Chapter 2
It is time, boomed Zorc.
The huge army of demons whooped and cheered at their lord's statement. The demons were tiny; they were no more than two feet tall each. They were a red just a shade lighter than blood and had glowing red eyes. Ivory horns curved downward, circling the lipless jaw and exposed teeth. Thin, bat-like wings sprouted from their backs, all the wing bones and membranes visible. An onyx-black crystal was studded into each and every one of their chests.
I have waited three thousand years for this moment, Zorc rumbled, and my army is finally complete!
I had another shot at dominating that puny world one year ago. You were not ready, so I did not take you with me. That was my own mistake; I could have used you, incomplete or not, when that damn pharaoh and moronic thief got in my way.
"But Lord Zorc," squeaked a demon close to Zorc, "wasn't the thief acting on your orders?"
Zorc reached out and touched the tip of one of his claws to the crystal on the offender's chest. The tip of the claw glowed orange, reflecting in the demon's fear-filled eyes. There was a flash and a scream. The demon was incinerated, nothing more but a pile of ash.
Does anyone else wish to back sass me? asked Zorc, almost lazily.
There was much shaking of heads amongst the soldiers and a few mumbled "no"s.
Good. Before we do anything, we are to take out my enemies of old. Our first target is Domino, Japan. Find the Pharaoh Atem and Bakura Touzoku and kill them! Kill them, kill those close to them, and kill anyone who stands in your way! We move tonight! Now GO!
Bakura was only half awake when he felt his hikari stir in his arms. He knew the boy was still asleep. "Shh, Koibito," he whispered, stroking Ryo's soft white hair and holding him tighter.
Ryo snuggled closer at Bakura's touch, nuzzling into his bare chest. Ryo calmed in Bakura's safe embrace and his breathing became slow and even again. Bakura continued to stroke Ryo's hair absently, lost in his sleepy thoughts.
Bakura was almost completely asleep when Ryo stirred again. He felt Ryo leave his arms and opened his eyes, rubbing sleep from them and yawning. Ryo was sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Mmm Ryo? What're you doing?" he asked sleepily.
Ryo yawned. "'M thirsty. I'll be right back."
"Mmkay." Bakura yawned and rolled over. The red numbers on the clock said one in the morning.
Bakura felt his boyfriend get off the bed and saw the light from the bathroom down the hall flick on. The door closed, cutting off the light flooding into the hallway. Bakura shut his eyes and shivered, missing Ryo's warmth already. He pulled the blanket around him tighter, trying to fall asleep.
Then he heard a lot of glass shattering, a thud, and Ryo scream in pain and terror.
Instantly wide awake, Bakura leapt out of bed and tore down the hall to the bathroom. "Holy—!" There was a strange creature on the floor, surrounded by broken glass from the small window it had broken getting in and blood. Ryo's blood. For a moment, Bakura panicked, unable to locate his lover, but them followed the creature's gaze and saw Ryo whimpering in the corner. His face was white and there were unshed tears of fear and pain in his eyes. Bakura couldn't see where he was injured, but the fact that he was hurt pissed Bakura off. A lot.
"Ryo…," he breathed. Bakura suddenly saw red. "Hey, you fucking bastard!!" he screamed, twisting around and back-kicking the demon. He grabbed the closest object with which he could cause mass destruction with, which happened to be a toilet plunger. He held it in front of him like a samurai sword.
The demon shook its head to clear it and turned to face Bakura, forgetting about the trembling hikari in an instant. The demon snickered.
"You look just like the one Lord Zorc ordered us to kill," it hissed in a reedy voice, "only without the trenchcoat."
"And you look just like a smaller red version of 'Lord Zorc'," hissed Bakura, his eyes flashing, "only without the dragon penis."
The demon hissed like a snake. Bakura heard Ryo get up slowly, whimpering in pain, and move behind him for protection, but Bakura did not dare avert his gaze from Zorc's soldier.
"Ryo?" he breathed.
"Yeah?" whispered Ryo behind him, his voice an octave higher in fear.
"Go back to the bedroom. My switchblade is inside my pillowcase, on the side under the pillow. Bring it to me."
Ryo nodded, which Bakura couldn't see, and left the room.
"Clever move, sending for a better weapon," hissed the demon. "You won't be able to do much with a plunger."
"Shut your damn mouth before I rip it OUT!"
Bakura screamed the last word and lunged forward, whacking the demon over the head as hard as he could. He dazed it for a second, but it quickly recovered and bit the rubber end.
With a yell of fury, Bakura whipped the plunger hard in the opposite direction. He dislodged the demon, who hit the wall, shattering the tiles.
"BAKURA!" he heard Ryo yell behind him.
Bakura threw the plunger to the side and caught the knife Ryo threw at him. He twirled it around his head and in swirly patterns in the air, just to be dramatic. He approached the demon, who was still dazed on the floor, and licked the blade.
"I have been given a sharp object of mass destruction. Any last words?" he asked, ginning like a maniac.
"I'm in deep shit, aren't I?" it growled, its ruby eyes flashing defiantly in the face of death.
"Straight up." And Bakura stabbed. He stabbed and stabbed it over and over again. This thing had hurt Ryo, had terrified him, had made him cry. That was to be repaid in blood. Five stab wounds for every drop of Ryo's blood on the bathroom floor seemed like a more-than-fair price to Bakura.
Bakura continued to stab long after the demon was dead. He plunged the knife repeatedly into the large pile of ash it had dissolved into when its last breath had gone. Black blood stained Bakura's hands, his pants, and the floor.
The ash scattered under the onslaught of the switchblade, revealing the black crystal that had been embedded in its chest. Bakura flipped the blade around and smashed the hilt onto the crystal, shattering it into a hundred tiny fragments.
Bakura stood up and spat on the remains. He wiped the blood off his hands on his pants.
Ryo shakily walked over to Bakura. He threw his arms around Bakura's neck and sobbed onto his shoulder.
"Shh, Koibito," he shushed, kissing the top of his frightened hikari's head. "It's over for now. That thing won't hurt you anymore." He still didn't know exactly how Ryo had been hurt. He was furious with the demon for making Ryo cry in fear.
Bakura wrapped his arms around Ryo to hug him close, but immediately pulled away for the duel reason that Ryo cried out in agony and his back was wet with something hot and sticky. Bakura gasped and detached Ryo's arms from around his neck, turning him around. He saw exactly what he feared he would see: the back of Ryo's shirt was torn and completely covered in blood.
"That little fuckface," he snarled at the remains of the demon.
Ryo flinched at the sharpness of his yami's voice. Bakura turned him back to face him and started to unbutton Ryo's shirt.
"'Kura! What are you—!?" Ryo tried to button his shirt back up.
"I've got to take a look at that if you're bleeding that much!" Bakura batted Ryo's hands away.
Bakura successfully got the shirt off, concern flicking in his eyes when Ryo gasped with pain as the fabric on his back moved. He turned Ryo around again and Ryo heard his sharp intake of breath as he saw Ryo's back.
"Damn, Ry," he breathed, horrified.
There were deep cuts all over Ryo's back, all of them bleeding. Bakura couldn't tell how many cuts there were because there was so much blood. Bits of broken glass were jutting out of most of the wounds.
"What the hell did it do to you?" he asked, seeing red because of the dead demon.
Ryo hesitated before answering. "When it broke through the window, some of the glass landed on me. It pounced on me and pushed me down, which dug the glass already on me deeper and stuck more glass from the floor in."
Bakura was silent for a time, staring at Ryo's wounds without seeing them. Then he sighed and walked past Ryo to the medicine cabinet and took out the first aid kit. He turned back to Ryo and sighed again. "We should at the very least get the glass out."
Ryo paled but nodded. Bakura led him back to the bedroom they shared and flicked on the light. He lay his hikari on the bed so that he was lying on his stomach.
Bakura and Ryo both gulped, both knowing the pain Bakura was about to cause the younger boy. "Okay…I'm going to take out this big shard in your shoulder first."
"'Kura, please, don't tell me what you're going to do," whimpered Ryo. "Just do it."
Bakura paused. "The voice of experience says that talking will distract you from the pain."
"I don't care! 'Kura, just get it over with," pleaded Ryo.
Bakura hesitated, indecision and concern and self-loathing flickering in his eyes. Then he nodded. "Okay." He gripped the shard jutting out of his hikari's shoulder blade. "Ready?"
Ryo nodded and gripped the blanket under him in a death grip. "Just shut up and do it."
Bakura ripped the shard out fast, knowing from experience that it would be longer and more painful if he eased it out slowly and deliberately. Ryo bit his lip but could not hold back a whimper of pain. Bakura noticed him tighten his grip on the blanket until his knuckles turned white.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, moving to the next piece of glass.
Ryo shook his head, dismissing Bakura's apology, but didn't speak. He squeezed his eyes shut when he felt the stabbing agony as Bakura removed another shard.
This process went on for much longer than the two males hoped it would. Bakura felt as if it were just as painful for him as it was for the smaller whitenette. Bakura's stomach fluttered with guilt every time Ryo gasped or whimpered and it wasn't long before his gut felt completely hollow. He hated doing this to Ryo and cursed Zorc a thousand times for making it necessary in the first place. Once or twice he had to use his knife to get a small piece wedged in too deep for him to simply pull it out. A few times he tried to start a one-sided conversation with Ryo, not expecting him to respond, but Ryo always told him to shut up and work. Now the only things Bakura said were quiet shushes when Ryo moaned or whimpered and whispered apologies when Ryo squirmed or tensed up.
"That was the last one, I think," said Bakura after an hour, flicking a tiny blood-flecked shard into the now-full trashcan he had dragged over.
Ryo tried to sit up but hissed as his bleeding back arched and lay back down. He tried his best to look at his yami from his lying down position. He recognized the object in Bakura's hand as a roll of bandages.
"Wait, 'Kura, aren't you going to disinfect the wounds?" he asked hesitantly.
Bakura froze. "I think I must have heard you wrong. Did you just say that you wanted me to put rubbing alcohol on open wounds?"
Ryo flinched when he caught what his yami was saying. "Yes, I did," he said reluctantly.
Bakura slowly put the bandages back and took the alcohol out of the kit. "Are you sure?"
"Dammit, Bakura, I'm sure!" he snapped.
Bakura sighed in defeat and Ryo heard the swish of the bottle being turned upside-down onto a cotton ball. He tried to relax.
Ryo knew that it was going to hurt, but nothing could have prepared him for this. Ryo wailed and grabbed his pillow, biting it as hard as he could. Bakura flinched at Ryo's cry and cried out, "I'm sorry! I'll stop if you want!"
Ryo screamed into the pillow but shook his head, knowing it had to be done. The pain had faded somewhat when it started right back up again on the next cut. Ryo closed his eyes, crystal tears escaping from under his eyelids, as the alcohol set his nerves on fire.
When the long, painful ordeal for both of them was over, Bakura helped Ryo sit up. Bakura wrapped the bandages around Ryo's torso, pulling them tight. Ryo winced but no sound escaped from between his clenched teeth.
Bakura pulled the smaller boy into his lap, carefully avoiding the wounds. He had caused the boy far too much pain tonight already.
Bakura had his head down with his bangs covering his eyes. When he spoke, his voice cracked. "It killed me to do that to you. I'm so incredibly sorry. I wish it had been me." He brushed the tearstains on Ryo's cheeks away. Ryo could feel his lover's hand shaking.
Ryo was very concerned. Bakura was always so calm, so strong. To see his yami this guilty and upset was almost too much for Ryo to bare. It had really torn the older one apart to do what he had done. He wrapped his arms around Bakura's waist, hugging him tight, and lay his head on Bakura's chest.
"Don't be sorry," he whispered. "It wasn't your fault I got hurt and I'm grateful for you helping. It would've hurt a lot more if you had left it alone."
Bakura slipped his arms around Ryo's neck in silent appreciation. What could he say? Ryo's blood was on his fingers, something he never wanted again. After holding his hikari for several minutes, he eased his way into a laying down position, making sure that Ryo was on his stomach, off his wounds. "You try and get some sleep."
Ryo shifted himself so that his head was resting on Bakura's chest. "What about you?"
"I don't trust that Zorc only sent one soldier. I'm also worried by the fact that I killed it that easily. That shouldn't have been so easy; it hardly put up a fight. I'm staying up to keep watch."
"'Kura, I—"
"Don't argue with me, Ryo!" he snarled, his eyes flashing with anger. His gaze softened when he saw fear flicker through those beautiful chocolate eyes he loved so much. "I'm sorry, Koibito. I didn't mean to snap at you. It's not you I'm mad at. I just don't want to be caught off guard and have you get hurt again because of it. I'd be an awful yami if I didn't even try to protect my innocent hikari."
Ryo woke sometime later. His yami's warm chest was beneath his head, rising and falling with his breathing. A hand was soothingly stroking his hair to calm the nightmares Ryo had been having seconds before. The clock said noon. Ryo tried to get up, but pain shot through his back, reminding him of the night before and he wondered how he could have slept at all.
"Did we really sleep that late?" he asked his concerned yami.
"No. You slept that late. I've been sitting up all night and morning keeping watch and pretending to be your pillow for hours."
"Don't act like you don't like snuggling, you know you do."
"This isn't snuggling, Ry. This is you using me as a pillow."
"Shut up and help me. I can't get up without pain shooting through my spine."
Without hesitation, Bakura picked his hikari up bridal style. Ryo wrapped his arms around Bakura's neck to relieve some of the pressure Bakura's hand caused on his back. Bakura proceeded to carry him downstairs instead of putting him down.
"'Kura, I can walk," Ryo protested weakly, he certainly didn't mind Bakura carrying him, and Bakura seemed to like it, too.
Bakura sat Ryo on the couch and sat behind him, where he immediately began to knead Ryo's back with his knuckles. Ryo started to cry out, confused that Bakura would deliberately hurt him, but his cry died in his throat when he realized that his wounds didn't hurt, but actually felt quite good.
"What are you doing?" he asked, leaning into his yami's hands.
"It's an old trick I learned back in Egypt," replied Bakura. "If you massage a wound in exactly the right way, it tricks the nerves into thinking that they were never damaged and it feels good instead of hurting."
"Well, it feels great," Ryo moaned.
Bakura continued to massage Ryo for a few minutes. It was with great reluctance that Ryo said, "I'm going to go see if there's any mail."
"Why do you have to go? I'll go!"
"Nah, that's okay, 'Kura," said Ryo, getting up. "My back feels much better now and I feel a bit useless just sitting here while you take care of me." He left to go to the mailbox. Bakura sat there pouting until he returned with a parcel.
"There was just this. For you." Ryo handed him a plain brown package with a note tied on top. "Read the note out loud?"
Bakura nodded and unfolded the note. "'Dear Bakura. Zorc has made his move. Last night he sent three soldiers to your world, one to each of the yami/hikari houses. All three have been successfully killed. Zorc plans to release his entire army tonight. This time his target is all of Domino. Hope the gift I enclosed for you helps you fight. Sara.' What the hell!? Real fucking helpful, you bitch!"
Bakura crumpled the note and threw it to the floor. Ryo was white while Bakura was flushed with fury.
"Please…let's see what she sent."
Bakura huffed but obeyed Ryo and opened the package. He stared disbelieving at the contents for a moment.
"What is it?" asked Ryo.
Bakura reached into the box and held up the Millennium Ring, staring at it with his mouth slightly open as it glittered in the afternoon sunlight.
A/N Nyeha I gave him his Ring back. I hate myself for doing that to Ryo. Rubbing alcohol on open wounds isn't fun, trust me. It severely tests my masochistic levels every time. That massage thing actually works though. The trouble is knowing exactly how to do it though, it usually does more harm than good. Which is why I only try it on myself. But it does work.
Hmm...for once I don't have a long story to write here. Only that I have a lot of self-loathing for doing this to Ryo. But hey, at least I went a whole chapter where I didn't hurt 'Kura. Oh, and Koibito means Lover for those of you who didn't know. I hate this chapter. I really do. How I loathe it...
I don't own YuGiOh, and if I did then Bakura wouldn't be such an insufferable ass to his hikari. (Oh, you know I love you, 'Kura.)