The Others: The Second Year

Disclaimer: Yu-gi-oh! Duel Monsters is owned by Kazuki Takahashi, Studio Gallop, Nihon Ad Systems, TV Tokyo and 4Kids Entertainment. All names were changed to the characters of this fandom in order to protect the real people involved in the following incidents.

Warning: Please read before continuing on! This is the second book in a trilogy. To understand what is going on, please check out my profile and look for The Others: The First Year

To Neha
You are the only person
Who has survived my plot rants
Who has lived through my mutters and my madness
Who knows more about what is going to happen
Than any person on the planet
And has somehow
Somehow
Not lost her
entire mind
I thank you from the bottom of my heart
For every time you ask me to read
A chapter to you
It is an honour to know you
- Lor


Chapter 1: Morning, Casanova

Welcome back.

I'm assuming that you've made your choice to return. I hope that you've thought this through because after this, there is no turning back. You've already immersed yourself so much in the truth that it will stay with you forever. I wouldn't be surprised if you had started to look over your shoulder occasionally, wondering if those that you pass on the street are who they appear to be.

I know I do. Even after all this time, I'm still paranoid. It's a force of habit, I guess.

When I last left you, it was the May of the year 2017. I'd just survived the first major battle of my life. I'd seen someone that I'd known fall to my enemy. Tristan Taylor left the world before his time, a bullet through the middle of his forehead. He was eighteen years old. I was at the funeral and watched his family weep from afar.

No one should have to bury their own child. And yet, my sister, Amane, and I did that to our own parents. I don't know if mom has forgiven us for that just yet.

As you probably remember, Amane faked her death after the bombing in Domino City. Or, as most of the state probably remembers it, a gas explosion that was (apparently) rigged by me. I didn't do it. Instead, a set of Converts brought in a bomb to destroy all evidence that they'd been there. My father was amongst them. He held a gun to my head.

That would be the last I ever saw of him before he became a high-ranking member of the Army of the Orichalcos.

After the battle, I left Domino City to live with my best friend, Marik, in San Francisco for a few months. It was pretty awesome. Mai and Mana came over a few times, the latter more than the former. That might have had something to do with the fact that Mana's Marik's girlfriend. Mai and I locked them in a closet and didn't let them out for two hours, while we went off and played video games (how the hell she beat me at Super Smash Bros, I will never understand).

When they came out, Marik had some pretty interesting marks on his neck and a dazed look in his eye. Mana had an oddly smug smile on her face. Something told me that I didn't want to know what happened in there.

And then there was my sister. After we'd left Domino City, Amane moved into an apartment in Danvers, Massachusetts under the name Rebecca Hawkins. There she set up base as gh05twr1tt3r. After a few weeks, Kaiba saw the complete potential in her and gave her some top-of-the-line equipment and introduced her to Noah.

Those two get along so well, Kaiba actually shuddered at the thought of what they would do together if left alone. I am convinced that Amane and Noah could combine their powers and take over the world in less than a day if they wanted to.

Amane spent most of her summer hijacking the campaigns of Mokuba's opponents, destroying the credibility of their sponsors and making anyone that ran against him look rather incompetent. Mokuba Kaiba would become the next New York senator in a landslide election, thanks to her.

She PORTed over occasionally to say hi. Amane actually come over the day that I'm going to start you all off on. I was looking at the newspaper when she came in, reading about her latest accomplishment: destroying the credibility of a US Senator-possible with a few clicks of a keyboard.

But this is where the story really begins, on that relatively obscure Wednesday morning in October. Atlantis was about to begin taking students again and this year, we were going to have a celebrity among us. He'd be my roommate that year as I took over for the job that Marik had with me the year before.

I wonder sometimes if he had a different mentor, if he would have lived longer. I don't know, but I miss him so much. He was like a little brother to me. And when he died…god, it was almost too much.

If I had sons, I'd name one after Leon von Schroeder.

I won't ask you if you want to back out again. No, you've been given enough chances to leave – if you wanted to, you'd be long gone by now. I'm not going to insult you by repeating the same thing over and over.

But if I may give you a small piece of advice: hold on to your seats. Things are about to get a little bumpy. And by 'a little', I really mean 'a lot.'

So strap in. You're in for the long haul now.


Wednesday, October 11th, 2017

"Wow. You're not only vertical, but also awake before eight in the morning. Who are you and what have you done with Ryou?" My sister teased me as she came into the kitchen. I was sitting at the table as Marik's older brother, Odion, started to come down the stairs.

"I've kidnapped him and am currently holding him hostage," I joked, taking a sip of a wonderful drink that I had discovered over the summer holidays: coffee. It was like the afternoon in liquid form.

"And what do I have to do to get him back?" Amane grinned and played along.

I held up the front page of the newspaper, "Explain exactly how this got into the hands of the media."

Splashed across the front page were the words: THE RACE FOR NEW YORK STATE TURNS DIRTY. Under it was a picture of one of the runners in the election with his hand up the shirt of a girl who couldn't be older than thirteen.

"He shouldn't have kept the photo on his hard drive in a folder labeled 'Porn'," she grabbed the paper from me, skimming over the article underneath. "He's dropping out of the race, that good for nothing – son of a bitch! What do you mean they're not pressing charges? He's got his hand up her shirt! What more proof do you want?"

"That's the American government for you. Unreliable to the point of stupidity," I rolled my eyes and snatched the paper back.

"And fueled by Orichalcos stones. I am sooo draining his account and making an anonymous donation to World Vision. And then I think I'm going to buy myself some new boots," she sighed, tilting her head to read the comics on the back page. Odion sighed lightly at our antics before shoving some bread into the toaster.

Odion Ishtar was Marik's older brother through adoption. Surprisingly enough, he was an Other, just like his younger siblings. He's explained to me that he's been taken in by the Ishtars when he was an infant and therefore the Ward hadn't kicked in yet. Odion described himself as one of the lucky ones.

He was a CIA agent, which was one of the few organizations in the government that had been left relatively untouched, though it was only because the current director was essentially running a Vichy regime. Odion was reporting on their actions from the inside on top of his regular duties for the Resistance.

Those duties had, at one point, cost him half of his face. Old burn scars covered the left side, making his eye droop closed on occasion. But at the same time, Odion didn't try to hide them by turning his head so that you couldn't see them. He looked me dead in the eye whenever I'd had a conversation with me. I think it was more out of respect than anything else, though.

"That showed up a few minutes ago," he nodded to a cardboard box with packaging tape around it that was sitting on the tile floor in the sunlight kitchen. On the top were the familiar red lettering that spelled out: KaibaCorp.

"School supplies? Or…something else," I moved over to the box, noting that it was much larger than the one last year that had shown up on my bed…oh…

It had been almost six months since I'd last been in Domino City – six months since I'd last been in that room. Amane had told me in one of her earlier visits that she still kept tabs on our parents, having tapped their internet and phones while we'd still lived there. Apparently, dad was living in a hotel near the police station most days now.

"Mom kicked him out, probably," Amane's lips were a tight, thin line when she said those words. "Only good thing that's gone down over there since we disappeared."

I doubted that my sister would ever fully get over what happened during prom night. I doubted that any of the people who were part of what went down there would. Even the ones that had their memories altered would still think of that day and shiver.

But the ones who did know…god, I hadn't spoken to any of them since May. None of us had. I hated to admit it, but I kind of missed them: Duke and his steadfast promises, Serenity and her sweet smiles, Miho and her nervous stutters, Tea and her strangely calming tones. I even missed Joey, though it was only a bit. It's hard to really miss the guy who used to beat you up for the hell of it, no matter how sorry you felt for him about losing the man he loved.

And speaking of people that meant something to me, I'd gotten a very odd phone call the other day. It was from Atem, of all people, and I thought that this was the first time she'd used a phone ever. In the beginning, she sounded a bit frightened by it, words spilling into the mouth piece that were only partially in English. I believed that she was asking for guidance from a god of some sort.

Long story short, she was coming over today, which was why I was up at such a ridiculous hour drinking black coffee in order to make it so that my brain was somewhat functional when she showed up. I didn't want to embarrass myself too badly by impersonating a zombie and being unable to string a pair of words together.

"I think that it's bigger because it's also got Marik's stuff in it," Odion's voice brought me back to reality as I ran my knife down the line of tape and opened the box. Just before I began to shift through its contents, he asked if Mana had come over the night before.

"Yeah, she was here. Why?" I frowned at him.

"That would explain it. You might not want to go near his room for a little while. He sounded a bit…preoccupied," a small grin appeared on his face. "It's good to know that he's getting over his aphephobia, even though it's mostly centered on Mana."

I dropped the new sling bag at that information, my face red with the knowledge that two of my friends were upstairs getting it on. Amane just laughed at my misery.

"And you told me once that you weren't a prude," she giggled, walking over to where I was standing (like a fucking mortified statue) and looked at what was inside. She let out a high-pitched squeal.

"He used it! He promised and he did! He did, he did, he did!"

"What are you talking about?" I came out of my stupor.

"Look at these babies," she shoved what was in her hands under my nose. "I totally gave the guy the idea to make these. Fully usable fake debit cards!"

"Explain for those who do not understand moon speak," I raised an eyebrow at her.

Amane rolled her eyes, "These work just like any credit card, except there's no actual money on the other end. But the chip can confuse the machine so that it thinks that there is and if you put it into an ATM, you can withdraw any domination up to one thousand dollars."

I took one from her and turned it over in my hands. That was pretty cool. There was even a fake drivers licenses and passports. Apparently, I was going under the name Chuck Powers now…or Ted Lewis…or a bunch of other people I didn't know.

"There's only set one of these in here."

"Of course there is. Marik may have volunteered to help out during the Battle of Domino City, but he's more useful to the Resistance as an intelligence gatherer," Odion explained. "You're going to be the one that's apart of a strike team."

I swallowed hard, thinking of my future and what it would be like. Atem and I were apparently going to be forming some sort of hit squad of two that could be anywhere at any time. And in between duties, we were on the hunt for the Thousand Spell Book: the mysterious novel said to contain the location of Heavenly Sound, the woman who would put an end the Orichalcos war, one way or another.

Then what Amane had said caught up to me, "Who's the guy that makes this stuff?"

Huh. I was getting a new phone this year as well. The only difference I could spot was the second camera, the one facing the front in case I wanted to take a picture of myself.

"No one knows," she said mysteriously. "He's the Inventor. All these cool gadgets are his design. He's been taking KaibaCorp's models and tweaking them for semi- to completely illegal activities. I've only IMed with him a few times, but, damn, he's a genius."

"I-whated?"

"IM. Instant messaging. God, Ryou, sometimes I think you live in the Dark Ages," my sister laughed at me. "He goes by the screen name FiRe_StArTeR, in case you ever need to talk to him."

Marik stumbled down the stairs at that moment, a satisfied smirk on his face and his hair messier than his usual bedhead. Mana was not far behind him.

"Morning, Casanova," I yawned as I spoke.

"Good morning to you too, Bakura," Mana waved tiredly as her boyfriend started to snicker. I tossed Marik's new bag and mobile to him. Immediately, he switched the SIM card of his old phone into his new one.

There was a knock at the front door. I knew who it was. I jumped up and tried to control my urge to run to answer it. I yanked the knob open and a smile painted itself across my face.

"Hey! You're here – oof!" Atem knocked my breath out of my lungs with the force of her hug. After regaining my bearings, I wrapped arms around her and returned it.

"Hands off of my mother," Kaiba growled behind her. I let go and through my hands up in surrender.

"I was hugged first. It was self-defense," I gave him my best 'I'm not trying to get with your mom' smile. I didn't think that it worked because Atem punched me lightly on the way in. Kaiba shoved passed me and gave me the evil eye.

"You know, I could consider that child abuse," I grumbled, rolling my shoulder.

"You're a legal adult now, Bakura. The term is assault, if you are planning to charge her in criminal court," he said, sighing as if resigning himself to some terrible fate. "Go pack. We're leaving for Washington in twenty minutes – and I mean twenty minutes this time! We're leaving, with or without you."

He went into the kitchen to talk to Odion while I bounded up the stairs into the room that I'd been living in over the summer. It was a sweet place, though I kept the curtains closed most of the time. The bed was comfortable as hell, so much so that I often slept though my alarms.

I began to take stuff out of the closet before I realized that my new bag was still downstairs.

"Looking for this?" Atem leaned against the doorway, holding exactly what I was looking for. I smiled as a few dozen butterflies decided to take residence in my stomach.

"Yeah. Thanks," I took it from her and our hands brushed. I took a quick step back and resumed my packing. I tried to strike up a conversation, "So, what have you been up to lately? I've been trying to see if I could catch wind of you in the news, but there's been nothing."

"I've been keeping quiet the past few months, mainly going out as Danni Green to collect information," she explained, coming closer and sitting on the bed. I tried to keep my boxers out of sight – what? I didn't think we were at the point in our relationship where she needed to see what kind of underwear I wore. Not that we were in a relationship, even though we'd kissed three times.

"Any news on the Book?"

"Surprisingly, yes," she answered. "Have you ever heard of a company named Gozaburo Inc. before?"

"The name sounds familiar. Why? What's this about?"

"Gozaburo Inc. was what KaibaCorp used to be before Seto took over. The CEO, Mr. David Gozaburo, died when someone pumped him full of enough tranquilizers to put down a small herd elephants on Christmas Eve, 2012," she explained.

"I remember it now. His death made the news…but I thought that they never found a cause," I frowned.

Atem shrugged, "Tell the police that and you'll be able to connect me with one of the murders that I am a suspect for."

My jaw dropped, "You killed David Gozaburo. Why?"

"I'm sure you heard the stories about what he was doing, both on and off the books," she answered as I started to pack again. "Officially, Gozaburo Inc. began supplying the American military with equipment after 9/11. Unofficially, he was influencing the campaigns of major political players so that the War on Terrorism never ended. Remember the boycott of the 2012 elections?"

That was one of the few things that stuck with me from Ms. Madusa's history classes, "Almost three-quarters of the population didn't turn out to force the government to bring back the troops from the Middle East."

"Exactly. According to our intel, the government was willing to do that, but then Gozaburo made them keep them there. Do you know why?"

"Soul Steeler told me once that the Middle East was one of the most infected regions on the planet because of the Ancient colony of Babylon," I answered. "I'm guessing that the army has been completely turned into Converts and Infecteds."

"It's not just that," Atem explained as I finished packing my clothes and moved to my desk where my tablet was sitting. "The Orichalcos was brought back into this world a few days before I was cursed, but Dartz only managed to create a single stone. To get more stones, more blood needed to be spilled except it didn't matter whether the person was innocent or not anymore."

"Death creates stones?" I whispered in horror.

"Specifically, violent deaths. There's a conversion spell that needs to said, but wars and genocides are essentially massive factories for the Orichalcos," she admitted, shaking her head. "I saw a few of those factories in years before I met Dark God. They were using the African slave trade to disguise what they were really doing. No one cared if a few slaves went missing every so often."

"And the War on Terrorism is the ultimate war because America is fighting an ideal. You can kill the dreamer, but can't kill the dream," I sighed, sitting down beside her.

"Martin Luther King Jr.," a small smile appeared on his face.

"Five dollars says that you met him," I grinned, but she shook her head.

"No, but I did listen to some of his speeches. He was one of a kind, that man."

"I bet he was," my hand snuck around her shoulders as I faked a yawn, attempting to pull the oldest trick in the book. Atem was here, looking really pretty, and was sitting on my bed with me. Stuff could happen in beds. Maybe that was why I was acting braver than I usually did around her.

"But the point that I was trying to make," she continued on and I felt a little put off, "is that Gozaburo was involved in the distribution of the Orichalcos; he was a dealer, to use modern terminology. So we took action."

"You assassinated the man. But how in the world did you even get close to him?"

"Several years ago, when his marriage wasn't going to well, Gozaburo met regularly with a young escort. He fathered a pair of sons with her. After she died pneumonia, he started to look for them," Atem looked at my arm, contemplating what to do with it. Then she leaned into me and resumed talking, "I told him that I knew where they were and would set up a meeting between him, Seto, and Mokuba."

"Seto and Mokuba Kaiba are his biological children?"

"No. I lied to the man. A drunk driver killed their parents when Seto was seven. Gozaburo just had to believe they were his. He changed will so that Seto inherited his company and then we took him out," Atem explained. "We did it originally so that we could stop his dealing, but as of recently, we've started going through his old records and the Thousand Spell Book pops up occasionally."

"Really?" That seemed a bit cold hearted of her. I knew that Atem was a killer, but to use a man's dreams of finding his own children against him? That was harsh, even for her.

As if sensing my discomfort, she kept talking, "Desperate times called for desperate measures. I thought…that you weren't going to come back. I had no one coming to help."

"Oh."

Well, that explained a few things. My last reincarnation, Akeifa Bakura, died over two hundred years ago and I was supposed to appear sometime in the 1900s. However, I was born in the year 1999, so while I technically was alive within the time period, I didn't show myself to her. So Atem thought that I'd simply stopped reincarnating.

Atem stood suddenly, explaining that my twenty minutes were up. We started our trek downstairs together.

I thanked the Ishtar family for letting me stay and hugged Mana and Amane before I left. My sister slipped something into my pocket before I let go of her, whispering, "Just something for you later."

There was a car waiting outside. It was a four door American-made SUV with tinted windows and a black paint job. It felt a lot bigger on the inside than it did on the outside. Kaiba climbed into the front passenger seat as Atem led me into the back.

Mokuba sat in the far seat, with Kisara and Ishizu in the row behind us. Moto was driving.

"Why are we going to Washington?" I felt a bit claustrophobic, caught in between the door and Atem.

"What do you know about the von Schroeder family?" Kisara leaned forwards through the seats to look me in the eye.

"Other than the father is the president and the son is an Other? Not much. I'm not really into politics."

I was handed a file. I opened it and vaguely recognized the face of the president's son.

"Bakura, we need to ask a favour of you," Ishizu said, but her tone suggested that I was really being voluntold to do something. Oh man, this was going to be one of those days.


"You're going to want to change," Moto handed me some clothes and stood guard by the door of the public washroom. Once inside a stall, I quickly put on the dress shirt and trousers, tossing my old clothes back in my bag.

I came out, feeling incredibly nervous, shrugging on my black trench coat and pulling the hood up to avoid the sun. After activating a PORT in the car over to the parking lot of the KaibaCorp building and then into the streets of Washington, D.C. The White House loomed in the distance as we got back in the car and started to drive towards it.

Atem pulled on her wig, becoming Danni Green and put on a pair of glasses that made her eyes seem darker. Secret Service swarmed the car before we were allowed out, checking underneath for bombs as well as the insides for any concealed weapons.

Once they determined that we weren't armed to the teeth (hah, irony), we were directed through security, getting both a pat down and having to walk through one of those full body scanners. My bag went through a metal detector, before three men that looked like they had just stepped out of a wrestling ring escorted us to a waiting room.

The Kaibas refused to sit, instead standing protectively around their adoptive mother. It was completely understandable, considering the last time Atem had been her, she'd taken five bullets to the chest and one to the knee. I'd know. I'd been the one to heal her, merging with Touzoku and becoming one with him.

I'd done the same thing with Dark God during prom and I'd noticed a few things had changed about me afterwards. Sometimes, I could just tell where people were without actually knowing. I didn't understand how I did it, but once over the summer, Marik asked me where Ishizu was and I could tell him that she was in her office. The thing was, I didn't even know that she was home. And yet, I knew.

Then there were the memories and, god, those were disturbing. The Ishtars didn't eat much in the way of meat, but one night we went out to a restaurant and I ordered a steak only to get a flash of Dark God sinking his teeth into someone's arm and liking it. Needless to say, I quickly got up and went to the toilet to puke my guts up. There was other stuff, too, but I didn't want to think of that right now.

Dark God was different, I'd noticed. Something had happened to him during those moments in which we had merged together. I didn't know what it was, but sometimes I would hear him and Touzoku talking in the back of my mind. I thought that the Healer was trying to give a little bit of counseling. I wondered if it was working because Dark God still seemed pretty messed up.

So I could feel the man coming before he actually appeared. I didn't know whom it was, just getting this feeling of a muddy brown fire coming closer. I glanced up, frowning at the doorway as the sound of footsteps got louder.

But when he came in the room, I immediately shot to my feet. Holy crap! It was him: Zigfried von Schroeder, the current President of the United States.

He was a tall man with broad shoulders and startling red hair. The man was young for a President, barely into his last thirties, but he seemed to carry wisdom with him that was beyond his age. I'd only ever seen that look on one other person's face before and she was one of the oldest people on the planet.

"Mr. President," Mokuba took point, moving forwards and shaking the man's hand. I stood, eyes wide and back ramrod straight, wondering how the hell my life had become this in less than a year. I was same room as the freaking President! This was…crap, I didn't even know what this was.

"Mr. Kaiba, it's good to see you again. The speech you made at Carol's funeral – I never got to thank you for it. It was very touching," von Schroeder smiled sadly.

"Lady Carol was an inspiration to us all, sir. It was the very least that I could do," Mokuba let go and gestured to the rest of us. When his eyes focused on Atem, knowing exactly who she was. I took a hasty step towards her, trying to be protective.

"I've brought everyone you requested to see," Mokuba grinned, his gaze passing over me. "That and a few more."

The President nodded and gestured for us to follow him. I walked rigidly, eyes wide and taking in everything that we walked passed. Part of me really hoped that we were going to one particular room in the White House. It would be really, really awesome if we did.

As we went up a set of winding stairs, I noticed someone standing at the top. He was a sharp dressed man with greying hair. Kaiba and Kisara smirked at the sight of him.

"Magnum," Kaiba addressed him. "How's the stock exchange treating you lately?"

I didn't know how much more of this I could take. That was Jean-Claude Magnum, the CEO of DOMA, KaibaCorp's leading competitor. I felt so small and insignificant in comparison to all the powerful people who were in this room. There were billionaires and politicians, Seers and Berserkers, as well as a disguised Immortal. Why they wanted me to do what they had proposed to me on the ride over seemed completely beyond me.

"As well as it is probably treating you," Magnum answered with a false, highly practiced smile. "And hello, Ms. Bleu. It's been too long."

"Not long enough I'm afraid," Kisara's hands were clasped around her back, but I could see that her nails looked a little too much like claws for her to be completely calm. She obviously did not like this man.

"Good day, Mr. Magnum, but if you will excuse us," von Schroeder moved around him and continued to lead us down the hall.

"Watch out for him. There's something very wrong with that man," Atem whispered to me as we passed him by.

The President opened a door at the end of a hallway, leading us into the most famous room in all of America: the Oval Office. I nearly went into a fit of hysteria at the pure awesomeness of everything.

The three windows behind the desk let the light into the room. I tread softly on the carpet, worried that I'd leave a stain on the massive eagle in the middle of the room.

"Now, to business," von Schroeder sat down nervously behind his desk. "If you would, Mr. Kaiba?"

Mokuba grinned, pulling his phone out of his pocket and putting it to his ear. After a few heartbeats, he said, "FiRe_StArTeR, if you would? And get ready Noah."

The lights flickered for a second before returning to normal. Immediately, Kisara pulled out a USB and plugged it into the computer on the President's desk. Noah, the smart ass AI program, popped up on the screen.

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen! Relax, sit back, and prepare to be amazed," Noah cracked his knuckles, teeth flashing wildly as he started to cackle. "There's nothing up my sleeves, nothing hidden anywhere, and yet – "

"Noah, get on with it," Kaiba snapped.

"Right-o, boss man! FiRe_StArTeR has activated the EMP, so all the bugs are down. I'll keep the people on the other line…distracted, so talk all you want. God, I love tricking these people!" The programs laugher became maniacal. Kaiba reached forwards and pressed the mute button.

"Who was that?" von Schroeder raised an eyebrow.

"That would be Noah. He's…eccentric," Ishizu explained as Atem moved to the doors and sealed them shut.

"We can now talk without being overheard," she said, removing her wig. The President jumped in surprise. I started to prepare for the worst when a large smile spread across his face.

"The Immortal. Hello, Atem. It's been far too long. I knew that you were safe, I just knew it!"

"It's good to see you too, Zigfried. Well, I've got Bakura here to thank for my survival," she nodded towards me and I somehow became stiffer as his gaze. The President frowned before his eyes widen.

"Good God, is it possible? I mean, I've read about him, but…a descendent, perhaps? Of Napoleon's greatest warrior, Akeifa Bakura?"

"No. Akeifa had no children and neither did his younger sister, before her death. Bakura, here, is not a descendent. He is a reincarnation," Atem explained.

"Amazing. Absolutely amazing. I never get tired of this, not at all," von Schroeder came forwards and held out his hand for me to shake it, oh my god!

"Bakura, sir – Mr. President, um…Ryou Bakura. Hello," I stammered. His hand was clammy, probably from the fact that he was in a room with a bunch of Others. The Ward was still there, after all.

"You're not American," he tilted his head to the side in interest. "Welsh, possibly."

"I was born in Cardith," I told him. "And you're from London. Sir."

"Very good. Could you tell by the accent?"

"Not really. I read it somewhere," I rubbed the back of my head, thinking of the file that I'd been given on the way over.

"Close enough then," he grinned, but then it slipped from his face as he turned back to the room. "So, I assume you want to talk about my son."

"It wasn't his fault, sir. He had no idea that this would happen," Moto stepped forwards, speaking for the first time.

"I know. I know," von Schroeder sounded like he was trying to convince himself of the truth. "But she's still gone. Carol's gone and there's no way to bring her back."

"Sir, its not his fault," Moto reminded him again.

"It's just…it was just a touch. That's all it was – just a touch. What a frightening power," his last words came out as a whisper.

I frowned. Where had I heard of this kind of thing before? I remembered a tree and bright blue eyes…of course!

"Your son is a Death Touch," I said in awe. But that would mean…

"Yes. And my wife's death is a result of his...gift," von Schroeder turned away, sighing sadly.

"That's why, isn't it? That's why you want me to be his sponsor," I turned to Kaiba and the others. "Because I've got an Overpower as well."

"You have one, too?" von Schroeder asked, leaning back slightly.

"I'm a Necromancer, sir. I help souls to pass on when they stay behind," I explained.

"Yes, that's the reason. We were considering Mr. Burke, but we made him a sponsor last year, so we thought it would be fair to give him a break," Moto told me. It took me a moment to think that he was talking about Strings, who's real name was Coy Burke.

"You know how to deal with death, Bakura. Leon doesn't," Kisara explained. "And there's something else as well. We don't know of any other Death Touches in existence. Most of them hide themselves from humanity, not daring to come into contact with anyone. But you've got the best expert on Overpowers trapped in your head."

"Touzoku," I muttered. "You want him to see if he can help."

"We figured that if he knew how to get a Berserker under control, then he would know something about a Death Touch," she continued. "Could you ask him?"

"He's already said yes," I passed on his message to Kisara. "But…there's one condition. He wants you to teach him about modern medicine."

"Consider it done," Kisara smiled at the thought of being able to give something back to the grandfather who had helped her to survive her early years as a Berserker.

"There's one other thing you should know, Bakura, before we go to meet him," Moto turned to me. "You saw in the file how old his is."

"Yeah. He's twelve. Strings was a year older when he was brought to Atlantis," I figured out the reason why they wanted to put this Leon kid with Strings. "But what does it matter?"

"There is a reason why we don't start teaching magic to students until they are about seventeen or eighteen years old. Once magic develops, it is incredibly unstable for the first five or six years," Moto explained. "If we were to teach them how to control their powers earlier, we would risk them blowing themselves up."

"But you started learning how to use magic when you were eleven," I pointed to Atem, remembering that day from my dreams.

"This only started occurring after the Cut Off. I can only assume that it had something to do with what happened that day," Atem looked away, trying not to remember what Dartz and her father did: bring the Orichalcos back into the world.

Moto brought us back on topic, "However, we can't have an untrained Death Touch running around. Even if that means that we have to keep an extra eye on Leon to make sure that his core remains as stable as it can be, it would be worth it."

I nodded, "So where is the kid now?"

"School. He should be in class, right about now," the President said. I turned towards the door, unsealing it with my magic.

"Where are you going?" Atem asked.

"I'm going to go meet Leon von Schroeder," I answered as I walked out of the room.

I was just able to catch the President saying, "My, he's an impulsive one, isn't he?" before I started down the stairs and let myself out of the White House.


This was probably the most posh middle school I'd ever seen in my entire life. But considering that I'd only ever really seen a few, my opinion didn't count for much.

For one, the kids (some of which couldn't have been older than eight) wore uniforms. But they weren't the polo shirt and slacks kind – no, these were the blazer, tie, and crested button down shirt kind. The boys wore navy trousers and the girls wore green and blue tartan skirts. I noticed that the older the girls got, the shorter their skirts seemed to be.

I snuck in, covering myself in an invisibility Illusion to bypass the extensive security detail at the front door. As I hopped over the metal detectors (they did not have those at Domino High), I began to look for the elusive Leon von Schroeder.

He was outside, sitting behind one of the buildings and reading the third Harry Potter book. I could tell that this wasn't his first time reading it; the spine was cracking and the soft-cover of the book seemed to fold back naturally.

I dropped the Illusion, "Sirius Black was framed, but I think you already know that."

Leon jumped and the book went flying. I caught it before it fell into a puddle.

"W-who are you?" He stammered, hiding himself in his uniform. I noticed that his hands were gloved, probably out of fear of touching people.

"Better question: who, or rather what, are you?" I grinned at him.

Leon was a small little thing with bright red hair like his father. His face was covered in freckles that seemed to join together when he blushed. His eyes were a deep earthy brown.

"How'd you get passed the security? They don't even allow parents to get this far into the school. Who are you or I'll start screaming!" He threatened me.

"I'm not here to hurt you, kid. I'm here to help you."

"You can't help me. No one can help me," he snapped. "Who ever you are, just go away! Leave me alone. You don't know a thing about me."

"I know your name is Leon von Schroeder. I know –"

He cut me off, "Everyone knows that. My father's the most famous man in America."

"Let me finish," I held up my hand for silence. "I know that something happened to your mother a few months ago and you know think that it's your fault. Scratch that, you know it's your fault. I know that you think that I'm some freak who's going to tell you that it's all in your head, but I'm not. Because I know something else."

I leaned in, "I know that you saw your mother die, but through her eyes a few seconds after her death."

"How could you possibly…" Leon's face was white as a corpse.

"I know that you've always been different. Your parents could see it and they shied away from you, except when during photo opps and press conferences. I know that you've probably done some things recently and you don't know how to explain them. Have you turned something into something else? Made people see things that weren't there?"

"Sometimes…I know what people are thinking," he whispered in awe. "I can hear their thoughts."

"But that's happened recently. Probably around the same time you started to wear those," I pointed to the gloves on his hands. He quickly put them into the pockets of his blazer. "Leon, my name is Bakura. Ryou Bakura, but don't call me Ryou. And I used to think that I was crazy. Do you know why?"

"Why?"

"Because of this girl that I used to know. Her name was Rebecca Hawkins and she was four years old. I met her in a graveyard," I explained to him. "For the last three years, I told her everything that happened to me at my high school: every test I went through, all the people that I saw, every time that someone tried to kick my teeth in. But the thing is: Rebecca Hawkins died four years ago."

"Then who were you talking to?" Leon asked.

"Oh, I was talking to her, alright. I was talking to her spirit," I told him and made my eyes go red. He jumped back in shock.

"What the – what the hell?"

"Throughout history, people like us have been called many things: witches, wizards, magicians, sorcerers, warlocks, shamans, diviners, and mediums, just to name a few. As of more recently, we are called Others," I remembered that Moto had told me those exact words, all those months ago. "But that's not all we are. You and I are different, even amongst our people.

"We have what's called an Overpower, a little something extra that makes us unique. It's not all good stuff and I'm sure no one knows that more than you do, but it makes us incredibly powerful. I'm a Necromancer. You are a Death Touch."

"I don't believe you," he hissed, but I could tell that he was sold, somewhere inside his mind.

"Didn't expect you to. Honestly, I didn't really believe it until I saw Moto perform some magic," I scratched my head, looking around for something that would prove that I was telling the truth. I didn't want to scare him too much, but at the same time…

I reached into myself and called for an old friend.

"Change of Heart."

The woman appeared beside me in a swirl of darkness. Her long white dress swirled around her feet as she stretched her wings – one feathered and angelic, the other black and webbed like a bat.

Leon's jaw dropped.

"She's real, too," I turned to Change of Heart and suddenly felt very out of place. I'd been acting more adult than I'd ever been in my entire life.

"Are you an angel?" Leon asked the Summon-woman. Change of Heart bent down to his height and smiled.

"No, but the stories and legends of angels are based on those like me," she answered in her gentle voice. "Everything that is happening to you, Leon, is completely natural."

"Even my mother? Was that supposed to happen?" His fists clenched in his pockets.

"I'm so sorry about your mother, but I know that she is in a better place," Change of Heart placed her hands on his shoulders. Leon flinched and hurried out of her grasp. The woman laughed, but it was soft like the rest of her, "Don't worry. Your powers do not affect me. I am dead already."

I frowned at that, but decided to ask about it later. All that mattered at the moment was that Leon was convinced.

The pair of us were able to answer all of his questions about what was going to happen now. I told him about Atlantis, that I was a student there and the people who ran the place were currently talking to his father about transferring him in early. Leon was surprisingly happy for an Other of his age, but then again, he'd grown up with people that were expected to at least behave nicely around them. But I honestly thought that I'd get along with him.

This year was going to be awesome.


And so began the last year of peace before the war erupted around us. So began the search for the Thousand Spell Book. So began everything that would take last year and make it look like relatively tranquil in comparison.

I think that, despite all that had happened to me, I was still looking at everything with a child's mind. All I really saw was the glory of battle, saw the possibility to be a hero for once in my life. I thought that I'd be the guy who swooped in at the last moment, rescued the pretty girl and was home by Christmas.

Little did I know that around the Christmas season, I would be captured and tortured for information. After my eventual escape from captivity, I would spend almost two weeks puking my guts up due to alcohol poisoning. I was lucky that I didn't die. The Others version of the suicide pill is really nasty when you somehow manage to survive it.

But you all know what's coming. You've been warned and, for some reason, decided to ignore it. Not that I'm complaining, actually. I really want people to read this. You need to know what happened to us all. You need to know the truth about the Day of Freedom, the day after the apocalypse.

The stage has been set, the background has been revealed. The narrator, that anonymous voice, has filled you in on the goings on. And so now, this story is about to begin once and for all.

It all starts now.


Hello to all you lovely people out there!

I'd like to thank the people who reviewed for the final chapter of The Others: THe First Year: VivienneLaFaye, Aqua girl 007, zukofan2005, RiverTear980, Akikee, Malik'sStalker, ilovemanicures, RacheleLovesRichtofen, and Seriyuu. Thank you all for your support and for being with me to the end. I couldn't have done all this without you.

So it all begins again. I'm going to warn you all in advance: The Second Year is going to be a lot more action packed than The First Year was. There will be more fight scenes, more deaths, and (as shown in the final section of this chapter) torture. There will also be a lot more explicit scenes because, to put it frankly, Bakura becomes sexually active in this book. That's why I'm starting off by rating this book M instead of rating it T and then moving it up to M later like I did in the last one.

If you've got any questions, comments or concerned, feel free to review. I promise that I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Until next time,

AlcatrazOutpatient