Bakura huffed and ran his hand down his neck and down the cord of the ring until it landed on the cool metal, in that same habit he had picked up recently and then suddenly I heard Teana gasp.
"That's it! The ring!"
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooo
"The ring must be what's causing all this, causing you to act so strangely," Teana was suddenly enthused by this idea as if everything suddenly made sense to her.
"The ring?" Bakura gripped the edge of the ring with both hands and brought it to eye level then seemed to rethink the idea and jerked it back, "Actually now that you mention it that would explain a lot…."
"Then take it off," I said as if it was obvious and Bakura nodded quickly and lifted the cord up and over his head but as he did so he grimaced.
"Are you ok?" Teana asked and rested a hand on his arm.
"Yeah I just… ow…" Bakura's brow furrowed and the forming scar on his cheek crinkled. He was still wearing his outer clothes from the city, the ones with a hood that hid the majority of his body in a mass of shapeless material but right then he was pawing at it and pulling it off.
"What are you doing?!" Teana yelped as Bakura begun to strip.
"It's really hot! Like it's burning!" Bakura finally stripped to his bare chest and my mouth fell open at the sight of the five small cuts imbedded in Bakura's chest, now bleeding fresh blood.
"W-when did that happen?"
"I don't know, I don't remember it happening," Bakura's eyes peeled away from his own chest to stare at us, "actually I don't remember a lot happening lately."
"What? What do you mean?"
"I keep getting memory lapses. Not just at night when you guys have noticed but sometimes I just find myself missing little bits of conversation…"
"The ring was obviously taking its toll on you," I supplied, "gods knows how, or why."
Teana patted her chin, "also have you noticed how calm he's been lately?"
"Yes actually I have, he hasn't been nearly as temperamental."
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
"It's almost like the ring was taking that from you, almost like it was feeding off of your anger."
Bakura chuckled lightly, "you got all that from a couple of gaps in my memory?"
"Well it's true! Think about it… you're a very angry person Bakura! It doesn't make you bad you just are, and you have good reason. And like Malik said the items are dark and evil things. Wouldn't it make sense that they thrive off of negative energy?"
Bakura snorted, "That would make sense as to why the Pharaoh keeps his so close. It's probably brimming with power!"
"We have to get rid of it," I finally pointed out the obvious, "there's no way we can keep it now."
Teana nodded in agreement and after a moment of bitter contemplation Bakura nodded too.
"But how? Do we just leave it in the desert?" Teana asked but Bakura shook his head.
"No. It can't be abandoned or thrown away. It will just come back the ring must always have an owner." Suddenly Bakura shoved it into Teana's hands, "you have to take it."
"What?! Why me?"
"Because it thrives off of negative energy. We've proved I can't handle it and Ryou…" he trailed off but I nodded my head.
"I'm too caught up in my own misery, over Amunet." I finished for him.
"I'm sad too…" she started lamely.
"Not as sad as Ryou."
Resigned Teana took the ring in her hands and placed the cord around her neck and we started to discuss our plan of action.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooo
We figured the ring must be given away, stolen or bought. For reasons we decided not to dwell on Bakura was certain that somehow the ring would find its way to him (or now Teana) if we just left it in the desert so we soon found a town and decided we would offer it up at a trade stall, all we hoped was that no one would recognise it and shun it as stolen goods.
"So how much do ya wan fer it?" a toothless man garbled out as Bakura attempted his best salesmen act with Teana by his side gripping the ring nervously.
"For you?" Bakura tapped his chin in fake contemplation, "two silver."
The man barked out a laugh, "silver fer gold? Nope. It's gotta be a fake!"
Bakura shook his hands in protest, "alright! One gold piece"
"Good try sonny, it aint worth naught this piece of tin," and with that he hobbled away.
"reeeeeal smooth." I interjected once the guy was out of hearing range.
"Shut it. I'd like to see you do better." Bakura snapped and with that I looped my arm through Teana's own and whisked her towards another patron, a woman patron to be exact.
"uhm m'am…" I pulled my hood tight around my face, hiding my white hair and pulling my shoulders upwards to exaggerate my smaller frame, "you don't happen to have a few gold pieces in exchange for a piece of old jewellery do you?"
The woman, a plump motherly looking hen, turned in time to see Teana raising the ring up between two shaking palms.
"Oh dears!" she suddenly fussed, "I'm afraid I don't,"
"That's ok," I smiled weakly, "do you by chance have any bread or food that we may trade, we're really quite hungry."
The woman's maternal instinct kicked in almost instantly and she seemed to make up her mind almost as fast, "bread for gold? I wont have it! Come with me dears I know someone who will buy your necklace for a good amount, come, come!" she started to usher us away, and Bakura followed close by. We were soon whisked past the stalls towards a small building with a curtain entrace. We were whisked through, before we could protest, leaving Bakura outside. The den was small and dark, padded with tapestries and elaborate wall hangings and as soon as we stepped through the threshold we were assaulted by the smell and smoke of hookah.
"Panhsi!" the woman cooed into the fog, "I have some traders for you," the shuffled us forward into the den until we were staring down at a man with his legs crossed and a pipe in hand. In one motion he took a long inhale of his pipe and signalled for us to sit, so we did so obediently.
"What do you have for me?"
Teana looked to me nervously before producing the ring, which the man, Panhsi, took out of her grasp effortlessly. He eyed the object thoroughly, even chewed on one of the dangling spikes then chuckled. "I'll take it."
Our faces lit up but we knew we had to play the part of traders or they would get suspicious of our eagerness to part with the item, "for how much?"
The man chuckled again and this time I heard the dark undertones, "you will get nothing other than a free pass to leave the town before I set the authorities on you." He grinned a wide grin, "do we have a deal, little thieves?"
Teana was suddenly alert and jumped to her feet, nodding and bowing and aiming to leave as quickly as possible however I faltered.
"And what do you aim to do with it?" Panhsi raised one brushy eyebrow at my question.
"I intend to give it back to the Pharaoh and his priests and await my award."
I nodded quickly then and stood to follow Teana, not voicing my opinion of how utterly stupid that idea was and that when he went strolling up to the palace with ring in hand he'd probably be killed on the spot, I did however bow politely and exit quickly.
Once we were outside we found Bakura was waiting for us, leant against a wall.
"Well how much did you get?"
"Nothing," I admitted deflated and Teana bristled besides me.
"We didn't get 'nothing' we got a pass to leave this town without any trouble. They knew what the ring was and that we had stolen it so let's get out of here."
Bakura seemed to twitch at the notion we had given away something so precious for practically nothing in return but heeded the warning and we left the town, as promised.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo o
The second the ring was gone from our lives we resumed some sort of normal routine, moving from town to town, pick pocketing and stealing, finding shelter and squatting. However life didn't return to how it was, we wore our scars both physical and emotional out in the open for the world to see. We grieved for Amunet regularly until Teana came up with the idea of finding somewhere to lie to rest Amunet's memory. The three of us were pretty much completely uneducated so we didn't really know what we were doing with funeral rituals but we all decided to find a nice spot by the Nile, in the shade, where we berried three possessions, one each, for Amunet to take with her in the after life. I left my dagger, to protect her, Teana left her scarf to keep her warm and Bakura left one of his many stolen necklaces for her to trade in the afterlife.
"Don't be stupid people don't trade in the afterlife!" Teana had scolded.
"You're talking as if there even is a real after life Teana!" Bakura had bitten back.
And for a while that seemed like that was that. That life would return to normal or at least as normal as we could hope but nearly every single night as I lay my head down to sleep I couldn't help but feel unrest. Something was not settled yet, it had been woken and it would not sleep until it was satisfied.
I felt like we hadn't heard of the last of the Millennium items.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo o
So historically inaccurate oh god…
But yeah this is a YUGIOH FANFICTION accuracy is not the height of importance XD
Hope you folks enjoyed reading again hopefully you picked up on the parallels of Bakura's 'possession' and Ryou Bakura's possession in season zero (if you didn't doesn't really matter~)
Now excuse me while I lay down my own little piece of head cannon that might help you understand this fic a wee bit.
Right so I believe Thief King Bakura was a normal guy who was pretty fucked up and pretty damned angry about having his whole village slaughtered and wanted some kind of revenge on the Pharaoh (whether or not that involved blood shed, I dunno) and I believe that Zorc is a separate entity who simply fuelled TKB with power and supplied the means for him to get his revenge in a way that benefited both himself and TKB however that obviously went tits up and we'll never know exactly what happened in the original timeline when Bakura/Zorc and Atem first face off but we do know something happened to seal Bakura/Zorc into the Millennium ring (and Atem into the puzzle) and I believe the Bakura or 'Yami Bakura' we see throughout yugioh is an infusion of them both. Not quite all human but not quite all Zorc, with the memories and emotions of his past but with the drive and power of a Dark God. Man this went on… but basically what I wanted to get at is that I believe TKB was possessed and used as a host as much as Ryou Bakura was initially however unlike Ryou Bakura TKB eventually submitted and worked with Zorc until it all went wrong and they ended up being one and the same.
End of ramble! Only a few more chapters to go don't let this mini essay put you off!
I kind of want this finished before the new year so updates will be quick!
Thanks again for reading x