Chapter One: Imaginary
It was a very good thing that Yami Bakura was a spirit. It meant that he didn't need to sleep.
Well, actually, his body /did/, and as a result, the past two months had been a sort of waking dream.
No...it was worse than that.
A waking nightmare.
And his nights? Prayed-for oblivion, never received.
On this particular night in mid-March, he left the house around one in the morning, wandering aimlessly, eyes wide and bloodshot. He rarely closed them, anymore; that brought back the visions.
Visions of fire, of blood, of promises broken and trust shattered.
Bakura sighed and collapsed on a bench in the park, gazing out into the darkness.
"This isn't fair," he whispered. "Gods, why is it me? What did I have to do with anything?"
He wished that the dreams weren't real, but knew that they were. He wished, at least, that his imagination was embellishing some of the horror...
Unfortunately, Bakura didn't have much of an imagination.
"That's one good thing," he murmured. "I know I'm not going insane...I know you're there."
He spoke to something he couldn't see, knowing that it was hidden somewhere in the bushes behind him. It was always hiding, had been following him for weeks without end, speaking only when spoken to, as it did now.
"I want...what is mine." The voice grated, hissed, completely inhuman.
Bakura sighed and twisted, resting his chin on the back of the bench. "Yes, well, I still think you've got me confused with Ryou, because I have nothing."
The creature snarled. "I know you have it! I want it back! I can sense it!"
The spirit got up, wincing. "Then, whatever it is, take it already, and leave me alone. I have enough to deal with."
The thing followed him home, up the stairs, and into his bedroom. Bakura's cat, Atenna, woke instantly, hissed at the thing, and dashed into the closet.
"Aw," Bakura muttered. "You've untrained her. She can't assassinate if she's scared."
He didn't touch the lightswitch, but closed the door, listening to the creature's restless movements.
Finally, it growled. "It is not here! I want it! Where is it?"
"I thought you could sense it."
"Not at this range. So close, but not close enough..."
Bakura rubbed his aching head and groped for the doorknob, then decided instead to sit on his bed. "You realize that I can't help you, right?"
"Then you must bring me to one who can!"
"Oh, sure. I'll go wake Ryou. 'Hi, hikari, there's a demon in my bedroom.' Right. He'll believe that."
There was an uncomfortable silence. "I'm not a demon," the thing finally said.
"Oh, yes, you are," Bakura said, gaining conviction. "I know about demons. Keep to the shadows, obsessive, et cetera. And I feel I must tell you that there are no otherworldly or demonic objects here."
"I know it's here!" the demon moaned. "I could feel it! It's mine!"
There was a thud as the demon knocked the dresser over. Bakura listened to it rooting through his things for only a few minutes before saying thoughtfully, "Unless you mean the Evil Wristwatch of Doom."
He immediately felt the air move, and then the demon pounced. Because it was very dark, Bakura couldn't see a thing, could only feel claws digging into his shoulders as it pressed him down.
"Because," he continued, "if that's what you want, take it. It's evil. I mean, I don't know where it is - we haven't been able to find it - "
"Hey, 'Kura?" a sleepy voice outside the door said. "What's wrong? More nightmares?"
"Oh, no," Bakura said cheerfully. "Just demons. Only one, actually. He wants something."
Ryou hadn't really been listening. "Because I heard a noise, and I was wondering - "
The demon leapt off of Bakura at lightning speed and wrenched the door open. Ryou made a sound that might have been "Awp!" as it dashed past.
Bakura took his own sweet time getting up. The pain in his shoulders wasn't too bad, and in a moment he joined his other half in the hallway.
"What was that?" Ryou whispered.
"Demon."
They went downstairs, Ryou clinging to Bakura's arm, to find the demon clawing up the sofa. "I want what is mine!" it shrieked.
Bakura, who was really rather tired of it all, flicked on the light.
The demon shrank back into a corner, raising shadowy, three-fingered hands to cover its catlike yellow eyes. It was tall, perhaps six feet, and had gray, translucent skin.
"Like I said," Bakura repeated, "no otherworldly or demonic objects here. Except the Evil Watch. And the Millennium Items. Oh, and if your search extends to the rest of the town, I'm not too sure about the pharaoh, you might want to look into that."
"I'll be back," the demon cried, and vanished into a thick mist that set off the smoke alarm.
Ryou seemed frozen to the spot, so Bakura spent several minutes struggling with that infernal, shrieking object. It refused to go off, even when he wrenched it from the ceiling and threw it at the opposite wall - several times.
"Oh, Yami," Ryou said at last, and picked the smoke alarm up. He pressed a small red button clearly marked "Off."
"It stopped," Bakura whispered, collapsing on the ruin of the sofa.
"We have to tell Yami Yugi," Ryou finally said, his eyes more than slightly wild.
"Are you kidding? He's a pharaoh. He'll feel honor-bound to do something." Bakura shook his head. "No, we'll handle this ourselves. First thing tomorrow, we have to find that watch, and when the demon comes back tomorrow night, I'll give it to him. And then - no worries."
**I linger in the doorway
Of alarm clocks screaming, monsters calling my name
Let me stay where the wind will whisper to me
Where the raindrops as they're falling tell a story**
They didn't find the Evil Wristwatch of Doom that day, or the next, or on any of the several following days. The demon, having finally decided that skulking around wouldn't get it anywhere, returned each night to claw up the furniture and howl threats.
"This has to stop," Ryou finally told his darker half. "Maybe /you/ can get by without sleep, but my grades are dropping. We're never going to find it. I mean, it's made of gold - probably it's been stolen."
Bakura, who was idly playing with the band of his own watch (a simple digital affair, in no way like the Evil Watch they needed), shrugged. "The demon thinks it's here - if it is, indeed, the watch that he wants. I hope so. There's something about it - I want it as far from me as possible. In the seventh circle of hell, I hope."
Atenna jumped up beside him on the chair and attempted to bite the watch. Bakura jerked his arm out of the way. "No, 'Tenna! You /never/ attack me! Never!"
Ryou lightly ran a finger over the scar on his nose, courtesy of one of Atenna's late-night attacks. "Maybe she's mistaken you for me."
"She knows the difference, Ryou." Bakura glared at his hikari. "And I'll have you know I've trained her for rescue, too."
Ryou bit his lip in an attempt not to snicker. "Oh, really? Help, help, little Timmy's fallen in the well!"
Bakura, who, being a spirit, did not understand movie references, scowled. "I don't /know/ anyone named Timmy. And where would you except to find a well?"
"Just joking." Ryou watched, dark eyes amused, as Atenna continued to stalk Bakura's arm. "Now, back to the issue. We have to get that demon to leave us alone."
The spirit had been forced to sit on the back of the chair, one hand clutching it for balance, the other raised above his head where Atenna couldn't reach. "Well, it hasn't hurt /us/. Just let it keep searching. Gods know /we/ aren't having any luck. Oh, and I'm going shopping with Mai in Kyoto next week for a few days."
"You're going to leave me here alone with a demon?" Ryou squeaked.
"It follows /me/, Ryou. You'll get some peace and quiet. Isn't that what you want?"
**In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullaby
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me**
Bakura and Mai left the following Friday. Since she did not know about the demon, Mai was a bit startled when Ryou clung to his yami's leg and refused to let go.
"Get off, Ryou!"
"It will come back and /eat/ me!"
"Ryou, you're hurting me!"
"That cat of yours is going to kill me!"
"Ryou, I think you're giving me a bruise!"
"You've never gone on vacation before!"
"If I can't walk, it'll be /your fault/, Ryou!"
"Yami, don't leave, don't leave, just wait a few minutes, I'll call Yugi and stay at his house, just don't go, it's going to /eat me/..."
"What in the world...?" Mai murmured.
Bakura finally detached his hikari, called Yugi, and made arrangements for Ryou to stay there for the weekend. After assuring Mai that the hysterical albino would be fine, the two drove off in the direction of Kyoto.
They arrived in the late afternoon, checked in at the hotel (same room, two beds), and spent the remainder of the day window-shopping. As might be expected, Bakura didn't sleep that night, staring at the ceiling and trying to pretend that he could sense the demon.
Well, his imagination was awful, and he knew perfectly well that it wasn't there.
Maybe it couldn't get into such a crowded place?
~I shouldn't have left Ryou alone,~ Bakura thought ruefully. ~If that thing is following /him/ now, he'll never forgive me...~
Despite worries about the demon's sudden absence, Bakura enjoyed the weekend. He got his birthday shopping done for all of his semi-friends, and got some quality snogging time with Mai.
**Don't say I'm not in touch
With this rampant chaos - your reality
I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge
The nightmare I built my own world to escape**
The demon, in fact, had taken advantage of the absence of the two and that awful cat-thing to make a more thorough search of their house, from cellar to attic. And finally, it found what it was looking for.
So close, it was /so close/ that the signal returned, a bright flash of power. The demon, ready to knock down walls to get at the object, that beautiful thing called Sathaugula, paused.
No. Those humans - they had /tried/ to help. It was not their fault that they couldn't sense Sathaugula. It would be unnecessarily cruel to destroy their home as well as their furniture.
There was a better way...
Atenna, whose presence at Yugi's house irritated Yami's allergies, found no solace there, for on Saturday night, the demon came looking for her.
When it pounced, the cat shrieked and tried to bite at the slippery flesh that held her. All she got for her troubles was a shoe thrown at her by the sleepy Ryou.
"Quiet, 'Tenna!"
The boy was a bit surprised to find the cat missing the next morning, though Yami didn't care.
Bakura returned late Sunday night, collected his hikari, and reassured him that Atenna would show up when she pleased.
Neither expected her to race out of their house the moment they opened the door, screaming and spitting. She clawed her way up Bakura's left side and crouched on his head, snarling.
Ignoring the blood, Bakura stepped into the house and switched on a light, somewhat surprised to find the furniture untouched.
"Ryou, s'okay, no one's here. And I did some research - demons don't eat people." Bakura dropped his bags and rubbed at his temples. The blood from Atenna's frantic attempt to hide didn't matter - not compared to the nightmares. They were definitely getting worse.
Ryou, emboldened by this revelation, ran upstairs, turning on lights as he went. Atenna graciously allowed Bakura to drag her off of his head. He dumped her on the chair, where she sprawled out, staring at him with her brilliantly green eyes.
"You saw something," the spirit said quietly. "Something that frightened you."
The cat, being a cat, simply purred and began to wash her front legs.
**In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullaby
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me**
Bakura woke late that night screaming from a dream he couldn't remember.
Ryou woke almost instantly, of course, and ran into his yami's bedroom. "Yami, what's wrong? More nightmares?"
Bakura bit his lip hard. "I think so. I don't remember. But whatever's going to happen, it's going to happen /soon/."
After being assured that his yami was fine, Ryou left, intending to return to bed - after all, he had school the next day. But he was stopped by the sight of Atenna, crouching beside the wall, hissing at something.
The demon.
Ryou considered returning to his yami, but didn't when he realized that the demon was looking at him with something like longing.
"It's mine," the creature whispered. "She can't bring it to me. I /want/ it...my Sathaugula..."
"If I knew where it was," Ryou began.
"I know!" the demon shrieked. "I know where to find it...come with me, help me..."
Casting one last glance at his yami's closed door, Ryou followed the demon down the hall and into a long-forgotten room. He sneezed as dust filled his lungs, squinted, and saw the demon hovering beside a small hole in the wall.
"In there," the demon whispered feverishly. "Sathaugula..."
Ryou knelt beside the hole and reached in, realizing that the demon couldn't have done so without breaking something - its fingers were too thick. The boy's hand closed on something familiar.
"Oh! It's my watch! How did it get in here?" He pulled the watch out and stared at it. Moonlight shone through the room's lone window, making the gold and crystal watch glitter.
"Sathaugula!" the demon cried, reaching for it...and recoiled. "It is broken..."
Ryou stood and walked over to the window. "Well, it's stopped working. I'll have to replace the batteries. If you like, I can have it ready for tomorrow night."
The demon gave him what might be considered a grin, and vanished into smoke.
Ryou stared at his watch, at the picture of the ankh on it, at the motionless hands.
And remembered.
"It is an Object of Evil. It must be destroyed..."
"An Evil Wristwatch of Doom? I doubt it, Yami..."
It didn't look very threatening. It wasn't even working.
~And it will be gone tomorrow,~ Ryou told himself. ~Then that demon will stop bothering us, and maybe Yami's nightmares will stop...~
It couldn't hurt to keep it for one day.
**Swallowed up in the sound of my screaming
Cannot cease for the fear of silent nights
Oh, how I long for the deep sleep dreaming
The goddess of imaginary light**
Mai came over the next day after school to watch a movie with Bakura. Ryou, trying to keep his wristwatch out of his yami's sight, stayed in the kitchen, wearing it and wishing that he didn't have to give it up.
He'd taken it to a jeweler's, and it ran fine now. Well, aside from the fact that every few minutes the hands would stop momentarily, then jerk ahead to the proper time. Ryou wore the watch on his wrist now, hoping that the demon would take awhile to come. He'd always rather liked the watch.
"Eiaagh!" he heard Mai yelp, then giggle and squeal, "Stop it, stop it, Ryou might come back..."
"What? It's nothing he hasn't seen before..."
Ryou winced. He'd walked in on those two far more often than he would have liked, and by now had learned to stay far, far away when there was the slightest chance that they would be together.
Trying to ignore the shrieks and laughs from the living room, Ryou examined the watch as it stopped again.
And didn't start.
Actually, it /started/, but the hands whirled in the wrong direction, much faster than usual. Ryou watched, fascinated, and began counting.
One day back...two...
It moved faster and faster, then began to slow. By Ryou's calculations, the watch had moved back into January by now.
It stopped dead on 11:04 PM. Ryou blinked, counted backwards.
New Year's Eve?
"Mai," he called. "What time did Yami - mine, I mean - faint? On New Year's Eve?"
Both ignored Bakura's indignant mutter, "I did /not/ faint."
"Er," Mai said, sounding flustered. "Around eleven, I think."
"Oh." Ryou's eyes widened. "OH."
Bakura and Mai entered the kitchen together, arms around each other's waists. Bakura zeroed in on the watch. "Is that - ? It is! You found the Evil Watch of Doom! And you didn't get rid of it?!"
Ryou dragged his eyes from the watch and stared at his yami, aware that he was trembling. "It moved /backwards/. To New Year's Eve. When you fainted. When you had the first nightmare." He looked down again and felt slightly ill. "It's spinning again, really fast, backwards..."
Bakura reached out and gently turned Ryou's wrist over so that he could work on undoing the band. "Get this off. It's dangerous."
The world tilted. And spun.
And faded to black.
**In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullaby
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me**
When Bakura could see again, he definitely wasn't in his kitchen anymore.
He sat up and suddenly realized that his ever-present headache was gone.
"Akil," someone cried from somewhere nearby, someone whose voice was vaguely familiar. "Where are you? Something's happened..."
~Oh, yes,~ Bakura thought dizzily. ~Something has very much happened.~
A blonde girl ran in and dropped to her knees beside him, purple eyes sparkling. "It's the pharaoh. He's taken ill. Isn't that fantastic?"
Bakura wanted to think that she was Mai, but knew immediately that she wasn't. Her hair wasn't all blonde - it was dark at the roots. Her skin was tanned bronze, and there were flecks of blue in those eyes.
Those /eyes/...
"Oh, Ra," he gasped.
"I know!" the girl half-shrieked. She kissed him exuberantly. "Our work might be done for us!"
"Oh, /Ra/," Bakura repeated.
The girl pulled away, frowning. "Akil? Something wrong?"
"We're in ancient Egypt, aren't we," he said morosely. "You're Shizu, aren't you. And it's not imaginary..."
~~
A/N: Hmm. I don't like that ending, but I can't think of anything better. Anyway, if you hadn't noticed yet, this is written in a different style. Third-person POV, for one thing.
The whole demon thing is drawn heavily from "Draco Sinister" by Cassandra Claire. It's a Harry Potter fic. Love it, love it. Oh, and belated thanks to my dear friend Phoenix, who doesn't watch Yu-Gi-Oh! and had no idea of my plots, but suggested the Evil Wristwatch of Doom, which works perfectly. I believe I asked her for a completely random object...she thought socks, or a watch, but if there are socks, they must be ducky socks, and...no. Just...don't ask.
Next Chapter: Everybody's Fool. Just who came to Egypt with Bakura, anyway? And how on Earth will Mai react to Shizu? Is the demon still searching for Sathaugula?
It was a very good thing that Yami Bakura was a spirit. It meant that he didn't need to sleep.
Well, actually, his body /did/, and as a result, the past two months had been a sort of waking dream.
No...it was worse than that.
A waking nightmare.
And his nights? Prayed-for oblivion, never received.
On this particular night in mid-March, he left the house around one in the morning, wandering aimlessly, eyes wide and bloodshot. He rarely closed them, anymore; that brought back the visions.
Visions of fire, of blood, of promises broken and trust shattered.
Bakura sighed and collapsed on a bench in the park, gazing out into the darkness.
"This isn't fair," he whispered. "Gods, why is it me? What did I have to do with anything?"
He wished that the dreams weren't real, but knew that they were. He wished, at least, that his imagination was embellishing some of the horror...
Unfortunately, Bakura didn't have much of an imagination.
"That's one good thing," he murmured. "I know I'm not going insane...I know you're there."
He spoke to something he couldn't see, knowing that it was hidden somewhere in the bushes behind him. It was always hiding, had been following him for weeks without end, speaking only when spoken to, as it did now.
"I want...what is mine." The voice grated, hissed, completely inhuman.
Bakura sighed and twisted, resting his chin on the back of the bench. "Yes, well, I still think you've got me confused with Ryou, because I have nothing."
The creature snarled. "I know you have it! I want it back! I can sense it!"
The spirit got up, wincing. "Then, whatever it is, take it already, and leave me alone. I have enough to deal with."
The thing followed him home, up the stairs, and into his bedroom. Bakura's cat, Atenna, woke instantly, hissed at the thing, and dashed into the closet.
"Aw," Bakura muttered. "You've untrained her. She can't assassinate if she's scared."
He didn't touch the lightswitch, but closed the door, listening to the creature's restless movements.
Finally, it growled. "It is not here! I want it! Where is it?"
"I thought you could sense it."
"Not at this range. So close, but not close enough..."
Bakura rubbed his aching head and groped for the doorknob, then decided instead to sit on his bed. "You realize that I can't help you, right?"
"Then you must bring me to one who can!"
"Oh, sure. I'll go wake Ryou. 'Hi, hikari, there's a demon in my bedroom.' Right. He'll believe that."
There was an uncomfortable silence. "I'm not a demon," the thing finally said.
"Oh, yes, you are," Bakura said, gaining conviction. "I know about demons. Keep to the shadows, obsessive, et cetera. And I feel I must tell you that there are no otherworldly or demonic objects here."
"I know it's here!" the demon moaned. "I could feel it! It's mine!"
There was a thud as the demon knocked the dresser over. Bakura listened to it rooting through his things for only a few minutes before saying thoughtfully, "Unless you mean the Evil Wristwatch of Doom."
He immediately felt the air move, and then the demon pounced. Because it was very dark, Bakura couldn't see a thing, could only feel claws digging into his shoulders as it pressed him down.
"Because," he continued, "if that's what you want, take it. It's evil. I mean, I don't know where it is - we haven't been able to find it - "
"Hey, 'Kura?" a sleepy voice outside the door said. "What's wrong? More nightmares?"
"Oh, no," Bakura said cheerfully. "Just demons. Only one, actually. He wants something."
Ryou hadn't really been listening. "Because I heard a noise, and I was wondering - "
The demon leapt off of Bakura at lightning speed and wrenched the door open. Ryou made a sound that might have been "Awp!" as it dashed past.
Bakura took his own sweet time getting up. The pain in his shoulders wasn't too bad, and in a moment he joined his other half in the hallway.
"What was that?" Ryou whispered.
"Demon."
They went downstairs, Ryou clinging to Bakura's arm, to find the demon clawing up the sofa. "I want what is mine!" it shrieked.
Bakura, who was really rather tired of it all, flicked on the light.
The demon shrank back into a corner, raising shadowy, three-fingered hands to cover its catlike yellow eyes. It was tall, perhaps six feet, and had gray, translucent skin.
"Like I said," Bakura repeated, "no otherworldly or demonic objects here. Except the Evil Watch. And the Millennium Items. Oh, and if your search extends to the rest of the town, I'm not too sure about the pharaoh, you might want to look into that."
"I'll be back," the demon cried, and vanished into a thick mist that set off the smoke alarm.
Ryou seemed frozen to the spot, so Bakura spent several minutes struggling with that infernal, shrieking object. It refused to go off, even when he wrenched it from the ceiling and threw it at the opposite wall - several times.
"Oh, Yami," Ryou said at last, and picked the smoke alarm up. He pressed a small red button clearly marked "Off."
"It stopped," Bakura whispered, collapsing on the ruin of the sofa.
"We have to tell Yami Yugi," Ryou finally said, his eyes more than slightly wild.
"Are you kidding? He's a pharaoh. He'll feel honor-bound to do something." Bakura shook his head. "No, we'll handle this ourselves. First thing tomorrow, we have to find that watch, and when the demon comes back tomorrow night, I'll give it to him. And then - no worries."
**I linger in the doorway
Of alarm clocks screaming, monsters calling my name
Let me stay where the wind will whisper to me
Where the raindrops as they're falling tell a story**
They didn't find the Evil Wristwatch of Doom that day, or the next, or on any of the several following days. The demon, having finally decided that skulking around wouldn't get it anywhere, returned each night to claw up the furniture and howl threats.
"This has to stop," Ryou finally told his darker half. "Maybe /you/ can get by without sleep, but my grades are dropping. We're never going to find it. I mean, it's made of gold - probably it's been stolen."
Bakura, who was idly playing with the band of his own watch (a simple digital affair, in no way like the Evil Watch they needed), shrugged. "The demon thinks it's here - if it is, indeed, the watch that he wants. I hope so. There's something about it - I want it as far from me as possible. In the seventh circle of hell, I hope."
Atenna jumped up beside him on the chair and attempted to bite the watch. Bakura jerked his arm out of the way. "No, 'Tenna! You /never/ attack me! Never!"
Ryou lightly ran a finger over the scar on his nose, courtesy of one of Atenna's late-night attacks. "Maybe she's mistaken you for me."
"She knows the difference, Ryou." Bakura glared at his hikari. "And I'll have you know I've trained her for rescue, too."
Ryou bit his lip in an attempt not to snicker. "Oh, really? Help, help, little Timmy's fallen in the well!"
Bakura, who, being a spirit, did not understand movie references, scowled. "I don't /know/ anyone named Timmy. And where would you except to find a well?"
"Just joking." Ryou watched, dark eyes amused, as Atenna continued to stalk Bakura's arm. "Now, back to the issue. We have to get that demon to leave us alone."
The spirit had been forced to sit on the back of the chair, one hand clutching it for balance, the other raised above his head where Atenna couldn't reach. "Well, it hasn't hurt /us/. Just let it keep searching. Gods know /we/ aren't having any luck. Oh, and I'm going shopping with Mai in Kyoto next week for a few days."
"You're going to leave me here alone with a demon?" Ryou squeaked.
"It follows /me/, Ryou. You'll get some peace and quiet. Isn't that what you want?"
**In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullaby
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me**
Bakura and Mai left the following Friday. Since she did not know about the demon, Mai was a bit startled when Ryou clung to his yami's leg and refused to let go.
"Get off, Ryou!"
"It will come back and /eat/ me!"
"Ryou, you're hurting me!"
"That cat of yours is going to kill me!"
"Ryou, I think you're giving me a bruise!"
"You've never gone on vacation before!"
"If I can't walk, it'll be /your fault/, Ryou!"
"Yami, don't leave, don't leave, just wait a few minutes, I'll call Yugi and stay at his house, just don't go, it's going to /eat me/..."
"What in the world...?" Mai murmured.
Bakura finally detached his hikari, called Yugi, and made arrangements for Ryou to stay there for the weekend. After assuring Mai that the hysterical albino would be fine, the two drove off in the direction of Kyoto.
They arrived in the late afternoon, checked in at the hotel (same room, two beds), and spent the remainder of the day window-shopping. As might be expected, Bakura didn't sleep that night, staring at the ceiling and trying to pretend that he could sense the demon.
Well, his imagination was awful, and he knew perfectly well that it wasn't there.
Maybe it couldn't get into such a crowded place?
~I shouldn't have left Ryou alone,~ Bakura thought ruefully. ~If that thing is following /him/ now, he'll never forgive me...~
Despite worries about the demon's sudden absence, Bakura enjoyed the weekend. He got his birthday shopping done for all of his semi-friends, and got some quality snogging time with Mai.
**Don't say I'm not in touch
With this rampant chaos - your reality
I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge
The nightmare I built my own world to escape**
The demon, in fact, had taken advantage of the absence of the two and that awful cat-thing to make a more thorough search of their house, from cellar to attic. And finally, it found what it was looking for.
So close, it was /so close/ that the signal returned, a bright flash of power. The demon, ready to knock down walls to get at the object, that beautiful thing called Sathaugula, paused.
No. Those humans - they had /tried/ to help. It was not their fault that they couldn't sense Sathaugula. It would be unnecessarily cruel to destroy their home as well as their furniture.
There was a better way...
Atenna, whose presence at Yugi's house irritated Yami's allergies, found no solace there, for on Saturday night, the demon came looking for her.
When it pounced, the cat shrieked and tried to bite at the slippery flesh that held her. All she got for her troubles was a shoe thrown at her by the sleepy Ryou.
"Quiet, 'Tenna!"
The boy was a bit surprised to find the cat missing the next morning, though Yami didn't care.
Bakura returned late Sunday night, collected his hikari, and reassured him that Atenna would show up when she pleased.
Neither expected her to race out of their house the moment they opened the door, screaming and spitting. She clawed her way up Bakura's left side and crouched on his head, snarling.
Ignoring the blood, Bakura stepped into the house and switched on a light, somewhat surprised to find the furniture untouched.
"Ryou, s'okay, no one's here. And I did some research - demons don't eat people." Bakura dropped his bags and rubbed at his temples. The blood from Atenna's frantic attempt to hide didn't matter - not compared to the nightmares. They were definitely getting worse.
Ryou, emboldened by this revelation, ran upstairs, turning on lights as he went. Atenna graciously allowed Bakura to drag her off of his head. He dumped her on the chair, where she sprawled out, staring at him with her brilliantly green eyes.
"You saw something," the spirit said quietly. "Something that frightened you."
The cat, being a cat, simply purred and began to wash her front legs.
**In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullaby
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me**
Bakura woke late that night screaming from a dream he couldn't remember.
Ryou woke almost instantly, of course, and ran into his yami's bedroom. "Yami, what's wrong? More nightmares?"
Bakura bit his lip hard. "I think so. I don't remember. But whatever's going to happen, it's going to happen /soon/."
After being assured that his yami was fine, Ryou left, intending to return to bed - after all, he had school the next day. But he was stopped by the sight of Atenna, crouching beside the wall, hissing at something.
The demon.
Ryou considered returning to his yami, but didn't when he realized that the demon was looking at him with something like longing.
"It's mine," the creature whispered. "She can't bring it to me. I /want/ it...my Sathaugula..."
"If I knew where it was," Ryou began.
"I know!" the demon shrieked. "I know where to find it...come with me, help me..."
Casting one last glance at his yami's closed door, Ryou followed the demon down the hall and into a long-forgotten room. He sneezed as dust filled his lungs, squinted, and saw the demon hovering beside a small hole in the wall.
"In there," the demon whispered feverishly. "Sathaugula..."
Ryou knelt beside the hole and reached in, realizing that the demon couldn't have done so without breaking something - its fingers were too thick. The boy's hand closed on something familiar.
"Oh! It's my watch! How did it get in here?" He pulled the watch out and stared at it. Moonlight shone through the room's lone window, making the gold and crystal watch glitter.
"Sathaugula!" the demon cried, reaching for it...and recoiled. "It is broken..."
Ryou stood and walked over to the window. "Well, it's stopped working. I'll have to replace the batteries. If you like, I can have it ready for tomorrow night."
The demon gave him what might be considered a grin, and vanished into smoke.
Ryou stared at his watch, at the picture of the ankh on it, at the motionless hands.
And remembered.
"It is an Object of Evil. It must be destroyed..."
"An Evil Wristwatch of Doom? I doubt it, Yami..."
It didn't look very threatening. It wasn't even working.
~And it will be gone tomorrow,~ Ryou told himself. ~Then that demon will stop bothering us, and maybe Yami's nightmares will stop...~
It couldn't hurt to keep it for one day.
**Swallowed up in the sound of my screaming
Cannot cease for the fear of silent nights
Oh, how I long for the deep sleep dreaming
The goddess of imaginary light**
Mai came over the next day after school to watch a movie with Bakura. Ryou, trying to keep his wristwatch out of his yami's sight, stayed in the kitchen, wearing it and wishing that he didn't have to give it up.
He'd taken it to a jeweler's, and it ran fine now. Well, aside from the fact that every few minutes the hands would stop momentarily, then jerk ahead to the proper time. Ryou wore the watch on his wrist now, hoping that the demon would take awhile to come. He'd always rather liked the watch.
"Eiaagh!" he heard Mai yelp, then giggle and squeal, "Stop it, stop it, Ryou might come back..."
"What? It's nothing he hasn't seen before..."
Ryou winced. He'd walked in on those two far more often than he would have liked, and by now had learned to stay far, far away when there was the slightest chance that they would be together.
Trying to ignore the shrieks and laughs from the living room, Ryou examined the watch as it stopped again.
And didn't start.
Actually, it /started/, but the hands whirled in the wrong direction, much faster than usual. Ryou watched, fascinated, and began counting.
One day back...two...
It moved faster and faster, then began to slow. By Ryou's calculations, the watch had moved back into January by now.
It stopped dead on 11:04 PM. Ryou blinked, counted backwards.
New Year's Eve?
"Mai," he called. "What time did Yami - mine, I mean - faint? On New Year's Eve?"
Both ignored Bakura's indignant mutter, "I did /not/ faint."
"Er," Mai said, sounding flustered. "Around eleven, I think."
"Oh." Ryou's eyes widened. "OH."
Bakura and Mai entered the kitchen together, arms around each other's waists. Bakura zeroed in on the watch. "Is that - ? It is! You found the Evil Watch of Doom! And you didn't get rid of it?!"
Ryou dragged his eyes from the watch and stared at his yami, aware that he was trembling. "It moved /backwards/. To New Year's Eve. When you fainted. When you had the first nightmare." He looked down again and felt slightly ill. "It's spinning again, really fast, backwards..."
Bakura reached out and gently turned Ryou's wrist over so that he could work on undoing the band. "Get this off. It's dangerous."
The world tilted. And spun.
And faded to black.
**In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullaby
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me**
When Bakura could see again, he definitely wasn't in his kitchen anymore.
He sat up and suddenly realized that his ever-present headache was gone.
"Akil," someone cried from somewhere nearby, someone whose voice was vaguely familiar. "Where are you? Something's happened..."
~Oh, yes,~ Bakura thought dizzily. ~Something has very much happened.~
A blonde girl ran in and dropped to her knees beside him, purple eyes sparkling. "It's the pharaoh. He's taken ill. Isn't that fantastic?"
Bakura wanted to think that she was Mai, but knew immediately that she wasn't. Her hair wasn't all blonde - it was dark at the roots. Her skin was tanned bronze, and there were flecks of blue in those eyes.
Those /eyes/...
"Oh, Ra," he gasped.
"I know!" the girl half-shrieked. She kissed him exuberantly. "Our work might be done for us!"
"Oh, /Ra/," Bakura repeated.
The girl pulled away, frowning. "Akil? Something wrong?"
"We're in ancient Egypt, aren't we," he said morosely. "You're Shizu, aren't you. And it's not imaginary..."
~~
A/N: Hmm. I don't like that ending, but I can't think of anything better. Anyway, if you hadn't noticed yet, this is written in a different style. Third-person POV, for one thing.
The whole demon thing is drawn heavily from "Draco Sinister" by Cassandra Claire. It's a Harry Potter fic. Love it, love it. Oh, and belated thanks to my dear friend Phoenix, who doesn't watch Yu-Gi-Oh! and had no idea of my plots, but suggested the Evil Wristwatch of Doom, which works perfectly. I believe I asked her for a completely random object...she thought socks, or a watch, but if there are socks, they must be ducky socks, and...no. Just...don't ask.
Next Chapter: Everybody's Fool. Just who came to Egypt with Bakura, anyway? And how on Earth will Mai react to Shizu? Is the demon still searching for Sathaugula?