Disclaimer:
Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi. "The Rime
of the Ancient Mariner" belongs to Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
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The soft sound of feet treading the ground woke Yugi up.
He pushed himself onto his elbows and stared drowsily at the surrounding area, trying to figure out if it was worth waking the others. That Eliminator he'd fought for Mai had said there were more like him roaming the island, and though Yugi was confidant in his dueling skills, a midnight battle all alone wasn't something he was really looking forward to.
There was a movement over to his right, and Yugi sat all the way up. He narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the shape in the moon's light. Their campfire had burned out earlier.
There was a small clearing up ahead, on the edge of the island's cliffs, so the low roar of the ocean could be heard over the noise of the owls and crickets. As his eyes adjusted, Yugi saw Bakura stretched out on the grass, staring up at the sky. The smaller teen stood up and walked over.
"Hey, Bakura," he said. "Couldn't sleep?"
"No," he answered, sounding a little distant.
Yugi sat down, giving Bakura a concerned look. "Is everything okay?"
"I...I guess not," the other teen answered. "It doesn't seem real yet."
Yugi gave him a confused frown.
"That it's gone," Bakura clarified. "It's...just....I keep expecting it to appear at any instant, even angrier than before."
Yugi sat down next to him. "You don't have to worry, though. He was sent off to the graveyard. The Reaper of Cards must have got him by now."
Bakura stared back up at the stars. "Oh, Yugi," he said a moment later.
"Yes?"
"Between Panik and the rest of today, I never got a chance to thank you," Bakura said, turning to look at him. "For sealing...him away in the Shadow Realm."
Yugi shook his head. "It wasn't really me," he said. "It was my Puzzle."
Bakura shook his head in response. "But it was your attack that sent him to the graveyard. I really can't apologize enough to you and the others. If you hadn't managed to pull him out of my body...I could have killed you all."
"You also managed to stop his attack," Yugi felt it was only fair to mention. "That was brave, Bakura."
Bakura sat up and ran a hand through his hair, absent-mindedly picking out a blade of grass. "'Brave' would have been getting rid of that Ring long ago, no matter what," he said quietly, shredding the blade.
Yugi was about to ask what he meant by that, when he noticed the sleeve of Bakura's sweater had ridden up, revealing an ugly scar on his wrist. "What happened to you?!"
Bakura immediately jerked the sleeve down and stared at the ground, silent. Yugi began to feel nervous, worried that he had over-stepped his bounds. "I'm sorry," he began, "it's none of my business."
There was an uncomfortable pause. "...I tried to kill myself," Bakura said quietly.
For a second, Yugi was shocked, unable to believe his ears. "You...." He trailed off as the boy drew his legs up, continuing to stare at the ground. "Bakura..." he placed a hand on the white-haired teen's shoulder. "You're safe now. He's gone."
"But it doesn't feel like it. Yet." Bakura shot him a grateful look to soften his words.
Yugi kept his hand on Bakura's shoulder a moment longer, before removing it. "I promise."
Then the English boy jerked suddenly and stared down at his chest. Yugi noticed a faint golden glow emanating beneath his sweater. Bakura slipped the cord of the Millennium Ring over his head, pulling it out. They stared.
"Bakura, am I seeing things, or is your Millennium Ring actually glowing?" Yugi asked.
"If it's not, then we're both hallucinating," he answered.
"That's kinda spooky, don't you think? The way it's pointing like that?" Yugi asked.
"Yes," Bakura answered. "It's almost like it's being tugged toward the castle." He looked up and across the distance, where the stone structure lay.
"Pegasus' castle," Yugi mused. "Why would it do that?"
"I don't know, but it did the same thing the day I first met you. I had just been transferred into your school," Bakura said. "I was watching you guys play Duel Monsters, when suddenly my Ring started to glow, and pointed right towards your Millennium Puzzle!"
A piece of the mystery clicked in Yugi's mind. "Wow, Bakura. Those pointers are somehow able to zone in on the other Millennium Items!" he said excitedly.
Bakura frowned at it. "But then why would it point toward the castle?" he asked.
"Because of what's inside the castle," Yugi answered. "Pegasus' Millennium Eye! That's what took my Grandpa's soul," he added.
Bakura shook his head. "My, it's all a bit scary, 'ey Yugi? Pegasus grabbing souls with his; and I'll never forget when mine took our souls to the Shadow Realm," his voice trailed off.
"Mm," Yugi nodded. The two boys continued staring, and after a few more moments the pointer ceased glowing and dangled loosely from the Ring once more. Bakura hung the Ring back around his neck and slipped it beneath his sweater again.
The two of them sat quietly for a while, with only the animals and the ocean making noise.
Yugi was beginning to feel slightly sleepy when Bakura shifted again, before asking, "What's yours like? Your spirit."
Yugi chewed his lip as he thought about that. He'd felt a sort of presence within him before after he'd solved the Puzzle, especially when he played Duel Monsters, but to call it a spirit....
Although, after that battle with Bakura--the evil Bakura--it seemed that there was indeed someone else inside him, or the Puzzle, or both.
Yugi had never pictured anything quite like that before, and it was a little disconcerting.
"Confidant, I guess," he said finally. "And strong. And really good at Duel Monsters."
"So was mine," Bakura mused. "I wonder if there's any sort of connection between the two...." He propped his chin in his hand, thinking.
"You told me that the man who sold your father that Ring said it had to do with Duel Monsters, right?" Yugi asked, feeling another piece of a mystery gigantic in scope starting to tug at his brain.
"Mm-hmm," Bakura agreed. "That's why it was so strange."
After a pause, Yugi asked: "Was yours really that bad?" Trying to steal all the Millennium Items is pretty awful, he thought, but to drive someone to suicide, especially someone as gentle as Bakura....
Bakura nodded. "Yours isn't?"
Yugi shook his head slowly. "No, I don't think so," he trailed off. "I've never felt anything bad about him before."
"I could never keep track of what mine did," Bakura said with unanticipated bitterness. "He just took over when it pleased him, and I had to figure out what might have happened once I woke up again. Eventually, it was no longer worth the effort."
Yugi narrowed his eyes, staring past the trees. "Woke up..." he repeated, though he had an idea what Bakura was talking about. There had been several times when problems of his had taken care of themselves--like the mugger he'd fought for Tea. She swore he'd beaten him, and something had obviously happened to knock the man out, but Yugi knew he had been unconscious until after the thug was down.
But if Bakura's story was anything to go on, he very well could have been unconscious and still been fighting....
If his first thoughts had been disconcerting, these were downright frightening. Yugi lay back against the grass, pondering what all this could mean.
After a while, he wanted to ask Bakura if his spirit had ever said anything about the Items, but when he turned to look at him, the other teen had curled up and fallen asleep.
Yugi folded his arms beneath his head and gazed up at the moon. Why is it the more involved I get with Pegasus and this whole tournament, the more it all seems to be connected to these Millennium Items? he wondered. First there was Pegasus' Millennium Eye, and now Bakura's Millennium Ring; and of course, my Millennium Item....
He frowned at the night sky. Ever since I first solved that ancient puzzle, playing Duel Monsters has never been the same. Now, every time I duel, I can feel this strong, courageous presence within me. And whatever that spirit is, I pray it will help me save my grandpa. He shut his eyes briefly. I miss him. I miss him so much.
Yugi picked up the Puzzle, staring at it for a minute. Bakura has had it so rough with his spirit, but I know mine is different. I have to trust him, he decided. "Please help me," he asked, hoping it would hear him.
There was a pause, and then the quiet of the night was broken by the sound of helicopter blades.