A/N: For the YGO Fanfiction Contest Season 13 Round 2. The pairing: Citronshipping (Malik Ishtar x Thief King Bakura).

Disclaimer: Kazuki Takahashi and all associated companies are the rightful owners of the Yuugiou! franchise and I claim no association with any of them. No copyright infringement intended with this and no money is being made from this. Please support the creator by purchasing the official releases.

Warnings: none.

Off the Beaten Track

In hindsight, boarding the Night train is the biggest mistake they've ever made. Of course, one could still argue that becoming a train robber was the true lead-in to their downfall, but they don't quite have the time for re-evaluation of their life choices. And to their defence, they didn't know they were about to get on the Night train until it was too late to turn back.

Between the vast network of Paradius Line and the high-class top-speed Kaiba Corp. Railways, the Night train is an oddity, going wherever it pleases. It doesn't belong to either railroad company and, though largely considered a myth, is said to be one of the only three-of-a-kind of now-defunct Industrial Inc. vehicles. A myth because, upon takeover, Kaiba Corp turned all Industrial trains into scrap metal, deeming them unsafe for travel and outdated.

"Well," Bakura drawls after taking stock of the interior that looks like it has come right out of a last century postcard, "we packed the wrong tools for this."

"You mean, if we'd been stupid enough to target this particular train," Mālik snaps back.

The Night train has become a piece of folklore, a symbol of days gone by, an icon of lost hope. While the owner of Paradius has opted to largely ignore its alleged existence, the owner of Kaiba Corp has offered no small amount of money to anyone with the knowledge of the illegal train and the crow operating it across all of the tracks in the country.

Bakura shrugs. "Kaiba has offered a handsome reward for it." His lips curl up in a smirk, as a sudden thought crosses his mind. "How much do you think he'd pay us if we delivered the very train to his doorstep?"

Mālik snorts. He's still appraising the interior of the car. "Before or after he takes off our heads? If you remember, we're not exactly on the best terms with him."

Bakura waves his argument away, the smirk still not fading, though he doesn't quite feel as easy as the air he puts on. His gaze keeps darting around, looking for any approaching threat. Even if there have been none so far, they're on a ghost train and he knows a thing or two about ghosts.

"Where's your sense of adventure?"

"Anywhere that keeps my head firmly attached to my shoulders."

There's another dismissive wave from Bakura as he turns his back and ventures forward, heading for the door to the next car. The salon is empty and it doesn't look like anyone has noticed their presence yet. Had there been any ghosts on board, they would have already made their appearance.

With Bakura leaving, the weak green light of his thief's lamp disappears and Mālik lights up his own, turning it up brighter than absolutely necessary. He breathes in deep the smell that first alerted them to the identity of this train: dust, disuse, old parchment and ink, and something that makes him think of a church, though he's never been inside one; he just thinks it's how a church should smell. The windows are covered by dark red curtains and the upholstery of the ornate dark wooden seats matches them in colour. The fabric is smooth and velvety to the touch with a bit of a bite when he pulls his hand backwards. The seats are stiff and, he imagines, not all that comfortable to sit on. He doesn't dare to try and test his theory because the interior of this car embodies everything he was never meant to have. It gives him a strong uneasy feeling of being misplaced. It's the wrongness of not belonging; the same feeling of doing something forbidden and punishable as he, still a child, climbed upon a roof of a nearby station building to peer through the windows of an Industrial Inc. train idling there and knowing that he would never be able to ride in one.

He jerks his hand away from the cushion and hurries after Bakura, dimming the light of his lamp as he does. It's best not to look. It's best not to think. The past is in the past. It doesn't matter now. They're here for loot and surely, even this relic of a steam train has some riches worth at least a little bit of spending money to satisfy a hungry stomach and wet a parched throat.

Mālik finds Bakura two cars ahead, trying to pick the lock of an antique drawer. He's been at it for a while, it seems, because his tools lay scattered around his lamp on top of said drawer. There are some candle-lamps burning on the far end of the car as well, providing ample light and casting a soft warm glow on similar cabinets, a sofa, and a couple of wardrobes. With the same dark red curtains drawn over the windows as in the previous cars, this one looks more like somebody's sitting room than a part of a train, though the rhythmic clatter of wheels belies that.

Somewhere far ahead the steam engine lets out its signature toot and after a few moments the pattern breaks, indicating that they've changed rails.

"Any luck?" Mālik asks without any real interest. He's preoccupied with studying the room.

"No," is the grumbled reply. Bakura slams his palm against the unyielding wood, though it only serves to hurt him. "This damn thing won't budge."

Mālik makes a noncommittal sound and places his own lamp on a similar cabinet by the opposite wall. He tries a few of its drawers, but they're locked too. He doesn't really have the heart to make a go at picking their locks. Something about the air in the Night train makes him antsy and yet his partner doesn't seem to be affected by it. He idly runs his hand over the polished wood, traces the soft waves of the curtain, and leans in to take a closer look at the unlit sconce lamp sitting between the windows. It sits in a glass case protected by delicate and detailed framework.

"How did you turn these on?" he asks after failing to find a switch or a way to open the glass.

"What?" Bakura glances back over his shoulder to see what his partner is talking about and then shrugs. "They were already on."

Needless to say, it did concern him, but after looking ahead and finding the next car just as empty as all the previous ones, he returned to raid the furniture which somebody had seen fit to store on the train.

Mālik doesn't need to see the shrug; he knows it's there. Just as he knows almost every facial expression of his long-time partner and friend. He can anticipate his every move, guess his every reaction after having spent almost a decade raiding trains and storehouses side by side with him. Growing up without hope isn't the only thing they have in common. While he grew up guarding a lifestyle that had already gone extinct while his family kept on hoping for its renaissance that was never to come, Bakura's family fell prey to progress and expansion that levelled their home in the name of innovation. Thus, it wasn't a matter of if they would meet. It was a when. And when was a marketplace ten years ago where Bakura stole a dozen figs from Mālik's sour-faced uncle who kept a fruit stand in the canal-side market. He was glad that Bakura did because his uncle, just like his father, treated every new invention, every new technological advancement with contempt and utter denial. They loathed the society which they served and would rather see it fall to ruin so that they could bring the old order back. The pitying looks people gave Mālik when he, alongside his uncle, moved stones to count money instead of clacking away on an abacus like the other sellers around them burned him. So much so that he came to loathe his family and its desperate clinging to tradition.

He was also there when Bakura got that scar under his eye for a similar transgression. He was the one who dragged the injured boy to an old gypsy woman living just beyond the outskirts of the town who was said to know old, strong magic. On that day, his father lost his only true-born son. On that day, he chose to make his own life as he wanted.

He doesn't question that choice now. He thinks of something else to question.

"Where do you think this train is going?"

Bakura shrugs again as he tries his luck at a different drawer. If that doesn't want to budge either, he thinks he'll just break it open – though it's a shame and not at all his usual way of doing things.

"Does it matter? We're on Kaiba's tracks. Anywhere it stops we have connections."

Mālik doesn't feel calmed by that. "They say this train skips lines."

"As if that's possible." Bakura snorts. He doesn't quite believe all the stories he's heard about the Night Train. He knows how stories come about. He's helped some come to life in his time. And currently he isn't interested in any stories; he's had enough with the stubborn piece of furniture and opts for brute force. His handy little crowbar ends up being no help at all. It just keeps sliding along the wood without finding purchase anywhere. It isn't even leaving scratches. Irritated, he slams it against the edge of the cabinet.

"Keep it down!" Mālik hisses. "Whoever lit those lamps is still around."

Bakura mutters something unintelligible in reply before having a second go at the locks. It's getting personal now.

Mālik sighs and reaches to trace the intricate wood carvings on the side of a large locked wardrobe. Its doors are painted with stylised flowers and with uncharacteristic sentiment he thinks it would be a shame to damage it by trying to force it open. He smirks a little at the irony of the situation. People call them the King of Thieves because their track record is quite impressive, but nobody knows that there are actually two people working in tandem. He wonders if anyone will ever find out and if they do – will they believe it? So far it has worked out in their favour – letting the world believe that all of it has been the work of a single man.

A gentle breeze ruffles the curtains and makes the flames flicker inside the candle-lamps.

"You'll find no joy stealing from me."

A soft voice startles them out of their respective preoccupation and both men whirl towards the source of the sound. Mālik clenches his fist, reaching behind him for the knife hidden on his back, while Bakura leaps to his feet with the crowbar still in hand and raised up defensively.

The voice belongs to a tall, willowy girl with long white hair and hypnotising blue eyes that seem to glow in the candlelight. Every single sconce lamp springs to life as if responding to her presence, temporarily blinding both intruders and making them squint. She's wearing what looks like a half-covered bird cage for a skirt, dark riding pants, and a metal-wrought bodice over a red corset with sharp metal teeth rimming its low cut. Her only weapon is an old wooden spyglass with brass hoops and yet there's something about the way she holds herself that tells them she won't be overpowered easily.

"You don't look all that threatening." Bakura grins, but it's partially an act. He tries to move, but her cool gaze holds him in place. He can't believe he couldn't hear her approach; he's proud of his honed skills and sharp senses and for the first time they've let him down.

"Who are you?" Mālik chances to ask, stunned by her look.

When she slightly turns her head to regard him, light catches on a thin silver circlet partially hidden by her hair. It's shaped like a dragon with tiny blue gems for eyes.

"Who are you," she counters coldly, "breaking into my train and trying to steal from me?"

There is something sad about the way she says the last part – as if the world has already stolen too much from her and they're just adding to the load. Mālik ponders whether telling her that they'd done so on accident would be taken as an insult or not.

Bakura, however, has no such reservations. "We are the King of Thieves." He says it proudly with a broad grin and a wide sweeping gesture as if expecting that bit of information to send her running in fear.

It has the opposite effect of the desired. An amused smile crosses her features, revealing teeth that look slightly inhuman. It's a smile that says, 'I've eaten many thieves in my life.'

"And what were you hoping to steal from me? There's nothing but memories here."

"Oh, I don't know..." Bakura drawls and makes a vague gesture at the furniture stacked along the sides of the car. "These look quite promising."

She laughs. It's a sharp and bitter sound that unexpectedly makes them cringe. She takes a step forward, slams her foot down so hard that the entire train rumbles with the sound and both thieves find themselves flying backwards and into the preceding car. They hit the bare floor and slide along the ground to collide with the wall. Where there were neat rows of seats before, there is nothing now, but they don't have the time to wonder about the sudden change because the girl slides through the door like some apparition and there's white smoke rising from her every breath. Mālik briefly wonders when it got so cold inside, though he doesn't yet feel it himself. They're stumbling back to their feet when they're flying again – this time, to hit the wall of the next car which, just like the one before it, has lost all of the seats and all decors.

She's talking the entire time she advances. She mentions Kaiba Corp, mentions her brothers, talks about revenge, but none of it makes any sense to either of them. They're not even given the time to act before they're air-bound again and this time sharp wind howls around their ears. Rough gravel rushes up to meet them and they hit it hard, tumbling off the slopes of the railroad in different directions. Reeds and shrubs whip at them, rocks leave a multitude of cuts and scratches, and the world keeps on spinning wildly even after they've stopped rolling.

Somewhere in the distance an old steam engine roars like a dragon as it disappears around a bend, leaving a trail of silvery smoke to drift after it before a gust of chilly wind snatches it up and blows it apart.

It takes Mālik and Bakura some time to come back to their senses, to get back on their feet and find each other, and to come to the realisation that both of their lamps and all of Bakura's tools are still on the Night train. Bakura spits at the ground in anger, glaring in the direction it disappeared.

"Kaiba is right, wanting that thing off the rails," he mutters, for the first time agreeing with the man whose company was responsible for the destruction of his home and whose property he has raided innumerable times.

Mālik isn't so sure about that; he thinks there's a certain beauty about the old uncatchable train and the strange girl aboard it. He also sees a greater problem.

"Where are we? This doesn't look like anything on the Kaiba tracks."

Bakura takes a moment to study their surroundings, then spits again in helpless anger. Admitting that he has no idea causes almost physical pain.

Mālik sighs and picks a direction to walk in. Battered, bruised, and slightly limping they start a slow trek in the direction they think they came from. The further they go, the rustier and more grown over the train tracks become. At sunrise, they arrive at a deep canyon. The only way across is an old, partially collapsed train bridge. Starting from the middle, the rails hang over a gaping abyss with no support and after a few metres they end altogether, never reaching the other side.

Mālik has never even heard of a place like this, so he sits down right in the middle of the tracks while Bakura lets loose a loud and colourful stream of profanity. They're utterly lost in the middle of nowhere with not a living soul nearby to ask for directions. Without any inkling which part of the country they're in – if they're still indeed in the same country – they're facing a situation more dire than they'd be in if they were facing a trial and following that – the gallows.

He almost regrets becoming a train robber. Almost.

A/N: This story was supposed to be so much: steampunk train robbery shenanigans, citronshipping, longer than 3k, but alas! You get an open-ended story about an old train instead of lemons, there are some flashes of punk, but the only real steam here comes from said old train.