Hikari: This turned out...
Yawi: You can't say it turned out well, can you?
Hikari: ((sighs)) Nope, can't. You see, I was having trouble getting it out because one of my muses was moping. But he got drunk, so I could get it out!
Yawi: We send special seasons greetings to a dear friend. Since we're stressed and more relatives are coming over even though we just kicked the last bunch out, this is your Christmas present. You know who you are, and frankly, everyone else will know too, once they get far enough in the chapter.
Disclaimer: Hikari of the Moon does not own Yugioh. She also does not own A Christmas Carol, which this chapter is horribly parodying. See, we can do short and simple!
Warning: Past scene is sad. Don't worry, though! Everything else is at the normal level of humor! ...Hopefully.
Now, although Bakura was excited and happy about most-every holiday so far, he was not happy with Christmas. The lights, the merriment, the fuzzy feeling you get when someone wishes you a Merry Christmas...Bakura hated it. And when Bakura hates something, everyone knows it. Literally. Random people walking down the street who'd never seen him before knew he hated something.
"It's just so stupid!" Bakura had yelled at Ryou on this fateful night of Christmas Eve.
"It is not!" Ryou had yelled back.
"BAH HUMBUG!" Bakura had shouted, "IT'S STUPID! I'M GOING TO BED RIGHT NOW!"
And he ran up the stairs, leaving Ryou alone with his Christmas cheer.
-----
"Stupid Christmas..." He said as he got changed into his pyjamas. "Stupid everything!" Bakura dove into bed and quickly fell asleep.
What felt like moments later, he was woken up by the sound of chains.
"Urrr...Go away..." He mumbled, trying to go back to sleep.
"Orbis Bakura..." The voice rang throughout the room.
Bakura sat up sharply, instantly awake. "Who goes there?"
A shimmer appeared in the middle of the room. From that shimmer, stepped a figure with chains tied to his wrists and ankles. As the shimmer faded, the figure spoke. "Orbis Bakura..."
He shuddered. "Marik?"
Indeed, the chained man was Marik. Or, at least, looked and sounded like him. "This night, Orbis Bakura, you will be visited by three spirits. If you do not change your horrible views about Christmas by the end of the night, your fate shall be sealed."
Bakura faked a yawn. "Okay, so I deal with two more idiots and I can run free? Great. Night, Marik."
"Three spirits, Orbis, you moron!"
"Stop calling me Orbis! And I know you said three! You and two others!"
"NO!" Marik yelled, "THREE MORE SPIRITS!"
"Fine, fine! Three other spirits! Great! More fun! ...Wait, why're you dead, man?"
"...Freaking boating accident?"
Bakura raised an eyebrow. "You don't own a boat."
"Yeah, I do! I got from here to Egypt on it!" Marik said with a nervous chuckle.
"You threatened the boat's real owner if he didn't let you use it, you'd -----." If what Marik told the man he would do to him was typed out, this fanfiction's rating would have to go up. So use your imagination!
Marik blushed, or at least, Bakura thought he did, and looked around the room. "Oh, look at the time, almost midnight! Your first guest will be here any minute now! Take care!" And with that, the air behind him shimmered again and he stepped back into the shimmer. Well, not really. He tripped over one of the chains on his ankle and fell into the shine.
"Just goes to show: Too much bling is bad." And with that, Bakura leaned back and tried to fall asleep. Until one thought hit him. "How is Ryou not up here yelling at me for yelling, anyways?"
"Actually, I am up here." For standing in the middle of his room was his hikari. He literally glowed with a light so bright, it might've blinded Bakura if the clothes weren't blocking it. "But I'm not yelling."
"Ryou? What're you doing here? And what's with the dorky Duelist Kingdom outfit? I thought I told you to get rid of it!" Bakura snapped.
Ryou smiled shyly. "It was the only thing heavy enough to keep this stupid light from blinding me."
"So it's be blind or look like a dork? Ryou, hikari, go blind." With an evil grin, he got out of bed. "So, why exactly are you here?"
Ryou's smile turned from shy to evil pleasure. "That's easy. I'm here to show you the Christmases of your past."
"Fat chance," said Bakura, "Christmas wasn't around in my time."
"No, but it was around in our time."
And with a confused look on his face, Bakura was swept away by a fierce wind. Swept into memories of the past.
-----"Koe! Stop it!" Ryou sat on his bed, crying fiercely. "Stop it stop it STOP IT!"
Bakura blinked. Ryou was standing next to him right now, and yet, he was also infront of him, younger and crying. "What's going on?" Bakura asked the Ryou of his time."We're in one of your memories," Ryou explained.
Bakura wondered where his memory-self was, then remembered. He didn't have enough energy back then to create even a spirit-like form, but he still terrified Ryou. Maybe not being able to see him made it worse for the boy. Ryou hadn't even known who Bakura was, which was why he referred to him as "Koe". "Koe" meaning "Voice", of course.
"This stupid hope you're clinging to doesn't work!" Bakura shouted in Ryou's mind. "Hope means NOTHING!"
"Mommy will come back!"
"NO SHE WON'T!!"
"You don't know that!"
"She doesn't love you! She took your stupid sister and left! THEN they got hit by a truck!" Little Ryou curled up into a ball. "No...She's not dead...Not dead, Koe..." "And the worst part is," Bakura continued, "Your father's leaving you too. He's disgusted with you for not going with them." "Daddy..." "What does this have to do with Christmas!" Bakura snapped, not wanting to hear anymore. He'd changed his ways shortly after the incident in Egypt concerning Yami's past and didn't want to be reminded of how he'd used to be.
"Don't you remember, silly?" His time's Ryou smirked. "It's Christmas Eve in this memory. Imagine, the only present I remember getting on Christmas this year was knowing that my whole family was leaving me, all alone, with a deranged voice."
"Ryou!" Bakura said, "You know I'm not like that! Show me something else!"
Ryou's smirk grew wider. "So you don't want to see how you were? But this is how you acted in the present."
"What're you talking about!" Bakura asked.
"You were acting like that towards me just this evening." Ryou reminded him.
Before Bakura could say anything against it, Ryou's light began to flicker. And flicker. Until, eventually, it faded; even though there were lamps turned on and moonlight coming in through the window, the whole room was plunged into darkness.
When the lights returned, it was because Bakura opened his eyes. The room was perfectly lit and there was no sign that what had just happened with Ryou had happened at all.
"What was that?" He shook his head tiredly and climbed out of bed- "Wait, since when was I in bed?" He stood straight up and shook his head. "Bet Yami's messing with my head for revenge..." He grumbled and flopped back onto the bed for a moment's rest.
-----
And a moment's rest was all he believed he got, for after what felt too short to be anything but a moment, light flashed in the middle of the room and a young lady stood there when the light left. "Look, sir, I'm very sorry for the delay!" She bowed at the waist in respect.
"Delay of what?" Bakura snapped, leaping out of bed, "And who are you?"
"Oh! I'm Mischeif." She pointed at her shirt, which sported a name-tag saying so. "I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present's secretary. He's running a little late. Probably trying to hide his sugar high..." She trailed off.
"So, I really have to deal with another stupid ghost?" He asked.
Mischeif nodded. "Yeah. You deserve it though, the way you've been acting."
"And how do you determine that?" He snapped.
She shrugged. "I don't."
Another light flashed and Malik appeared sitting on a pile of explosives and eating a stick of Pocky.
"Oh, Ms. Hyphen-Maker!" Malik smiled. "Thanks for holding down the fort!"
She smiled back. "No problem, sir!" And with a bell and a flash she disappeared.
"Can't you think of any other way to appear besides a flash of light?"
Malik shook his head. "Sorry man. It's what we were hired to do."
"Hired?" Bakura scrambled forward and grabbed Malik by the collar of his shirt. "Now listen here! You tell me what's going on or I tell Ryou you're the one who trashed his CD player!"
"Ryou's CD player's broken?"
"It will be if you don't start talking." Bakura snarled. Malik gulped.
"I can't say anything! It'll ruin the suspense!"
"Suspense?" Bakura groaned and pushed him away. "Okay, so Ryou will be blaming you for the CD player in a few days. What do you want?"
Malik smiled and struck a pose. "To show you what everyone else is going through this Christmas!"
"...I don't care."
"You have to care! Wait, not caring is what got you in this in the first place!"
"If you'll shut up for two seconds, Malik, I'll go with you."
Malik was quiet. For exactly two seconds. "Okay, did it, come on!" He grabbed Bakura's arm and whisked him through the wall to the living room.
-----
"What're we doing in my living room?" Bakura shouted.
"Secretly watching what Ryou's doing!"
"We're standing THREE FEET away from him! How is it secret?" He stomped the three feet that separated himself from his hikari and leaned down to put a hand on his shoulder...
...Only to fall on his face when his hand, followed by most of him, passed through Ryou's body.
"WHAT was THAT?" Bakura asked, jumping to his feet and climbing back from Ryou's crouched form.
"For the sake of not terrifying people, we're spirits. Normal spirits," Malik added, remembering exactly what the "spirits" of Yami and Bakura had been able to do.
"Okay, sure, this isn't any more crazy than everything else that's been going on. I can deal." Bakura nodded. "So what's he doing?"
"Hmm..." Malik circled his friend, who finally stood up. "Oh! Nursing a cut. Looks pretty deep too."
Bakura started. "What?" He raced over to Ryou again and looked over his arm. It was covered in bleeding cuts and Ryou was trying to get to the kitchen, most likely to clean it up. "How did that happen?"
"I'll take a wild guess!" Malik said and pointed to the ground around where Ryou had been. Blue pieces of glass were scattered around the ground. "Maybe one of those thingies blew up."
"You're probably right," Bakura said. "And let me guess, it's my fault since I wasn't here to give him a hand?" Malik nodded. "Great, just great, you ghosts are all alike tonight. Can't I get one that doesn't try to help?"
Malik waved his stick of Pocky around angrily. "You don't want to be helped? Fine! We'll just skip the rest of my part and move straight on to the final ghost!"
Malik snapped and Bakura shot up, awakening in bed yet again.
"Okay, sleep, take four!" He announced as he fell back against his pillow and attempted to sleep.
-----
Emphasis on attempted, since he woke up just moments later to a black-robed figure sitting on the edge of his bed.
"You stole Ryou's Halloween costume," Bakura noted as he stood up.
The figure made no sound, just gestured to the window.
Bakura walked over to it and smirked. "What, no flash of light making another moron appear?"
The figure pushed him out the window.
-----
Back at the office of Christmas carol ghosts...
"YOU MORON!" The boss, known only as 'CD', yelled at the returning cloaked figure, "You were supposed to show him his future! Not push him out the window!"
Yami tossed back the hood that had previously covered his face. "His future was me pushing him out the window. I saw no way to foreshadow that."
CD sighed. "You're fired."
-----
And back in reality...
Bakura woke up, for the last time, in bed. He got up and headed downstairs. He walked into the kitchen to find, as expected, Ryou wrapping up his cleaned arm in bandages. "Need help?" He asked.
"What're you doing down here?" Ryou asked back tiredly.
"I figured, I've been a real jerk these past few months, and with my dreams refusing to let me get a moment's peace, I should help out. You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine now."
"Anything I can do?"
Ryou just stared at him for a moment before smiling. "You could help me make the cookies we promised to take to the Ishtar's."
"Sounds good."
And so, Bakura learned the true meaning of Christmas. ...Wait, no he didn't! What he really learned was that being mean around Christmas gets you to change your ways. No matter how stupid those ghosts end up being.
Hikari: Anyone who can tell me who "CD" was will be mentioned in January's opening notes! ((dies from all the stuff she got for Christmas))
Yawi: And Hikari learned the true meaning of having a deadline. Remember, if you'd like to appear in a later chapter of Holidays by Bakura, send in your favourite character that has appeared as an at least semi-main character and a few small gift ideas! Preferably not as your entire review. ...Why does that make it sound like a contest? ((shrugs)) Review and maybe I'll revive Hikari in time to write next chapter...
