Chapter 2, at last! I'm sorry for the extremely long wait. Thanks for coming back!
Akefia felt his neck burn. He woke up and lay still, eyes closed. Something tugged at the edge of his consciousness.
Thief...
Thief...
My Thief...
Akefia opened his eyes a little, squinting into the dark, and at first he noticed nothing untoward. The usual useless soul room clutter. But suddenly, it was there. A long-haired, slender, beautiful figure that he remembered...
He recoiled and heard its hiss of annoyance.
"Akefia..." it whispered urgently, leaning in close, and placing a cold pale hand on his arm spoke those fateful words:
"I got him at last."
The first thing Ryou noticed was that the ground was warm. And hard. And perfectly flat.
How weird.
His eyes were shut, but he could feel heat on his eyelids, see the faint light seeping through.
Ryou waited, apprehension building. He didn't want to see where he was, for fear that it wouldn't be what he expected.
Then he mentally berated himself for being so ridiculous, and his coffee eyes opened wide, reflecting the scene before him.
A contorted maze of stairs and passages, gleaming gold with dark shadows in all the crevices. A bizarre scene of metallic beauty, in which Ryou felt as vulnerable as a rabbit in the headlights.
A shadow shifted, and Ryou felt his heart leap into his mouth. He jumped to his feet, watching the grey form twist and move, becoming smaller and clearer by the second. There was a slight tapping sound...
Ryou stared, his heart pounding in his ears as he prepared to run, or scream (if possible, in a manly way).
He'd never been more relieved than he was when a black paw appeared and he knew exactly what to expect.
He felt himself relax, breathed a sigh of relief, and moved to greet the jet black cat which stood a few metres in front of him.
"Oh, hello! What are you doing here, eh?" Ryou knelt and reached out to stroke its head, where two huge gold eyes glittered, their sliver of black beautifully shiny and simple.
The cat gave him a look of utter disdain, its tail flicking irritably back and forth.
Ryou dropped his hand, slightly embarrassed at being rejected by a cat.
"Right. So you're not in the mood? I can understand that..."
Obviously, I've subconsciously decided to continue acting like a lunatic.
Ryou scuffed his feet together, looking down at the strange floor beneath them with fascination. The cat turned and strutted off.
"Hey... wait!"
The cat paused and looked back over its glossy shoulder, as if to say 'You coming, or what?' After momentarily questioning his own sanity, Ryou set off following it, which he soon realised was rather difficult.
The cat was obviously a local, because it immediately set off up a set of gold stairs, barely glancing at its surroundings. Ryou on the other hand was fascinated by the architecture of the place, and found that the cat would disappear if he spent too long gawking and he'd have to run after it, lost for a few seconds until he found it, lounging in the shade and probably thinking how stupid he was.
Ryou was uncomfortably aware of how loud his footsteps rang, echoing, throughout the beautiful caverns. He wondered whether his less than subtle appearance would rouse anything more sinister than a lost household pet.
After a long, confusing journey, the cat reached what looked like a dead end; a precipice not unlike a diving board which hung over what looked like nothingness; a great black gaping void. Ryou was slightly alarmed by the depth of the drop.
How big is this place?
The cat walked right to the end of the protrusion, and stepped right over it. Ryou jumped in alarm and ran forwards, but the cat appeared able to defy gravity, as there was no mewl of surprise and no cat falling towards the rift below. Ryou paused.
If it can do it, so can I.
Ryou stepped over the edge, and felt his stomach flip; he saw the entire golden web turn around him. He took a few shaking steps forwards, as his mind adjusted to the idea of walking upside down, but the right way up.
What the hell is going on here...?
He ran a hand through his hair as he searched for the cat. He was considering calling for it as he walked between two high golden walls. Looking up, he saw dozens more paths, bridges and staircases.
If I were to get lost in here...
Ryou shuddered at the idea. He turned left at a crossroads after a childish game of Eeny Meeny to decide his path. The cat was sitting just there in front of him, watching as if it had known he would turn up eventually. His heart stuttered with relief, and then he looked ahead.
And there, suddenly, laid out on the golden steps in front of him, was the very person Ryou thought he'd escaped.
The Thief.
The Spirit of the Ring.
No. Ryou felt his hands start trembling.
The cat sprang up and, almost smugly, bounded over to perch itself on Akefia's bare stomach, ears pressed back to its head, tail coiled in as if it had done him a favour. The Thief's hand lifted to stroke its midnight fur, the gold bangles he wore jangling. Ryou recoiled slightly, his heart pounding furiously in fear; it appeared he was trapped.
Trapped again.
That was when the Thief opened his silver-grey eyes, and saw Ryou for the first time in a long time. Something like surprise flitted across his face; the slanted eyes widening slightly, but the expression was brief; his face soon settled into a much less appealing look.
"Oh. It's you," he said, yawning widely and scrutinising Ryou. It was amazing, he thought, what a few days of freedom could do for a soul. Ryou's had been a decimated and cowering thing the last time he'd seen it. Now it exuded all the intelligence and shy assuredness of his human form, which had hidden his mutilated mind perfectly for many years, concealing the horror with a disarming beauty.
Ryou sighed.
"Send me back."
The Thief's expression was unfathomable. "What, you think I'm responsible for this? I'm offended." His deep voice was different somehow to the one Ryou remembered.
The one which had taunted him for years before this moment.
"I don't care what kind of twisted game you want to play with me. I want to go home," Ryou repeated, feeling anger and misery rising inside him with equal force.
He has no right to treat me like a toy, like his little marionette. Is he always going to be here, pulling the strings?
"You can't. Or rather, I can't send you there."
"I know it was an illusion! You think you can just do what you like, but you can't!" Ryou was truly angry now. The Thief could lie, cheat, take over his mind, but this was a step too far. Faking his death was crossing the line.
The Thief opened his mouth, like he was about to speak, but he apparently thought better of it and closed it again.
Ryou clenched his fists, feeling his nails dig into his palms. It was rare he considered using violence against somebody, but he was this close...
"I know you're lying. I understand how your twisted mind works," Ryou spat.
"You understand very little, clearly. If you understood me, you would know that, given the choice, I would have you as far away from me as possible."
"Well, why am I here then?" Ryou yelled, beyond the point of caring how much he annoyed the Thief.
"Because you died," Akefia said irritably, folding his arms. He was already bored of listening to his host's interrogation, and his neck was burning once again.
Ryou's eyes widened as he took in what the Thief had said.
"So I'm really...dead?" Ryou blinked confusedly, disbelievingly. The word didn't feel right on his tongue, didn't sound right as he considered it as a potential state for himself.
"Yep."
The nonchalant response was so blunt, and so painful.
"But... I don't understand...why... huh?" Ryou looked to the Thief, almost desperately, his eyes searching for something, anything, that would prove he was lying.
"People die every day, Yadonushi," Akefia said scathingly. "Trust me, you aren't the first."
"But...why?" Ryou said, sounding close to hysterical. "I...I'm... I tried so hard! I never..." Ryou trailed off pathetically, his eyes filling with tears.
"You think only the wicked die? Pah. You think only the lazy, the ignorant, the weak die? The good aren't immortal, you know."
It was real. It was all real. I just lost my last chance.
"Now why don't you just get lost?" Akefia waved his hand dismissively. Ryou looked from the Thief to the floor, then to his own trembling hands. He began to walk away, but he only made it a few steps before his legs gave out and he crumpled to the floor, his knees colliding with the metal with a hollow thud.
Instead of getting up, Ryou just gave in and burst into tears. He wrapped his arms around himself, but that offered little comfort. He rocked back and forth, clutching his own arms as if to reassure himself that he was still there.
I don't get my old life or my new life. I get none at all.
Akefia watched this with mild disgust. After about ten minutes of pathetic sobbing, he was thoroughly fed up. He didn't intend to sit here listening to his yadonushi crying over nothing more important than the fact he had died.
Pffft. There are much more important things to think about.
Still, somewhere inside himself, he felt a slight twinge of pity. Ryou was truly distraught, that was obvious.
At length, Ryou stopped crying. He wiped his damp cheeks with the back of his hand, and wiped his now damp hands on his shirt, but remained hunched pathetically on the floor.
Akefia wondered briefly whether he'd completely lost it.
"Are you quite finished?"
Ryou jumped and looked over his shoulder. He'd forgotten the Thief was there. But there he was, looking as grouchy as usual.
"Yes." Ryou mumbled defiantly as he stood shakily. He concluded that the Thief couldn't hurt him now he was...a spirit.
"Well, let's go then. It gets pretty damn cold in here at night."
"Us?" The idea that the Thief would care if he froze was faintly perplexing, as was the idea that they would be going anywhere together.
"Obviously. Unlike you, I don't talk to cats."
The Thief sat up abruptly, and the cat leapt off his stomach with an annoyed hiss. It strutted over to Ryou and began rubbing itself against his leg.
"Someone's changed their tune," Ryou said, smiling weakly down at it. It mewed at him, blinking its big amber eyes.
"Oh, so I get yelled at, but the cat, on the other hand, gets special treatment." Akefia scowled.
"That's right, Thief. That's exactly right," Ryou said coldly, bending down to pick the cat up. He cradled it like a baby, and it purred for him.
"Kiss-ass," declared Akefia before storming off. "Maybe I should leave you two alone."
"Should we follow him?" Ryou asked the cat – or more accurately, cooed. It nodded. Ryou wrinkled his nose. "Well, only if we must."
Ryou's legs should have been aching from his chasing the cat around beforehand, but he found that they weren't. Maybe that's just what being a spirit means, Ryou thought as he followed the Thief's billowing red cape around corners and through doorways. You don't get tired and you get to talk to cats.
It was a shallow thought, but it kept Ryou from falling apart. For now, anyway.
After a short while the Thief stopped abruptly at the foot of a huge spiral staircase which seemed to hang magically in the air. Ryou craned his neck to see the very top; the stairs seemed to stretch on forever into the sky.
"Quit gawping. Let's go." The Thief rubbed at his neck, as though it was hurting him. Ryou followed him up the stairs, watching the sun quite literally shrink.
"What's up with the sun?" Ryou asked. He wasn't keen on asking the Thief questions, but his curiosity stamped out his pride.
"It's not the sun. It's just a light. It goes out at night, and comes on whenever it feels like it. The weather here isn't like the weather on Earth. It's much worse."
The boy nodded as if he understood, but Akefia could tell that he didn't. He wasn't surprised. He'd had 5000 years to learn about what went on here, but the boy had had very little time. A couple of hours, maybe. Time moved differently here, but in any case, he hadn't had long.
"Where exactly is 'here'?"
"You already know. You just don't want to believe it."
Ryou looked into the distance, as if trying to figure it out. Akefia rolled his eyes.
"Yadonushi. Don't pretend to be ignorant when you aren't."
"The first thing that comes to mind...is the Ring." Ryou almost choked over the word.
To think that only hours before, he almost hadn't worn it. Almost hadn't pulled the battered cord over his neck and watched the golden Ring settle against his chest.
"Funny. That's the first thing that came to mine too."
The Thief slowed as they finally arrived at the first Door, which was balanced precariously on the steps; the metal of the floor seemed to be climbing its way around the door, wrapping its frame with tendrils of gold.
Ryou recognised the plain, off white door with a painful twist in his stomach. He'd been sealed behind it many times. A surge of unpleasant memories swelled inside his head, but he ignored them, preferring not to think about that. 'That' being the less than happy time Ryou had spent locked up inside his own soul room, begging for release.
One time he was in there for so long that by the time he got out, he couldn't walk.
"Relax. I'm not going to lock you up," Akefia said, noticing the fearful expression on the boy's face as he faced what had been the door of his cell. Ryou looked up at him, eyes narrowing suspiciously.
"You want something, don't you?" Ryou accused
"Ouch. As a matter of fact, I don't."
"Well, why are you being...nice?" he asked.
Akefia thought for a moment. "Why shouldn't I be?"
"I don't know...It's not like you."
"Hah." The Thief laughed coldly, his eyes taking on an unpleasant hard quality. "You know nothing about me."
Ryou looked away, not liking his tone and not liking being wrong.
"Maybe I don't..." He walked towards the door of his soul room. Close up, it wasn't as clean as it appeared from far away. It was smudged with greyish handprints and some of the paint had been scraped off, as if the door had been viciously scratched.
"I suppose that's what my soul looks like," Ryou muttered, laughing humourlessly as he ran a finger over one of the scratches. "Smudgy and scratched and ruined."
"Goodnight, Yadonushi. Or should I say 'Rest in Peace'?" he heard the Thief say. He didn't answer.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ryou saw the Thief walk away, continuing up the stairs. He placed a hand on the door handle, the cold metal numbing his hand.
"And by the way..."
Ryou jumped and turned, expecting to see the Thief behind him. There was nothing. Only a convoluted gold landscape, seemingly void of life and the last remnant spark of the 'sun' flickering in the sky.
"...call me Akefia."
Ryou looked round warily.
"...Fine." he said at length, partly to himself and partly to any Thief who might have been listening.
A low laugh, and then the faint sound of a door closing. Ryou exhaled heavily, glad he was no longer being spied on.
He waited a while before opening the door to his soul room. It creaked, loud in the silence of the Ring. Ryou hated admitting it, but he was afraid of what he might find. He remembered what had happened before.
Days spent clawing at the bare walls or locked up in spaces so small he could barely breathe, hearing the Thief laughing at him, taunting him from the outside until all he could remember were the cruel words, running through his head and his own faltering heartbeat.
Ryou slipped into his soul room, deciding that nothing he found could possibly be worse than what had happened in the past. It was hardly a comforting thought.
As he looked around the room, he remembered. The worst thing about his soul room was its truth. How it was him, and nobody else. It showed Ryou himself, and after spending most of your life being someone else, that was hard.
It was like a bedroom that you couldn't tidy. All the things you wanted to hide laid out for all to see.
Come one, come all. See the turmoil and mess that is Ryou Bakura!
There was a quiet, almost inaudible thump. Ryou turned, his heart set pounding once again. He saw a stack of shelves attached clumsily to the wall. On them sat rows of dolls. Dozens of button eyes stared blankly at him, and as Ryou stared back, he remembered how much he hated them.
His mind had taken people, stitched them up and laid them out so he would look at them and feel guilty.
Scanning the shelves, he saw a little Anzu, a little Yuugi, a Yami, a Marik and even, Ryou noted with mild revulsion, himself. His doll stared out mournfully, one arm hanging limply, slumped pathetically on the very edge of the shelf. Ryou stepped a little closer and took it down carefully, making sure the other dolls didn't topple. He noted that one of its eyes was hanging off.
Poor Little Ryou. You're half blind, he thought. Who did this to you, eh?
He pressed the button back into its original position, in the little hollow of its stuffed head, which tilted slightly to the side, as if watching him and trying to figure him out. Ryou sighed sadly and smoothed its white wool hair, letting the button drop.
We're going to be seeing a lot more of each other now. Maybe you'll figure me out eventually.
He walked across the room to where a small bed (his bed) stood in the corner. Its bedclothes were crumpled as if someone had just risen from it, yawning and stretching, ready to live another day. Ryou flopped down on it, still clutching the doll. He felt something lumpy under his pillow, and reaching his hand under, he felt, with surprise, what he knew was another doll. Pulling it out, he saw who it was, and laughed dryly.
"Hello, Akefia," he heard himself sneer, greeting the rag doll in a voice quite unlike his. However, something about this doll was different. It was sad. Ryou traced the scar on the dolls face, and noted the patches on its arms, and on the bottom of its little feet. He then glanced to his own doll. It too was patched and dirty, but something about Little Akefia was just pathetic.
Ryou noticed suddenly that its mouth had been stitched over, black thread zigzagging back and forth, as though silencing it in the most vicious way possible, as if its little mouth would open and start spilling secrets like water. Ryou shuddered lightly. How creepy.
He stretched out and placed both the dolls on the wooden chair next to his bed. They slumped down slightly, their two stuffed heads leaning against each other, four dull buttons staring at him. Almost accusingly.
You're missing something, Yadonushi.
Come on, Me! Figure it out.
Ryou shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. He'd been doing that a lot today.
I'd better go to sleep, before I start talking to them.
Besides, the bed was familiar and comfortable. He vaguely considered trying to find some pyjamas, but dismissed the idea out of pure laziness.
As his eyes closed, he thought he saw the Akefia doll twitch.
He dreamt about dolls that night.
Upstairs, leaning against the dust-coloured wall in his own soul room, Akefia rubbed his neck. The pain had been there all day, throbbing lightly. Occasionally it would prickle and Akefia would have to fight to keep his face from betraying him. But now, out sight and earshot of his host, he could do what he liked.
The ex-host he'd never expected to see again.
Not in a million years.
Akefia groaned, partly from the pain, and partly at his own stupidity.
Of course he would come back...
It wasn't going to give up.
And it's partly my fault.
The pain seared again, stronger this time. He felt something dig at his consciousness.
Not again...
"I wouldn't have to keep coming if you would be a good thief and do as I say...think as I say...be as I say."
Akefia heard a sort of snarl come out of his own mouth. He pressed a hand hard to his neck, digging his nails in as he hissed in agony.
"This is what you get..." it said gleefully. Akefia felt his knees buckle and he slid to the ground.
"G-go...away. I...haven't done...anything!"
"Exactly. You're such a meanie to poor little Ryou. But that's not what we want...is it?"
Akefia snarled and twisted as the pain increased, becoming almost unbearable. He slumped against the cold wall, panting, struggling to focus on his oppressor.
Laughter.
A cold nail lightly tracing his jaw.
The pain crawled down his spine, agonisingly slow. Akefia's back arched as he struggled to breathe under the onslaught. He fell sideways and curled into a foetal position, twitching, gasping, the pain filling every fibre of his being. He heard himself moan.
"Oh, you filthy thing. This is why you're my favourite. You're the only Real one, except for Ryou. And I can guarantee..." the voice slipped down into a whisper, "...he wouldn't last as long as you."
"Do what you like." It took a herculean effort to form this coherent sentence.
"Don't worry, I will. But you know what will happen if you do wrong again..."
The pain was gradually fading, as was the voice, and Akefia felt all his muscles scream in protest as he sat up, feeling sweat run down his neck.
"Who knows?" The voice was so faint it was barely a whisper. "I may find Ryou a worthy replacement."
Akefia shook his head, eyes dull. The pain had all but faded, but his heart was pounding, and with each thump his ribs ached, and with each movement, his arms and legs cramped, and his mind clouded over.
This is becoming a frighteningly common occurrence. And it's only going to get worse...
But he wasn't going to think about that now. Now all he wanted was to sleep. Sleep and forget.
Reviews? You know you love me. Or the fic. Or not... whatever.
Thanks for reading!
Kal277 xx
