White Heart of the Thief

A Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfiction written by Wild Vivid Imagination

Chapter 1 – Bakura's Dream

She was standing on the riverside again, like she always did.

"Thief." She turned around to face him as she spoke softly, sounding a bit surprised, but still delighted. "I didn't think you would come here tonight."

"Why wouldn't I?" he replied, a trace of arrogance in his voice as he stepped closer to her, taking her appearance in. She looked so out of place where she stood by the shore of the Nile, with her pale skin and unusual pure white hair clearly showing that she did not originally come from this country.

"The Pharaoh is hunting for you, isn't he?" she asked, sounding frightened. "I'm so worried about you, Thief. You should go into hiding."

"I have nothing to fear, Ruya", he whispered as he moved closer to her and caressed her cheek with his slender dark fingers. "I am the King of Thieves. The Pharaoh and his men will never be able to hurt me... or you." The last two words were added as Ruya raised her petite hand to run her fingers over the big scar on the right side of his face.

"Why do you care that much for me, Thief...?" she questioned as she pushed a few strands of his hair out of his face. He felt a twinge of nervousness in his heart as he looked into her big brown eyes. "Bakura?" she whispered gently, speaking his name for the first time. Many times he had wanted to tell her this, but fate had always intervened... He leant forwards, so close that their lips almost touched.

"Ruya, I lo-" He had almost said it, almost confessed his feelings for her, almost given her what would be their first kiss. But then...

...the alarm clock rang.

Bakura Crawford jolted awake as he spun around in his sleep and hit the floor with a loud thud. He swore loudly as he tried to untangle himself from his blanket while the damned alarm clock still kept ringing and ringing with the same annoying sound.

"Bakura?" The door to his bedroom opened and Pegasus J. Crawford, Bakura's adopted father, peeked in, looking a bit confused. "What are you doing on the floor?"

"Fell", Bakura muttered, still too sleepy to come up with a sarcastic remark, as he finally got up from the floor, threw his blanket to the bed in annoyance, and shut off the alarm clock by slamming his hand down at it. Hard.

Dammit. He had been dreaming about the same thing for the entire summer holidays. He suspected that the dreams were reincarnation dreams, but he wasn't quite sure. Most people didn't get those until they were already old, and some people never even had them. Bakura hadn't expected that he, a teenager in 21st century Japan, would begin having these dreams at seventeen years' age. He needed to ask someone about it.

Pegasus was still standing in the doorway. Bakura glared at him.

"...All right." Pegasus must have noticed his bad temper, because he didn't attempt to question him further. "Breakfast is waiting for you in the kitchen, and I'm leaving now. It's first day of school after all; better be there in time!" He looked at Bakura expectantly. Bakura groaned. He'd forgotten about the fact that summer vacation was over and high school was starting again. Not to mention that Pegasus was going to be his class's form teacher this year.

"Fine. I'll be there", the grumpy seventeen-year-old muttered as he noticed Pegasus's expectant stare. Pegasus grinned one of his typical flamboyant grins.

"Good, good! Wouldn't want you to skip school on your first day, after all!" He turned on his heel and strode out of Bakura's room, silvery hair billowing behind him. Bakura frowned. He wished for Pegasus to just cut his hair already. Straight hair reaching below his shoulders made him look even more girly than he already did, as if that wasn't enough. Bakura just hoped that Pegasus wouldn't wear his current red costume for every day this year. It was bound to get embarrassing for Bakura.

He finally gathered enough energy to make his way to the bathroom. As he took a look at his face in the mirror, he felt a bit guilty for mentally complaining about how not-manly Pegasus looked. Bakura himself had had long white hair that had reached far below his shoulders before he had finally decided to cut it when the summer holidays began. Now, it was still long, but didn't quite reach his shoulders. It was more messy than Pegasus's hair, though. Much, much messier. It currently looked pretty much like a crow's nest. Bakura sighed, picked up a hairbrush and began his work. He hoped that nobody would ever find out that he spent almost as much time fixing his hair as a stereotypical girl.

Several minutes later, Bakura had finally managed to get his hair back under control, with the exception of two extensions of hair that stood out on the top of his head, looking a bit like horns. They had always been like that, though, so Bakura ignored it and finally headed for the kitchen to eat his breakfast. He wondered if he should ask Pegasus about reincarnation dreams. Maybe he'd know. Bakura opened the door to the kitchen. The sight that met him there was not quite what he had expected.

The frying pan containing the bacon Pegasus made for him was on fire. More exactly, it was on fire and there was another teenager standing in his kitchen, one who had tanned skin and gravity-defying spiky blonde hair, cackling maniacally as he watched Bakura's breakfast burn to ashes. This would probably have frightened just about anyone else, but luckily, Bakura was used to situations like these.

"Mariku, what are you doing with my breakfast? " he asked calmly, but with a venomous undertone in his voice. Mariku Khayal turned his head towards Bakura and grinned even wider with that slightly psychotic smile of his.

"I'm testing the flammability of fat", he explained, sounding as if it was a natural thing to do first thing in the morning; to sneak into your best friend's house and set his breakfast on fire. Sometimes Bakura wondered why he even associated with Mariku.

"...really?" he finally asked, not knowing if he really even wanted to hear the answer.

"Yup", the Egyptian teen stated, his face becoming more thoughtful as he eyed Bakura. "We're supposed to be in school in fifteen minutes, you know that, right?" Bakura nodded, slowly, not feeling very trusting right now. Mariku's smirk returned. "You're still wearing your pyjamas, have you noticed?"

Bakura swore and ran off to find his school uniform.

–

Eight and a half minutes later, Bakura and Mariku spurted into the school yard of Domino High School, completely out of breath. Bakura was surprised that it was possible to run over a kilometre non-stop at their speed.

"I would have had time to eat breakfast", he muttered in annoyance, but Mariku just smirked at him again. "By the way, can you see Atemu anywhere? There's something I'd like to tell him." Bakura wanted to inform his other friend of the dreams he'd been having and confirm his suspicions. Atemu had a tendency to be more serious and professional about these things than Mariku.

"Just look for star-fish shaped tricoloured hair and you'll find him", Mariku added in a mock attempt to be helpful.

"You know, I think he's the only person in the school with more crazy hair than you", Bakura told his friend as he scanned the crowd until he saw something black tipped with crimson and blond. "I can see him." The two of them hurried over to the third member of their group.

"We meet again, Atemu!" Mariku shouted as he greeted the multi-colour-haired teen by attempting to tackle him to the ground, but the other was quicker and leapt to the side before Mariku had the chance to assault him.

"Hello, Mariku", Atemu Namonaki greeted the teenager lying in a heap on the ground before he turned to the now approaching Bakura. "and hello, Bakura. I see you've gained some colour over the summer."

"Oh. Yes, that's right." Bakura smirked. He and Atemu had made a bet before summer started; a bet about who could tan their skin more over the summer. Bakura had always been an almost unnatural shade of pale, but he had found that when he really tried, he could actually put on some colour. Atemu, who was also rather pale but not as pale as Bakura in his natural state, had clearly not spent as much time in the sun. Ha. Now he was in debt to Bakura. "What about you, then? Did you spend too much time indoors playing computer games?" he mocked. Atemu just glared at him.

"None of your business."

"Ooh, maybe Atemu has a girlfriend~" Mariku teased as he got to his feet again. Atemu blushed.

"As a matter of fact, I've been spending time with Yuugi Mutou! You know, the boy in our class whose grandfather owns a game shop." He still looked red as he explained this. Bakura thought the name sounded familiar, but couldn't quite bring himself to remember exactly who it was. Mariku's eyes widened.

"The midget?!" he blurted out. Those words triggered Bakura's memories. Yuugi Mutou, or "the midget" as Mariku had not so affectionately nicknamed him because of his short height, was one of the labelled "nerds" of the school, and Bakura and Mariku, both of them having a tendency to get rather mean at times, had actually spent a lot of time teasing him last year. "Why were you hanging out with him?"

"Don't call him that!" Atemu blurted out angrily. "He's actually really nice and really wanted to be friends with me! He even dyed his hair to make it match mine! If I ever see you two bullying him again-"

"He dyed his hair to look like yours?!" Mariku interrupted him, sounding very shocked. "You're kidding!" But as he said that, a small shape made his way through the crowd towards them. It was Yuugi Mutou, with his new hairstyle, matching Atemu's almost completely. He looked even more shy than usual as he approached them.

"Um... Hello, Atemu." Yuugi looked frightened and kept casting glances at Mariku and Bakura as he greeted Atemu.

"Hello, Yuugi." Atemu smiled; a genuine smile, not one of his usual rude smirks. Mariku kept his eyes moving from Atemu's hair to Yuugi's hair, looking bewildered.

"You've been pushed down to the bronze place, Mariku", Bakura said with a grin. He then remembered why he'd wanted to seek out Atemu in the first place. "Oh, Atemu. I have something I need to tell you."

"Really? What is it?" Atemu looked at him curiously.

"I've been having strange dreams", Bakura stated simply. Yuugi's eyes widened, and the small teenager looked very surprised.

"Oh, could it perhaps be-"

"Yuugi, I think you should leave us alone for now", Atemu interrupted him. "Go reserve a seat in class for me, perhaps?" Yuugi looked a bit insulted at first, but then he smiled.

"Sure!" he said excitedly and dashed off towards the school's entrance. Atemu's facial expression immediately became very serious as he turned to face Bakura.

"Your dreams... Are they realistic? Do you always have the same role in these dreams? Do they feel familiar? That's how they first felt for Mariku."

"Ooh, you think Bakura's been having reincarnation dreams?" Mariku suddenly looked very interested. Bakura understood that. Mariku had been having reincarnation dreams since he was a child, which was very unusual since most people nowadays didn't start remembering details from their past lives before they grew old, so Bakura wasn't surprised that Mariku was excited to see someone else starting to have them. Atemu nodded, and Bakura suddenly found both his friends staring at him expectantly.

"I was a thief", he began, unsure how to put his dreams down into words. He was beginning to regret ever mentioning the dreams. "The King of Thieves, actually. The very best you could find in all of Ancient Egypt." Mariku looked very interested now.

"Ancient Egypt? I was from Ancient Egypt too, in my past life! I was an assassin." He smirked and looked positively insane. Atemu just shook his head.

"Both of you were Egyptian criminals? Why am I not surprised?" He looked at his two friends. "I wish I could have reincarnation dreams too. I want to know who I used to be." The three of them started to subconsciously head for the school's entrance while still in the middle of the conversation.

"It's not as wonderful as you think. It's bothersome", Bakura muttered as he swung the school's door open. "In my dreams, there's... a girl." Mariku and Atemu both turned to look at him in surprise at this. Mariku gained a perverted smile.

"A girl? Is she pretty?" he inquired. "How old?" Bakura didn't really want to continue this conversation, but he couldn't help himself. Talking about her felt nice. It made him want to smile, which was actually rather unusual because he usually was in a foul mood.

"She's beautiful. She's about sixteen or seventeen, so she's a few years younger than myself as I'm about twenty as my dream self. Her name's Ruya", he told his friends as they walked down the corridor.

"Ruya? That's an Arabic name", Mariku told him. "It means 'vision' or 'sight'." Bakura was glad to have a friend who knew a foreign language. Mariku knew Arabic because his parents had been from Egypt. Bakura, who only knew Japanese and a little English, was rather jealous.

"What was she to you, in your past life?" Atemu asked. It was interesting, how all three of them had somehow become completely convinced that Bakura's dreams were actually about his past life. But then again, Mariku had been having these dreams since he was very young and Atemu held a deep belief in magic.

"I was in love with her", Bakura admitted. "and I think she was in love with me too. It was nothing like dating girls in high school. It was much deeper than that."

"You? In love?" Atemu looked genuinely surprised.

"Yeah. What's so surprising about that?" Bakura asked sourly.

"Oh, nothing. Just considering the fact that you have all the girls in the school fawning over you, but whenever you have a girlfriend, she always breaks up with you within two weeks", Atemu said.

"What Atemu is trying to say, is that you're a complete bastard!" Mariku added with a grin. Bakura just glared at him, but didn't attempt to debate. What Atemu had said was true, after all. He wasn't good with girls, at all. He might be handsome on the outside, but he wasn't a kind person and always ended up disappointing any poor girl who tried to get to know him better.

"Ruya is... was different, though", Bakura mused. "She was wonderful... I wish I could meet her again."

"Aww, Bakura's in lo-ove!" Mariku teased in a sing-song voice. "Too bad! She's been dead for several millennia!"

"Don't remind me!" Bakura shouted, earning a few shocked looks from people around them in the corridor. "She's probably reincarnated! If she truly is my soul-mate in the way I think she was, I'll meet her again, one day!" He didn't know what had got into him; what made him snap at his best friend like that, but Mariku and Atemu both stared at him in shock.

"I didn't know you were the sentimental type, Bakura", Atemu finally stated and stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed that they were standing in front of the door to their classroom.

"Neither did I", Bakura muttered as the three of them walked into the classroom, about to begin their second year in high school whether they liked it or not.

A/N: Hi, everyone, and welcome to White Heart of the Thief! I've spent half a year working on this fanfiction, my first in the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom, and I sincerely hope everyone will enjoy it! Now, I'm the kind of person who absolutely LOVES writing endless Author's Notes, so please bear with me. At the end of every chapter, there'll be a note like this, but feel free to skip 'em if you don't care much for background info…

I originally started this fic on a whim: I wanted to write an High School AU, because everyone has to write one of those in their fanfiction career sometimes. I had this idea of it being set in a universe where having dreams of your past lives is something unusual but still very very real. It went well in the beginning, but I realised I didn't like what I was doing. Then I suddenly decided to throw all the clichés out of the window and be a bit more original. Of course, that ended in something that really doesn't differ THAT much from the original Yu-Gi-Oh! universe… except for the slash. There will be slash. Pretty much of it too. And perhaps some inconsistencies, because I'm not used to writing novels with 100.000+ words… My brain becomes all messed up… But more on that later.

Now, a bit on the characters. Bakura Crawford, our dear sarcastic and rude main character, is based off Yami Bakura a.k.a. the Spirit of the Millennium Ring AND Thief King Bakura from the real Yu-Gi-Oh! series, as everyone's probably figured out already. He's basically a mash-up of the two of them (and I'm one of those weird people who see the two of them as two completely different characters). Pegasus J. Crawford is basically the same person as in the original universe. Why did I make him Bakura's dad? Well, as I said I'm trying to be original, and I've never seen anyone try that before… Also, he's a teacher. I think Pegasus would make a wonderful, silly teacher. Bakura's totally embarrassed, of course… What teenager wants a parent to be their teacher? Another reason I picked Pegasus to be Bakura's father is to give him a good last name. Everyone always uses "Touzoku" as Bakura's last name in fics like these, but since that's just the Japanese word for Thief, I figured I'd rather make him related to another canon character. Pegasus just happened to be my choice… I'll talk more about Bakura's classmates in my next note.

And Ruya? I already said that this fic would be slash, so I wonder how many of you are going: "WTF is that girl doing here?!" But come on: white hair, pale skin, brown eyes. And this is a reincarnation fic. If you know anything about Yu-Gi-Oh!, it should be pretty clear to you that Ruya is NOT some character I just made up. (I picked out that name for her though… I like it. It's cute.)

Stuff I loved writing in this chapter: The scene where Bakura's dream ended. That was fun. Oh, and Mariku setting Bakura's breakfast on fire. And just Mariku in general. Gotta love the crazy ones.