Disclaimer: I definitely do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! This is a fan fiction (a fan fiction based on fragmented hearsay at that), and is not done for monetary profit. It's for emotional satisfaction. I can see what I'm capable of writing, and by writing, I'm expanding my own boundaries of thought.
"Mourn" is technically the prequel to "Night." It explains how Rosa Bakura gets the ways she is. "Night," I think, is a project spanning five short pieces, including this one. I suppose "Mourn" takes place a few months after Battle City. "Invisible," which stars Honda, takes place two years later, abruptly followed by "Awaken," Rosa's next piece. Bakura is both "Ryou" and "Bakura" in this piece. Dark Bakura is always Yami Bakura.
Prologue:: Mourn
This is not a fantasy. I didn't suddenly realize something was wrong thousands of miles away by using a mysterious psychic power. At the time, I was in France. My voice was flying into the air with the rest of the harsh chorus, singing France's bloody anthem. My heart was rising because I was a part of the semi-talented group of students chosen to perform in the school concert. A harsh sun beat down on us, and the uniform stuck to my clammy skin uncomfortably, urban pollution flowing up my conditioned nose. With sweet French exploding up my throat and pouring out of my mouth, how could I have known anything? I was one of the few chorus members managing to hit most notes, and I was proud of it.
I didn't know anything was wrong until a few days after the event. "Your brother is missing," I read in an email from my father, "your brother, Ryou." My father and brother had been on the Pacific Rim, specifically Domino City, Japan. What my father didn't write was that Ryou had seemed to disappear off the face of this planet. The police had traced him to an exact location, as Ryou had been muddling about in Seto Kaiba's Battle City Duel Monsters tournament that day. After that, the police could find no sign of Ryou, causing my father to all ready live in grief.
I attentively watched the computer screen, as my brother was declared "missing," and then finally, "assumed dead." My father had to take me from the trusted care of Aunt Toyomi in France. I traveled to my mother's homeland of Japan for Ryou's memorial ceremony. It was more than that to me though, because half of the Bakura family was dead.
My mother, Riku Bakura, had died when I was six. Upon the death of Riku, her sister Toyomi had stepped in to raise me when grief, an active job, and two children overwhelmed my father. Ryou had been a quiet, calm person even at that age. To ease the burden, Toyomi took me with her to France. I had been a hyperactive six-year-old bundle of energy. Father's career demanded that he travel often, and move nearly every three or four years. He saw the security and stable environment Toyomi provided, and let me take permanent residence with my aunt in Paris. Toyomi practically became my mother, and her two children my siblings. Admittedly, they became my real family. My father and Bakura became the relatives I saw frequently on holidays.
I liked them, but never assigned them the awesome devotion I felt for Toyomi. I never knew Ryou the same way I knew Jean-Luc and Mari. With them, I bickered and stole the remote control out from under their noses. With Ryou, I conversed as if I were some self-respecting adult, rather than the wild and creative young woman I was growing to become. Even so, his death came hard. I actually termed his death as his disintegration into nothingness. Going to Japan only served one purpose, because I knew that only there would I be able to mourn.
Aunt Toyomi and my cousins flew to Domino City. We helped set up the ceremony, and decided to hold it outside. Rather than a grave, we paid for a six-foot monolith of pure white marble to bear his name. This monolith was in a graveyard among trees, and very near the sea. That early evening, the Bakura family stood in respect of the monolith, Ryou's picture on the ledge. Everyone held a candle, and my father nearly broke into tears during his speech.
"We wanted this near the sea so Ryou could hear it, if his soul ever presides here," my father mentioned softly. I still wasn't sure if I believed in souls or God. In my view, that God was a harsh man. Our dysfunctional family was tormented, only not breaking at the seams because there weren't any holding us together. Jean-Luc looked at me, a stern-faced and hardhearted girl, as my father nearly clawed his heart out and placed it on the monolith, still warm and bathed in its own essence.
I still couldn't cry. I was trying to remain placid despite the errors in my life. Who had written this? My brother had died at sixteen, before I could even grasp who he really was. Something seemed wrong in my gut. At the end of the ceremony, I blew out my candle rather than joining it with the main flame in front of Ryou's picture. I left in bitterness and discomfort, avoiding the consolations of my father's friends.
Bakura was something of a mystery to me. His true personality was hard to pen down. Ryou, and incredibly shy boy, had been an excellent actor. Once I had heard him speaking in a raspy, dark voice completely unlike his own, while he had locked himself inside his room. His accent had been obliterated at that time. Ryou had also owned this strange Egyptian artifact my father had given to him some time ago. It was called the Millennium Ring, and was a gold circle with five dangling prongs. Seeing it had creeped me out every time, yet Ryou had always worn it under his clothes.
A few days later, my emotions caught up with me. I went to the monolith by myself, and collapsed against the base. I began crying and found I couldn't stop, lying in the grass with the cold stone kissing my cheek. I cried from the agony bundled in my chest, a ball of emotion I hadn't had the chance to disperse. It had been keeping me awake most of the time since the ceremony. I wept until my eyes were sore and my head pounded, only to fall asleep against Bakura's bodiless grave. This monolith offered me no comfort, and felt wrong because its meaning was incorrect. We still weren't even sure if my brother was dead.
The fire and brimstone of eternal damnation was encompassed in this world of shadows. You were in danger of losing your mind here. This dimension pressed down on the human consciousness with despair, encouraging one to adopt a completely depressive state. The world of shadows contained the roads to the darker corners of a person's soul. I was suddenly walking one these paths as I went deeper into the swirling darkness. God had built this place in a total wrath, after finding the imperfection of his sentient creations. Then again, I can't dictate was God finds perfection. God may find perfection in the explosive duality of human nature.
With my eyes, I could see clearly despite the darkness. Perhaps I saw too well, as the pathetic- ness of my own emotions was flung in my face. To survive here, you had to stay strong. There was no other option, and Darwin's "survival of the fittest" concept ran more fully here than it did in nature. Tears falling silently down my face, I walked into a land whose very properties could defy death. The price was one only the most ruthless could pay, and this realm of shadows had no mercy for the innocents drawn into its trap.
Then I saw him. He was almost snow-haired, dressed in jeans and a creamy sweater, while the Millennium Ring glowed fiercely at his neck. I stopped about five yards from Ryou Bakura. He snapped around to meet me without even having heard me beforehand. His eyes were narrowed in anger at my intrusion, and also the world in general. Nothing about him was gentle. This was the piece of Bakura I had always sensed was there, locked beneath that bully-target exterior. This part of my brother was one of the few who could inhabit this dimension and survive.
Surprise swept through his features, and his Ring suddenly grew fiercer. Obviously this dark part of my brother's soul expected me to be frightened. I wasn't, and just stared at him in rage. Underneath this personality was also my brother, hiding away from a reality he could never understand. I could also sense that Ryou was so alone.
"You aren't the Bakura that I know," I hissed, and the dark personality smiled maliciously, his teeth bright white against the darkness of this dimension. He was defined by jagged, calculated edges, even his hair and eyes taking on that nature.
"I'm his darkness young mortal," the being answered in honesty. That was it: he was Yami Bakura. I didn't want him though; I wanted the light Bakura. Ryou instead lain within this Bakura, away from all darkness except for his own. "I'm all that stands between Ryou and the Shadow Realm. By himself, he's too weak to survive."
"You," I mean both Yami Bakura and Ryou, "are alive?"
"Alive, but stuck in this dimension for the time being. I wonder how you managed to come here, Rosa," Yami Bakura glanced at me. I stared him down in return, "You are of my line too. Maybe I should have used you for a host." Yami Bakura looked me over. I didn't know what he meant, but he seemed somewhat insane with the Millennium Ring highlighting his face.
"What happened to imprison you here?" I asked, and Yami Bakura's face lost any sign of humor. He refused to speak, but instead honored with me with a taste of the past. Placing his hands against my head, I saw how a lost game had locked him in this dimension. In a moment, Yami Bakura let me go. He had been playing a dark, magical duel, and Yami Bakura's price for losing was the forfeit of not only his chances at life, but Ryou's as well. With dark eyes, I could only think of the nearly irreversible punishment they faced now.
"The magic of the Millennium Items destroyed my home, so long ago," Yami Bakura muttered to himself, briefly glancing off into the distance. He then stared down at me, "I will get revenge, for Ryou and me. I only pray that none of my children play the Shadow Games like I did. That horrid time should be over forever, especially after this."
"I'll pray for Ryou," I whispered, opening my eyes as rain splattered on to my nose. I got up and took stock of the weather, cold water starting to pour from a dark gray sky. I made no effort to move as the storm grew fiercer, thundering and booming with all the might of a god behind it, tracing the lines of my brother's name.
Ryou Evan Bakura
My agony had turned despair. That had been no dream; it had been the truth. Letting the clouds cry for me, I contemplated the fates beset on the members of my family.
A bit later, I heard the wet grass squeaking against someone's shoes. I thought it was my father, but I turned to see a young man. Dressed in black, the only major color on him was his ridiculous hair. There was a gold pyramid around his neck, giving me a familiar creepy feeling. The boy had an innocent aura about him, and was ducked under an umbrella. The teenager walked toward the monolith, and upon seeing me, started to run. I recognized him from Yami Bakura's memories. Yami Bakura had aligned him with some personality labeled the "Pharaoh," but this boy more seemed like Ryou than royalty.
"Hey, are you all right? It looks like you were out here during that storm!" the boy stated an extremely obvious fact, but he was genuinely concerned, "What's your name?"
"Rosa Bakura," I answered. The boy paused, and his eyes widened. He placed the umbrella down and sat on the ledge beside me.
"You must be Bakura's sister! I was a friend of Ryou's; I'm Yuugi Mouto. What were you doing out here during the storm?" Yuugi asked as I wrung my soggy lilac mane out. This boy knew what had happened to Ryou. He too owned a Millennium Item, and this pyramid's brother, the Millennium Ring, was partly responsible for my brother's imprisonment. I made a wry smile and chuckled heartlessly.
"I was learning the truth," I glanced again at Bakura's name. Then I got up, startling Yuugi. He was pretty nice, and I was sorry I was acting so distant. Yuugi Mouto smiled warmly, and grasped my cold hand in his.
"I'm sorry about your brother," the boy then added, "You better get home. The temperature is dropping."
"I will," I began walking away, and turned to look at him one more time, "Thanks, but there is no reason to be sorry."
With that, I began running out of the graveyard. Why was there no reason to be sorry? Ryou was alive, and you save such speeches for death. Visiting his monolith had not brought me relief. I'm not sure I can find peace because my brother is alive in hell. I can only mourn his loss.
"Mourn:" April 27, 2003-July 9, 2003
