Prologue: No Need for Peace and Quiet!
A/N: Y helo thar new readers who have no idea who I am. I'm Seaside Stranger, or at least I used to be until I forget my FFdotnet PW so now I'm the plural version of myself. Yeah, yeah. It's not that creative, is it?
So I had this idea for a Yu-Gi-Oh/Tenchi Universe crossover. I hope, as a fan of either (or particularly both) series, readers can have fun with this. It's freaking crack to me as a writer. Meaning I love it, and probably also that it makes no sense.
OKAY SHUTTING UP. Disclaimer, as always; not mine.
Please review. I'm never as enthusiastic about updating if no one gives an EFF.
Yuugi Motou lived a quiet life. He wasn't the sort to mourn the fact, either. He was content with the large, traditional Japanese style home he shared with his grandfather Suguroku. The home had been constructed by Suguroku when Yuugi's mother was a child, and it was secreted away from the bustle of the town a few miles away.
These thoughts drifted through Yuugi's mind as he practiced, as he always did after school and homework was completed. In lieu of a real sword, Yuugi trained with a length of well-sanded wood slightly thicker than a broomstick. At first, when he'd begun his training in middle school, he'd found the pole to be both unwieldy and somewhat embarrassing to be swinging about, but he also realized that impaling himself on a true blade wasn't something he would risk unless he wanted to feel the blade's true weight.
Yuugi enjoyed his swordsman and martial arts practice. True, he might not ever see the use of his talents with a blade, but knowing how to get out of a full nelson and how to dodge even the most well aimed punches proved quite useful. He was bullied often as a child; less so, now that he had built up a reputation for staggering defense.
Stray cherry blossoms swirled from the branches, heaping slightly on Yuugi's shoulders. He sighed and rested from one of the many battle positions his grandfather had taught him. It was another quiet day in a slew of quiet days, and he couldn't help but yearn for just a little excitement for the day…
Bakura's ship howled as another barrage of energy beams slammed into it.
"Why you little-!" Bakura cursed, his eyes narrowed and full of rage as he watched the stars ahead swirl and fall as his ship tumbled down towards Earth's atmosphere.
"That brat of a prince doesn't know who he's dealing with." Bakura muttered, planning regicide if he survived the crash. Smoke trailed from his ship's engine, and the left wing was nearly useless, causing nauseating tremors to rack the spacecraft. The force of the atmosphere was tangible, like an invisible wall pressing against the ship, resisting it even as it plummeted inevitably downward. Eventually the blank darkness of space have way to the rosy pink, tangerine, and violet tones of a sunset, but Bakura barely noticed as his cream-colored hair whipped his cheeks like a banner.
On the ground, Yuugi screeched, falling backwards and landing ass first on the stairs of the walkway he was taking to get back home. The pale stone only served to make the throbbing pain worse, but Yuugi barely noticed as he stared at the tumult above, mouth surely agape.
He was sure his eyes boggled out of his head when he heard- and felt- the crash that rumbled the earth.
"This can't be happening..." Yuugi shook his head furiously, thought briefly of slapping himself, thought better of it, and leapt to his feet, running as fast as his legs would carry him. The crash had happened not too far away… the forest… there!
Smoke billowed up from twisted, black metal. The soil was ravaged. The crash looked so out of place, like something from a bad sci-fi movie set against the backdrop of a calm Japanese summer.
"Ohh…"
Yuugi twitched, head swiveling around, to notice- it can't be- a prone figure crumpled on the ground.
"Hey! Are you alright?!" Yuugi's knees hit the ground as he gently shook the man, remembering from middle school health class that one was not supposed to move a crash victim in case of more extensive injuries.
The man was pale, as if his skin had only briefly known light. His hair was paler than that, and made Yuugi think of the opals his mother had been so fond of. With shock, he noticed that the stranger was indeed hurt. His head must've struck a rock when he fell. The cut was mercifully small, but Yuugi worried about the threads of blood that ran over the stranger's still eyelids and down his cheek like tears.
"HEY!" Yuugi repeated himself, louder and more frantically, after receiving no answer.
"Ugh…" The stranger stirred, cracking open eyes as startlingly crimson as the blood in his eyelashes and running down his cheek.
"Oh, good, you're okay!" Yuugi couldn't help the relieved smile that sprang to his lips. "Don't worry, you're safe now. I live just up the road."
"… Who the hell are you?" The pale-haired man frowned slightly, pushing up with his elbows until he reached a sitting position. Yuugi noticed, with some dismay, the strange clothing the boy wore- boots of cyan, with thick black soles. A pair of grey pants with a belt strapped to one leg. A form-fitting leather top and a ragged scarf completed the strange ensemble.
"Ah! I'm sorry. My name is Yuugi Motou. Uh… what is that?" Yuugi pointed nervously at the twisted metal behind them.
"Never mind that! My name is Bakura, and I'm being chased by a space pirate! Don't trust a word he says-"
"Just hold on a minute! Who are you talking abo-"
"Bakura!"
An unfamiliar voice rang through the blossom-heavy air. The tone was commanding, but somehow regal. When Yuugi turned, his jaw dropped.
The newest addition to the party seemed a study in shades of gold and wine. His eyes, similar to Bakura's but with more of a purple tinge, were furious and stern. Strands of hair remarkably like Yuugi's rose wildly up, haloing a face that was somewhere between angelic and demonic. The assumed "pirate"'s skin was a soft shade of tan. Atop his head was a crown of sorts- a golden, heavy looking thing set with cobalt egg-shaped jewels. Where the crown rested upon his forehead, there was a large, carefully molded eye.
"Bakura, you will release that innocent bystander!" The newcomer raised his hand, and- oh God, what have I gotten myself into- he held a chromed pistol of sorts that was like nothing Yuugi had seen outside of television and anime.
"Oh, there he is! That's the space pirate!" Bakura might've hissed for all the feral annoyance he gave off.
"What is going on here? I still don't under-" Yuugi was cut off with a shriek as Bakura took his hand. "What are you, crazy? Run!" The white-haired man yelled, looking vaguely amused as he and Yuugi crashed through the brush.
Why me?! Yuugi found himself thinking rather dazedly as his body, limp from disbelief, was draggd through the forest- and then the unthinkable happened.
A cliff.
Bakura skidded to a stop about three feet from the edge, scratching his head with a disinterested sort of concern at the yawning maw of emptiness that stretched on below him.
"Please- listen! I- I- I don't know what this Bakura has done, but I'm sure we could work it out-!"
"No. He's a criminal with no regard. There's no use trying to reason with madness." Bakura growled, whipping around to face his pursuer. Suddenly, out of the blue, he wrapped his arms around Yuugi's shoulders and held him close. "We'll die together, like doomed lovers separated by endless starlight, just like you said!"
"I never said that!" Yuugi moaned with tears prickling his eyes. So this was how he was going to die. Not in a warm bed surrounded by his children and grandchildren, but here on a cliff not thirty minutes from his home with no one to hear what were surely his soon-to-be last words. He squeezed his violet eyes shut, waiting for the pain he was sure to feel coursing through him when the pirate shot him.
"No doubt you would take this boy with you if I took you out right here. Very well, Bakura. I will return when you least expect it. Mark my words; you will be caught."
Yuugi cracked open his eyes just in time to see a ball of light radiate from the gun-toting pirate. Jagged streaks of shadowy black lightning surrounded the orb of white. And before Yuugi could even begin to comprehend or guess at what was going on, the pirate cracked out of existence.
"Whew! Glad that's over. Hey, I'm starved." Bakura nudged Yuugi.
And then Yuugi fainted.