Hello :) I rarely write anything up here, but this is the best YGO quote ever:

Yami Yuugi :- 'Malik, stop this meaningless duel now!'

Dark Malik :- 'Meaningless? How can torturing your friend be meaningless?'

I love my main character.

...

Also, this is my favorite chapter so far :)

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The Eye and the Ring.

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I

When a slave found him in the dungeons, and told him that they were waiting for him in the palace, Dark Malik didn't think too much of it. He was secretly pleased to be out of the damp, dull chambers: he only liked the darkness if he was in control of it. Otherwise… He welcomed the warm daylight on his face when he came to the end of the stone steps.

He was led to a sunny courtyard, where Mahaado and Karim were discussing something animatedly- he didn't get to hear what precisely, but he didn't particularly care about it.

They did not tell him much. Only that Priest Mahaado was going to the sacred grounds of burial, and that he needed someone to ride with him. It was a good chance for him to see more of the country, so he did not ask much either. He dismissed it all as a quirk of the priests, perhaps Isis' making, so he accepted with a shrug.

"We'll be leaving very early in the morning," the Priest of the Ring warned him, "Long before the sun rises- it is not a good omen to ride westwards when Ra is high in the sky."

Dark Malik nodded and left.

He did not return to the dungeons, however. He stole into the palace and snuck into his room, where he took off his robe and lay down on the bed, looking at the ceiling. He wasn't thinking particularly about anything, just relaxing.

Which was odd per se.

He felt the hot air breathe in from the open window, which made him feel drowsy, and brought in the fragrant scents of the different types of aromatic trees that were already thriving in the garden. That, and the extraordinarily comfortable cushions, anesthetized his sense of evil in a remarkable degree, but he did not care much for it at the moment… It was not something he would ever be rid of. He could give it a break and enjoy that sort of a… break that fate had given him.

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You wiped the sweat off your forehead, and looked down at yourself: covered in black dirt again.

Mana had found you in the greenhouse. "Oh, oh, Khemet! Finally!" she'd exclaimed, "Come with me!" and she'd grabbed your elbow and dragged you out to talk to you in private.

"See, we're doing something super-special!" she'd said, excited, "Me and Master's other students, we're preparing him a laaaarge garden of papyrus to celebrate the solstice…!"

She'd seen you look at her as if she'd grown another head, and had clarified- it was because Mahaado really liked those plants, apparently, and his chambers had a window to some inner garden and well, they wanted to stuff it with papyrus. Whatever. The thing was, of all his students she was the one that had the least to study and had thought of going to the Nile to get them herself. And then she'd thought she'd never finish in time, and since you were all the time in the gardens, well, maybe you could help her?

"You mean we have to come and go to the Nile many many times for… huge papyrus plants?"

She'd nodded eagerly.

You'd sighed. "Okay, okay… but are we getting any help?"

"No! It's a surprise!" she'd cried.

"But… we'll be rather… obvious… someone will see us!" you'd argued.

She'd not listened.

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"In the palace they keep saying that they need strong Kaa to fight Bakura… Priest Seth's been ranting about it a lot lately," Mana commented as you returned to the palace for the first time, carrying many plants each- but by the size of the little inner garden, you estimated you'd be needing another two trips. Yippee.

"I don't see why, the Priests are all waaaay stronger than that good-for-nothing thief," she reasoned aloud.

You frowned. "I don't know, Mana… doesn't he always sneak in and out of this place, and they never get to catch him?"

She stared at you- "Ey Khemet, are you on his side? Of course they'll get him, you wait and see…"

But you shrugged- you didn't really care much about Bakura or whatever. Just as long as he stayed away from you.

"I overheard the maids saying stuff today," Mana said, now absolutely less cheerfully, "They said that Master wanted to take him down himself…"

Mahaado? Your eyebrows lifted in surprise: "But isn't he too sweet-tempered?"

Mana scowled at you, "Not that! He's just… not the kind of person that does that. But he loves Atem… the Pharaoh, I mean. He'd do it for him."

She locked eyes with you. "All of a sudden I'm scared, Khemet…" she said.

You frowned at the girl. "Oh, come on, Mana… It's just hallway nonsense: maids talking about priests! Don't worry about things that are so far from happening…"

She smiled meekly. "Hope you're right…"

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You shuffled your feet all the way through the corridor, feebly opened the door and closed it, and slumped onto the settee at the entrance of the room, that was in the space that belonged to neither half of the chamber.

It hadn't been three trips to the Nile, it'd been five, and you calculated that if a whole herd of elephants had trampled on you, you wouldn't be feeling so damn tired. At least you'd finished, and Mana had not sunk into depression at her master's seemingly ominous perspectives. You believed that in those hours you'd spent with the young magician-in-the-making, there was not a sliver of palace gossip you'd not come to know.

As you were storing the papyrus in a small chamber behind the kitchens, a student who was in the scheme with Mana had gladly come to inform her that their master would be away the following day: they'd have the whole day to prepare their surprise!

Oh, if you looked at it in hindsight, Mana didn't probably deserve the deep scowl you'd dedicated to her.

"You mean we could have waited till tomorrow and done this with some help?" you'd said, rather irritated. She'd laughed nervously: how could she have known? And you'd sighed.

Incidentally, the student had also said that Mahaado would be going wherever he was going with that man… what was his name? The tall, lean man the Gods had sent?

It stirred your curiosity, of course. But that was about it.

Your thoughts roamed that way, and, after a while of lingering on the settee, you heard the door open and saw Dark Malik walk in. A maelstrom of scents trailed after him- exotic, spicy scents. His hair looked wildly tousled and his expression was rather calm. You sat up straight and looked at him.

He only lifted an eyebrow at you.

"No," you said sharply, "I wasn't waiting for you."

Your comment seemed to amuse him, because his lips combed up vaguely into something that could have been a smirk.

"You break my heart," he scornfully said under his breath, and you looked away to hide a passing look of irritation, but looked yet again at him as you heard him begin to walk to his side of the room.

"What's that?" you asked simply, when you noticed he was carrying a small package.

"Dates," he answered simply, too.

It made you smile in disbelief, because you somehow put two and two together- "You went down to the market place?"

He looked over his shoulder at you, rising his eyebrows half in amusement, half in disdain. You took that look for a yes.

"I'd get tired of the dungeons too," you commented, and he cackled.
"You would."

And you didn't like the way he said it, it showed in your face, and he laughed again, derisively and more loudly, leaving effectively for his side. He did not, however, go out of sight for you: he placed the package on a desk, opened it and took out one of those things he'd called dates. You squinted your eyes to see better, it looked… well, it wasn't like the bright orange dates you'd seen growing on the palm trees in the gardens. It was of a brownish color, as if it were coated with dark caramel. He smirked in appreciation as he munched on it. The scene made you crack a smile again: it was not something you saw an evil being do on a regular basis, right?

You stood up, and tentatively walked a couple of steps towards him, leaning against the wall.

"Are they good?"

He'd been neatly ignoring you. However, when he looked up, licking his finger in an absent-minded fashion, he locked eyes with you.

"Get out," were his only words.

You stood up properly, missing the support of the wall immediately, and delivered a last curious look to the dates. They really did look appetizing.

"You're going with Mahaado tomorrow?" you asked him, taking a step backwards, and then another. "He's the Priest of the Ring, right?"

Of course, you got no answer- you were starting to learn that was Dark Malik's way of saying "yes".

"I wonder when it was that Bakura got it… the Ring, I mean. I thought he had always had it."

Dark Malik shrugged and swallowed another date.

"He stole it"

"Oh…"

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II

It was dark outside, dark but murky. He knew from years of experience that it signaled that daybreak would begin in about an hour's time, he could tell it from the scents, the coolness in the air. Despite it being thousands of years before his actual birth, the signs from the elements were the very same.

He slipped his sleeveless robe on, fastened a holster with a sheathed scimitar to his hip (he vaguely recalled the Millennium Rod, a similar weight, though a completely different aura). Silently, he left the room, although he could not pretend he did not feel a tugging at the back of his mind, the one he knew was warning him against the coming of the day.

Ominous things were bound to happen.

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As they rode past the limits of the city, the Priest of the Ring murmured a long prayer. Dark Malik's horse followed Mahaado's until they halted by the Nile, and got on a large sailboat to cross it. The former darkness's eyes narrowed when he noticed how restless his horse was becoming, as they neared the other bank of the river. Mahaado noticed it as well, and, with a hand on each of their horses' muzzle, chanted something under his breath that had soon set the animals at ease.

"They never like the lands of burial," the priest commented, "There are many spirits still roaming those sands- they're foreign for me too. Therein lies a power that draws on sources we priests could never dream of taming…"

He sighed, and Dark Malik looked at him, then looked at the nearing desert. So that was what brought the Magician-Priest to the other side of the Nile: he sought the power of those restless spirits he claimed inhabited those lands.

"What are they?" the blond Egyptian asked.

"Souls that are trapped between this world and the next one," Mahaado answered.

Soon, they disembarked, and the ferryman lit a narrow pipe and said he would wait for their return.

They did not gallop this time. Mahaado had his horse tread softly on the still sand, which almost glistened under the blinding sun.

"A soul can only reunite with the gods if the rites of passage were completed," the priest said quietly, but Dark Malik heard him clearly: the silence was absolute.

"If the person was evil, on his death his baa will sink below the sand, and fuse with the dark bowels of Zorukh Necrophades, the great evil, consort of the wicked Apophis…"

Dark Malik listened carefully as the great wizard spoke, because he had only inferred slightly what he was hearing. It was part of the ancient knowledge that had not been passed down through generations: much had been lost when the vast library in Alexandria had burnt to cinders, much more had vanished with the successive invasions to Egypt from empires that imposed foreign cultures and religions on the people.

What he had come to know in the present, what Malik's father had told Malik or even what Isis knew, was but a small fragment of what had once been the greatest magical treasure of the Ancient World.

He listened with genuine interest and curiosity.

"However, there remain the souls of those who were not evil, but were not blessed with a passage either," Mahaado cast his eyes downwards while he said that, "suffering, trapped between worlds… they possess a power unlike anything we may know of, arcane magic… vestiges of the energy that the Gods used once to put together this world…"

Dark Malik was shocked to feel a wave of something hit him right before he, following Mahaado's actions, dismounted the horse. The ground pulsated against the soles of his feet with coursing, subdued energy.

In silence, they stood before the stone pillars that signaled the entrance to the lands of burial. Even in that ancient time they were arcane, having existed already for thousands of years. They seemed to be made out of nothing but sand and stone, and intricate hieroglyphs covered every inch of what the wind could not erode away. A lone statue of the god Anubis presided over the silent landscape.

The former evil spirit hesitated to follow the High Priest into the sacred grounds.

He was not, he was sure of this, deemed by the gods as worthy to enter such a place. The energy that clouded around him and wove around his ankles told him as much. He had never felt such oppression in his chest as he was feeling; the constriction, the lack of air. The place was, as the Priest of the Ring had told him, owned by a power foreign to them.

Mahaado turned around to look at Dark Malik from beyond the stone entrance.

"They will not harm you, they can't," he heard the priest say, "Their power does not belong in this world."

Dark Malik hesitated, but, finally, he stepped towards the pillars. He crossed their threshold with eyes shut tightly. The energy strengthened tenfold, but nothing changed in him that had not changed in him before (the tight fist gripping his heart, the lack of air…)

"It is not their baa that remains, it is not their kaa either," Mahaado told him when he was by his side again, "It is a tenuous form of the spirit we know as the shen; the eternal, will-less figment of the soul that is undying."

With eyes wide open, Dark Malik looked at the priest.

"The shen…?"

He'd never heard of such a thing. How could it be possible…? Was he not a being created of Ancient Egyptian magic…?

Mahaado guessed his thoughts. "That is knowledge only passed down from high priest to high priest."

A blond eyebrow was lifted at him, clearly meaning, then why would you tell me?

The priest of the Ring smiled gently at him. "Were you not something akin to one, in that future you came from?"

Dark Malik did not exactly gape at the priest, but he got dangerously close. The bewilderment in his eyes only served to slightly deepen the priest's smile.

"Hadn't you ever thought of it that way?" He contemplated the younger man's reaction, which was somewhere between wild surprise and disconcert.

"The Millennium Rod will only respond to a priest's power," commented Mahaado, matter-of-factly.

In the absorbing silence, the priest's words seem to ring with an eerie force. Dark Malik chose to set the matter aside and hide his puzzlement by asking, "Why are we here?"

Mahaado smiled privately. The young man would come to terms with such a revelation, eventually. But it was the purest truth.

Only a powerful priest was allowed by the Rod to wield its power.

"Some days ago, pharaoh Akhenamkhamen's tomb was desecrated."

Dark Malik listened stoically to Mahado's words, as he added "This did not come to be publicly known in palace… our former pharaoh's body was safely placed elsewhere, but there are rites of purification that must be done, that is our mission here today."

The blond Egyptian was not completely convinced by the priest's explanation. He'd been willing to bet they were there to harvest the power that those… souls of shen held.

"You are mistaken," Mahado said, evidently reading in his eyes, "Our kingdom is under a threat from the shadows, but the power to defeat them does not lie in those who did not reach the afterworld. It would be reckless and dangerous to seek such power…"

Dark Malik shrugged. He was beyond the point where he wondered how Mahaado seemed to know exactly what he was thinking, and focused instead on the knowledge he could get from the wise sorcerer.

Mahado gathered the guards that had arrived not long before them, and had them clear the entrance to the former pharaoh's tomb. A large boulder was moved to reveal a stone staircase that descended into chambers shrouded in darkness.

"Seal the entrance after I am come in… and should I not come out by nightfall, return to the palace without me".

Dark Malik found the priest's request strange to say the least, and suspicion awoke in him that there was much more that the priest was not telling them than he had initially considered.

An itch in the back of his mind seemed to whisper that it was also strange that it should be him, and not another priest like Mahaado, who appeared to be in charge of reigning in the guards if anything happened to the Priest of the Ring.

But he was already there, and it was much that he had learned by coming, so he let the thought remain there, in the back of his mind.

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The guards muttered among themselves as the hours dragged on, and he now and then caught unconnected phrases such as, "Mahaado was always the guardian of the royal tombs", and "if it's true that that tomb-robber was in palace, maybe he will come here?".

They were scared and hesitant, and the hours of waiting did not do good on their nerves. They did not attempt to talk to Dark Malik, and he did not go to talk to them either. He sat in the shade of a small cliff and drew his own conclusions. Apparently, there was an evil character that robbed tombs that had begun setting a play of his own. Dark Malik didn't want to go too further in his guessing game, but he had a hunch, and it was a strong, displeasing hunch.

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Night fell amid a terrible, heavy silence, and Dark Malik instructed the guards to head to the Nile and return to the palace to inform. Just in case, he said, he was staying there a while longer.

The guards left, spooked and thankful.

The blond Egyptian looked up at the fantastically starred sky and reveled in the perfect stillness. He was rather curious, as to who would come out of that tomb…

During the passing of the day, had felt two people inside of it. He had felt waves reach him, remnants of insane amounts of energy that came from within Akhenamkhamen's resting place. Yes, only one would come out of there…

He allowed himself to get lost in the deep firmament aloft. He'd know, soon, whether he liked the outcome or not.

III

He woke up with a start and stood up suddenly. He'd fallen asleep, and what had awoken him…

It was a strong, not entirely unfamiliar presence. A lingering, extremely powerful kaa, too.

Squinting his eyes, he made out a silhouette from the darkness. The starlight betrayed it.

"My my," a voice he had heard before said contemptuously, "What have we here?"

Dark Malik's eyebrow twitched as the King of Thieves waltzed around him, inspecting him in a calculating, mocking fashion, the Millennium Ring glistening on his chest as though it had always belonged with the tomb robber.

"It's the omen of the gods!" Bakura exclaimed at last, and let out a loud laugh for which the former tomb-keeper would have strangled him. But he kept calm and collected. How on Earth did Bakura know…?

"Oh, yeah, you might wonder how I know about you," Bakura cooed, "Well, I know everything- but besides, a friend of mine told me I'd see you here."

Dark Malik's eyes narrowed. Each passing second, he liked his situation less and less. He could feel the evil aura around the white-haired man. It disgusted him, because it reeked not only of horrible pride, but also of servitude- something he loathed with all his might.

"Enlighten me," he said through his teeth. This Bakura was perhaps even less tempting to deal with than the one he'd known for.. what? Only a shadow duel? The memory brought some humor to his present situation.

Bakura smirked broadly: "Well, let's see," he began, throwing his eyes up to the night sky, "They gave me two options: option one, kill you," he said tersely, and looked straight into Dark Malik's unamused eyes.

The expression on the thief king's face was snakish as he said, "Option two… offer you a little deal".

That did pique Dark Malik's curiosity, and Bakura got his full attention, so he kept talking.

"You see… what was your name again? Oh, it doesn't matter," he chuckled, "I've heard you're in need of… a body."

Dark Malik's eyes narrowed, and his hostile expression told Bakura that his informant –none other than Zorukh Necrophades- was indeed a remarkably good informant. He'd not been too convinced of what he'd heard when he'd been told that. But anyway… if there could be restless, vengative souls in Kul-Elna, why couldn't there be almost-bodiless creeps like that guy that stood before him? Dah, the hells he gave a damn. He smirked.

"As it turns out, I may be able to get you one…"

Dark Malik lifted an eyebrow. "And who the hells would give you the power to offer that?"

The Thief King smirked the most twisted smirk that Dark Malik had ever seen upon those features, which reminded him that the man before him was not really the one he had dealt with before.

"The Gods…" Bakura answered, with evident irony dripping from his words, "… of the underworld."

Dark Malik shrugged. "I've been there and back," he said dryly, "I don't see my interest. And I don't trust you." he finished with a smirk. Being evil still felt much more natural to him than having to play along the rules of the palace and wanting answers.

"A body that will last," the tomb robber went on, dismissing Dark Malik's words as unimportant, "Unlike the one you have now."

The blond Egyptian looked cryptically serious, and, Bakura could not ignore it, the man arose a distant unsettling feeling in him… like fear? Nonsense, he was the great Bandit King, he wasn't afraid of anything.

Bakura sneered at him. "It tempts you, hon, I see it in those pretty eyes of yours," and he scoffed.

"It may," Dark Malik said with a shrug. He wanted to see just how much information he could get out of the white-haired man before either of both lost patience and left.

Bakura's smirk was devious. "Wonderful," he said, and then added, "Oh, but there's one little thing," he sounded almost feline, "We haven't discussed the subject of payment…"

Dark Malik looked at him, dead serious as he'd been since the thief had addressed him the first time. Unimpressed and unamused.

Bakura grinned broadly- "We agree you must give something in exchange, right?" He chuckled, and Dark Malik despised the fun the man was having at his expense. Or seemed to be having, at least.

"It's not that much, actually," the Thief King said in quite a different tone of voice, as if he disapproved, "Only a soul".

Dark Malik scoffed at that.

"Oh, come on hon," Bakura cooed, "Don't give me –that–look… I never said it had to be your soul…"

It was the blond Egyptian's turn to smirk evilly. "Only one? Fantastic."

For once, Bakura did not respond to him right away. An evanescent sneer crossed his features, and he whistled for his horse, that came to him almost immediately. He hopped onto it, and as he gripped the bridles firmly, he faced Dark Malik for one last time.

"You'll be hearing from me soon," he informed, and, with that forever infuriating smirk of his plastered on his face, he made his horse gallop southwards.

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As Dark Malik rode back to the imperial city, his mind dissected bit by bit the strange happening of Bakura's proposition. He had a hunch, and a dark, warning feeling of foreshadowing.

Gods of the Underworld…

Yes, and he be damned. Dark Malik knew what it was about. There was but one god of the underworld, and it had, not too long ago, almost succeeded in sucking his heart out and pulling him back again into the abyss of darkness he'd once crawled out from. He wasn't such a fool; he wasn't buying Bakura's words.

On the other hand…

A body that will last… unlike the one you have now.

Yet, however little one soul meant to him, Dark Malik could not find himself to be tempted by the allure of the deal. It reeked of treason and hidden conditions.

The deep frown that creased his forehead had long since been settled there. He failed to understand Zorukh's morbid fixation with claiming him back to the darkness.

"Very well," he thought aloud, "I'll see to that when the moment comes…".

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The night was dark, and the palace was still as he stealthily made his way back to the room. He'd snuck past the guards because he didn't feel like giving explanations to any one- where he'd been, what had happened… where Mahaado was.

Gone, he was gone, and Bakura the tomb robber had taken the Millennium Ring. But he'd ridden many hours through the desert, he had sand and dirt all over him, in his nose and ears and hair and everywhere, his body ached, his head throbbed from the sun. He needed to sleep, and he couldn't care less about anything other himself.

Despite it all, the moment his feet crossed the room's threshold, he felt something was not as it should have been. A presence, a different type of energy… He frowned, and decided to investigate, against the wishes of his worn out body that demanded he went straight to bed. He took his sleeveless robe off, finally, and, throwing it on a stool, carefully advanced to your side of the room. A couple of candles glowed on the night-table and the narrow desk you had. But he wasn't fooled by what his eyes saw- the warm light, the calm in the air. You sat by the window, looking out at the sky.

"This time, I have been waiting for you, Malik," you said quietly when you felt him come near you. "You must be tired…?"

His eyes narrowed, though you didn't see it because you were ashamed to look at him.

He went straight to the point: "What happened here?", he asked under his breath.

But he would see you eventually… You turned to face him.

His eyes narrowed, and his lip twitched slightly, his expression was dark. But you understood his reaction. The ankh on your right cheek, the cartouche on your left, and the Wedjat on your forehead had not been there last time you'd seen him. They looked as if they'd been tattooed with white ink onto your skin.

"Impossible," you heard him say, "It means…"

"It was the Eye," you said spitefully, "Isis woke me up today… I did not tell her it was the Millennium Eye… I don't know if she knows."

He looked at you, with an unreadable look. Maybe of disgust.

You locked eyes with him: "It looked everywhere again… It was looking for you," the regret and bitterness in your voice was evident, "Look what it did to me!" you cried, and stood up. With violence unusual for you, you let the robe you were wearing fall to the ground, exposing your body to him: everything was covered in hieroglyphic script; on your chest, an ankh was encased in a shen, the symbol of eternity, from which large ink wings trailed over your collarbones and over your arms.

You stifled a sob. "What do I do now?" you asked, finally letting loose all the despair that had welled up inside you, "Why did this happen!?"

He responded by reaching out to you and feeling the back of your neck with his rough fingers.

"The incantation is complete," he observed, and then did something that puzzled you. He placed his hand on the ankh on your chest, and closed his eyes. His lips parted softly, and the eye of Horus shone on his forehead, his expression was not completely hostile: it was, in fact, as if he were feeling something pleasant.

You didn't feel anything at first yourself… but gradually you became aware of how increasingly warm it felt, until you felt the skin beneath his skin blaze, and he brusquely pulled back his hand and hid it behind his back- though not fast enough for you not to see his skin looked brownish, slightly charred.

"Powerful, arcane magic," he commented with a smirk, "This," he said, "is something other than the Millennium Eye."

You frowned. "Why do you look so happy?" you asked. You would have never guessed you'd be asking Dark Malik such a question, much less with such bitterness evident in your voice.

"It's… replenishing," he said, after giving some thought to the word replenishing. You stared at him in disbelief, but he didn't care about you. His fingers grazed once more the ankh on your chest and his eyes closed in a strange way, as if he were tasting something sweet, and enjoying it.

"Get away from me!" you screeched, slapping his hand off you. "You creep," you said under your breath, without much conviction. You liked the warmth of his skin, but you hated that you liked it.

"Good luck with concealing this, my dear…," he chuckled, evidently talking about the scripts. All of a sudden, he seemed to be in good spirits, and you noticed that the dark shadows he'd had under his eyes when he'd entered the room, the heavy breathing and the dull voice were gone. He was just as always. How strange…

"What does it say?" you asked.

He shrugged. "A good luck spell for the afterlife."

Your eyes widened considerably. "A what?"

He smirked. "So that the gods have mercy on your soul."

"You've got to be kidding me," you said, letting yourself fall on the chair again.

"It's a good spell," he commented, brushing his fingers against the Wedjat on your forehead, getting again that pleased look on his face.

"You freak me out," you said miserably.

His unsettling laugh rang in the darkness.

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It was before the crack of dawn that Dark Malik awoke, despite having been blessed with a deep, dreamless sleep.

A soft murmur of rushing sheets and rustling feathers made him will his eyes to focus, and in the starlight that filtered through the window, he saw a great figure posed on the bed, not too far away from where he lay.

Dark Malik was not a man who gave in to surprise, so he just looked longly at the yellow-eyed creature. When his sight finally fell into focus, he made out the shape of a large hawk, whose brown feathers looked pitch black during the night.

He sat up, knowing the bird would not fly away scared by the movement. Rather than that, it took a couple of clawed steps towards him, and extended its powerful left leg towards him. Wrapped around it and tied, there was a scrap of papyrus forming a package. No sooner had Dark Malik deftly untied it, that the bird spread its majestic wings, and, flapping them once, twice, took to the air and found its way out of the window with remarkable ease.

With a frown, and an odd gut feeling, he rolled out the papyrus. Within he found a note, and a thick, golden, diamond-shaped needle.

In very bad Egyptian, the note said:

You hear of me. As promised.

A bittersweet smirk played on Dark Malik's lips. Although he did not like the position in which this gift of sorts placed him, he could not help feeling replenished by the sleek surges of power that passed though the shard of the Millennium Ring, which filtrated past his skin, and into his very soul.

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A/N:I already said this but this is my favorite chapter so far. I love this chapter. Malik is awesome :D

And I want to dedicate it to Jaguarlioness who was the only reviewer for last chapter and might be the only person reading this after such a ridiculous hiatus :D So yay! Yay! Updates!

Btw cookie to the one that discovered the 'Little Mermaid' pun! Haha I'll give you a clue: just imagine Bakura as the Sea Witch XD omg i never grew up... ok, yeah, announcement:

I might change the title in the near future, when I come up with a better one. Do suggest stuff :)

Read you guys around!