Author's Note: Just a quick oneshot. Bakura-centric. Which Bakura, you ask? The answer is yes. XD
Thanks: To my fabulous beta-chan, Tyger, without whom I would be a miserable lump of beta-lessness, and my fics would be much poorer.
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-gi-oh! I never have, I never will, and quite frankly, I don't want to, because I'd do horrible things to the characters, and YB would definitely win, which wouldn't be good, because he's the bad guy.
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White Hair
"Have you ever wondered, yadonushi, why your hair is white?" Bakura started, dropping his pencil in shock. He knew that voice, that voice inside of his head, even though he could count the number of times it had spoken to him directly on one hand, and still have fingers left over. And this time, it seemed to want a reply.
"N-no," he replied cautiously, as he bent to pick up his pencil. "Not really." The pencil was set back on his desk with a soft click. "I always figured that it was genetics." A mental snort was his reply.
"A poor guess, when everyone else on both sides of your family has hair as black as night," the voice said. The next words were an even greater surprise than the first. "Put away that priestly work, yadonushi. I'll tell why." Although he was shaken, Bakura was still curious about what the resident of the Sennen Ring – and occasional tenant in his own body – had to say.
"I'm listening," he said finally, laying down on his bed, and closing his eyes.
"Good. Because I'll only tell this once. A long time ago, in the land of Khemet where the gods trod the earth and mortal men commanded them..."
---
It was a bright, hot day, the Eye of Ra gazing down upon the small village, and the smaller boy who lived there. But it was always bright and hot, and the boy didn't mind that so much as the lessons he was trying to hide from.
"Boy! I'll stripe you from head to toe if you don't return this instant!" The strong voice belonged to Perat, the old man who was the village storyteller. The boy was supposed to be learning from him today, along with a half-dozen other youngsters, but as usual, he was avoiding it.
I don't like lessons. I don't see why we have to learn about gods, and stuff. It's stupid. On the other hand, he didn't relish at all the thought of the beating that he would receive for skipping, so, with some reluctance, he wormed his way out of his hiding place, and shoved his hair out of his face.
"I'm coming old man!" he shouted crossly. "Don't get your stick out yet!" And he ran off to join his friends.
---
"You had friends?" Bakura asked in surprise, interrupting the spirit's narrative. "And black hair?"
"I wasn't born like this," said entity replied shortly. "What kind of a freak is born with white hair? Now, that evening..."
---
"You shouldn't defy Perat like that," the boy's mother said, as she gently washed his back. The boy winced. "It doesn't do any good."
"But – "the boy protested.
"But?" his mother prompted. The boy sighed.
"Never mind," he muttered, and allowed his mother to finish treating the wounds on his back. He had wound up getting a beating after all, but he knew that it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been – the skin on his back was only broken in two places.
"You're such a troublesome child," the boy's mother sighed, hugging him gently, taking care not to touch the wounds she had just so carefully cleaned and bandaged. "You should learn to be more careful." The boy sat in guilty silence for a minute. It wasn't right to upset his mother like that. She was, after all, all he had. He had just made up his mid to apologize to her, to promise he would never do it again, when she let him go. "Come. Let us eat our dinner. Tomorrow, at least, you won't be causing any trouble." She smiled down at him, and he grinned back. She was right, of course. Tomorrow, his uncle was taking him fishing on the sacred river.
The boy went to bed, falling to sleep easily in the quiet night. It wasn't to last. A sharp scream cut the night, waking the boy from his sleep. He opened his mouth to call for his mother, but found that he couldn't, because her hand was clamped over it. Another scream rang out, and then another. A dull red light shone through the window, and the boy could hear other shouts, voices of men calling out, but not in terror.
"Shh," his mother commanded. "I want you to listen to me, Bakura."
---
Bakura started, briefly. I didn't know that his name was the same as mine. Does that mean that mou hitori no Yuugi is actually also named Yuugi? He didn't pursue the thought, because the other Bakura wasn't pausing in his story.
---
"I want you to listen to me, Bakura," the boy's mother said. "I want you to go and hide, in the place you hide when none of us can ever find you. And I don't want you to come out, no matter what you see, no matter what you hear. Do you understand me?" The boy nodded. "Good. Never forget that I love you." The boy's mother hugged him again, and he could feel her tears fall into his hair.
"Will I see you again, mother?" he asked her, as she ushered him out of the house, into a back alley, tears of his own upon his face.
"The gods willing my son. Now go." There was a loud thud as the boy's front door was slammed open. "Go!" The boy ran. He dodged through the back streets and alleys of his small village, until he came to his best hiding place. He had always thought that it was a good one, because he could stay there, and watch all the activity in the square, without anyone ever spotting him. It was the most horrible place he could have been.
It took several minutes for his mind to sort out what he was seeing, and when it finally did, the boy wished that he couldn't see it. There was a great fire in the middle of the square, with a great cauldron upon it. And into that cauldron, being carried one by one by the pharaoh's guards, were the people of the village. And his people were begging, and some were struggling, and others were already limp as if they were dead. The boy saw his teacher, his uncle, his best friend, all thrown to the cauldron. The baker, the potter, the best thief in town, all given to the cauldron. Finally, just when he thought that it was over, that it couldn't get any worse, two guards came, dragging a woman between them. It was his mother.
"This is the last of them," the guard said.
"Are you sure?" came another voice, and for the first time, the boy saw the priest, standing in authority, officiating over the cauldron. The guard nodded. "Then that makes ninety-nine. Toss her in." The guards complied. The boy tried to scream, but he found that he had no voice. He watched his mother be boiled alive in the cauldron. He watched as everyone, and everything he ever knew was destroyed, in one night. He watched as they poured the molten gold, mixed with the flesh and blood of his family into a strange mould. Watched the priest perform strange magics, and watched as, with the first light of dawn, seven golden treasures were removed from the mould, and brought back to pharaoh.
Finally, he passed out. He never knew how long he slept for, but when he finally woke up, his family was dead, his town was in ruins, and his hair was stark, bone white.
---
"So you see yadonushi, that is why we have white hair. The trauma to our soul was so deep, that it has lasted for three thousand years. And that is why the Sennen Items, all of them, rightfully belong to me." Mou hitori no Bakura smiled into Bakura's mind. "Rest well, yadonushi." And the voice fell silent. For a long time, Bakura lay shaking. Then, when he had finally regained control of his body, he calmly got up, went to the kitchen, and pulled a bottle of vodka from where he knew Honda had hidden it the last time he was over. He poured himself a shot, drank it down, and then picked up his phone, and dialed a familiar number. The phone rang three times, before it was picked up.
"Moshi-moshi," came the familiar voice over the line.
"Yuugi?" Bakura said. "There's something I think you need to know..."