This, in case any of you are wondering, is a completely redone and rearranged version of 'Yami Bakura, Sit!' with the same basic backbone, a twisted version of a popular spinoff-Yami Bakura's past, and younger, self. Ironically, this was-and still is-intended to be an angst story. Problem is, I am not Anne Rice dark writer, and there is no plausible theory in the known universe that would justify my inserting a good portion of wry humor into fanfictions from Takahashi's increasingly historically incorrect Yuugiou.
Do tell me if this goes down well with you, through review, forum, IM, e-mail, or otherwise. I've been spoiled by the popularity of my other humor fanfictions, and am not sure where the line between 'I like' and 'I don't like' is located, exactly.
Disclaimer: I do not own Yuugiou, it's characters, or plot line, nor do I particularly want to. I do, however, own that little apostrophe in the 'its' that I stuck in there for no particular reason, only succeeding to make the phrase grammatically incorrect.
Act I: Seeking refuge of a cliche
Bakura Ryou stared down one of the picture frames in his soul room. One of the doors was his, leading to a room filled with toys and teddy bears and a whole bunch of the other things that he thought he had gotten rid of a long time ago. The other, his yami's, and it looked like it needed a new paint job. But for now he had to ignore that-he had more important things to do. No, wait. No, he really didn't have anything to do. Oh, spit.
The Millennium Ring, also known throughout history as that thing, the shiny thing, the all-powerful and most definitely destructive thing, and several other names ending in thing, is famous for being crammed with more power than a Tokyo bullet train is crammed with people at rush hour and having more dark energies in it than there is caffeine energy (which is often proven to be much more powerful) in Starbucks and The Coffee Bean combined. It also holds the soul of Yami Bakura, and, occasionally, Bakura.
This, his host Bakura explains, it not only utter nonsense but completely irrational and impossible by all the means of space and time. And yet here he was, inside the Ring. His yami was currently in control of his body, which he had semi-patiently explained was really his body reincarnated. Bakura disagreed-after all, they were different nationalities, and considering that, their physical resemblance really didn't compute.
He heard his yami enter into his soulroom-just as loud an entrance as ever. His dark side took one look at him (Bakura cringed), picked him up by the collar and half-shoved him out of his soulroom and out into the real world. "Your turn, runt." Bakura heard him say. That was SUCH a Yami Bakura thing to say.
"Ah, well," he muttered dejectedly. At least he knew that his dark side wasn't off killing people. Or cutting himself. Or something. In much the same mood he got into bed (his real bed, not the one in his soulroom) and fell asleep. This, he prompted the spirits of the netherworld, would be a pretty good time for some divine intervention.
Act II: Unorthodox Egyptian Flashback
It was one of those dreams that Bakura always felt he was telling from the third person. He wasn't in the dream himself, or at least not at the moment, but apparently he did have eyes enough to see what was going on. The scene was that of Egypt, definitely near the Nile. Ah, good, he concluded, there was no doubt of what would happen next-see Yami Bakura as a tortured little child, sympathize, go through a sob scene or two, huggy kissy we're-all-right-we'll-make-it-through . . . bada-bing-bada-bang, you're in bed by eight. Good strategy.
Now he had himself a lot more confidence on how this dream was going to end up, he began looking for a bite-sized Yami Bakura.
What he found was a lilypad. Yami Bakura was not a lilypad.
It, the lilypad, that is, was drifting rather lazily down the Nile, with a reed sticking curiously out from one side. The thing was that it zig-zagged from side to side every once in a while, and then little air bubbles came up.
It went about its way for about half an hour. Then it started to rain. There came a few shouts from the other side of the river, followed by a good amount of relatively mindless commotion. The lilypad stopped dead. The reed disappeared, and a frog jumped up from under it. Ribit.
Still no Yami Bakura. No whips, no yells, no nothing. Bakura began to wonder if this dream really had a point to it.
He suddenly became aware of himself-that he was standing in a sort of doorway with no door to it, and that just enough rain was soaking through to drench him a while from now.
"Oh!" said a voice behind him. "Sky water!"
Bakura whirled around. No one. And it was such a pleasant sort of voice, too. Seconds later, he felt a tap on the back, and turned to face the rain again. Still nothing.
"Oyahoo!" the same voice called.
Bakura groaned. "Alright. I give up. Who are you, anyway?"
"The question is, who are YOU?" said the voice lazily. Bakura heard a thump behind him and looked back. Swinging upside-down on one of the planks of the house's roof was a boy, a white-haired one no more than eleven. He had dark skin and his right cheek was scarred up rather badly, but he had a funny little grin on his face nonetheless, and he was chewing an apple.
There was something seriously messed up with this dream, thought Bakura. "Yami?" he said experimentally, momentarily forgetting that whatever his dark's past had been, he probably wouldn't know what he meant.
"Yami? No, he en't here." he said, shrugging. "Sounds foreign to me. You might try looking a few city states down-they've got some awful weird names there. I'm Bakura, by the way. And who're you?" He jumped down and stood right side up to shake hands. "Reckon you're a river sprite, by the looks of it. Did you bring the storm about?"
"Oh, no, I'm not, actually." Bakura said, a bit shaken by the boy's enthusiastic welcome. "I'm Baku- Ryou." He decided, for the Egyptian's sake, to go by his first name for the time being. After all, by that time, last names weren't an option, and he wanted to keep historical accuracy.
"Oh, really?" Bakura said. "So, are you coming or going?"
"Excuse me?"
"Coming or going? There're only two reasons anyone'd come to this town-to go through it on the way to the city or to stay. So which are you doing?"
"Ah . . . I'd like to say neither." he admitted.
"Really, then?" said the boy, a bit suspicious, and he snorted. "Don't really matter what you'd like to say, it's what you are sayin'. So what's it gonna be, then?"
"Ah . . . ano. . . ." he stuttered. Very Japanese sounding, that. "In which case, I'm staying."
Bing, right answer. "No shit? So, who're ya staying with?"
Dong, wrong answer. "Ah-"
Bakura cocked his head to the side. "Well, wherever you're going it's going to have to wait. You don't get much rain a'tall around these parts and Mom'll kill me if I let anyone disturb one grain of wheat. Mind staying here for a while?"
"N-no, of course not!" Bak-no, wait. . . . Ryou managed, and almost immediately he felt himself being hurried into the room near a large table.
"Wait right 'ere, kay?" Bakura said and dashed off to a room to the right.
Ryou was in shock. He was greatly afraid that his mind had yet to catch up with the situation and not nearly ready to react accordingly. Surely there had to be two Bakuras in the town-there had to be another white haired kid there with the same name, there just had to be. In any event, his yami had plenty of explaining to do. This dream was majorly screwed up. "Come on," he willed himself, "Wake up, wake up, come on, it's just a dream. I'll realize just how dumb it was in a few hours and forget it all. . . ." He squeezed his eyes shut. "Pretty please?"
And with very little rhyme or reason, he did. There was a book on the floor he must have tried to read before he had fallen asleep, and sun was streaming through the window in his room. There was also something annoyingly heavy on his chest, but he was too tired to open his eyes and push it off. It was probably something his yami left there.
Half an hour like this. Cat-stretch yawn sigh turn over-except that he couldn't move. Finally, Ryou cracked open an eye to see what it was that was weighing him down so-
And a pair of big, brown eyes stared back.
"Quee?" said Bakura curiously, leaning closer.
"Gah!" Ryou gasped, jumping ten feet into the air.
"Whatcha doin'?" inquired the eleven-year-old, sitting down Indian-style.
"I-I was sleeping." he panted, still shaken. "Wait-how did you get here? You were in my dream."
"I don't know, really." said the boy nonchalantly. "One moment I'm in my house helping you, minding my own business, and suddenly I'm yanked into this bizarre room. It's really quite distressing." He faked a tear, but gave up on sadness. "Hey, you look a lot like me, don't you?"
"You realized!" he enthused sarcastically. "But now that we've got ourselves relatively straightened out, we've got to do something about you. With luck on my side-which it usually isn't by the way-we should be able to keep you out of sight before-"
"Oh!" Bakura interrupted, rushing over to Ryou's dresser. He held up the Millennium Ring and toyed with the ends. "This is so pretty! Where'd you get it-ah!-" The Ring had begun to glow, and Bakura dropped it immediately, drawing back. "It's alive!"
The Ring glowed a bit more as Yami Bakura appeared in their midst-a temporary form, not at all good for beatings, but it was good enough for threats and rants, and that was exactly what he had been planning to do. "Ryou, what the hell did you-" But then he spotted Bakura, his younger self, and he cut off. "What . . . the . . . the hell?"
"-before my yami finds out." Ryou finished hopelessly.