Here's a clue. It's not Yaoi. It's not pointless angst. It's nothing BAD happening to the YGO cast. No cheesy rape, etc. It has very little to do with bad things happening to the cast. Trust me.
PLEASE NOTE: This is set directly after the Yugi vs. Rebecca Hawkins duel. All occurrences afterwards may be worked in later, but at this moment, act as though Duke/Battle City haven't happened.
Why?
Because GMTV, the channel that shows Yu-Gi-Oh, keeps pissing me about.
At the end of the Rebecca Duel, it took Yu-Gi-Oh off the air. It brought it back after a few months, about half way through Battle City. Now, it jumps skips half the episodes that make up the B.C. Finals. Yeah, I'm not happy with GMTV.
So, in those few months, what was I supposed to do? Well, I started Kingdom Come, and I started this. Most will wish I hadn't, but I did. Sorry. Not having seen those episodes, I worked with what I'd already seen, and this is the result. Again, my apologies.
Prologue: Papercut
Why does it feel like night today?
Something here's not right today.
...
I know what it feels like to have a voice in the back of my head
It's like a face that I hold inside/A face that awakes when I close my eyes/A face that laughs every time I fall...
I became nocturnal a long time ago. I seem to do more at night than I do during the day. For me, sleep was something to be enjoyed while the sun was in the sky. At the weekends, I usually spent the days curled up in bed. On weekdays I slept in the hours between school and sunset.
And people wonder why I am always so tired during winter.
It might seem strange, and I would readily agree. But it makes more sense when you consider my situation.
If I sleep during the day, HE doesn't invade my dreams.
Usually.
That's why I don't instantly start trying to wake up. That's why, despite the familiarity of the setting, despite the fact that I know all this - the pitch black darkness extending as far as the eye can see, the full length mirror standing opposite me - I don't recognise this for what it is.
As far as I'm concerned, it's hell coming to claim me.
I stand in front of the mirror, staring at my reflection for a moment while it sinks in through my mind. I've been slower than usual since Duellist Kingdom, my mind fogging over a lot quicker than usual, and I've been feeling more tired. Probably because most days I wake up from confused, terrifying dreams that don't mean anything to me... Dreams of blood and gold and screams and fear...
I look at my reflection. It looks like me, but is it... taller? And is the hair - and the eyes - ?
Oh no, I mouth, my throat too frozen to produce the words.
Oh yes, my reflection mouths back.
The Ring swims into being, dangling from his neck on a golden chain, far better than the cord I consigned it to. He reaches out to the air and plucks something out of it, like a magician doing a trick. It scares me more than any magician would though. Magicians are only human, their magic only tricks. This magic is far more real, far more dangerous. I'm not even sure if He's human.
But I am sure He only does this to antagonize me. There's nothing half as horrible as seeing yourself and hearing yourself doing and saying things you never would.
He's toying with me. And something else - the thing He plucked from nothing, he's rolling it around in his fingers, tossing and catching it like a bored child.
I doubt a bored child could manage that evil a smirk though.
"Would you like to know what this is?" He asks, holding up the object, eyes sparkling in twisted delight. It flickers, flashes, as though light is flashing off gold.
- gold and blood and fear and screams and gold and blood -
"No."
"A pity," He says softly, eyes glittering. "I wanted you to see what it was, see what power I have in my grasp."
"I don't want to know," I reply, my voice equally soft. "I already know that you'll only abuse whatever power you get, so there's no point in you showing me."
"So cynical," He murmurs. "Really Bakura, you could be a little more appreciative." He seemed to muse on something for a moment, before adding "I'm grateful really. I couldn't have done it without your help."
"Oh no," I repeat. "What have you done now?"
"I thought you didn't want to know," He says, eyes sparkling with malice. He's awful, he really is. He's worse than anything I could think of, and I'm stuck with him.
"I must have been awful in a past life," I whisper "To be cursed with you now. I must have been the worst man alive."
He doesn't get annoyed. It was something I noticed. He likes being opposed over small things. It amuses him when I stand up to him. Of course, he wasn't amused when I stood up to him during his duel against Yugi... But he's been in remarkably good humour recently. I consider myself fortunate.
He laughed. "You're probably right. You were probably me." Then the grin turned malicious again, and I instinctively step back. That expression rarely bodes well for anyone...
And then it fades. He stops smirking, and He's staring over my shoulder. The thing, whatever it is, drops out of his hand, rolls through the mirror (it's a dream. Nothing surprises me now - except for His reaction to whatever he's looking at) and comes to a rattling halt at my feet.
I don't look at it. I'm too focused on His face, His expression. It's one I've never seen on His face, and it scares me more than anything else I've seen.
Terror.
Pure terror branding His face as though it was a physical object you could touch. He's frozen in front of me, staring at whatever it is, eyes slowly widening.
Do I want to turn? If it's bad enough to scare Him -
There's a sound behind me. Lots of little sounds that you make up one solid picture from.
A rustling, a slow measured tapping. A soft, almost whistling, noise. Little, almost animalistic, pants. I look up; the last come from Him.
Fearfully, I turn.
I jerk upright in bed, sweat flying from me. The bed sheets are tangled around my waist, and for a moment I don't recognise where I am, glaring at the traitorous sunlight streaming over my bed.
How sad. I can't even recognise my own room.
I stare at the window over my head. The daylight's supposed to protect me, keep away my bad dreams. I can't believe...
I have no idea why I'm dreaming about Him. Tristan got rid of Him. He saved me.
I think.
I run my hands through my hair. I can't remember much about my dream after that point. Confused images of a knife - of broken glass - of screams - of blood -
I look up from my trembling hands and nearly scream. For a moment, I convince myself that I'm still in my nightmare - that He's still there, and that he's standing opposite me. But then I come to my senses and I laugh shakily.
It's the mirror. The mirror opposite my bed, reflecting me, wide eyed, chuckling at my own foolishness.
But...
I sit in a stupor as the last of the daylight vanishes, and stare numbly at my reflection. And in my dreamy state, I can almost see Him. My dozy mind insists on replaying fragments of a nightmare (How long have I hated myself?). For some reason though, it looks strange. His face is more tired than scared, and there isn't actually anything wrong with Him, but there's blood all over Him, plastering His top to his chest. The Millennium Ring dangles from a cord, weeping blood.
I shake my head tiredly and lie back. There's a comforting weight and warmth against my chest, and I half raise my hand. But suddenly, I'm asleep and running down corridors, a horrible pain-wrought scream echoing through my ears...
I open a door, and His mirror shatters, and the small gold object appears and rolls to my feet. I stare down at it, watching it with a sort of grim, desperate horror.
I stare.
Pegasus' Millennium Eye stares back.
Yami no Bakura sat up, running his hands over his chest again and again, reassuring himself. He's safe. He's alive. They didn't kill him.
But his hikari's pyjama's are soaked with blood, and the Millennium Ring has chosen to reveal itself once more. He would have to hide it again later.
Once he'd washed away the blood staining the pyjamas. Once it was gone, Bakura would be convinced that he'd dreamed the whole thing. That would make everything that much easier.
He removed the pyjama top, running his hand over his chest. There was no blood on his chest - no wound. The only thing that was bleeding was the ring he was wearing. No blood. No blood. He chanted it over and over in his head, a mantra to keep his mind from finally giving up the ghost and falling apart. He hadn't survived the Shadow Realm just to loose it because of one little nightmare.
One nightmare about the guards coming for him again. He'd outgrown those - he wasn't the scared little boy he'd once been, the little child that had nearly gotten himself caught. But that was the form this enemy was choosing to take.
His ran his hands over his chest.
No blood. No blood.
But that didn't stop the ball of fear clenching around his heart. The knife that had erupted from his chest had been real, had hurt. Dreams didn't hurt. Neither did nightmares.
No blood. No blood.
His memories were confused. Knives. Blood. Screams. Fear. Gold flashing. His hikari jerking them awake, inadvertedly saving him.
Yami no Bakura snarled in fury, throwing the Millennium Ring across the room before he stormed off for a shower. He was tired and furious and - and scared. No one was listening, it was alright for him to admit it in his own head. He was scared. His memory was near-perfect. Not being able to remember what had happened was worrying him.
And he hadn't had a dream in millennia.
He slammed the bathroom door and clambered into the shower.
Back in the bedroom, the Millennium Ring lay on the carpet, the eye in it's centre soon resting in a puddle, weeping blood.
I feel the light betray me...
This story, as far as I know, is gonna go Prologue-chapter-interlude-chapter and so on ad infinitum. Only the interludes will be in the first person (written like this prologue is). Everything else will be written as normal.
