I was having some writing issues coming into this chapter. I knew what I wanted to do with it, but I was struggling with getting it down onto a document while balancing other tasks that needed to be done. Anyways, it's a bit shorter than the last chapter, but here it is.
Maybe three things before the chapter: Special thanks to Lionessmon who was the only one who reviewed last chapter (what, did I screw up with it or something?). Next would be an explanation of what some of the references Bakura made in the last chapter were. He is referring to events that take place in the Memory World arc, like opening the door to the afterlife to resurrect Zorc. Lastly, this is where I'd put the disclaimer, but you all know the drill by now.
Ch. 3 First Conflict
Dark and Satoshi could only stare as this white-haired boy (who was a little creepy to say the least) juggled the mask around in his hands while grinning arrogantly. Dark, under Satoshi's grip (A/N remember, Satoshi has Dark pinned down) grimaced at this sight. Who was this kid? And just what made him think he was better than the Great Phantom Thief Dark? But there was no doubt about it. This boy is one very skilled in magic, a magic akin to that I sensed in the Mask.
\Dark, who is that?\
/I'm not sure, but he has some connection with this Mask/
\Is he the artwork's "soul", like with the Toki no Byoushin, or Argentine?\
/It's very possible, Daisuke/
Meanwhile, Satoshi was having an inner turmoil. On one hand, he had Dark finally captured and ready to be handed over into the jail; on the other hand, there was some kid here who, he could tell, was extraordinarily strong in the magic department about to get away with his family's artwork that he had been trusted to guard. While capturing Dark was a top priority, protecting this artwork was also up there. What should he do?
Satoshi finally broke the silence. "Who are you and what do you want?!" The boy smirked, holding the Mask still.
"You may call me Bakura, King of Thieves." He took a mock bow. "And as for what I want…" he held up the Mask. "Isn't it obvious?" It was then that a lone guard ran over, having heard the glass case break (A/N last chapter).
"Commander, I—"
"Chain Energy!"
"mmmph!" The guard fell over, bound and gagged by yellow rings of energy. Bakura was holding up a glowing card in his free hand. Bakura looked at the guard, mildly surprised and amused.
"Annoying little pests, these guards are. And here I thought I got all of them already. Guess not." Satoshi looked around. He hadn't noticed it before, but there weren't any guards in sight. This kid could become a problem.
Dark noticed Satoshi's lack of attention and the fact that his grip had weakened, and decided the time to act was now. He rolled Satoshi off his back and into the broken glass and jumped up, ready to get his target. He had a reputation to keep as the Greatest Thief alive! (A/N Greatest Thief alive, maybe…)
Satoshi grunted as he hit the edge of the remains of the glass case and slowly got up. It appeared his only option was to try and recover the Mask, and hope he captured Dark and Bakura in the process.
Bakura started to run towards the exit, chuckling like the madman the Other Yugi always accused him of being. Dark growled softly and took off after him, catching up after about a half a minute. It was then Dark tripped Bakura, causing him to accidentally drop the Mask. As Dark swept down to grab the Mask, he was hit out of the way by an invisible force. Bakura got up, still grinning.
"Let's not take any chances! Diabound, destroy him! But not a scratch on the Mask!" A light began gathering in one place above Dark, near the ceiling. Dark looked up and it disappeared. Then the light erupted charging at him with a deafening roar. Dark tried to grab the Mask and jump out of the way, but missed the Mask and couldn't completely avoid the blast's radius.
"Ahhh!" Dark shouted in pain as the light skimmed his arm and the area around his ankle. Before the darkness settled in again, Dark thought he saw some kind of huge monster illuminated by the blast. But it was gone just as soon as it appeared.
\Dark! Are you okay!?\
/Ow, that stung. I'll be okay, though/
\What was that? I thought I saw some sort of big monster on the ceiling...(A/N Seeing as Daisuke and Dark share a body, they should be able to see through each other's eyes even when not in control)\
/You saw it too, Daisuke?/
\Yup. Was that "Diabound"?\
/I think so. But now I think we can conclude that Bakura is a separate entity than that of the Mask. He wants to steal it. I don't think the Mask would want to steal itself/
\Point taken. So what should we do?\
/We may have to use magic, so be prepared to feel tired tonight/
\Alright\
As Dark looked around warily, Satoshi pressed a button on a small remote control from his pocket and began to make his way over to the fight. Steel bars slid over all of the windows and entryways. Dark and Bakura took notice of this and Bakura glared at him, but not as an attack, but more as directions for another, it seemed. As Satoshi limped over to the two thieves an invisible force constricted him, choking him and crushing him. He grunted again, slowly loosing consciousness. "D-Dark…" Damn it…
After Satoshi lost consciousness, Diabound released him and returned to the shadows (not that he was visible anyways). Dark made another grab for the Mask while Bakura was distracted, actually picking it up this time and running towards the window of the room. Bakura saw this and ran after him, summoning another monster on his way. "Headless Knight! Cut him down!" The floating suit of armor appeared in front of Dark and slashed at him. Dark slid under the sword's path and the knight and was almost at the window when Diabound swatted him down with his tail. Dark swore under his breath. Bakura frowned. "This is taking too long. Chain Energy!" Just as he had seen what happened to the guard, Dark too was now bound by rings of light. He lost his balance and fell to the floor, dropping the Mask in a similar fashion to how Bakura dropped it earlier.
Bakura also began to head for his prize, arrogant and confident that he had won. "Well, well, well. Look at the Great Kaitou Dark now." Bakura gave one of his trademark arrogant grins as he looked down at the thief who thought he was the best of the two. "Well, I suppose it's time for me to go. My, that was fun." He laughed evilly. He picked up the Mask and began to walk away. "We should do this again sometime… or that's what I would say, but you weren't as much competition as I thought you would be. Maybe I should let you play a Penalty Game, seeing as you lost in our little unofficial contest to see who the better thief is, but that's not what I'm going to do. I can only use so many Penalty Games before wanting to do something new. How about I allow you to play with my Headless Knight for a little while? That's all the time he's going to need to kill you." Bakura began to walk off. "Have fun!"
"Hey! Come back here!"
Bakura laughed maniacally before melding into the shadows once more. The knight got into position to strike Dark as the chains of energy dissipated. Dark quickly got to his feet and jumped to the side as the blade came crashing down on the spot where Dark had been a moment ago. Dark jumped behind it and took a jab at the knight's backside. Dark was not thinking clearly when he struck; he apparently forgot that hitting rigid metal objects hurts. "Ack!" Damn it, I have no other choice. Dark began mumbling a sealing spell under his breath to deal with this nuisance. Beams of light began to erupt from the armored being in front of him as the knight turned into a ball of light that was zapped away somewhere. Now that the knight had been dealt with and Dark was Mask less, there was only one thing to say: "Who the hell was that guy?!"
-----------------------------------------
Bakura ran out of the museum, the Mask hidden by cloaking magic. His pocket began to glow as Headless Knight returned to its card. Bakura stopped for a second, understanding that this had not been done by his hand; Dark had beaten the knight using magic. "He smirked, looking towards the museum. "Well, Dark, it seems I've underestimated you. I still won in the end, though. I look forward to beating you to your prize again." He returned to where Ryou's father was filming. A glass window broke in the museum and Sora looked up, pointing at the shattered remains, to be precise she was pointing at what—who really—was emerging.
"…and there's Dark now! We can spot his wings from here! It's not clear if Dark has the Mask or not, but he's definitely leaving to wherever it is he goes. It seems he got away again. This is Sora Akarachii, reporting for Channel 4 Japanese News." Ryou's father turned off the camera, smiling slightly.
"That went fairly well." Sora nodded in agreement.
"Now we should probably go check on Kensuke. I hope he's okay."
----------------------------------------------
Satoshi got up from where he had been knocked out, blinking to get his eyes into focus. He had a terrible headache and was rubbing his head to try to soothe it. The guards were running around, looking for clues. One of the guards ran over, seeing that he was awake.
"Commander, are you okay?" Satoshi dusted himself off before standing up.
"I'm fine. What time is it?" The guard checked his watch.
"It's ten." Satoshi frowned. I was unconscious for a few hours…
"And of Dark?" The guard shook his head.
"He got away, sir." Satoshi frowned. Dark, will I ever catch you…? Inspector Saehara ran up to him, seeing he was awake.
"My God Commander, what happened here?!" He asked, motioning to the broken glass and the dents on the floor, not to mention the small crater in the floor (from Diabound's attack on Dark). Satoshi paused before answering.
"…I'm not sure, but I think Dark was behind it." He figured it was best not to get everyone confused and everything about Bakura. Satoshi would probably run into him again, he felt. He would deal with him then.
"Damn you Dark! You and your tricks!" Saehara shouted at the ceiling. Satoshi decided that he had had enough, and went to do some research on the artwork stolen.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"…and that's what happened." Dark was currently retelling the story of what occurred at the museum that night as To-to bandaged his arm and ankle. The Niwa family was in the living room, sitting on the couches. Daiki rubbed his beard thoughtfully.
"This is unheard of. I don't think there's ever been a thief that's tried to compete with Dark, let alone take the artwork he was going to steal," mused Daiki.
"We should get that mask before he does anything with it," said Emiko.
"What does Daisuke have to say about this?" questioned Kosuke thoughtfully.
"Actually he's sound asleep right now. Magic is just too much of a strain on him." Kosuke got up from the couch.
"I'm going to research this Mask's origins to see if we can figure out what happened tonight." He left to find a catalog of Hikari artwork.
-----------------------------------------
In the waiting room of the hospital, Ryou was having a mental argument with Bakura. Ryou's father watched, slightly amused and slightly worried for his son, who was twisting his face into several different expressions every few minutes or so.
\You did WHAT?!\
/I gave a man a Penalty Game, stole a very valuable piece of artwork containing magic, bested Dark in a race to said artwork, and probably took Dark's ego down a notch/ Bakura answered proudly.
\But you stole! I don't want to deal with the police\
/You won't have to. They have no leads on us/
\You sure?\
/I'm never wrong about something like this/
\But why'd you give Kensuke a Penalty Game? He didn't do anything\ Bakura gave a mental shrug.
/Well, you wanted to see your dad at work and I needed to get him out of our way, in case he noticed we were gone. Making your dad be the cameraman kept him busy while I went in. Just covering the bases by letting you see your father doing his job, sort of/ Ryou sighed in defeat. He knew he wasn't going to get anything out of this one.
\Uh, okay, I guess. Let's just drop it for now. Can you at least restore Kensuke's soul now?\
/Sure, whatever/ Bakura was on the outside once more. Knowing that someone would notice if he took the card out of his pocket, he tapped the pocket with the card containing Kensuke's soul to release it. After this was done, they switched back like nothing had happened. /Done. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a nap/ And that was all Ryou heard from Bakura for the rest of the night. Thus ended the first day.
Okay, references:
Toki no Byoushin-this is a Hikari work that has the power to freeze or end the 'time'
(life) of someone. See DNAngel vol.6-8 for the arc containing it.
Argentine- honestly, we don't know much about it except it was to have been
already destroyed. See DNAngel vol.10 and on (I don't know how
long the arc will last) for details.
Anyways, I've been caught up in other tasks during what is usually my writing time, which is why this took a few extra weeks. Also, I finally realized I had the anonymous reviews disabled, so you can review anonymously now.
As for the story, I've split it up into three of four parts: initial encounter, some almost filler type stuff, the second artwork, and final part. I have some of it figured out, but I'm going to take some time to plan it all out in advance and maybe fix up what's already been written. Suggestions are welcome, encouraged even.
-Gamma Sage