A/N: This is my Lateshipping (BakuraxAmane) entry of Computerfreak101's YGO writing contest. I have to say I'm rather tired of writing about the bizarre…but when dealing with Bakura I find it very difficult indeed to write fluff of any sort. Anyway, this fic takes place pre-series: before Yugi gets the Puzzle or Ryou arrives in Domino. It could be seen as AU, seeing as people say Amane died before Ryou received the Millennium Ring. Take it as you will, but I tried to keep as close to cannon as possible. Slight Tendershipping if you want to look at it that way.
Disclaimer: If I owned Yugioh, then all the pieces of my life would be coming together. As they are currently a jumbled, intelligible heap, it is safe to say that the series does not belong to me.
Virtue
1. Catch Your Breath
2. Take a Step
3. Run for Your Life
You had a dream once. Well…it was more of a dream within a dream.
You are standing in a room, a very dark and very empty room. The walls, floor and ceiling are all draped in the same dreary, indiscernible shade of gray.
Gray. Like the rain-heavy clouds before a storm. Like the generic coloring of an office building.
So very plain. So very soul-crushing.
You stand alone in this room, so very alone that dead weight of the unbroken silence seems to press down upon you from all sides. And you wonder, fleetingly, whether this solid-gas of quiet will not crush your very being with the pressure of its presence.
Like the violent implosion of a small vessel under the constricting mass of the ocean. Like a crumpled, half-conceived thought tossed carelessly to the side.
A broken mass of mangled skin, ragged sinew, and jutting white bones bleeding upon the dull gray floor…
Just a passing fancy.
Ryou liked to pretend- in those seldom moments when no prying eyes could see his foolishness- that he was a superhero. He'd fasten a bed sheet three times a long and he was tall around his frail neck and flounce about as if he were running at sound-shattering speeds.
He would clamber up upon the couch cushions and throw himself off the armrests, imagining himself hurtling through the vast blue expanse of the sky, his toes skimming the fluffy white tops of clouds.
Sometimes his sister would consent to join him. Always he would dub her the "fair maiden in distress" and rescue her tiny form from the villainous clutches of a sinister blanket or a treacherous mound of pillows.
Amane would giggle incessantly as he attempted to carry her off to "safety". He never really managed the feat, but Amane would only smile as she was half-dragged away from "danger".
Ryou was neither strong nor brave. He possessed none of the nerve or the power of hero.
But he still attempted to fly, even as he came crashing to the ground.
Born into a village of outlaws, of traitors, of thieves and crooks and devils. Born into the underbelly of society, in the bosom of conflict. Born into the festering evil of the country's heart.
Born to a woman whose sin-dirtied hands cradled his face with softest admiration. Born to a man whose murder-hollowed eyes glowed with the tenderest graces of love.
Born to a saintly harlot and righteous fiend. Born blind to the atrocities of this sullied world.
Born an innocent sinner.
You hate this dream.
You hate this strange, suffocating silence. You hate these dreary, gray walls. You hate this feeling, so very twisting in your gut, of the loneliness that echoes in every bland, empty corner.
You huff and stomp and scream and kick at the insipid gray walls, but for every sound you attempt to make, the silence merely presses in closer, smothering all noise to a nearly inaudible echo.
You fume mutely, furiously taking out your anger on a nearby desk, the same monotonous shade of gray as the rest of the room. It is a barely intelligible blob on the flat landscape.
The thing does not dent beneath the pummeling of your fists. It merely sits there as you assault it: perfectly un-blemished. Perfectly irritating.
You kick it once more, hoping for something, anything to wreck its lackluster perfection. Nothing changes, and you fight the urge to scream because you know the sound will only be swallowed by more infuriating silence.
You hate this dream.
Ryou wasn't one for puzzles. He preferred board games and RPG's- things that involved not only one's intellect in strategies, but also a storyline, a plot, a world that he could fall into and be someone else, someone important.
Puzzles were too simple. Each piece molded perfectly with another, and any person with half a brain could figure out how to fit together the various parts of one whole. They were made to be solved. And once completed, a puzzle lost all value.
But the types of games Ryou preferred were different- much more complex. Each game had a new storyline, a change in characters and variation in plot. No two games were alike, allowing one to stretch their ingenuity and improve their capabilities with every fresh round.
And never once did he have to play himself- Ryou: The Feeble. Ryou: The Coward.
Whenever he slipped into a game, he became a person of dignity and worth- a brave warrior out on a quest to banish the evil that endangered his fair kingdom. A knight, a lord, a hero of the highest caliber and valor. A being unafraid to stand up for truth, freedom and virtue.
It really was a shame that Amane never cared for board games…
A thief. He believed in hard work.
A liar. He believed in honesty.
A vagrant. He believed in integrity.
A sinner. He believed in virtue.
You're not sure why you never noticed the flower before.
It sits upon the annoying gray table, the only spot of color in the lifeless void. Well…it's not really a color. The thing looks like a sunflower, but its visage has been bleached monochrome. What should have been delicate golden petals are painted the fairest, purest shade of white you have ever beheld. Its leaves and stem are of a slightly darker shade of the irritating gray of the featureless room, and the circular center of the plant is the deepest hue of black.
You walk over to the strange blossom, noting the eerie beauty that seems to slimmer in the air around it. The overpowering quiet seems to increase as you approach the thing, growing in volume until it feels as though you are wading through a thick pool of roaring white noise to reach your destination.
It's right beneath your gaze now, and it's all you can do to keep yourself standing- so great is the pressure of silence smothering you. You arduously lift your arm against the constricting force, so intent upon touching the black and white bloom that you are dead to all else.
Your fingers brush one of the snowy petals and suddenly your eyelids droop closed.
And you are drawn into a dream within a dream.
Ryou liked the Ring his father gave to him. He liked it very much. The golden item glittered beautifully in any light, as though the glow surrounding it emanated from the thing itself.
He flicked one of the cone shaped spines that hung around its rim and smiled to himself at the slight 'ping' that rang from the metal. Beside him Amane watched her brother with unguarded, childish interest, her small hands attempting to paw at the pretty golden thing her brother held.
He lifted the item above her head, the tips of the spikes dangling just above the reach of her tiny fingers.
He laughed as she pouted adorably, banging her fists against his arm as tears built up in the corners of her dark eyes. The blows glanced harmlessly off her brother's shoulder, but he chuckled and gave into his pity over her situation, lowering the pendant just enough so that she might caress a few of its spines.
Amane's lips puffed out into a small 'o' as her eyes widened comically in astonishment. Her fingers played gently over the pretty pretty gold necklace, and she smiled happily.
Ryou's lips quirked upwards as he watched her investigate his newest gift. The Ring was both beautiful and terrible in appearance. Each aspect of it seemed to have been crafted to a gentle perfection, and yet danger lurked around the sharp points of its spines and the razor edges of its central triangle. It seemed as though it had been crafted for someone of great importance and affluence. Someone with vision. Someone with power.
Ryou smiled. He liked the Ring his father gave to him. He liked it very much.
Raised in a world bathed in blood and sorrow. Raised with to believe that good lingered behind every action, that nothing every occurred without just cause.
Raised in a world where the air was polluted with misery and sorrow. Raised to believe that one could learn to hold their breath.
Raised in a world where no one was to be trusted. Raised to believe in the value of trusting others.
Raised in a world of bitterest loathing. Raised to believe that there was nothing more powerful than love.
A broken mass of mangled skin, ragged sinew, and jutting white bones bleeding upon the dull gray floor…
Raised in a world that had no morals, no guilt, no sympathy. Raised in a world that stole from him those few things which made itself redeemable.
Raised to believe in the good of the world.
But he soon learned better.
Bakura liked this boy, this Ryou. He liked this small child within whose body he silently rested, waiting, watching…
The boy was young and naïve- a thing that so often accompanies youth- yet there was an air about him that seemed to crave something more that what he was. Something in his manner of speech, in the slight gleam in his eye bespoke of a desperate longing. A longing for glory, for power, for acknowledgement of what he so wished he could be.
Had he a face to his thoughts, Bakura would have smiled. He liked this boy…And he knew how to help him.
You are drifting through the sky, a vast expanse of blue stretching out before you while a blanket of fluffy whiteness flashes beneath.
You can feel the wind whipping your hair back from you face, and you can't help but laugh in giddy exhilaration at the feeling of utter weightlessness, of freedom unbound by the earthly attachments of gravity that overtakes you.
You feel something clutched between your fingers and turn to see the colorless sunflower clasped in your fist. For some reason the sight of the blossom makes your smile broaden and you tighten your grip on its grayish stem.
You crow towards the heavens, the warmth of the sun at your back as you soar through the sky. You twist and turn, performing aerial acrobatics with the utmost ease. You have never felt so giddy, so brave, so utterly powerful as you feel now, traversing the unconquerable heavens.
Your grip on the flower tightens.
Bakura did not like the girl, this Amane that clung so frequently to the arm of his host. She was a silly little thing, a small child still so fresh in her adolescence to know anything other than her own wants and desires. She was still too young yet to understand the true ways of the world, even if its atrocities were paraded right before her very beautiful eyes.
Bakura did not like her. He did not like the way she found joy in everything before her. He did not like how she could draw a smile from almost ever person she encountered by simply just being there. He did not like how she could love so easily when she was so blind to the horrors of such an emotion. And he most certainly did not like how the blissful grin upon her rosy lips reminded him of quite another smile from quite a different time…
He did not like the tightening he felt in his chest whenever the eyes of his host fell upon her. He did not like the emotion that welled up within when he had sworn himself to no longer feeling in the first place. He did not like the way he noticed that small spark behind her eyes whenever she laughed that struck a chord somewhere in his dead-beating heart… that sick twisted feeling of… loss…
He did not like the anger she evoked in him, for anger it must be. Surely it could be nothing else… most certainly not compassion…most definitely not jealously…
Ryou fingered the edges of his Ring absentmindedly as he watched his baby sister scamper about the front lawn chasing a frog. The golden pendant dangled off his neck from a long, thin chain, and it seemed to be luminescent even in the shade where Ryou sat petting it.
The brother snickered as his sister tripped and stumbled in the short grass that was nearly knee-length to her, her pudgy little appendages carrying her along very ungracefully through the foliage after her quarry.
The Ring seemed to pulse impatiently beneath his fingers, but the laughing boy did not notice.
Bakura liked Ryou. Bakura wanted to help Ryou. The boy needed to learn. The only way to obtain true glory and power is to rid oneself of all weaknesses, all earthly attachment…
It felt strange the first time he fully possessed his host's body. The feeling that spread throughout his entire body was the sense of being…cramped and crowded. It was as though his spiritual limbs were too long for his host's petit frame, so they curled and bunched up along the ends of his fingertips, feet and neck. Bakura groaned, knowing his host was still not the right physical maturity for a proper possession, but he needed to do this, for Ryou's sake. The boy had to learn.
His work was completed quickly and efficiently, and he watched with twisted fascination as the mother of his host prepared to start her vehicle, hoisting her small daughter up and buckling her into a car seat.
He grinded wickedly as the woman started her car and pulled out of the driveway. He did not expect Amane to wave at him.
Bakura's heart seemed to stop for a fraction of a second as the little girl caught sight of him standing in the doorway, lifted the corners of her mouth up into a wide smile and twiddled the fat fingers of her small hand at him in farewell.
You notice suddenly that the speed of your flight is rapidly slowing, the seemingly solid mass of clouds below suddenly rushing up to meet you.
A feeling of intense panic grips at your heart as your stomach plummets faster than your body and you're falling down through the canopy of clouds. You're going to die, you know this, and you can see this as the very solid ground looms ever nearer.
You're terrified, horrified, but you do not scream. You do not scream because something in the back of your mind reminds you that this is just a dream. You are not going to die. This is all just a dream….
You feel your eyes drift closed and barely register the monochrome flower being ripped from your fist by the violent winds.
The accident was all over the news. The papers screamed from their front pages, the news stations insisted on recapping it ever half hour and the radios continually brought their topic of conversation back to the situation with many cries of horror for the poor family and the souls of the mother and child that had been lost so prematurely.
Ryou ignored the reports, ignored the sympathy of those around him, and ignored even his father who reached consoling hands out towards him.
Bakura ignored the stab of something unknown that lingered in his breath as he thought of that reminiscent smile…
Ryou ignored the images that screamed down at him from everywhere he turned.
A broken mass of mangled skin, ragged sinew, and jutting white bones bleeding upon the dull gray floor…
They both ignored the hot tears that trekked down their cheeks.
You open your eyes.
You are laying in a room, a very dark and very empty room. The walls, floor and ceiling are all draped in the same dreary, indiscernible shade of gray.
Gray. Like the rain-heavy clouds before a storm. Like the generic coloring of an office building.
So very plain. So very soul-crushing.
You feel something laying in your open palm and turn curious eyes away from the very gray ceiling to look upon it.
There, laying in your open hand is the monochrome flower.
It is dead.
3. Run for Your Life
2. Take a Step
1. Catch Your Breath.
A/N: I hope you understood that…yeah…please review! Oh, and the monchrome sunflower thing is based off a real dream I had about my sister.