:: Disclaimer :: I do not own or claim to own any of the Yu-Gi-Oh characters featured in this fanfiction!! They are owned by the amazing Kazuki Takahashi and the anime by Studio Gallop. I do not own the music or lyrics to 'Innocence' either, which belong to Chihiro Onitsuka.
:: A/N :: Hello! I'm here with another story that will be running at the same time as 'Waltz With Me,' my current and main work-in-progress. I'm not abandoning the other one, and I'm very sorry for the delay in updates! This one has had a hectic schedule the past few weeks and hasn't had time to properly sit down and write.
'Innocence' is actually a prequel to 'Waltz With Me,' detailing the events during the genocide of Midgard that happened 1000 years prior to the beginning of my other story and focusing on the relationship between the young prince Atemu [later Yami no Yugi] and Tōzokuō Bakura, Thief King Bakura. It does contain spoilers to 'Waltz With Me,' but at the same time it could also be read as just a spin-off of the main story or a stand-alone altogether.
Now for warnings...Although the events are loosely based on the original Ancient Egypt arc of the anime and manga in the Yu-Gi-Oh series, 'Innocence' is an alternate universe story so don't expect the story to follow the original manga/anime storyline very closely. This series traces the events during a genocide, so there may be some disturbing elements, though I'll add warnings at the beginnings of chapters that do contain them. Last but not least, there might be hints of an Atemu x Thief Bakura pairing, though nothing's been explicitly stated so you may interpret the relationship as simple platonic or as a romantic couple. Honestly, I don't think it should matter much as this is not a romantic story in any sense, and was not written to be one.
Sorry for the long note! Thank you so much to everyone who is taking the time to read this, and even more so to anyone who leaves a review!
Prologue: The End of Time
"...I'm sorry." A quiet whisper left his lips.
It was as if the rest of the world did not exist, as if the two young men that both lay dying on the ground were the only ones who remained. In truth, the crowds gathered at the ceremony were shouting, crying, and screaming as their king went to meet his death, but to the two of them, the world was silent of anything other than the slowly fading beats of their hearts and their short, shallow breaths. This moment had frozen time for both of them as they no longer felt the pain of their wounds and lived merely as a soul and a collection of emotions that were slowly seeping out of the body that held them.
Deep, violet eyes began to shut, unshed tears fighting to escape. The once beautiful tri-colored hair adorned with gold jewelry was now spread in puddles of blood on the ground, the symbols of power now just heavy, useless metal trinkets. The marks upon his left shoulder, carved during the ceremony earlier, glowed red, draining his life energy bit by bit. His body trembled on the blood and sweat dampened earth even though the sun shone relentlessly upon it. The humid heat of the air did nothing to warm the chilling deadness that had grown in his heart. Although the sun blazed in the summer sky, he felt only the frozen cold of a winter night.
And then those eyes slashed through the ice, tearing at his spirit and numbing any other pain he might have felt, all insignificant compared to the burns that that glare had wrapped his soul in, choking and scarring it for all eternity. Only hatred and anger stared back at him from the depths of those hazel eyes, shaded by locks of dirtied, but once white hair, belonging to the man who lay on the ground only a few feet away from him. They were eyes that had lost all hope and faith in this world, cold eyes that could no longer feel and sympathize, eyes that sought revenge upon those that had destroyed his life.
"I'll never forgive you." The words left his lips, disgust and fury embodied in them. He turned his face away from the boy donned in golden robes and stared instead at the clear blue sky. Suddenly, the expression upon his face twisted into a maniacal laugh. The entire body convulsed and red began dripping from the sides of his mouth, but he continued laughing.
"The end has come for you and me, you who I once called brother! But don't think that this game is over. No, I will never rest until I have destroyed all you held dear, all that you have take from me! The board will be reset…and be assured that I will find your soul through all the years that separate us, and I will torture it until nothing remains." The look that lighted the light brown eyes was pure madness, driven by a violent lust for revenge.
When a slimmer of light began enveloping their bodies, the young king realized too late the reason the thief could speak with such confidence. A curse that had been hidden in the deepest reaches of the spellbound scrolls of the royal library, the darkest magic…to completely bind a soul against the flow of time…It was the only curse that could be cast in the semi-dead state the two of them were in.
"No, you can't…Bakura! BAKURA!" Insane laughter drowned out his weak shouts as the light completely encircled the two of them. For the first time, he noticed the gasps and yells that surrounded them as the bystanders saw the light begin to coil and rise in a multitude of different forms, painting beautiful, but sinister swirls in the air above the two bodies and blinding them of their king and the thief.
"What have you done?" The king whispered in horror as he felt his soul being drawn from him. A blade of light left his body and shot upwards towards the clear, blue sky, followed by an identical one emitting from the now completely still and silent body next to him, a mad grin still painted across the face.
And then, time stopped.
"You stole my innocence… I will hate you, haunt you, find your soul through the infinite time and worlds that separate us, and tear it to pieces. That is the price of the eternity you stole from me and my people."
:: A/N :: So ends the prologue...The first chapter has already written, but I want to leave this up for a bit before I post the chapter [which also needs some heavy editing for typos, grammatical errors, and such]. Thank you all again for reading!
Wishing you all the best!
~Ying Tao