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Stigmatize - 1. To characterize as disgraceful; brand. 2. To mark with stigma

-------- Stigma - 1. A mark or token of infamy or disgrace.

While this describes Yami Bakura, the title is also mocking the authoress. It is my feel at this story so far if it represented me. Lots of love, eh? Go look up infamy!

Disclaimer: Konnichi wa, I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh. Sayonara, after you read and review my fic.



COMMENTS & THANKS:

KEMU: Yes, I know the chapter title rhymed! Aren't I great at that? Yes, the Millennium Ring does have to do with this [OMG] plot.

YAMI KRISSY: You likes? Me like Honeycomb! [Me not own that] Me actually, well, I don't really like Honeycomb, to tell you the truth. Uh…. Yeah, whatever!

CHEESEPUFF: I can make any character an idiot. Everyone's a baka somewhere in what I write. Ryou's an egomaniac drowning in his own problems, Yami Bakura's got control issue standards, Malik looks nothing like the stereotype Egyptian, Isis can't lower her head or she get stabbed by her Tauk, and Yuugi keeps rambling about that infamous 'other mind' because he's bipolar. I think all the Hakari's fall under that, their theme probably "Unwell" by Matchbox 20 [which I don't own].

KEK: Ryou's happenings are the topic of my next chapter. Bakura is cruel because he's got 'issues'. And I love cliffhangers. There, info about me, and all my questions are answered! Yay!

SHESHELALA: Wow, if I don't update, you don't know what you'll do? I need a better threat before I'm scared into updating! I'm glad you love my fic.

BLAZE THE RAGING WEREWOLF: Oooo, you're gonna hit Yami B with a big object? You mean something bigger than his ego? Wow, I wanna see that! Oh, and smile, you're the 100th reviewer! Cheers!

KATAN: You've read my fic twice! Wow, that more than me, uh wait, I'm typing it…. You think this is one of the best Yu-Gi-Oh right now? How nice! Then go get me more reviewers. Someone told me one of the fics I co-write is one of the three best Ryou fics. Wow, I feel great!

AURORA BELMONT VAMPIRE HUNTER: I know, they do need lives, eh? Ryou is a big ego wrapped up in his own self and Yami Bakura has control standards that Ryou doesn't stand in very well. I think they need some kinda job, that or a hobby….

SHIROI YUKI: Believe me in more than on person's eye twitching, the apostrophe in people goes like this: "…peoples' eyes twitch." That's because it's more than one, kay? Hey, my eye twitches too! It actually because I were one contact, so I keep half winking al the time when my eye gets dry. I'm one of those freaks who get to wear a prescription monocle if I want. My friends look at me funny when I start blinking like that.

THE-DARK-ONE: I know, I was surprised, I've never gotten 11 reviews for one chapter! I was kinda shocked, really…. ……………………So my story has what seems to you almost no OOCness? Well, thank you. I have a method that keeps all my characters' attitudes in check. I picture a character reading his reactions, thoughts, and dialogue aloud. If I can't picture it easily, then I know they've gone really OOC on me. You're review is proof that this works! Yay!

NO NAME: Yami Bakura likes to drink? I wonder if he can take screwdrivers…. I don't like them. Maybe he'll take them off my hands? ……………………You know, some desperate alcoholics' drink mouthwash? I've seen my friend's dad do that. It was gross. That's why I hardly visit that certain friend's house. His parents have very addictive personalities.





This is the next day of Yami Bakura. [After he wakes up.]

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Stigmatize

Chapter 10: Tense


Not bothering to be annoyed at his mortal laziness, Yami Ryou Bakura woke up. For the few moments after a long sleep were forgetfulness and zero concern reined, the Spirit was completely relived from the issue of his missing Hikari. Instead, he stared blankly at the ceiling, counting the little pinpricks in each individual tile. The counting soothed the anxiety that clawed at his mind and set winged creatures to his stomach. Through a hazy chain of thoughts, Bakura tried to rediscover the exact reason he was so tense. It was memory of the day before he just couldn't grasp in his half sleeping wake, no matter how wearily he tried. The Spirit kept up the slow search until the living room door opened.

"Ryou?" a vaguely familiar voice asked. Yami Bakura knew who it was: Ryou's father!

Suddenly, everything was thrown back into focus for the Fiend. He growled slightly as he remembered what Hell had broken loose on his daily life. It was like the memory had been hovering over him the entire time, falling back into the Spirit once something recognized from earlier broke through. The Fiend furrowed his brow slightly as he recalled the small, white haired Hikari that was currently on a vacation of unprivileged sorts.

"Ryou, are you okay?" the man asked, truly worried.

"Fine, Father, before you woke me up." He snapped lightly, imitating a mildly ticked Ryou. This meant he had to state he was greatly annoyed to make a point, but do so with a polite, gentle undertone, never harsh.

Obviously this had taken the Fiend some time to master. Ryou had the strange talent of always being kind and timidly polite to people, even when provoked to mild frustration. In fact, Bakura had only once seen his Hikari blow up, and that was the night he ran out. Ryou had managed somehow to leave with dignity after an angry outburst. That was very hard to do, as the Yami had learned, having a short temper. When the Spirit argued violently, all pride turned against him as he tried to end the fight with the other foolishly stubborn moron. He'd finally put himself to shame by stuttering, losing balance, or shutting up and running away.

"Oh, sorry, Ryou," the man apologized, backing out of the room.

Frowning again, Bakura sat up on the thick couch. He could see his reflection in a mirrored wall fixture. Staring back at the Fiend was an angry glaring young man in serious need of a hairbrush. Slowly, the straight and scowling mouth opened.

The Spirit started to yawn widely before the act even registered.

Quickly, the Yami stopped, choking in mid breath. He glared at the reflection again closer. There were dark circles under his eyes and his white mane was even messier than ever before. This upset the Spirit. He shattered the mirror in an instant and leaned back on the couch. Angrily, he started counting the dots on the wall again.



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Time passed almost too slowly.

The Yami Ryou Bakura held his lighter up to the Millennium Ring. Slowly he brought the flame closer to the eye of Thoth in its center. He had a manic desire to destroy the item. All of his searching was of no more concern. Instead, the Fiend watched as the gold glimmered coldly meeting the fire.

"OH BELEVOLENT RA!" the Fiend swore, dropping both objects hastily.

The Spirit clutched his chest while a burning sensation pulsated painfully. He closed his eyes and winched. The fire-like thrill in his body throbbed once more from his heart before stopping entirely. Glaring, he picked up the lighter again, but this time he knew better. Like a child testing the infamous 'heat' from the stove for himself, the Daemon had learned trying to flame one's Millennium Item hurt.

"Awe, Hell," he scowled, tossing the modern device across the room.

The Spirit sat in silence. He listened for the boy's father in another room. Smirking, he ran stealthily across the house to the kitchen. He grabbed a meat mallet and ran at the door to Ryou's room with the weight to make sure it was strong. Smirking, he all but flew to the man's bedroom entrance. Stealthily, he crouched down and watched.

The man had no easy resemblance to Ryou Bakura. His hair was darker, as was his skin. The boy's father had very dark hair, almost black. The Spirit found himself doubting even if the two were related. Even their eyes were different. Ryou's were blue and emotional, often troubled and depressed. The father's were brown and dull. The Fiend did not like the older man's eyes. He did not like the man period.

The Fiend tensed, observing the mortal as he paced back and forth, reading texts on his desk and muttering to himself. This action, in it's normality yet uneasiness at some apparently trivial matter, frustrated the Spirit and provoking a need to attack. Did that man even realize his son had run away? Did he even realize now who was observing him with wrath?

On a sudden impulse, the Yami rushed up behind the man. In one quick, fluid motion, he had knocked the mortal out with the meat hammer. A small yelp of fright erupted from the adult's throat before all consciousness was lost. The Fiend smirked and kicked the limp form once before leaving.

No, that man was not like Ryou at all. Ryou knew when his must-be-respected Yami was around. The elder mortal was also easier to put out. But, of course, the boy had learned this code of behavior years before. The man was stupid enough, though, to not have picked it up.

The Yami entered the ruined bedroom next. He eyed his Light's guitar warily. The Fiend grabbed one of the random knives he left on the floor. Slowly and patiently, he began to slice into the high E. It was easy; the string was just so thin. He hummed lightly to himself at the soft pluck of the taunt metal being successfully cleaved. The sound echoed the cruel attack quietly, like Ryou's metal state. It was amazing how Ryou and the guitar could be so alike!

The Fiend moved on to the next string, closing his eyes as he felt the slight stretched cord. He plucked it lightly with the sharp side of knife's blade. He kept hitting the note harder and harder, closing his eyes so hard it hurt and his temples quivered. Finally the poor string gave to the abuse and twanged on last time before snapping.

The Spirit opened his eyes, a small, faint headache coming in. He glared at the guitar. Ryou liked music. No, correction, Ryou loved music. Bakura knew this; had known this, since he saw the boy strum a D cord in tempo following a G minor for the very first time. But, the Tomb Robber loathed the acoustic. It just sounded old and country western to him. In the Spirit's opinion, the hollow wooden club was not superior to anything, driving him crazy every time he heard his Hikari play it. It wasn't like Ryou messed up a lot anymore (the boy obviously erred being human an fallible, especially when he was beginning the instrument) it was just that the sound was so…homey, if that was the word. Yami Bakura couldn't stand the harmony and music that most people loved from the acoustic. The wonderful wooden sound ticked the Fiend off. The Yami didn't hate guitars in general, it was just the large ones didn't fit him well. Electric was okay, he could take the grating sound of distortion and boom of over amplified power cords. Why couldn't his Light play one of those interesting works of musical technology? Why didn't he even try? Maybe the he could steal the boy one and sell thing he was now mutilating. He could make Ryou have to learn electric to be able to play at all. At least it wouldn't be so woody.

The Spirit smirked as he tried to get his knife's blade through low E, picturing his Hikari as a rock guitar player, all done up in a tuff little punk outfit. Or maybe Ryou in all black with dark makeup, tolling on some somber gothic ballad with the entire room dim save a bright blinding light on only the boy. What a lovely and unlikely thing to happen! The child's father would get rid of the anything new and mechanical before it could pass the door. The annoying man hated those kinds of things, Yami Bakura's nearly exact opposite on the matter.

The Spirit quite smirking as he tried again the get his knife through low E. He growled at it, like that would help the string see it had to die. As he tried to separate the string, the Fiend noted how terribly thick it was. How in the fabled Kingdom of the West could a person with such tiny fingers as Ryou reach across the neck and hold the note down? It was simply a metal rope of sorts; that string. The fact that the knife at hand wasn't the sharpest that could have been collected, frustrated the Yami.

Yami Bakura grunted and forced the knife blade up. After a few seconds of effort, the string slit, the Fiend nearly falling back from his force. He sat up and glared at the instrument. Three strings were hanging limply from their knobs: dead. He turned the instrument over and made scratches at the wood in hieratic. Hieroglyphics were just too lengthy to make a point. He remembered having to learn the few words and phrases he knew to help his thieving expeditions. Foreign merchants in the old days with no regard for religion always sent their orders for gold and trinket via scribe written letters. The Robber learned enough to understand the requests and how much the employers were willing to pay. He also learned the few phrases of insult he could ruin the pharaohs' graves and journey to the Kingdom of the West with. Some just employed him to break in and ruin the dead's afterlife. It got ridiculously high pay. Like the tombs, he wrote on the guitar. Vandalizing things you had yet to even want to own was fun.



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The Fiend stared at the ceiling again from Ryou demolished bed. He didn't feel like leaving the small room or even getting off the bed. Something about the room drew him to it. The guitar lay in the corner, only three strings still taunt. The Fiend looked at the window. Blinds covered it. He almost went to open the block; he pictured sitting up and reaching over to pull back the cord that hindered his view of the outside world. Only, the Spirit didn't moved at all towards his goal, couldn't, didn't want to. He just watched the windows frame, pale white blinds mocking his laziness. The color made the Spirit remember Ryou's hair, his own hair, white and shocking. Their skin to, almost matching the locks with it's paleness as though no had ever told Ryou there was this big ball of gases called a 'sun', that shown during 'daytime', giving people a 'tan'.

The Spirit furrowed his brow slightly, trying to remember when he had tan skin. He use to be very dark actually, as dark as Shadi. He could hardly believe it now; he'd grown used to the white everywhere. Nothing was very colorful about Ryou. Only his eyes weren't white (which would have looked rather shocking actually). No, the boy's eyes were a nice blue that could hold the Fiend imagination for long periods of time. The Yami liked to see how many emotions he could make it the deep wells, the scopes to his Hikari's mind. He tried to see how many of the expressions he could name: annoyance, joy, drowsiness, and confusion; which were only small amounts of what he saw. The eyes were amazing to observe, especially with such lovely paled thin brows accenting their every mood. The eyebrows could annoy him with a twitch, surprise him with furrowed concentration, anger him with a stubborn scowl, and tempt him by just being there and moving to Ryou speech or chain of thought. The boy had no idea that such a small feature could determine his treatment at the hands of his Dark. Things, tiny little things like that caught the Spirits attention easily.

Suddenly, in the middle of his musings, it felt like the Spirit's stomach dropped, jumped out a window and failed in its suicide attempt. He groaned and curled into a fetal position till the pain stopped. Shaken he tried to relax again. It wasn't till he was trying to remember what he'd been thinking about when the fall went again. That time it lasted longer.

There was a low rumble with the pain as it returned. In fact, it was like a growl.

The Spirit scowled. Why exactly was he hungry? Before he could ponder the cause of his discomfort, there was another attack.

Quickly, the Fiend rose and headed for the kitchen. He doubled over as he walked, straightening only to open the cabinet. He stared angrily at the food as if his pain was all a fault of the cans he observed.

What was he supposed to consume? How was he supposed to open it anyway?

He wished Ryou were there, he could make the boy prepare something. Ryou wasn't a bad cook when trying to get everything correct. The boy was a perfectionist when under pressure and hardly made mistakes. Now though, the Light was gone. Gone far to gods know where.

The Spirit sat at the table, ignoring his stomach's agony. He was again distracted by thoughts of his Hikari. The worry hit him as he stomach ceased it's falling. Suddenly, the Fiend didn't want to eat though he was hungry. He felt in his anxiety he would not be able to keep anything down. Where exactly was that stupid boy? Slowly, he tried to calm down and think.

Of course it was obvious he was gone, but Ryou would come back; Ryou always came back. He was weak; he needed to return for his own good: his low self-esteem. The boy could never really be gone, it had only been a day and two nights, there was no reason to worry. Pathetic little Hikari Ryou would return, crying and scared, he'd come crawling back.

The Fiend, he'd laugh when the little one reappeared, terrified of the world outside his own and begging for things to return to normal. That was how the child was, the Spirit knew. All he had to do was wait; it was just a matter of time. He could live with his pain till the father woke up and made dinner. At the moment, he thought about what horrible things might be happening to his Hikari. Ryou running away may have been a good thing. The boy would see the other people out there, get hurt, come back crying, and never leave again.

Ryou gone suddenly wasn't so bad. I fact, it was the best thing that could have established the Yami's dominance over the Hikari.

Like that old warning the Spirit had hear mothers scowling their children with. It's all fun till someone gets hurt. Yes…well, then it's funny.

The Yami Bakura though this act was downright hilarious.



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Yami Ryou Bakura is going heartless, eh? That or he's gone insane. Don't worry about my lack of Ryou chapters though; the next two are one that white haired freak. The second one is as long or longer than that chapter three [which was long]. I don't usually type such long chapters, but it a long, probably two weeks, away, three at the longest that long chapter will be up. *gets arrested for overuse of the word long*

Damn, 11 reviews for one chapter! That's the record for the entire penname A Laugh That Is Evil and a record me myself. This fic is going to have roughly around 18 chapters [cause I'm very descriptive] and will soundly kick my other co-written fic "Sorry For You, Hikari of Yami Bakura's" ass! Shoot, that story didn't reach 100 till chapter 20 something and mine is on 9! That's like, slightly over 10 reviews a chapter. I suppose if I gave up on this [like didn't have a plot or lost interest] all those reviewers would have something to say, eh? Ya'll don't know how glad I am now that I actually have a plan for this fic written out entirely in shorthand notebooks [I don't add detail till I start typing]. This story is already entirely planned and the only things that will keep me from updates are reviews and laziness. Ain't that great to know?

Okay, I still want to request a certain amount of reviews, okay? Since ya'll were so good about that last week, I'm only asking for six. See, with so many readers, ya'll just blow on past that number!

Hey, I didn't ask a question last week. This doesn't mean I'll give you all two. I'll just stay with one since I can't think that much. Here, I'll start it off with quotes:

"The early bird gets the worm but look what happens to the early worm." - Alfred E. Newman

"The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese." - Jon Hammond

So, who really does have the most fun, eh? Is it the procrastinators or the people who really try?

[I will put up my answer to this ^^^^^^^ question next week]



FYI: The Latin phrase 'Musica excitat animum' means "Music Uplifts the Soul".