New Chapter: Yay :) Its winding down now, I think so anyway.

The sun shined brightly in this desecrated town, and Bakura found himself smiling.

Looking to his side he saw the only woman who'd ever cared about him lying in his bed, sleeping soundly. He smiled as he saw her long hair covering more than half her body, waves of blackness falling around her body. As much as he loved the darkness in his heart, he loved seeing that darkness in her hair. Yet, even with all that darkness in his heart, she still loved him as a human.

She rolled over and he watched as her eyes opened slowly. Soft green eyes fell upon him and she yawned. "Can we go get clean now?" She smiled.

He nodded, "grab some clothes, I'll get the horse ready."

She smiled and sat up, rubbing her eyes as she wasn't used to the sunlight. Bakura took the opportunity to sneak in a kiss before he left to get the horse ready.

Reminiscing over the kiss she felt so happy to have received, she grabbed a change of clothes and ran out to the horses, where Bakura was already waiting impatiently. "You coming today or tomorrow?"

She threw the clothes in the sidebag, and climbed on behind him. "Today."

"Do you need us to do anything while we're gone sir?" his first lieutenant looked at the two.

He shook his head, "if you'd like you can train, but other than that there's nothing."

The lieutenant nodded as the two rode off.

Ati grinned, holding tightly to the thief, happy to be accepted by him. She never thought that he'd even attempt to allow someone in his heart. While he still wasn't as open with her as she hoped, she realized he'd already come leaps and bounds from where he was when she met him.

She kept thinking to herself until they arrived and they got off the horse. Bakura stared at her strangely, since it was uncharacteristic of her to be so quiet, but he figured she wanted some time to think. He knew he wasn't fond of people intruding on his thoughts and decided he would give her the same respect he'd want. He tied up the horses and hung up the towels, while she went straight into the water.

He figured she was too busy thinking to care about him undressing, so he just stripped and left his clothes in the side bag before walking into the water. However, when he got in the water he saw her smiling happily at him. "May I help you?" he blinked.

She shook her head and smiled, "No, I'm fine. Thanks for asking."

He shrugged and looked away, not sure if he should bring up her being spaced out.

"Sorry if I'm a little spaced out… I'm thinking about a lot right now," she smiled, hoping she wouldn't see the warmth in his eyes fade.

"Ugh," he groaned, "women and their emotions. Did you ever consider that you think too much?"

She laughed, seeing his attempt at a joke, "No. Never. Did you ever consider that you don't think enough?"

He blinked, before realization hit him and he turned bright red, "Asshole."

"You asked for it," she smiled and paused for a moment before saying, "I'm really happy."

He blinked again, now confused as all hell. "What're you talking about?"

"I'm happy," she smiled. "Honestly, I know that you're tough and you're a great leader for your men, but seeing you relaxing more makes me happy."

"But what about you?" He couldn't figure out how she was happy because he wasn't stressed. Those are two unrelated things.

"What about me?"

"How can you be happy because I'm relaxed? It must be something more complicated than that… Like you're happy that you've had an impression on me, or you're happy I said ok and didn't take advantage of you…"

She shook her head, "While yes, I am happy about both of those things, even if you would have said no, as long as you got to relax, I'd still be happy. I told you already, I never expected you to like me back. I guess the concept of selflessness isn't in your dictionary."

"Are you calling me stupid?" His brows furrowed with unhappiness and she bit her lip.

"No, I'm just saying that with what all you've been through, it's not surprising. No one's actually put your wellbeing ahead of their own right?" she backed up from him slowly, seeing his anger growing.

"Yea, and I don't expect that to change…" he was practically growling.

"Exactly. I'm not calling you stupid, or anything, I'm just saying I should have realized that you wouldn't expect something like this. It was my bad," there was a clear vibrato in her words, and he picked up on it.

"If you're so selfless then why are you afraid of me right now? Miss 'I love bakura'. I shoulda guessed, you're just lying aren't you? Trying to take my men from me!"

She blinked, trying to figure out how he reached that conclusion, "I'm afraid of you right now because you look like you're going to hurt me."

"Who's to say that I wont?"

"'kura please! Tell me what's going on? I haven't done anything!"

"You were probably thinking about it earlier, how to best bring me down, steal my men… I'm onto you."

She rolled her eyes, "Is that what you think? Do you want to know what I was thinking of earlier? Well! DO YOU!"

He growled at her, which she figured was her signal to speak.

"I was thinking about how lucky I was to actually have been accepted by you, especially since I never thought it would ever happen. But it's good to see your true feelings are in the light. You don't trust me. Not just me, you don't trust anyone. I'm mature enough to see when I'm not wanted," she got up out of the water and grabbed a towel.

"How can I be sure that you're not lying to me huh?" he was still growling.

She spun around, black hair whipping in the air, "I don't know. Its called trust 'kura. You either believe that I'm telling the truth or not. I haven't lied to you since I got here, so I don't know where this doubt is coming from, but I don't have to stick around and listen to it."

He stormed out of the pool and grabbed her by the wrist as she was about to walk off into the desert, "Don't."

"Leave me alone. I'm not talking to you until you talk sense into yourself. I'm not gonna be used as some punching bag when you're unhappy," she growled, yanking for her arm back but he wouldn't relinquish.

He dragged her back to the waters edge, "Take of your clean robes."

Groaning she yanked them back off and got back in the water with him.

Once in the water, he pulled her close to him, bare skin to bare skin, he rested his forehead on her shoulder. She was still trying to break free until she felt him release her and wrap his arms around her body. Then she stood still, blinking and confused as hell, "'kura what's going on?"

"You knew you were gonna have to work with me on this. I know you knew that," he was whispering, still angry, but not as much.

"It's kinda hard to work with someone who won't even give you a chance," her words were cold and flat.

"I know. You know that I haven't trusted anyone since that day," the memory of watching his parents die brought tears to his eyes.

"I know," she nodded, still cold, distant.

She felt a tear fall from his cheek to her shoulder, and instantly regretted her impatience. "'kura…"

He shook his head in the crook of her neck, "I'm… sorry Ati. I'll try harder… but you can't expect me to change overnight."

She nodded, "If I could understand where all this came from, that would make it a lot easier to try to adapt. I don't know what I did wrong that made you freak out…"

"You said you were happy, with complete disregard to your own actual feelings…"

She blinked, "It's true. I mean, yes I've had a horrible thing happen to me in my life, but I can't give up being happy for others." She lifted his head from her shoulder, holding his face in front of hers so he wouldn't miss anything, "Seeing the people that I care about, be happy, is what makes me truly happy in this world."

He binked, "And if I still don't believe you?"

She rolled her eyes and kissed the stupid thief on the lips, and kept kissing him until he kissed back.

"Believe me now?"

He shook his head but kissed her back.

Ati's eyes opened and she yawned happily, although that wasn't the best dream she'd had since living in the palace, she was glad to remember that things had changed since that time. She realized quickly that everyone was running around frantically because the pharaoh had left with the priests to kul elna.

Ati knew this was the end, and threw on a set of pale orange dancing clothes, that would blend in perfectly with the sand of the desert. She ran for the stables, to see that even mana had left, and grabbed the best horse she could before mounting it and taking off for kul elna. If she could reach there, not only could she see the end, but she wouldn't have to wait for Bakura to get her out of this hell any longer.

She set off, knowing she wouldn't reach there for hours, or that it might take her all day.

-…-…-…-

The pharaoh fell to one knee, grabbing his arm. His latest monster had just fallen.

Bakura laughed, his diabound hadn't even been scratched by anything the Pharaoh threw at him. "Ready to surrender?"

The noble man shook his head, "I'll never surrender to you."

Bakura shrugged, "It's your loss." He sent his Diabound straight for the Pharaoh himself, only to receive a counter attack from one of the silly priests.' "Face it, you can't keep this up much longer!"

Bakura stood at the tablet and fought the six of them proudly, watching as they all fell slowly, until his win was inevitable. He started laughing hysterically, "Give it up pharaoh."

The pharaoh tried to stand but was too weak, Karim was on the verge of death, and was cradled by Isis. He kept his eyes focused on Bakura until he heard a loud thump. The Pharaoh turned around and saw Ahknaden who had just knocked out Karim and Isis and was about to knock out Shadah.

"Ahknaden," the Pharaoh was stuttering, "what're you doing?"

"Something I should have done years ago," he grinned and took the items from the unconscious guardians and offered them to the spirits to put at the tablet. That along with the items he'd taken from everyone else during the battle only left ahknaden's eye.

"Your eye," Bakura outstretched his hand, waiting.

"Yes master Bakura," he grinned cynically and put his hand up to his eye before ripping out the millennium item and throwing it to Bakura.

"The world is mine now Pharaoh," he laughed eccentrically. "You don't stand a chance."

Review? Yes, no, maybe so? Newho, I hope you liked it. Its comin to an end. Who will win, Pharaoh or Bakura? Place your bets :))