A Yu-Gi-Oh! Fanfiction Contest Entry
Season 8.5 – Tier 2 – Conceitshipping (Kujaku Mai x Yami no Bakura)
Disclaimer: I don't own YGO.

WARNINGS: Sort-of incest. Dubcon. Somewhat dark. I do not think of this as noncon, and I apologize if it appears that way.

Edited June 6th, 2011. Thank you for waiting :)

Road to Inertia

The girl with the ragged clothing slept curled up on a mattress pushed to the corner of the room, her dirty blond hair falling in a cascade to cradle the curve of her jaw and the hunch of her shoulders. Malik watched as she rolled over so her back was facing him and tugged the blanket closer to her chin, whispering something too quietly to hear. The blanket was just slightly too short to cover the entirety of her body, forcing her to twist into a ball in order to fit under it; her toes peeked out from the bottom edge.

"You're getting soft, Bakura," he said, turning back to his companion and raising his eyebrows. "I never thought I'd see the day when you of all people decided to adopt an orphan on the street."

Bakura only smiled his twisted smile in return, teeth glinting in the curve of his lips. The lightning from outside the window illuminated his face in planes of stark white. "You know I do nothing without a purpose."

"I thought so too," Malik said. "But we have no time for random children to distract you from what matters. The child-king's coronation will take place on the solstice, and if we wish to do anything about it, it must happen during the next few days, when the security around him is still weak."

"The coronation will occur," Bakura said. "We will not harm the king."

Malik's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Why the sudden change of plans? We've been preparing for this month for years now; why throw it all away? If you've found new loyalties amongst the government officials"—his tone was deceptively nonchalant, though both he and Bakura knew better—"then you'd best say it now, before I decide to do something about it. Honestly may give you a merciful death yet."

Bakura only laughed at him. "You can't kill me, Malik. I think we both know that."

"I can try. Are you so arrogant as to assume that you know all of my agents?"

"Let's not argue about this," Bakura snapped, eyes darting over to the sleeping girl, who had shifted at Malik's raised voice. "The point is that the coronation will happen, because my plan has changed due to the introduction of a new player."

Malik frowned. "I thought the king's cousin—"

"Not him," Bakura said, waving a hand like Malik's question was a physical thing that he could knock aside. "The girl."

"Is she an heiress?" Malik said. "She looks nothing like him."

"Far from it." Bakura was smiling again now—not the one he had worn just a few seconds ago, the one meant to unsettle him, though Malik had grown used to it enough over their years of partnership to become immune—the smile he used when he had outmaneuvered someone and they hadn't realized it. "She's a piece I can use to as great an advantage as I want. A blank slate."

"A peasant will have no influence in the court," Malik said, aiming a glare in the general direction of the lump under the blanket in the corner. "I still say we go back to the original plan. The only unknown factor there was the late king, and now that he has died, there are no obstacles."

"No," Bakura said sharply. "You are not the one who decides what we do, or have you forgotten? If you could wait three years while the old plan's foundations were laid, you can bear to watch the formation of another. And if you don't think so, you can try taking the throne on your own and see how far that gets you. I'll even let you plan out your own funeral arrangements before you leave, if that would make you feel any better about it."

For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the shifting of fabric on the mattress in the corner and the steady patter of rain outside. "Fine," Malik relented at last. "Would you mind telling me the plan before you proceed?"

The torches along the walls flickered unsteadily, reflecting orange across Bakura's eyes. "Your part is much simpler this time. You will continue what you're doing now, and you will befriend the girl as she grows older and introduce her to the court."

"They will be suspicious," Malik warned. "What's her credibility?"

"She will be my daughter."

In that instant, Malik almost believed that the entire situation had been nothing but a trick to unsettle him before the execution of their former plan. "...Bakura. You're seventeen."

Bakura actually rolled his eyes at that, his expression saying clearly that Malik was more unobservant than he had expected. "Not my biological daughter. I thought that much was obvious."

"My point still stands! You can't be anyone's father. You're—you're not—"

"When you come up with a verbal articulation of your reasoning," Bakura interrupted smoothly, "get back to me and I'll think about it."

"Okay, so you're her father," Malik conceded, not approving of the plan, much less the way Bakura had refused to tell him more than little snippets of it. "In name, or in actuality?"

Bakura shrugged. "She comes of age in four years, I believe. We'll see what happens then."

"Are you serious?"

The smile—the one that said he had no idea of the complexity of the rest of Bakura's idea—was back again full force. "Four years."

Mai was eleven, and she knew these things: that Bakura was her father, that Malik was her father's friend, and that someday, she would live in the court.

"The laws are written down here," Malik said, blond hair gleaming soft gold in the sunlight as he pushed open the door to the king's waiting chamber. He swept an arm out to the walls, which were covered with smooth, dark stone that had been carved with words in all capital letters, stretching across one side of the room and halfway around the other.

"What happens if they have no more space?" Mai wondered, resisting the urge to run up to one of the panels and trace the words with her hands. The king's throne, a chair of gold and polished rock, stood at one end of the hall, and was presently unoccupied. The entire room, the ceiling arching high above them and inlaid with glass that bent the light into partial rainbows that splattered like drops of paint across the floor, was so empty that each step she took echoed throughout its confines.

"They'll extend the hall outward," Malik said, gesturing toward the closed wood doors that formed the main entrance. "And these are only the laws pertaining to the king anyway. They have rooms and rooms of the complete list in another building and books of it in the library."

"Do you and my father write the laws because you're on the council?" Mai said, careful to keep her voice low enough that the walls could not reflect it back.

Malik stiffened at that, lips pressing into a line as he began walking closer to the throne, scanning the walls as he went. "Bakura," he said. "Call him Bakura."

"Do you?" she persisted.

"Only some of the laws." His eyes skirted across one panel, traveling quickly from the wall to the throne itself as he looked it over with the intensity of an architect sent to make sure the chair didn't collapse on top of its legs. "The past kings were not all good rulers, and the council usually passes edicts after their reigns to ensure that they don't happen again."

"So there are no more bad rulers?" It seemed a logical conclusion from her point of view.

Malik laughed at that, and Mai frowned at his back; it was another one of those adult things, the ones that Bakura had always assured her she would understand later. "Nobody knows what will happen in the future."

"I don't believe that King Atem is a bad ruler," Mai said stubbornly.

"Hmm." His tone was thoughtful now, almost absentminded as he knelt down and read over the panel almost directly beside the throne with renewed intensity. "You're right, I suppose not." One arm reached out, gesturing for her to approach; Mai complied, wondering what he meant to show her.

"This one." Malik pointed toward a line that began with the number 78, finger hovering over but not quite touching the stone. "Can you read it?"

"Of course I can," Mai said, annoyed; she might not have been taught literacy as a child, but she had picked it up easily enough in the two years that Bakura had taught her. "Seventy-eight: The king is sacred, but the council is his link to those who are not. Should the king unjustly harm his council, he will be regarded as an offender against his people, and sentenced as such."

"Do you know what harming the council entails?" Malik said, watching her carefully. Mai shifted, uncomfortable beneath his gaze; she had never liked his eyes, pale and odd beneath their lashes, drinking in what hit them and giving nothing back.

"Imprisoning them?" Mai said uncertainly.

"That," Malik allowed, "and also stripping them of their titles, threatening them, and ordering assassinations on them or carrying out those assassinations himself." He hadn't blinked. "Do you understand?"

"Yes," Mai said. What more was there to grasp about it? It was only one law amongst many, the intent of which was much clearer than those of the others.

The sound of another's footsteps echoed from behind them, and Malik stood and turned around in one smooth motion, his face perfectly blank. "King," he said by way of greeting, and Mai looked over her shoulder to see him nod politely—not the bows from the waist that others were required to carry out, and certainly nothing close to the full-body ones that accorded respect to elders and the deceased.

"Malik," the king responded, and Mai noticed with some surprise that he was barely older than her, and certainly years younger than Bakura and Malik. "Who have you brought with you?"

"Bakura's daughter." Neither of them were paying any attention to Mai, their gazes focused instead on each other though they stood nearly ten feet away. "I intend to show her the laws in stone before she studies them on paper."

"Will she be joining the court when she grows old enough?" The king didn't comment on her lack of resemblance to Bakura—most others at least gave her a cursory glance to confirm that she looked nothing like him before questioning Malik on it.

Malik shrugged. "It will be decided when the time comes."

"I see."

There was silence for a minute, Mai fidgeting as she watched the clasp of Malik's fingers behind his back, completely relaxed despite the presence of the one person in the country who outranked him in terms of government hierarchy.

"Hey, Mai," Malik said finally, turning so that she faced him and the king stood on his right side—not at his back, of course. Nobody showed their back to the king. "Did you know that you're going to have to memorize all six hundred and forty-one laws in existence by the end of the year?"

Mai complained with appropriate fervor; she knew Malik well enough from his visits to Bakura's house to understand what reactions he expected from her and when.

Behind him, the king did not smile.

"Thirteen," Malik said, very nearly gaping. "Bakura, she's thirteen."

"I would have thought that you'd be protesting to another part of the arrangement," Bakura said, smirking at him in the way that meant he was amused by the strangeness of the reaction. "If the age bothers you so much, I can wait another year. That won't hinder the plan much; in fact, it may give us a chance to establish a more stable foundation among the people."

"Okay, I'll say it," Malik snapped. "She's your daughter."

"Not biologically, and you should know me well enough to understand that I'm not looking for children. Haven't we had this conversation before?"

Malik swore that Bakura was on the verge of outright laughing at him. "She thinks of you as your father."

"The father arranges marriages in any family, correct?"

"You can't just—"

"And you haven't gotten any more articulate about this subject since the last time we discussed it. Ask me what you want to ask already; stop stalling."

Malik set his cup down on the table between them, right on top of a pile of papers that he was fairly sure were important. If Bakura noticed the slight, he didn't say it. "What's the point of this?"

"The king will be suspicious," Bakura said as if he hadn't heard him at all; Malik knew better and waited patiently for the explanation that would result. "He knows I have no heirs, and that by law my title and my lands will go to the public after my death. The only way for somebody else to attain them is for them to marry me, as Mai cannot inherit by blood. He also knows that I have trained her as I would my successor, despite the fact that she will gain nothing from it unless he allows her a position at court."

"So he will be even more suspicious once you announce your marriage to her, yes. I understand that. What's your point? Are you looking to be stripped of your position?"

"He will begin ordering investigations." Bakura ignored him, which Malik took to mean that he wasn't on the right track. "He will befriend Mai and try to sway her loyalties."

"And he may succeed!" Malik said. "They know each other already, from when I took her into the palace to allow her to meet the other councilors and study in its library. How do you know that she won't turn on you when she realizes—"

"Shut up for a moment, will you?" Bakura said as pleasantly, giving a glance to the door that stood between the room and the hallway outside. Malik fell silent, one hand resting on the table as if on the verge of pushing himself to a standing position.

"That wasn't necessary," he said after a pause, head tilted toward the door and his shoulders relaxing when he heard nothing more. "I know when we're being watched."

"Always better to make sure," Bakura said with a shrug. "Returning to the previous topic, my point is that I intend for all this to happen, and I know the king and Mai well enough to be able to predict that it will."

"From the very beginning?" Malik said. "This was your plan ever since you found her in the streets?"

"There were a few changes," Bakura said carelessly. "But in essence, yes."

"And how exactly," Malik said, scowling with the realization that Bakura had, once again, plotted further ahead than he'd thought he had, "is this idea better than the last one?"

"Simple." Bakura's fingers picked out a piece of paper from a different stack, his other hand taking a pen from the other side of his desk. He smoothed it out between them, its surface perfectly blank. "This time, one of the main players has a mentality I created almost entirely by myself, thereby ensuring less variables. If I choose to mark it"—he drew a straight line through the middle of the page, then crossed it twice—"then my marks remain, and there's nothing there to contaminate it."

"You were willing to wait four year so the chances of success would increase by—what, five percent?" Malik said. One hand clenched around his cup.

"Eleven percent." Bakura smiled his outmaneuvering smile again. "Patience is a virtue."

"Isn't that illegal or something?" Vivian's eyes were wide with horror, her brush poised halfway to her head and hair falling over one shoulder.

"Bakura wouldn't try something illegal," Mai said with some faith, leaning into the headrest of Vivian's bed. "Besides, it's not as if he's my father by blood."

"I know." Vivian's brush descended again, her initial shock was over. She was the daughter of another council member, one of the few people whom Bakura allowed Mai to communicate with on a regular basis, and had no doubt been trained to handle sudden news well. "But still, don't you think of him as your father?"

Mai mused on that for a few moments, examining the designs that Vivian had painstakingly painted onto her nails as they dried. Her fingers were practically rainbows of color, as each nail was differently decorated. "No, not really," she said at last. "Didn't we read about this theory that after a certain age, children stop thinking of people as relatives? Bakura adopted me after that age."

"Well, at least you seem okay with it," Vivian said doubtfully, making a face—whether because she still didn't like what Mai had just told her or because she was working through a tangle in her hair, Mai didn't know.

"He's probably just doing it so he can pass on his position and belongings," Mai said. "After all, he's been training me for it for the past four years, and it seems like a waste to have nobody inherit after he dies..."

"Huh." The brush clattered to the wood of the table as Vivian dropped it and swiveled in her chair to face Mai. "I hadn't thought about that."

"That must be it," Mai said with a smile, confident in her theory.

"Do you think he'll...?" Her friend looked distinctly uncomfortable as she spoke, letting her words trail off into silence.

Mai shook her head reassuringly. "He doesn't care for me that way. This is just to make it easier for me to enter the court."

"Bakura told you that?" Vivian said sharply, leaning forward.

"No," Mai admitted. "But it makes sense. Why else would he do this?"

"I don't know." Vivian tapped her chin, staring down at the mattress in a pose that Mai had learned meant thoughtfulness for her. "Don't tell Bakura this, but my father doesn't trust him too much. That's probably just a side effect of the fact that neither of them like each other, although... you haven't been here long enough to know what happened around the time when Bakura adopted you, right?"

Mai shook her head.

"I was only twelve, but I remember overhearing my father discussing about how he was worried about a coup d'état, since it was then that King Atem had become of age was being crowned. There were war preparations going around in the army camps and with the council members especially... one day I saw soldiers marching through the city and heading toward the palace. They passed that off as a drill later on, once Atem had held the throne for a few months and everyone realized nothing would happen."

Mai frowned at her. "What does this have to do with Bakura?"

Vivian shrugged carelessly, picking at a thread in the blanket; it looked as if she was attempting to sew it back into the cloth with her fingers alone. "Some people say that Bakura was the one planning the coup d'état."

Mai didn't quite straighten in her seat—she'd been taught control of her reactions better than that—but she was quick to reply, "Bakura wouldn't. He's never mentioned anything about the king to me that didn't relate to how the council is supposed to help him. Nothing."

"Alright," Vivian said. "If you say so."

Though they married, there was no wedding.

Mai exited her bedroom one morning and was confronted with the not-so-uncommon spectacle of Bakura and Malik arguing in the dining hall—an argument that Bakura cut off with a wave of his hand to give her a stack of papers a dozen sheets thick. "Sign them where your name is required," he said. "I've looked over them to make sure there isn't a clause in there that requires you to give up all your worldly possessions once I've died or something, but you should double-check just in case. It'll be good practice."

Mai nodded, taking the papers from him and reading them as she ate breakfast. Malik and Bakura continued their discussion as she signed her name what felt like a hundred times, and she caught snippets of their conversation—something about the tariffs being increased in one district of the country, it seemed.

"Mai," Bakura said abruptly, turning to face her. "How well do you think you know me?"

Setting her pen down, she glanced up to meet his eyes; Bakura often liked surprising her with these sorts of questions when they talked, and she'd learned quickly enough that it was his way of testing her to see how well she would respond. "Where am I when you're asking me this, and who are you to me?"

Bakura's mouth curved upward into a slow smile, the one that told her he hadn't been expecting that response but approved of it nonetheless. "It's not one of those questions, Mai. Answer honestly."

She took a moment to think about it, well aware that Malik's eyes were trained on her face along with Bakura's. "Reasonably well," she said eventually. "I don't understand how you think, but I can try to predict what you'll do. I don't know how you act during council meetings, but I can guess. However, all in all"—she hesitated for a moment before saying it, but he'd asked her to be honest—"not as well as I would like."

"What do you predict that I'll do now that we are married officially?" Bakura said with a nod to the papers on the table.

"Continue teaching me," Mai said. "I don't believe much will change."

He nodded again, and Mai had the feeling that he was taking notes mentally, maybe adding to his list of what he knew of her. She had no doubt that it was far longer than what she knew of him. "So why have I married you, then?"

Here was the uncertain part; Mai remembered what Vivian had told her a few days ago about the coup d'état and assassination plans, but decided to disregard all those in favor of her original theory. She didn't quite believe her friend, after all. "Because you trust very few people with your inheritance and you can't marry Malik," she guessed.

Bakura laughed at that, and Malik's mouth twitched upward as he took his gaze away from her. Sensing that the serious aspect of the conversation was over, Mai relaxed and turned back to the few pages she had left to sign.

"You're partially right," Bakura said at last, and she looked up again, prepared for the casual evaluation of her response that she usually received. "You will continue with your studies as you are now, and Malik will introduce you to court more fully. You are expected to befriend the king; such connections will be valuable later on if you wish to pursue a placement in a branch of government, or any occupation at all. I will still address you by your name only, and you will address me by mine. However"—and this was the smile that Mai had never cared for, even as a child, the one he wore when speaking to officials he didn't particularly like and knowing that he had outwitted them—"you will meet with me on Friday night, and again every week that follows. I have other things I need to teach you."

Mai didn't miss the look that Malik gave him, though it was partially veiled by the hair that fell across his forehead to obscure his eyes. "I assume you've thought about this for a long time as well?" he said, unrepentantly sarcastic, directing his words toward Bakura.

"No," Bakura said. Mai couldn't help but feel she was invisible, the subject of their conversation whom they hadn't realized was still listening to them speak. "Not very long."

"You know what marriage entails, don't you?" Bakura said, raising an eyebrow as he glanced over to her from where he sat at his desk, crossing out sentences on a paper before him.

Mai saw a lone sheet taped to his wall directly in front of him, eye level if he looked up; it was a plain white page, blank except for one long, black pen line running down its length and two shorter lines crossing it. "Yes."

"Good." The pen he was holding scratched once again, adding a word in the margin; Mai wondered absently whose document he was tearing apart.

There was silence for ten minutes, during which Mai examined the room more fully. She was currently sitting on the blanket-covered mattress of Bakura's bed, a pillow pressed against her right leg; the room was surprisingly empty and impersonal, with a simple, unmarked calendar the only other object that decorated its walls. The windows by the bed and the desk were wide open, partially drawn curtains fluttering in the cool evening air. The lamps cast flickering shadows over Bakura's face, drawn in concentration as his pen moved further down the paper.

Nervousness was coiling in her stomach, making her twist her hands in her lap while she waited; Bakura still hadn't revealed why he'd asked for her to come, and her own words from more than a week ago were ringing hollowly in her ears.

He doesn't care for me that way.

Bakura finished what he was doing with a flourish of his pen, setting it down on the desk and turning to face her. "Sit back," he ordered. Mai shifted backwards so that her spine touched the pillows placed there, uncertain of what he wanted her to do. Her hands were trembling slightly, unnoticeable enough that she hoped Bakura didn't see—these are stupid things to worry about, aren't they? Stupid; it won't happen—and she shivered, hugging her elbows closer to herself.

"Relax," Bakura said with a half-smile so reminiscent of the days of her childhood that she had little problem doing as he had asked her, forcing her fingers to release their vice-like grips on her arms.

"Now"—he walked over and sat on the edge of her bed, legs crossed beneath him—"I'm going to tell you something. Listen carefully."

Mai nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

"Four years ago, I found you half-dead on the street and took you in. Four years ago, I determined what you would be as an adult, and am waiting to see if my hypothesis was correct. These are the three things you must know, above all else: We are married. I am not your father. And I am eight years older than you." His eyes were dark, serious—when had he gotten so close to her? She didn't remember him moving— "Do you understand?"

Another nod; she didn't think she could have responded verbally even if she'd wanted to. The twisting in her stomach had returned with sickening intensity, making her heart thud in her chest. Her fingers were trembling again.

"Answer me this question, then, Mai. How well do you know me?"

She had never before noticed how cold his smiles actually were, or the gleam in his eyes when he deigned to give her one—it was his victorious one now, the one she had seen over chessboards and pitted against government rivals, the one Malik scowled at whenever he caught a glimpse of it. Her pulse had slowed back to a normal pace, abnormally calm in its regularity; Bakura had taught her to understand his brand of logic quickly, and to accept it soon afterward.

"Not well," she answered, barely louder than a whisper. "Not at all."

The smile widened. "Good."

Bakura leaned in. Mai refused to close her eyes.

"Do you realize," Vivian said quietly, not even looking up from her notebook so that their conversation could be interpreted as a discussion of their study topics, "that you look absolutely terrible?"

"Probably," Mai said, tapping her pen against her lips as she tried to remember the two-hundredth and sixty-eighth law of the country. She was pleased to note that her gestures were steady and composed, her handwriting as neat as usual. They had not been as unaffected three weeks ago. "I was in a rush this morning, sorry."

"Better late than messy," Vivian said, glancing up at her from beneath her eyelashes—a gesture that took practically no movement at all. They had both learned the art of subtle conversation well. "I thought you knew that."

"I must have forgotten," Mai said, attempting a reassuring smile. Vivian did not look appeased.

"Please," she sighed, copying down something from the book she was reading. "Spare me the excuses. Haven't we both been brought up to pick through these things?"

"I'm not going to tell you," Mai said. The five hundredth law was proving difficult to recall; she frowned down at the paper she was writing on, upon which were listed twenty random laws in non-chronological order. She was going to need to review the last two hundred at least.

"Right," Vivian said. "Now, there are only two things I can think of that would require that response."

"Not here," Mai said, skipping to the next law. "Anyone can overhear us." She didn't glance over, but she knew that Vivian's eyebrows were rising as she jotted down something in the margin of the page.

"Sure," Vivian said, standing up unceremoniously and closing her book. She placed another one back onto the shelves and gestured for Mai to come with her as she walked out of the library.

They ended up in one of the gardens at the back of the palace, sitting next to a fountain that dribbled water with a soft splashing noise; Vivian continued speaking as if she had never been interrupted. "And those two things are personal connection and political connection. So tell me... which one?"

"Both."

To Vivian's credit, she didn't even bother to feign surprise. "I thought so," she said, leaning over to trail her finger in the water of the lower basin. "Do you care to elaborate on that?"

Mai shook her head, looking upward at the sun that streamed upon their heads and shading her eyes with one hand. "I said I wouldn't tell you, and I'm not changing my mind."

Vivian's mouth quirked up at one corner; she allowed the smile to spread fully, for the sake of their discussion appearing more casual than it really was. "Marriage not treating you well?"

The paper Mai was holding fluttered in the wind; she folded it over and tucked it inside the bag she carried with her, brushing hair out of her face. "How much do you know?"

Vivian laughed; Mai grinned back for deception's sake. "Nothing. I only guessed."

There was silence for a moment, the splash of Vivian's hand in the fountain the only sound in the garden. "It's about Bakura," Mai said at last, "and that's all you're going to get out of me."

"Hmm." Mai felt careful fingers in her hair, pushing a portion to the side as Vivian began tying something into it. "You're a bit young to be going full-out into politics, you know. Oh, don't look at me like that—when it gets to the point that you're not allowed to talk about it, I know it's serious. Don't take it personally, but make sure you know exactly what you're doing and why, okay?"

"Yeah." Mai swallowed as Vivian twisted the braid upwards, her face set in concentration as she worked. She would not tell anyone else of what was happening with her and Bakura—she'd decided that weeks ago—because it was her problem and hers alone to handle, and for the most part, nothing had changed. What would others do, anyway? The only people she trusted enough for the truth were Malik and Vivian. Malik may as well have planned it with Bakura, and Vivian did not have enough influence to alter anything.

The fingers dropped, resting in Vivian's lap as she picked at the edge of her notebook. "That said, my father told me yesterday that he'll be leaving for the southern borders for a few years. The desert countries are threatening war, and the king has requested that representatives be sent there to negotiate. This time, I'm traveling with him, so that I may practice my diplomacy. We leave tomorrow."

Mai couldn't even bring herself to be surprised at the news; she ran a hand through her hair tiredly, feeling strands catch in the makeshift braid that Vivian had tied. "Who ordered this?"

"Who do you think?" Vivian met her gaze squarely, raising an eyebrow in challenge; her mouth was set in a determined line, the one she wore when she'd chosen a route of action and was waiting to see how it would turn out.

"Bakura," Mai said, and knew even before Vivian's nod that she was correct.

A shadow fell over them, sprawling across the contours of Mai's legs and spilling over onto the stone bench beside her. "What about Bakura?"

Mai knew that voice; so too did Vivian, apparently, because she stood quickly and grabbed Mai's arm to drag her up as well.

"King Atem," Mai greeted, and Vivian gave her a fleeting, confused look at the near-to-first-name address.

"You were speaking of your father," the king said, shoulders set sharply beneath the pale fall of his shirt; Mai could see gold on its edges and glimmering in the weave of the cloth, subtle in the shade. She had no doubt that it would be brilliant in the sunlight.

"Only in passing. There's no need for concern," Mai said with no doubt that Vivian was trying not to kick her by her side; that had been a near-obvious invite for further investigation. She was getting sloppy, or perhaps just sleep-deprived.

To both their surprises, the king only nodded at that and turned his attention to Vivian. "I heard that you and your father will leave for the southern borders in a few days. You both have my blessing for a safe journey. Your father especially will be missed."

Mai suspected that this, at least, was partially genuine; Vivian's family had never been involved in the political jockeying for control of the throne like some of the others were rumored to have been. She wondered why the king had allowed Bakura to force their leave.

"I will tell him that you have said so," Vivian said, a bit stiffly; Mai realized—too late; the thought of Bakura would be ashamed of me flitted across her mind out of habit before she could halt it in its tracks—that her father had not allowed Vivian to interact closely with the king, as Bakura had encouraged Mai to. Perhaps her family was not influential enough for hierarchy-climbing.

"Good. Lady Mai"—Mai glanced up in surprise, barely remembering the etiquette that required that her eyes did not wander over his face—"my tutor has recently given me a book on the history of export taxation in the northern countries, and it is his belief that any interested in pursuing life at court, those of your upbringing especially, should read it. A copy is available in the library; I trust that you know your way around it." His voice was calm, casual; a listener who did not understand what he was saying could have easily assumed that he was indeed talking only about their studies. "I recommend that you read it as well."

Vivian was giving her one of those looks, the mildly concerned one she'd had when warning her about participating in political games—Mai almost wanted to laugh at the recollection; since when had she ever desired to become a pawn of whatever plan Bakura had concocted?—eyebrows slightly furrowed as she attempted to connect texts on export taxation with whatever she knew of the current political situation. Mai guessed that she was failing as much as she herself had; the only conclusion she could come up with was that the king wanted to tell her something.

As he left, the gold weave of his clothes glimmering in the sun, Vivian gave her a silent, one-armed hug of parting before they walked to the garden's exit together. Mai knew that she would not have offered to come with her to the library even if her days in the city were not numbered; Vivian and her family were content with their current positions among the government, and despite her training, she was too much of Mai's friend to meddle with her life in the court.

For that Mai was grateful, and she gave Vivian a smile as she turned around and headed back into the palace.

It turned out that it was not the text of the book that the king had cared about—though he had at least bothered to check that it was, in fact, recently written and published—but the folded pages of another volume tucked inside it.

Mai sat on her bed, opening the papers carefully in case the book in question was old and liable to crack if she bent it. Her worries were unfounded; the pages were crisp and white, and on each of them was embossed a large seal in the center—not an uncommon practice, as books were largely aristocratic commodities and some of the more obscure ones very valuable, but Mai recognized this particular seal as the one that marked the books of the king.

She frowned at it, one fingertip tracing the indents in the paper that the seal had made. The words in one corner were cut off—probably just sloppiness on the bookbinder's part—but there was no doubt that the seal itself was genuine.

So the king had torn out pages of his own books simply so she could read them? Mai turned them over in her hand, holding it up the light and then up to a candle to ensure that there was no secret message written within it. She was no great friend of the king, nor was she involved in something that he could be suspicious of or attempt to sabotage through her.

Unless, of course, Bakura was planning something more serious than she had thought.

Finally taking the time to read the words on the paper, Mai realized with some surprise that they were handwritten, painstakingly printed with the effortless type of a calligrapher, or at least somebody who had studied that art. The ink still somewhat glossy, indicating that it had been written less than a year ago; she touched a smudge on one letter, half expecting her finger to come away black.

Mai didn't recognize the handwriting, nor had she expected to. The king had been taught—as she and Vivian had—to be more discreet than that, and she was almost certain that he'd had somebody else write it for him, or perhaps for the entire book to be reproduced for his eyes only.

Leaning against the headboard of her bed, she began to read.

In the cycle of the sun one thousand and twenty-three years after this country's founding, the king was Akhenamkhanen and the successor to the throne was his son Atem. The king's council was composed of seven members, first and foremost among them Bakura of the al-Misri family, Lord of Henan, the Province South of the River, and commander-in-chief of Henan's army. The other members were Malik of the Ishtar clan...

It continued in that manner, listing the members of the council along with their full titles; Mai skipped to the next paragraph and read on.

King Akhenamkhanen had passed on the crown to his son earlier that year, and with the king's death the people were afraid because a boy not yet of age was ascending to the throne. Some wished for the council to rule as collective regent until Atem turned thirteen. Others feared that they would seize power from the weakening ruling family.

The plotting that occurred in the months leading up to Atem's formal coronation was rife among the nobility, the council members in particular. Though it cannot be proved definitively, the two main suspects were, and remain still, Bakura al-Misri and Malik al-Ishtar, both of whom would later be charged with treason by the child-king himself in the weeks before his ascension.

There were many reasons for these suspicions, though only eleven were given during the trial. First, that the armies of Henan and Anhui, which Bakura and Malik ruled, were the ones assembling outside the capital city and that Henan's was the one marching through the gates of the city itself; second, that Bakura had ordered the cousin of King Atem, the late High Priest Seth, to join the ranks of the priesthood and so be forbidden from vying for the throne; third, that the examiners of King Akhenamkhanen suspected poison as the cause of death and Malik had been the last one to speak with him in life; fourth...

Mai stopped there, feeling somewhat sick and attempting to reason with herself that she really shouldn't. Bakura and Malik both had never expressed any particular fondness for the ruling family, but they also had not spoken of treason; she had grown up with the idea that although the king had his flaws and his decisions were not always the best, he was still king and thus she was bound to obey him.

She hadn't believed Vivian when her friend had told her of Bakura's past, because she hadn't ever heard of such a thing. How well-kept was this secret, if the only way I found out was due to nudging on the king's part?

Her eyes caught a sentence on the paper—the expected coup d'état did not occur, and for the sake of keeping the peace, Atem allowed Bakura and Malik to go free—and she shoved them back into the book from the library, not caring if she crumpled the pages while doing so.

How much of what she had read was true? How much of it was some ploy that the king had set in place to shift her loyalties to his side? After all, Bakura was still a powerful, influential man, even though he was the last of the al-Misri line, and the king surely had no idea how the extent of Bakura's fondness for her had waned in the days since their marriage contract.

Mai had not grown up in a council member's family, and though she had been trained as such, she had not picked up the second-nature reactions that came with being a council member's heir—the automatic reactions that Vivian had to each situation, the diplomacy falling easily into her responses with familiarity from childhood.

The book still clenched in her hands, she thought, I'll ask Bakura about it, with all the trust of the orphan he had adopted—the one who believed that he would never lie. Such was her plan.

It didn't work.

"What happened the year I found you?" Bakura repeated her question, spinning the end of his pen in his fingers as he thought. In the chair beside him, Malik turned his gaze to her face, his hand resting lightly on a paper with tiny, legal-looking print all over it as if protecting the words from her eyes.

"Why do you ask?" Malik said, his expression going back to calm as he resumed reading over the document before him.

Mai did her best impression of an offhand shrug. "I was curious. The books of history I've read only go up to the final negotiations of the War of the Desert People, and that was during the beginning of Akhenamkhanen's reign."

"Hmm." Bakura sounded vastly amused by her explanation, the corner of his mouth that Mai could see curling upward into a smile. "Well, Malik, I'm sure we both remember quite clearly what happened during that year and the years leading up to it. Why don't you explain?"

Malik snorted, marking something on the paper with his own pen. Mai felt somewhat out of place, sitting with nothing to do at the opposite side of the table. "You know it better than I do."

"If you insist," Bakura said, not glancing up from his own page. "During that year, the plans for the coronation of King Atem were in place. There were whispers of rebellion—as I think you've heard, Mai—and nearly all the provinces' armies were assembling for possible civil war. The late head of the al-Nazari clan was particularly nervous about that, I recall." The portion of the smile that Mai could see grew into a smirk; Malik's face was unreadable. "But to everyone's relief, the king's coronation went smoothly... only a few days after I found you, I believe." Bakura glanced up at her for the first time, eyes sharp. "Was there anything else you wished to hear?"

Mai nodded and took a deep breath, steeling herself for whatever response Bakura might give. "Who were the leaders of the rebellion?"

The clatter of a pen falling to the table echoed in the sudden silence, and Malik pushed his chair back harshly. "Bakura," he said, his voice as severe as the lash of a whip.

"Don't worry," Bakura said carelessly, setting his own pen down. "I planned for this. You may leave us."

"Bakura."

"Nothing has changed," Bakura said, and, his head turned away from her and hair brushed behind his ear to expose his face, Mai could see his chess-master's smile.

Malik left with reluctance evident in the drag of his footsteps down the hall, and Bakura turned his attention to her, observing her evenly from the other side of the table. The documents lay, forgotten, beneath his folded arms.

"So," he said, voice deceptively bright, as if they were teacher and student again in the early days of her studies, "let's be straight with each other. How much do you know?"

"That you and Malik led the rebellion," Mai said. "That you plotted with him to take the throne by force."

Bakura actually laughed at her. "You give Malik too much credit. He led nothing."

Mai scowled at his blatant honesty; he wasn't taking her seriously, to be admitting these things without hesitation. She knew Bakura too well to think that he was hoping to take her in as a playing piece on his side of the field. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you deserve to know everything I did," Bakura said, another smile—humorless, deceptive—on his lips. "Yes, I led the rebellion, almost single-handedly. No, I'm not telling you if I killed King Akhenamkhanen. Yes, my troops marched through the city with every intention of being ready if fighting should erupt. Yes, I called everything off a few days before the coronation and let the peace continue. Did I miss anything?"

"Why are you telling me this?" Mai repeated, voice flat.

"You know me too well," Bakura sighed, and then the grin was back. "I'm telling you because you're not going to tell anyone else. That day four years ago, I called off the plan that had been in place for years in favor of a better one—one that's about to come to its grand conclusion very, very soon. You will not interfere; I've made sure of it. You have nobody to run to."

With belated horror, Mai realized why Vivian's leave had been that very morning, and—perhaps, because she knew it was a distinct possibility that Bakura had indeed planned years ahead—why she'd been allowed so few friends growing up under Bakura's care. "You're going to seize the throne?" was all she could get out.

Bakura rolled his eyes. "Yes, I thought I'd made that clear." His arm swept across the table in one swift movement, grabbing her wrists and pinning them to the wood. His fingers dug into her skin, his eyes mere inches from hers. "You will continue with your studies, as if this conversation had never happened. To whoever told you about my past—oh, don't look at me like that, I know you couldn't have dug this up yourself—you will act as if you have found nothing. I am your father, I am married to you, and, of course, I outrank you and could have you killed easily. But that would be too suspicious; maybe I'll have you sent to the desert countries with your friend. Do you understand?"

Mai bit her lip, wishing she could do so hard enough to draw blood, to drown out the bitter taste lingering at the back of her mouth. She had been outmaneuvered, completely surrounded with no chance of escape from the very beginning of her life with Bakura. He had planned too far ahead for her to see, and how could she have, even if she'd known what was going on? Bakura had had a lifetime of practice for carrying out these games, and she'd had a measly four years.

Mai swallowed. Met his gaze, kept her chin up and her face expressionless, as she'd been taught. What else could she say? "I understand."

"You don't look well, Lady Mai," King Atem said as Mai sat in the garden by the exact same fountain that she and Vivian had parted by three days ago. "Are you not sleeping well?"

She was too worn out mentally to bother suppressing the shudder that came with the reference to sleeping. Bakura would have disapproved, but then—she caught herself—she didn't care about his opinion anymore. In another week or so it wouldn't matter anyway. "I will be fine, my king," she murmured in response, because she had to keep up appearances. "I will be well in another few nights." Either that, or Bakura would send her to the desert countries in another few nights. She was looking forward to it.

"If you say," the king said, and she started in surprise when he sat by her on the stone ledge—more than a foot away, for the sake of politeness, but still much closer than usual. His face tilted up to observe the leaves above them, he spoke, voice quiet. "I know what's happening in your household. I know what Bakura plans; I never did trust him fully, after the near-rebellion before my coronation. I wouldn't tell you this, but I know now that you have no part in it. Because you are loyal, I give you this gift. Carry it with you, and protect your country with my blessing."

He stood, and Mai was about to ask what gift he was talking about when she felt something cold press against the inside of her arm.

"Good day," King Atem said clearly, and walked away before she could respond.

Carefully, she twisted her left hand around and felt at the object. Her fingers met with the thick metal-and-wood inlay of a hilt, the smooth expanse of a blade, the stones set into the pommel.

Mai traced the contours of the dagger in her hands, and she began to smile.

The smooth linen of Bakura's bedsheets was by now an almost familiar expanse beneath her back, the clean smell of the cloth comforting to her nose. Mai felt the dagger pushed up into the folds of her sleeve and resisted the urge to laugh at the exhilaration of freedom in her veins. She would be bound by the confines of Bakura's plan no longer. She would do what she wished.

"Have you kept to the terms of our agreement?" Bakura's voice, this time from her right; on another day, she might have jerked and turned to him at the sudden sound, but today she remained still, staring up at the blankness of the ceiling.

A nod. She didn't trust herself to speak, although this time for entirely different reasons.

Mai could almost hear his smile. "Good."

His weight pressed down upon her legs, and she let him. She was fighting down the smile again, thinking of what she would do when there was nothing to keep her in the city. Maybe she would stay with Vivian and her father in the desert countries, once she was assured that the peace would remain.

"You seem happy tonight," Bakura observed quietly, tilting his head from above her. White hair fell into his eyes and over his shoulders; as usual, he made no move to brush it back.

Mai shrugged. "Do I have a reason not to?"

"I'm glad you seem okay with my plans for the future, then," he said, irony lacing his words. Lost in the muddle of her dreams of her own version of the future, Mai didn't bother to rise to the bait. She might not be able to predict Bakura's every move, but she these things were simple in comparison.

"Your reign may keep the peace yet."

Bakura scoffed softly, his hands coming down to rest by her head. "Since when have you become a pacifist, Mai?"

"I don't know," she said. "You must not have noticed."

"Now"—his head moved a few inches lower, hair almost reaching her chin—"I really must know. Why do you smile, when you know that in a few days this country will be fighting itself in the civil war that never happened four years ago?"

She said nothing. She was wondering when she would kill him. Protect your country with my blessing, King Atem had said, and it had taken her the walk back to Bakura's house to realize what he'd meant. Protect your country with my blessing—not protect yourself or protect your family, but protect your country.

Do so by killing Bakura for me—that had been the silent addition. And I will reward you—that had been the even more understated one.

Atem should have known that it wasn't necessary. She would have done so without added incentive.

"Well?" Strands of his hair brushed against her shoulders. "What's your answer."

Now.

"This," she said, and grabbed the dagger with one hand—Bakura always left her arms free during these exchanges, whether out of a small remnant of compassion or an unconscious demonstration of how she couldn't leave, Mai didn't know, but she was grateful for it—and shoving it upward as quickly as she could manage—

Drip. Drip.

Mai glanced downward and realized that something dark—blood?—was falling onto her stomach in tiny splatters, that Bakura's hand was clenched around the blade of the dagger to stop it, and that he was laughing.

He was laughing at her.

"You missed," he said, and his shoulders shook so hard that he nearly pricked himself with the knife. Bakura rolled off to the side, onto his back, and threw his arms as wide as he could without hitting her. "But go on, I'll give you a second shot. Come, Mai, I know you can kill me."

Mai's eyes were wide. Horrified. "I don't—"

"What you don't understand is that I plan for everything, that I know you well enough to know what you'll do. What you don't understand is that I knew you would do this, and that I based the entirety of my plan around it."

"How—"

"Oh, I won't tell you, Mai. I've taught you well enough that I'd be ashamed of myself if you couldn't figure it out, but I expect that it'll take you until morning, and by then it'll be too late." Something sharp pricked her arm, but she was too busy staring at him to notice. Her brain fumbled for an explanation, clumsy with confusion. She couldn't think.

"So"—his hands against her arms, holding them down this time—"let's make this as difficult for you as possible, shall we?"

Automatically, her mind began to shift, to detach from her surroundings as she'd done the past few weeks—shifted away from the shadows of the bedroom and toward the golden light of the king's throne room, where Malik had taken her all those years ago. She began reciting the laws.

Number one: The king exists to protect his people...

No. Wait. Her thoughts stuttered, her memory digging up some scrap of conversation from that day. Something important—

Seventy-eight: The king is sacred, but the council is his link to those who are not. Should the king unjustly harm his council, he will be regarded as an offender against his people, and sentenced as such.

"Do you know what harming the council entails?"

"Imprisoning them?"

"That, and also stripping them of their titles, threatening them, and ordering assassinations on them or carrying those assassinations out himself. Do you understand?"

Do you understand, Mai?

Ordering assassinations on them. If the king ordered the assassination of a council member, he would be sentenced, and his crown removed. Atem was the last of this ruling family.

Slowly, Mai turned the bloodied dagger in her hand, eyes going to the crest on the hilt—the royal seal, she could see, the same as the one on the papers she had read, signifying that this dagger belonged to Atem and Atem alone. To the king alone.

What you don't understand is that I knew you would do this, and that I based the entirety of my plan around it.

She understood.

Without trembling, without hesitation, she jammed the dagger upward, felt it hit flesh and make contact. Bakura's breath came as a wet hack, his words choked but still audible, still pounding in her ears:

"You're too late. Trust me when I say I plan for everything. You haven't killed me, and you're too late."

Mai didn't listen; she was running out the door, through the gates of the house, up the darkened street and toward the glowing lights of the palace. Freedom was the freedom to do what she wanted to do instead of what Bakura had made her do, the freedom to warn King Atem of what would happen and prevent the civil war, the freedom of her dress fluttering against her knees and the wind in her hair and the blood that dripped off the dagger to land on her arm.

Freedom tasted of blood and tears and steel.

Mai felt the drug—the one Bakura had given her, injected into her as she lay immobile and thinking—making her limbs shut down even as she burst into the palace's hall and was met with the shocked stares of King Atem and the council and the rest of the noblemen. The floor blurred beneath her eyes, whether from her crying or something else, she didn't know, and all she could get out before she collapsed was one sentence.

"Not until I wake up—please, do nothing until I wake up, because I can testify."

epilogue.

The bars of the prison cell were cold beneath her hands, the gaps between them smaller than the width of her arm. She breathed in the dusty smell of the underground chamber and closed her eyes, willing her heartbeat to slow down.

The collar looked odd around Bakura's neck, the chains coiling about his wrists and ankles even more so. It was strange, almost counterintuitive, to see him, the planner, here on someone else's terms.

"I tried to kill you," Mai said quietly, noting the white bandages wrapped around his chest.

Bakura gave her a smile—it was an odd, small one, one she didn't remember seeing and couldn't interpret—in return. "I planned for it. I didn't think you would get this close."

"Neither did I." She sat in silence for a moment, allowing herself to absorb the full shock of the experience as she hadn't been able to that night. "I suppose it was a good thing for me that it all happened so quickly. If I'd had time to think about it, I don't think I could have carried it out."

"I don't expect so," Bakura said. The chain scraped against the floor as he shifted, leaning against the wall and wrapping his arms around his knees. "Tell me. Do you regret it?"

Mai exhaled softly. "Where am I when you're asking me this, and who are you to me?"

There was that approving smile again. Oddly, she didn't feel sickened when she saw it, only numb. That would pass soon; best to be done with this conversation before it did. "Not one of those questions, Mai. Answer me honestly, this last time."

"No," she said, rolling the truth in her mouth before letting it go. "I don't."

"I taught you too well for that," Bakura said, with what might have been the remnants of pride in his words.

"Unfortunately," Mai murmured, and they both fell silent again.

Bakura shifted once more, letting one arm drop to the floor. "How does it feel, now that it's come to this?"

Mai paused. Thought it over. She was too used to giving him the truth, and all of it. "...Free," she said at last. "I feel free."

"Hmm." Bakura tilted his head before angling it back against the wall and regarding her with half-lidded eyes. She would have thought he wasn't paying attention, but she knew him better than that. "I don't suppose you'd believe me if I told you that I'm glad."

Mai stood, touching the bars one last time in place of touching him. They locked gazes for a moment— not saying anything, none of the wordless communication that the court required them to be masters of. Simply looking at each other, and thinking their silent goodbyes. "Later on, I might."

She memorized his smile, the last one she would see. "I will be content with that."

Her footsteps echoed in the stairwell as she walked away, and again in the palace hall as she left it. The sky was the pale blue of morning above her, the clouds streamers of white dashed along the horizon. The dew on the grass brushed against her ankles, leaving tracks like tears along her skin.

Mai breathed in the cool lightness of the air, the sunlight warm on her face, and started along the road that led to the desert countries.

end.

A/N: This was inspired by the Japanese novel The Tale of Genji, in which a man raises a girl to become his future wife.

1) "Didn't we read about this theory that after a certain age, children stop thinking of people as relatives? Bakura adopted me after that age."

This 'theory' is the Westermarck effect, which hypothesizes that in between birth and the first few years of life, children 'imprint' on people close to them and later become adverse to romantic relationships with these people.

2) Anhui and Henan are provinces of China. 'Henan' means 'south of the river' (as in the Yellow River).

3) Reviews, feedback/constructive criticism especially, would be very much appreciated. Thank you all for reading!