Chapter Seven
Interlude: The Thief King
**Warning** Bakura's mind is a twisted, twisted place so there might be a few mentions of bloody gory details many would rather not read, thread carefully.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
Vengeance. It is usually described as such an ugly, needless and outright wrong thing…by weak fools with pathetic morals. Vengeance was all he had left now (well, if one didn't count the few little trinkets he had stolen recently, but nevermind that), it was the only thing that kept him going, the fuel that had made him endure for so many years. It was also so close now that he could already taste it.
For most of his life, the man now known as the Thief King had only known pain and grief. He had seen true horrors in this world and had met the true dark side of human nature when he was still a young child. Needless to say, he had grown up quite a bit twisted. But he had survived. The little orphaned boy had endured, lived and grown into a certainly deadly and strong individual, with skills that made him infamous all though Egypt. He wouldn't have it any other way.
It wasn't until recently, however, that his long-awaited dream of revenge had started to come true. So long he had waited to repay the mighty Pharaoh for what he had done to his people, his family and his life. Of course, the man who had ordered such atrocities committed was quite dead now (and wasn't that a let-downer? He had so wanted to send the man to the afterlife himself), but his heir remained to extract vengeance upon. And the Thief King was sure the son was no different from the father.
The white-haired man was currently resting in his hide-out, which had also been his home once, a long time ago, debating over how to proceed with his plans. A dirty, tanned hand rose to brush fingers against the cool metal surface of the golden diadhank now attached to one of his arms. Cold grey eyes inspected the golden instrument which allowed him to summon a mighty beast of Shadows. Diabound had proved its power in their last meeting with the Pharaoh and his Court, but the Thief King was sure that even such a powerful monster would not be able to stand against the three divine beasts that the Pharaoh controlled…not yet, at least. What made his creature so powerful was not its power alone, but that which it stole from those it defeated (the thief had been forced to laugh/cackle in appreciation to the similarity between himself and his monster). If he could defeat other powerful summons, then Diabound would gain enough strength to battle even the god beats.
And that would only be the beginning.
He wasn't just going to kill the Pharaoh and be done with it. Oh, no, his revenge would be much more complex than that. He had waited much too long for it and would not be satisfied with a quick and merciful end. No, the Pharaoh was going to suffer. He was going to be forced to watch as his kingdom crumbled to ashes and his people fell, robbed of their lives, all around him, while he was powerless to stop it. The great god incarnate was going to lose everyone close to him, watch as Akefia* himself sent them to Shadows and tombs without being able to prevent it. And once the man was broken and bleeding and begging every god he knew of for death, then and only then would Bakura plunge a dagger into his heart and leave him for dead, bleeding out amongst the smoking ashes of what had once been his life. An eye for an eye and all that.
However, to do all that, he would have to get closer, and to get closer he would have to be very, very smart. He couldn't just perform another frontal attack now, not when they were expecting him. The Thief King was pretty sure that blasted bunch of Priests had taken all the necessary measures to protect their precious little Pharaoh and would have set traps and other obstacles for him at the Palace. No matter, he didn't need to go to the palace in order to destroy them, he was more skilled than that. He would have to lure them out, one by one and pick them off when they were at their weakest…alone.
Already the Thief King's decidedly twisted mind was coming up with plans, ideas and traps that he could implement in order to get rid of the last barrier between himself and the Pharaoh. With the Priests gone, the young King would be practically defenseless and his country ripe for the picking. That was what Bakura wanted, and so that was what he would get.
After all, it would take all the skills of a King of Thieves in order to steal the Court away from his Pharaoh. But first things first, he had to investigate and find out which of the Priests' deaths' would be the most devastating to the Pharaoh.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
Miles away from the haunted village of Kul Elna, a young wizard was gazing out the window and into the clear starry night. It was a truly beautiful sight, with no artificial lights to dampen the brilliance of the sky. It was, however, completely ruined by the decidedly ominous feeling the young man was getting out of it. There was something out there, something waiting and lurking in the darkness, bidding its time before it struck. A pale hand rose to gently brush the scar that was now fading but still visible. He almost wished the blasted thing still worked as a trouble radar, at least then he would be sure that something was coming instead of having to live with these strange feeling of impending doom, but being unable to really know, or to do anything about it.
Well, maybe his scar wasn't hurting, but he was still pretty sure that something was coming. It wasn't the good sort of something either.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
*This is going to be used as Bakura's name in Ancient Egypt, because of popular vote ^_^ (See Author's Notes on Chapter 23 and 24 for the voting)
Author's Notes: Alright! Finally I could post this!
Again, I apologize for the very slow update but like I said before, power's been wacky lately(and it doesn't help when the lines fall and the company is swamped with work and complains from all over the place), but it's thankfully back to normal now and so should my posting.
This was sadly a very short chapter, but I wanted to get into the enemy's head a bit and explore his motives and feelings before moving on to his actions. He's pretty messed up and I'm just sad that I have a bit of difficulty writing him and might not do the character justice so forgive me if I screw up a bit, but he's quite the complex character and I admit it's been a long time since I watched the Memory World arc (mayhaps I should go look at it now that I'm writing this, lol)
I also want to apologize to anyone I might have confused with the whole Ka thing (and other stuff as well) and want to thank smoochynose for asking for an explanation…it probably wouldn't have occurred to me otherwise. To solve this problem I'm not posting a sort of glossary along with my author notes now and if there's anything in one chapter that you don't understand or get, say so and I'll place the definition/explanation on the next chapter's glossary.
For now it's just Ka and Ba:
Normally, Ka and Ba are two of the seven parts that made up the soul according to the ancient Egyptians. In Yu-Gi-Oh! they're explained a bit differently. In the anime and manga, if a person's Ka was removed from their body (such as what happened to Kisara), then the person would die. The Chosen Priests powered up their Ka by using their Ba as a sort of battery. If you run out of Ba, which is sort of like spiritual energy, then you're likely to die. The Ka is sort of like a spirit beast guardian, they're part of your soul expressed physically (or sort of, as some look a bit transparent) that take the shape of a Duel Monster (please note that Duel monsters were based on these creatures, not the other way around…I don't think your soul much cares about your favorite card). Also, as I understand it, you don't really need a diadhank to summon your Ka, as it is already part of you and not sealed in a stone tabled (this happened to both Kisara and Mana).
Hope that helped a bit! ^-^
Now, for the voting on Harry's Ka! This is how it's currently going:
Magician of Black Chaos |||||||||||||||||||
Chaos Commander Magician ||||||||
Silent Magician ||||||
Winged Dragon of Ra ||||||||
Kuriboh |
Horus the Black Flame Dragon ||||
Elemental Hero Flame Wingman |
Chimera the Flying Mythical Beast |
Arcanite Magician || |
Divine Dragon Ragnarok |
Please note that voting shall be closing tomorrow so if you haven't voted yet, hurry up before you miss your chance ^^
