Chapter 6 "I can't take anymore."

Author notes: Yes, your eyes haven't deceived you, this is me working on the story. The Magician of Black Chaos is helping me with MD so YAY! This is probably the last chapter of Scars and Tears. Someone requested I put something in here with the lights and Yami. Will he give up Bakura so easily? You bet the money Bakura swiped he won't! Will he succeed is the question. Thanks everyone for the support. And very sorry about the delay, Writer's block is more a bitch than Yami Malik being an insomniac is.

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Yami walked down the sidewalk from Malik's house until he was out of eyeshot, and then ran as fast as his legs could carry him to the library, which he knew, was open late. Just as he reached the building, his cell phone rang. "Hello?" He answered hastily.

The voice on the other end was his Aibou. "Yami? What's the matter? Did you find Bakura yet?" Yugi asked. There was silence and Yami's light blinked in confusion on the other end. "Yami? Are you there? Did you find Bakura?"

"Yes," Yami said, his voice breaking. "With Malik Ishtar."

"What? He's in Domino?" Yugi asked, blinking. "Since when?"

"For a while now. That's what's been wrong with Bakura all this time. But…it seems he is not the Bakura I'm in love with."

"What are you talking about?"

Yami began walking at a brisk pace to the doors of the library. "I don't have time to explain, Aibou. Malik's changed him. Back to the way he was before."

Yugi paused. "Where are you?"

"I'm going to the library."

"We're coming. Ryou will want to come. We'll be there soon," Yugi said. Yami gave his agreement, and opened the doors, walking in. Not noticing the familiar figure seated a table; Yami made his way to the history section. He quickly browsed through the shelves and found a book on ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Unfortunately for other people, the book was in hieroglyphs, but Yami could read the symbols, and opened the book on a nearby table, flipping to the near middle of the book.

"C'mon, by Ra, where is it?" Yami muttered, flipping pages like mad. "There!" He breathed out a sigh as he read the ancient language:

This symbol is carved into the arm, swift and deep, and filled with the blood of another, in the deep groves. Blood sets, and the souls are bonded as if they were by destiny. The other has the same symbol carved in his arm, filled with the blood of the first. Emotions are one, thoughts remain individual. They are bonded for eternity. The ceremony was used by Pharaohs to keep subjects in order—

"No," Yami whispered, putting his palm against the pages. He almost clenched his hands into fists, but remembered that he shouldn't destroy the library's property. "This ceremony…that symbol on Bakura's arm…But who performed it for Malik and Bakura? It had to be someone close with Malik…"

"Yami!" Yugi's voice pierced Yami's thoughts, and the dark half of Yugi turned around to see his light. "There you are! Did you find anything?"

Ryou put a hand on Yugi's shoulder and looked at his friend's darker half. "Something's happened, hasn't it? You didn't tell Yugi everything…but could you tell me? I have a feeling it's very important…"

Yami nodded. "It is, Ryou. More important than anything…" He cleared his throat and forced himself to regain his composure. Slowly, he began to explain all he knew about the situation, and showed Ryou the symbol. "This symbol was carved on Bakura's arm, and Malik's. The ceremony that was performed binds them with each other's blood. They are one, in mind and spirit. I fear it's too late to do much about it."

Ryou's dark hazel eyes flared a little as he walked up to Yami and swiftly gave him a backhand across the left side of his face. Yami put a hand to his cheek and looked at the usually calm and placid boy in shock. "You can't give up hope so easily. I know you still love my Yami. It shows so clearly in your eyes. And now you're going to give up because of some ancient ceremony? Love is much stronger than some ceremony! Are you going to let the best thing that ever happened to you slip through your grasp again? You must be as dense as yami used to say!" Yami recoiled at the boy's unusually harsh words, but stayed silent. "If you truly want my yami back, you're going to have to fight for him. This ceremony might bind his mind and spirit, but it hasn't taken his heart yet." His features softened, and Ryou put a hand on Yami's shoulders. "For my sake as well…"

Yami felt a salty tear run down his cheek and put a hand on Ryou's. "I was just over at that house. He specifically told me he wouldn't come back with me. I've hurt him in some way. A way that I have no idea how I did such a thing…Ryou. You're the only one who can get through to him now."

Ryou closed his eyes for a moment and nodded. "I understand. But I want you to come with me. If we are both there, maybe we can talk some sense into yami."

Yami shook his head sadly. "I want to go with you, but I can't stand the pain of rejection…it would have more impact if you went, Ryou."

Bakura's light looked at Yami with worry in his eyes, but nodded. "Yugi, you should go and check on grandpa. Yami…I don't know what good it will do, but please stay here and check on some kind of…I don't know…counter to this ceremony. There must be something. I'll go and see if yami is going to listen…" Both Motous nodded, and Ryou left the library.

"Here he is back again," Bakura muttered, as he sat on the front steps. The snarl in his look was gone almost immediately as he saw his Aibou, instead of Yami. "Ryou…"

Malik kept a protective hand on Bakura's shoulder. An unusual sense of guilt began to wave over him as he saw a boy that he had considered a friend. 'What are you doing here Ryou? Damn it…'

Ryou walked up confidently to the steps, and looked to his yami. "What's going on here? Malik, what are you doing in Domino?"

The blond Egyptian pursed his lips together. "I came to get what Isis predicted was mine, Ryou. Your yami was someone to fear before that Pharaoh destroyed him."

"He finally found his happiness before you came, Malik," Ryou protested, looking distressed. "I understand your feelings, but if it was meant to be, don't you think it would've happened on its own?"

"Nothing happens unless you make it happen," Malik countered. "Ryou, you are one of the few people that understand me, and I hope you understand this. The love of Yami and Bakura was doomed from the start. Pharaoh's do not change…he hurt Bakura all those years ago and hurt him again. You must have felt the pain, did you not, Ryou?"

Ryou stopped, and thought for a moment, frowning. He did feel his darker half's declining mood, one that he kept secret even after the basement fiasco. "Yami caused all this? I refuse to believe it. Yami loves Bakura. I don't know what's transpired between the two of them, but it can't be without good reason." He looked at Malik. "But I assume this is not about Yami, is it? This is about you."

Malik froze, and refused to show it, but Ryou did see the hesitation in the violet orbs. Bakura was silent, and felt the tanned boy tense tremendously. What the hell was going on? Everything's not what it seemed to be. 'Fair is foul, and foul is fair, is it?' Bakura thought, thinking back to the immortal words of the tyrannical Scottish King, Macbeth. 'I don't know what to think anymore. It's best not to think. It doesn't get you anywhere in a place where actions are what are needed.'

The Ishtar heir's gaze never left Ryou's, and he finally spoke. "I have told you once before. I am merely setting Isis' prediction in motion. I do not wait for fate. Fate doesn't exist for me. You make your own fate, not the stars!"

"I have a feeling you played foully to get your prophecy fulfilled, am I not right?" Ryou asked, and smiled inside when he saw Malik's eyes flicker with worry. Ryou walked up a few more steps, getting a good look into the troubled eyes of Malik. "I have a feeling that Yami didn't really do all those nasty things, am I right?"

"What proof do you have of these accusations?" Malik demanded, his tough exterior now rapidly deteriorating. "Ryou, as much as I want to fulfil this prophecy for myself, I would never use such measures, to use such mind games."

"But your yami would!" Ryou accused, a powerful undercurrent in his usually soft voice. His wide brown eyes were narrowed angrily, and his fists clenched and unclenched. "I know your yami very well, Malik. He would not hesitate to use any measures thought by the mind to get what he wanted. And I know you fully agreed to do whatever he suggested. This is not the way, Malik! You used your Rod to control Yami!"

Malik growled, and glared at Ryou. "I did no such thing, and where is your proof?"

Ryou stood his ground, intent on proving to his yami what was really going on. True, he had inferred most of what he was saying, but Malik's responses to the accusations were pure, and the young man knew he was hitting Malik's buttons dead on. "Yami's got a pure heart, and he's been tearing himself apart because he doesn't know what he's done to Bakura that's causing all of this! You controlled him and made him say those things! You—"

"Enough!!" Bakura yelled suddenly, standing up, throwing Malik's arms off of him. "I don't want to hear anymore!" He turned around, walking backwards down the stairs, past his Aibou to the edge of the sidewalk. He ripped off the bandage from his still fresh wound, wincing as the cold air hit the gashes. "So throughout this entire thing, I've been nothing but a pawn? I'm nothing but a prize to you? If it's not Yami, it's you, Malik! Why can't anyone just be fucking straightforward with me?! Why must everyone play me?!"

Ryou reached out to his darker half, a purely sympathetic look creased in his features. "Bakura…just listen to me…you know I wouldn't lie to you—"

Bakura looked distressed and pissed off like to his lighter half. "I don't know what to believe anymore! For all I know, you could be the next one to turn against me!" He turned to Malik. "Why did you have to come here and destroy my life?" Bakura growled when Malik failed to answer him right away. "Speak up you no good mother fucking…"

"You know better than anyone what it's like to be hurt." Malik looked up from his stare-down with the porch's steps, and looked at Bakura. "The hurt of what Yami did to you thousands of years ago is much like what his will had done to me. What could I do? You were hopelessly devoted to the one that was destined to hurt you again. I had to do something drastic in order to ensure that you would be mine…" His eyes flashed, and he clenched his fist. "Admit it, if you had the chance, you would've done the same thing. Evil cannot fully die, although it can be stanched, it cannot fully be extracted. You are what you are, Bakura. You are a killer, and you are evil."

"And you thought by playing with my mind, I'd come to you like a dog to his master?" Bakura snapped, as the blood ran down his arm, down his fingers onto the cold pavement. "You have made one fatal miscalculation in your master plan, Ishtar. I don't respond well to being a pawn in someone's game. I don't…I can't do this anymore. I can't just be good little Bakura, and I just can't be your cold-hearted Killer. I'm something in between, and if you want the cold-hearted killer, that's not me anymore…But you and Yami both want something that I'm not. I'm not completely changed, I'm still the old me, but I'm not fully the old me. And you both want what I was, or what I should be…and since…you can't take me for me…and you seem to just want to play me…I'm…"

"Going to leave," Ryou finished, and his darker half looked at him a mixture of shock and defeat. "You're going to leave Domino. And you are not leaving without me."

"I can't let you stay with someone as cursed as me. You're…too good to be taken down the drain with someone like me," Bakura said, his voice cold and un-passionate. Unknown to him, Yami had been standing behind him for the better part of his speech, hearing every word, and was shocked to silence. He had come straight from the library as he had found something that would've countered whatever Malik had done. "You're always a part of me, but I just can't live with this. I have to leave."

"You are not going without me, yami," Ryou said firmly, walking over to him. Malik noticed Yami and clenched his eyes shut, biting his lip. A thought entered his mind, and he turned around, and went inside the house immediately. Yami Yugi went un-noticed by Bakura and Ryou. "You are my other half, and as much evil as you have done, as much as you think that you don't deserve anyone, I will be with you."

Bakura looked at his Aibou with expressionless eyes. He gave a slight nod and brushed past Yami as he began to walk down the sidewalk. He stopped suddenly, as Ryou caught up with him and turned his head slightly to Yami. "Our love was never to survive. As your guardians thought, and as I know now…Pharaohs and Tomb robbers never were destined to love." Ryou looked back at Yami and gave a slight nod, as he and his darker half walked away.

Yami clenched his fists, crumpling up the parchment that was in his hands. The old brown paper soon was stained with his tears, as he lowered his head, the crystalline droplets hitting the pavement. A hand was placed on his and he looked up. "Seto?"

-END-

Sasha Janre: What a killer of an ending. I don't personally like the way it ended, but there was no other way to really end something labelled 'Scars and Tears'. Please review, and no hates or flames, please…this does however lead way to a three-quel. You're going to have to wait for that one, though. I'm pretty busy now with school and my writer's block. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, and sorry to those who expected a happy ending. ~Sj