All breath left her being as the tentacle that had flung her out to the raging waves, her flailing body colliding with a risen shipwreck that looked oddly familiar as the flash of gold that was Atem disappeared from sight. Her chest rose and fell with each deep breath she took as she hauled herself up but it wasn't until she had fallen over the banister that she realized why it looked so familiar. This was the cruise liner that she had performed upon! Pain seared up her injured leg but swallowed it down as her eyes combed over the once luxurious vessel's sorry state. Another ship's mast had pierced it through the upper decks and a determined glint entered her eye as she made for the bridge where the directional controls were. There had to be at least some power left within its backup system that could get it running if even for just a moment. "Alright," she muttered, steadying herself as she slipped inside the ruined control room. "Now's the time to put those skills Seto taught you to use."
. . . .
Atem's amethyst eyes had caught sight of her being tossed but he had to hope that she was somehow surviving as he dodged another blast that came from the triton. The swirling water around him was moving so fast that he was sure one touch would tear him to pieces but he was too vulnerable here upon the sand with the towering sorcerer grinning down on him. His magical energy flared as a bolt barely missed him, responding to his distress as he raised a hand. If he couldn't dodge maybe he could blind him! "Ortus!"
A roar rose from the giant, his hand rubbing furiously as his his eyes as a miniature sun exploded. "You pitiful insignificant fool, how dare you blind me!" The triton was twirled, its forked end disappearing into the clouds of the once colorful sunset sky, large black ones forming until they stretched as far as the eye could see and bringing with them lightning and torrential rain. Bakura's sneer returned as his vision cleared. "You came to me in hopes of discovering the reason behind your kingdom's fall and the demise of your father? I will tell you then! Your fate was decided the second your wretched father decided to seek my magic in hopes of saving his wife!" The next words that threatened to explode his eardrums caused his movements to stall. "It was I that killed your father and caused your kingdom's downfall! I sucked the very life out of him as I did so your grandfather but I was not in the mood for mercy that day so I devoured him myself!"
Horror filled Atem's features when the towering sorcerer fell into a fit of laughter. "It was you?!"
"And then I found out about the scale." Bakura licked his lips. "To think that the last surviving member of the legendary line linked to the first mermaid who gave birth to the cursed twins was your own mother! When I discovered that she had offered her scale to a lowly human I could not let it be." His chin rose. "I did what any prideful being of the ocean would do to protect the secrets that which we should solely know." A purr rose up his throat as understanding filled those eyes of the merprince and threw the triton, effectively pinning Atem against the sand so he could no longer escape. "That's right, your highness, I attacked the entire coastline and wiped out not only your kingdom but that of the humans! Every building was leveled by the time I was through but I could not locate the wretched scale and she had passed by that time! Little did I know that she had given birth to twins!"
The cold metal pressing him into the sand was nothing compared to the ice that had flooded his veins. So the natural disaster that had claimed the lives of Anzu and Seto's parents hadn't been an accident? Wide amethyst reflected various flashbacks as the sorcerer reached down to grasp the handle of the weapon: Yugi and him as children clinging to their grandfather as their ruined home disappeared from sight; the endless destruction they had found when returning; the tears Anzu had shed when she spoke of her deceased parents. "Monster…"
"Last words?" Bakura bent farther, a hand appeared behind his ear as if straining to hear. "Then let us hear them, the final words of Prince Atem!"
"The last words we will be hearing are your own, you monster!" Golden forks of lightning appeared across his body as he raised a hand and placed it against the weapon crushing him. His tail pulsed with power as the anger reached its apex, eyes rolling until they were staring at the back of his skull as a blinding golden light erupted from his being, a livid roar erupting from between his lips. The light transformed into chains, wrapping tightly around Bakura's form as he recoiled from the sudden light, finding that no matter how he struggled he could not break their hold and now that he no longer was holding onto the triton he couldn't call upon the innate power within it as the prince slipped out from under it with ease as if it were nothing more than a twig. "It's time for you to pay for what you've done!" From the corner of his eye, Atem spotted a sharp beam that had a jagged tip and with a sweep of his arm, the water that had been confining him within its center broke its formation of the towering whirlpool to launch the liner towards the sorcerer.