The Painter. Chapter 1: The special dye.
A/N: his might be disturbing. Very disturbing. This includes a completely psychotic Bakura and Dark Magician x Yugi mature content. So, read at your own risk.
The sun was shining bright over the city of Domino and the windows of the buildings reflected the light perfectly. It was as if thousands of lanterns were lit in the city at daytime. The greatest lantern was the new art university, for it was almost completely out of glass, built in a modern way so the students could gain their inspiration by just looking at the nature which could be seen outside the great glass dome. The university was located next to the forest and a lake, which is why many of the students preferred to draw outside to capture the perfection that the landscape offered. Especially today, when the sun stood high, the building was more beautiful outside than it was outside. From the outside, the tall dome offered a view that looked almost sacred.
The reflections on the windows were slightly blue, making the building look like it was glowing, which is why almost all students went out to capture the view. To be correct, it were all students but one.
This boy's name was Ryou Bakura, who was a rather introverted guy. He never really talked to anyone, seemingly fearing contact with other people and shunning it on purpose. His pictures were always rather dark and depressing, no matter how nice the weather was, no matter how nice the people around him tried to be. The boy always had a blank, focused face and no one had seen him anywhere but in the art studio. It really seemed as if the boy didn't have any interests rather than drawing, nor did he seem to have anyone to talk to. He always expressed his feelings in the drawings.
His most known piece, which also hung in the Domino art museum at the moment, was "Change of Heart", which had shown two faces, one looking away and one staring at the spectator with an evil grin. And those faces were connected by red hair, which was the perfect ruby red.
To say the least, the boy was talented, but lonely. Not that he really craved any friends. He didn't expect anyone to understand him, anyway. Currently, he was working on a sunset painting, which wasn't really a typical sunset. He had called the painting "The shadow realm's beauty", which depicted a black sea, a purple sky and a setting, blood-red sun.
The boy had just started on the sun when he noticed: he had no more red pigment in his container. And that was his favorite and most frequent color. He needed the red dye like air, so he was currently on the end with his nerves. He pulled his silver hair in frustration and was about to cry, when another art student, a brown-haired girl with blue eyes, entered the room to pick up her utensils. She smiled at the male kindly before taking her sketch book and her pencil out of the pencil case. Since she was in a hurry, she carelessly cut herself on an art scalpel, which she often used to carve out templates for airbrush paintings. Cursing under her breath, she licked away the blood, searching for a band-aid she had put into her purse.
Ryou was an observative guy and noticed the red liquid on her finger, a grin appearing on his face. He needed that girl. Or better: He needed her blood. It was a perfect red which would blend with the pigment on his canvas. He quietly snuck up behind her and took the tome of arts from the desk. It was a thick, heavy book which everyone had joked about, saying: "It's so heavy, you could kill someone with that book."
And they were right. After he had hit the girl on her head, he made a clean cut, letting the girl's blood flow into his pigment container. It was more than enough to finish his picture, he thought and decided to drag the girl's body into the neighbor room. He wouldn't mind her lying there, but his new picture required space. Besides, if he just let her lay around in the art gallery, someone would find out the secret of his pigments. He put on a glove and put the scalpel into the girl's hand, making it look like suicide. With that done he returned to his work.
After he finished, he smiled and headed home, hearing a familiar high-pitched, child-like laughter from the alleyway. It was his biggest rival of all times. Yugi Mutou, the talented artist, professional gamer and together with his older brother Yami the most popular guy in the art academy. He hated him, he hated his innocence and his pure heart. Thinking of that, Ryou had an idea: To turn that pure boy's blood into the purest red in existence. He also had the most fitting picture in mind: "The decaying beauty", a painting of a person from behind in front of a mirror. While the person looked amazing from behind, the mirror image would show a blood-stained face. Indeed, a stained beauty.
He grinned manically, plotting on how to get to the short teen without his over-protective brother being in the way. He had a great idea. Which was called: Exploiting the trust that the younger Mutou gave away carelessly. Getting the course list out of his bag, he quickly found the phone number of Yugi and sat down on the ground, leaning on a tree while dialing the number via his cellphone.
"Hello, Mutou Yugi speaking." a soft voice was heard.
The silver-haired boy smirked and simulated a weak, almost dying voice: "Yu...gi...help...I'm..."
"Bakura-kun, is that you? What's wrong- No, just tell me where you are, I'll be there in no time!"
The grin on the male's face grew wider and he continued "Yes...I'm...in the city square park...", he said, making sure to make his voice grow weaker as he waited.
The park was perfect for a murder like that. The forest would do a great job in hiding the corpse, at this time no one came to the park, fearing the tales of the 'cursed forest'. He was a master at planning. Knowing Yugi, he was dumb enough not to call help but to come to the park alone.
Soon, the most precious dye would be his. Soon, he would have no rival and be the best student of his course.