night, soak drenched and scared, because of it. It was something that, no matter how many times repeated, could not be forgotten or made a habit out of.
It was the very first time I killed somebody.
It happened fast—a week after the episode with Shigeru. And Makubex's simulations showed how deadly they could be, because now we were being put through environments that were real-time missions, forcing us to use all our training to accomplish our task and escape out of it. There the three of us went, rushing through this Middle Eastern setting, ducking the bullets that whizzed by our ears in deafening succession.
I wouldn't go into the details—it wasn't important, because we've gone through this setting a lot—but this was the first time that we were told to shoot to kill if the situation called for it. Vespers don't kill those not directly involved—we injure them in the limbs to stop them and then fly—but if there's no choice, we then shoot to kill.
All I know was that somehow, we found ourselves inside a darkened abandoned warehouse, surrounded. Quatre and Shigeru were far from me, shooting away, trying to deter those after us. I was left to face-off with our prime target—the man at the other end. I went for him, took out his bodyguards and face off with him. But he was very strong—he held me off as I tried to get to him.
And then—I can't quite remember how—I was on the ground, and so was he. My gun lay between us. Quatre and Shigeru were getting overrun behind me. An action needed to be done—fast.
It was like the world slowed. My heart was pounding. My body had ached with all the blows, scrapes and shots. And in the back of my mind, I knew that this was real and that Quatre and Shigeru were going to die if I didn't kill the target now and end the mission. I reached for my gun, and leveled it between the man's eyes. And for a single horrifying moment, I stopped.
I was going to kill him. I was going to kill somebody for real—face to face—someone who had a family, a wife, kids—I was going to take a life as though I were a god on a rampage. I felt terror rip through me—the same fear I felt when Bakura would point a knife right to my face and tell me that he was going to kill me with it. Was this what I was doing…? Had I turned into the monster I hated…?
Quatre was screaming. "Shoot him, Angel!! Shoot him!!"
That wasn't even my name… That wasn't even me… I wasn't me anymore…who was I…?
"What are you doing?!" Shigeru was crying out from where he was pinning someone down. "Angel, come on! Shoot him!! Shoot!"
They were scared…scared like I was… And I knew that this was what Shigeru had done—he had murdered someone… And I was going to do it to… Why…? What had this person ever done to me to deserve this…?
The target, reacting as a person would, then reached for his own gun. I saw every moment. He grabbed his revolver, and began to raise it—towards me—to kill me before I could kill him.
Quatre screamed again, desperate. "Angel, please!! Pull the trigger!!"
I could move, I was scared out of my mind. A thousand times, I shot this gun, but now I couldn't even bear the weight of it. The target was looking at me with a deadly gleam in his eyes. It was a gleam I'd seen in Bakura's face a million times—pure hatred, merciless desire to kill. He was going to kill me. And that gun was now leveled at me—and the hammer clicked.
"If even only one percent of your mind believes this is real…you will die…"
I was going to die…
"ANGEL!!"
"RYOU!!"
I screamed and pulled the trigger. Blood splattered into my face the bullet exploded into his face. The look in his eyes was something unforgettable—the light faded out of it like a blown candle. I didn't stop shooting—I just kept going until the bullets stopped, just to stop that terrible, glassy eyed accusing stare of the dead. The man had been blown back with so much force that he was now a limp, bloodied rag doll across me.
He was dead…
Everything was hazy. I felt sick and dirtied, and I felt like I wasn't in my own body—like there was nothing, nothing at all.
I remember the environment fading away, and I just kept staring and staring at where the body had faded away. I didn't move…just stayed there in that quiet, accusing serenity that followed after life has left…
Someone came up to me quietly, and gently took the gun from my hands. I jumped a little when flesh came in contact with mine. It burned.
It was Elegance, and he was leaning in front of me with a gentle smile, trying to reassure me that everything was all right. He smiled, cupping the side of my face, leaned close and whispered, "…Ryou Bakura…? Angel…? My name is Kazuki Fuchoin… Welcome to the Vespers…"
I stared up at him like a puppet. And I began to cry. And he took me into his arms and told me everything was going to be all right.
This had been, apparently, my initiation. The act was a binding blood contract into Vespers, and I understood why—because it was the day your hands really knew what it was like to take a life. And to see that light fade away from someone's eyes, knowing that it was you who took it—well…things could never be the same again. And once that blood contract had been made, Kazuki trusted you enough to know his name, which was another contract of secrecy in the world of Vespers.
I understood why it took Shigeru a few days to get over the first time. You had to learn how to get over it. To justify why you did what you did. To kill was to kill. Kazuki gave us no justifications for why we did what we did. He had told us before we ever got into this, what we would do, and that it would be difficult. So it was just a matter of swallowing it, and justifying it to yourself, and to keep going. And they gave us a resting period because this was the time a recruit could be most vulnerable to being lost, and Kazuki remedied that by making sure that friends, fellow agents, were at hand.
I know Quatre tried to help, but the only one who really understood was Shigeru. Because he'd done it before, face to face. So he talked to me, and shared with me his own justifications. In time, I did get over it. Because I knew it wasn't going to be the last time I would have to do that. And when Quatre's turn came, Shigeru and I were there to help—but Quatre's came the easiest. He was ex-soldier. He knew how to accept harshness like that. And apparently, it was not the first time he'd had to kill someone, though he hadn't done it face-to-face like this. So when it came for our youngest, the new In-Training, Leon, we all helped him through it.
But for countless nights after training, even now that I am a full-fledged Vesper, in active missions three times a week…I still get nightmares. I still hear Quatre and Shigeru screaming for me to shoot, and I still am seized by that terror. And I would fire the shot that took a life for the first time, and I would wake up in the blank darkness of my room—and I would remember that I was a murderer.
How Bakura would be proud of me, then, if he knew. He had won, after all. He won, but he couldn't touch me anymore. These nightmares followed me endlessly, no matter what I did. I was glad when I got them in the Vespers safehouse, because I could always go into Quatre or Shigeru's rooms (whoever was available—Leon had to return home with sharp punctuality else he'll be discovered), and stay with them for the night.
I couldn't do that during the times I'd be with friends. They would ask what was wrong, and won't stop until I told them, and this was a secret I had to keep to the death. My life with them was the only purity I had left in me. If I lost that, I'd be nothing at all—nothing but what I'd become, and right now, I'm still not entirely sure if I liked it yet.
I tried to figure out if I regretted being a Vesper—going into a life I always thought that I would never come upon, or refuse. In the end, I always was glad I became one. It was learning how to live and be strong the hard way. It was always the ending for those who started out wrong to begin with anyway…
Thus ends chapter one. Please tell me what you think of this version. Review!