Where the Dawn Doesn't Break
Chapter Three: A Thief's Façade
"Tell me your secrets and ask me your questions
Oh, let's go back to the start
Running in circles, coming up tails
Heads on a science apart."
It was an hour before the phone call, three days before the memorial service. Yugi was about to leave school with his friends when he got a text message from Ryou. It read, "Hi Yugi, I'm having some problems with Bakura and could really use someone to talk to who understands. If you could meet me on the soccer field, I'd appreciate it. Oh, and please don't tell the others… I'm so embarrassed." Yugi's brow furrowed with genuine concern. His nature would never lead him to abandon a friend in need.
"Hey you guys," Yugi called out to Joey, Anzu, and Honda. "I'll just meet up with you later. There's… a quiz I have to make up."
"What a freakin' book worm," Honda muttered under his breath.
"Honda!" Anzu scoffed, punching him lightly on the shoulder. "How can you make fun of Yugi for being a good student when you're failing all your classes?"
"Geez Anzu, to hear you talk it sounds like you wanna bang little Yug'," Jounouchi chimed in. Anzu's face grew scarlet with anger. Before she could wail on the tactless blond, Yugi took a few steps back and made his exit.
"Uh, well, see you guys later!" the boy sputtered quickly before running in the opposite direction. He stifled a chuckle as he heard the echoing strains of his friends' bickering fade behind him.
Yugi neared the soccer field and was able to spot his white-headed friend immediately. Ryou sat with his back to the gate, sitting eerily still. Only his snowy tresses moved as the wind teased them up and about his face. Yugi approached Ryou and laid a comforting hand on his blue-and-white-striped shirt. The white-headed boy didn't respond.
"Ryou?" Yugi prompted. Ryou's head turned and the dark, narrowed slits that met Yugi's bewildered gaze were not those of his gentle friend.
"Hello little Yugi," the tomb robber muttered slyly. "Surprised to see me here?"
Yugi looked aghast.
"Where's Ryou!?" the boy demanded with clenched fists.
"Oh, he's just fine," Bakura responded with a cynical sneer. "He left school early for a pre-scheduled dentist appointment, of all things. I have been planning our little meeting for a while now. It turns out that public school is the only damn place I can get you all to myself, without the pharaoh following at your heels like a lost puppy."
Yugi narrowed his eyes. He could sense his heartbeat growing quicker; he could feel the blood pounding urgently in his ears.
"Why are you here? What do you want from me?" Yugi questioned feebly, afraid of what the answer might be.
Bakura slowly rose to his feet to face Yugi, the sinister grin still spread across his countenance. He leaned forward until he was inches away from Yugi's face. The cornered boy could feel the tomb robber's shallow breath on his collar. Bakura grabbed the chain of the Millennium Puzzle and jerked Yugi forward until their foreheads were touching. The helpless boy was petrified.
"Fortunately for you, little Yugi, what I want is someone else entirely. You're just the bait. You're no more important than a dirty, wriggling little earthworm plucked from the black soil by a hungry fisherman."
At these words, Yugi snapped out of his terrified trance. He refused to let the tomb robber harm his yami. Feeling adrenaline flood his veins, Yugi pushed Bakura back with all of his strength and punched the dark spirit squarely in the jaw. Bakura stumbled backward in shock as a bit of blood trickled from his lower lip. Yugi, feeling empowered, tried to swing again, but this time Bakura swiftly caught the boy's wrist in mid-air. The tomb robber chuckled down at his vulnerable prey.
"Well, well, well," Bakura spat. "It seems that you're a bit more feisty than I remember." With this, the tomb robber lapped up the blood from the corner of his mouth and clicked his tongue as if it had been a delicacy. Yugi's bright eyes widened in horror, and he began to struggle against the tomb robber's hold, to no avail.
"Look at you," Bakura teased, his eyes narrowing threateningly. "You're wriggling around just like the little worm that you are." And with that Bakura forced the poor boy to the ground, his free hand wrapping around Yugi's neck. Yugi sputtered and struggled for air, kicking his legs blindly against his foe. Just before his lungs would have given in from lack of oxygen, Bakura relinquished his grip and regarded the gasping boy with mild amusement.
As Yugi fought for air, the tomb robber grappled in his pockets and pulled out a handkerchief and a bottle with no label. He quickly unscrewed the bottle and emptied its clear contents onto the handkerchief. Then, before Yugi could recover completely from being strangled, Bakura thrust the contaminated cloth over the small boy's face, covering his nose and mouth.
"That's right little one, breath it in," the tomb robber coaxed. Bewildered, Yugi's gasps were stifled by the chloroform, and he found himself slipping away into darkness, the vision of Bakura cackling hysterically burned into the recesses of his memory.
Yugi awoke in a dark room. He had been bound, gagged, and tossed like worthless luggage into what appeared to be a basement. The tired boy struggled against his tethers, but realized, to his terror, that he had been completely immobilized. He lay like that for what seemed like hours, his cheek growing numb against the cold concrete floor, trying in vain to ignore the throbbing pain from his bruised neck. Eventually a door opened from above, shedding a piercing light into the bleary basement. Yugi's eyes, which had grown accustomed to the all-encompassing darkness, snapped shut painfully. When Yugi was finally able to look up, he found himself face-to-face with the tomb robber. Bakura effortlessly plucked his victim's quivering frame from the concrete floor and propped the poor boy unceremoniously against the decaying brick wall. The tomb robber untied the torn rag that had been Yugi's gag and laid it beside him. The young boy immediately spat in his kidnapper's face.
The tomb robber, completely unfazed, wiped the saliva away and glared at Yugi intently.
"I would be on my best behavior, if I were you," Bakura uttered darkly.
"You… you're going to be sorry!" Yugi muttered in a wavering tone. "When my friends get here, there's no telling what they'll do." An uncharacteristically dark smirk planted itself on Yugi's face before he continued. "And Yami, when Yami finds out what you've done… Bakura, you're the one who needs to be on your best behavior."
Bakura was silent for a moment, then he began snickering. Before long he had erupted into peals of diabolical laughter.
"Yugi," Bakura managed between chuckles, "you're precious little pharaoh will come, but not to rescue you."
"What are you talking about?" Yugi demanded, growing concerned.
"You don't exist, Yugi. You were killed in a car accident. Nothing was found save for your belt buckle and the Millennium Puzzle." At this Yugi glanced down frantically to realize that his Puzzle and studded belt were both gone.
"The rest of you burned up in the fire," Bakura continued. "It's amazing what all can be accomplished with money. I bribed a friendly businessman on the street to make the call on a pay phone. He played the part of 'Deputy Carson' to inform your grandfather that you had died. I paid off a cop to deliver the puzzle, buckle and some ash 'from the crash site' to the Kame Game Shop in his squad car, to complete the masterful fabrication. Your memorial service will be in a few days, where a stone dedicated all to you will be placed between the grave plots of your parents. Isn't it sweet?"
Yugi was mortified.
"Wh-why are you doing this?" the boy stammered fearfully.
At this point the tomb robber's playful grin degenerated into a wicked scowl. There was so much loathing behind Bakura's gaze that it threatened to make Yugi pass out.
"I'm doing this," Bakura spat, "in memory of my family, the only people who ever gave a damn about me. I'll let the pharaoh suffer for a few days, let him experience what it's like to feel empty. After your memorial service, I'll corner him. He'll practically beg for me to take his life."
Yugi shook his head fervently.
"That's where you're wrong! Yami would never let you… let you…"
"…kill him?" Bakura finished the boy's sentence. "We'll just see about that, Yugi. Tell me, what purpose does a guardian have if his charge is killed? What family does the pharaoh have to go back to? What promise can his future possibly hold? What you misunderstand, little Yugi, is that Yami's time on earth was finished thousands of years ago. You are his only link to society, to reality, to life in general. Imagine how lost he must feel, how painful it must be. Have you ever wondered what it's like to lose half of your soul?"
Yugi's eyes grew wide, and he realized the twisted truth in Bakura's words.
"Do not fret though," the tomb robber interjected in an eerily cheerful voice. "You will get to see it all take place, and I'll even set you free after my work is done. And you thought I wasn't generous. You'll have a front-row seat to the event of the century, the death of the timeless King of Games! You'll get to watch as he kneels before me, as I raise the dagger to his throat, as I…"
"NO!" Yugi screamed. "I'll give you anything! I'll do anything for you. Kill me instead, I don't care. If you need blood on your hands so badly just kill me instead. I won't struggle, you can do whatever you want to me and…"
"Your offer doesn't interest me, Yugi," Bakura interrupted. "My conflict lies with the pharaoh and he alone. There is nothing you could possibly say or do to prevent me from slitting his pretty little throat. But once I have accomplished my goal, once I have finally slaughtered the pharaoh in the name of my lost village, I feel that I should give something back to compensate. So, in return for the pharaoh's life, I will give you an endearing sense of reality. I will destroy this naïve perception of friendship and righteousness that you cling to so avidly. I want you to watch as the pharaoh's blood spills onto the floor, as he cries out in unimaginable pain, as he sputters and groans, desperate for relief, as he slumps over, twitching, and then I want you to focus, take special notice, of the way the life drains from his eyes. Then, Yugi, you will be a changed man, as I was, aware of how cruel and unfair the real world actually is. This is my gift to you."
Yugi's wrists trembled against the cables that bound them. Silent, petrified tears ran down the boy's pale cheeks. Yugi hated feeling so helpless.
Bakura disappeared upstairs for a moment then returned to Yugi with a glass of water.
"Drink up, my little prisoner. I can't have you dying before the grand show."
Yugi clenched his jaw, but the tomb robber grabbed the boy's wild, crimson hair and forced his head back. As Yugi cried out in pained surprise, Bakura swiftly emptied the glass down the boy's throat. Yugi gulped involuntarily, some of the water finding its way down his windpipe. Once Bakura released his prisoner's hair, Yugi leaned forward to cough and sputter.
The tomb robber walked to a shadowy corner of the room and wheeled out an old television that rested on a dusty, decrepit iron stand.
"This is the screen on which you'll witness your yami's untimely death," Bakura explained, indicating the gray screen with a wave of his hand, as if he were a letter-turner on Wheel of Fortune. "I'll just leave it here for you to imagine the atrocities that will befall the pharaoh in a few short days."
Yugi could see the faint outline of his reflection in the foggy glass. He could imagine it. He could picture Yami in his head, on his knees, bleeding, crying out for help. It was such a crushing thought that the boy might have accepted death himself, had Bakura offered as much.
"Well, I'm afraid I have other things to attend to. I'll just leave you here to fester. But don't worry, I'll come back intermittently with water, and possibly even bread, if you're good. I can't have you wasting away before your time." At this, Bakura began laughing again, as if he had just told a hilarious joke. He ascended the creaking stairs and left the basement door slightly cracked, allowing a bit of light to trickle into the makeshift dungeon of sorts.
It was just enough light. Just enough for Yugi to see the television screen.
The boy, mortified, trapped, wept for his situation, wept for his chaffed wrists, wept for his empty stomach. But most of all, Yugi wept for the fate of his yami.