Never Again
Fog gently cloaked the headstones in a gray mist, and the steady, lulling beat of the light rain sounded in his ears through the silent graveyard. Brown eyes searched the area, making sure no one was around, before the figure slipped quietly through the mist, stopping at a headstone with a carved, gray angel staring down at him with cold, stone eyes. Kneeling down, the cloaked figure pulled a single white rose from the cloak's depths, twirling it between his fingers.
Yami Bakura sat at the grave of his Hikari's sister, brown eyes filling with tears.
"Amane." he whispered, running his hand over the forged words in the stone. A tear fell to the ground as he spoke again.
"I never meant what I said. They never knew me."
The spirit looked once again into the judging eyes of the stone angel, as though pleading for forgiveness. A long, painful sigh escaped the lips of the former tomb robber.
"This will be the last time I come here. I will miss you," he said, twirling the rose once again, thorns pricking into his fingers without his knowing. He leaned against the gravestone, hood falling back, revealing the white, unblemished face, with the exception of a red scar on his cheek.
"They didn't know me as you did, and they blame me for what happened. They will never accept the fact that I tried to stop it. Tried with all my might." Here, the spirit stopped to sob quietly, head bowed to his knees. "I loved him, Amane, and I tried to be the best I could to be the brother I never could be to you."
His brown eyes narrowed. "But I won't get another chance now. He's gone. Malik should have never interfered, with his horrible darkness. But Yugi and his friends only saw that I escaped the fire, they never considered that Malik may have something to do with Ryou's death."
He sighed again, looking down. "I know now that there is nothing I can do to protect those I love. I never would have hurt him. Never!" The albino sighed and leaned heavily on the gravestone, as though weakened by his outburst. "I will leave tonight. I can't stay here. If anything, I will go where no one will ever be close to me again. No one will get hurt that way.
"What I'm trying to say, is that I've got the chance to get out of here, and I'm taking it when I can get it. Amane, I love you, more than anything. It wasn't my fault, about Ryou. Please, tell him I love him, and that he was the best brother I could ever ask for." Another tear fell from the dark brown eyes. "Because he is…no, he was, the last person I could ever love. I can never love again."
He soundlessly got up from the ground. "Never again."
With a swish of his cloak, he was gone, faded into the night. He was never seen again, but never forgotten. As a passing gift, every year the same flower was found next to the gravestone that bore the cold-eyed angel.
A blood-stained white rose.
A reminder of good times past, of love forgotten.
And, sometimes, if the wind blows the right way, his words can still be heard…
"Never again."
