Welcome to my second attempt at fanfiction, please do not run away just yet, thank-you.
To Awaken: By some spectacular coincidence, Yami no Bakura finds a chance to be his own person – to create a new life and be possibly be free of his hikari. What kind of life will he choose for his future… If he even realises that he has a choice?
Alternate Universe: Story takes place in the manga world after Battle City and before Memory World (I'm working on the assumption that there was a gap of some time between the two events). Bakura (hikari) found the Ring again after Battle City and put it on, and Yami no Bakura comes back (I think in the manga he stays to wander in the Puzzle instead). That's all.
Warnings for the fic: (This will not be re-posted in later chapters)
-Yami no Bakura (which includes evilness, sharp objects, violence, and general disregard for people and property)
-Angst & depression (I try, but it won't go away, so I'll do my best to lessen the wallowing)
-OC's (yes, I know it's practically an Ultimate Evil, but I'm definitely anti-Sue, and there's no romance, anyhow, they're there for a reason)
-Adult material: mostly swearing and violence, mentions of places not considered healthy for children to know about.
-Possible shounen-ai interpretations (no real fluff, but there is a sense of "inexplicable need" cough)
-Coincidences that sound suspiciously like plot devices (what? Everyone uses them!)
Warnings for this Chapter:
Depression and Angst; also, this chapter is something of a prologue.
A Zack!cameo (don't ask why, it's probably just to annoy him).
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or any of its characters, they're copyright to Kazuki Takahashi. But I do own my OC's! (Please be nice to them?)
Chapter 1: Here We Are
Bakura Ryou had nothing to do.
Well, technically, that wasn't true. There were a lot of things that he could do, but they just weren't exactly of the boredom-lifting type of things to do at the moment.
For example, he could read. There was a bookshelf full of books in his soul room after all; containing information on several subjects that he was interested in and knew about. But the problem with reading in his soul room was that everything here to be read was his – every bit of knowledge held in those volumes, every word, phrase and illustration was his thoughts and his ideas. This inevitably meant that he could not learn anything new from his books, which means that it wasn't really something worthwhile to do when your brain needed a kick-start, preferably with some new and exciting news or something of that sort. It was the same way with everything other object in his soul room, because everything here represented him, and he was tired of himself right now.
Bakura could, also, in theory, go and ask his dark half for his body back on the grounds that he needed to finish his homework. But he was smarter than that, he knew the egotistical thief wouldn't care in the least about his measly wishes of surviving high school, especially considering that he was halfway through his history essay when Yami no Bakura suddenly took over without an explanation. He was not going to put himself in line to suffer one of those sadistic 'punishments' that his yami was so good at thinking up. Besides, nowadays he doubted Yami no Yuugi would bother himself with saving him, as long as his yami didn't try to hurt Yuugi.
And they didn't even say 'happy birthday' to me today…
Sure, it was the second day of the school year, but he did tell them about his birthday – or at least, he thought he did. That didn't really matter though, because they could have easily found out through other sources. After all, sensei-sama did like to congratulate her students on the morning of their birthday, though she seemed to have forgotten about him this morning too…
Stupid logic.
Bakura Ryou could feel his metaphysical eyes prickling, his tears and sobs may be only symbolic here, but it was very accurate symbolism.
He didn't expect any presents – in fact, he's quite easily embarrassed when opening gifts. All he wanted was someone to notice, for someone to just say something. But they just carried on with the works of school life, ignoring him for the whole day. They didn't even notice his apparent depression and the fact that he was quieter than usual.
He knew what the other him would say to his sulking: He'd call him a stupid weakling and point out the fact that he was naturally way too quiet to be noticed anyway.
Ryou sighed heavily. It was too true.
Sometimes, being smart is such a burden.
When you think about it, it was really quite true – just look at Jounouchi and Honda, they're always joking and laughing and having fun. And the same with the rest of Yuugi-tachi, though mou hitori no Yuugi perhaps less so.
That was not an insult, at least not an insult in the way Bakura had intended… or rather, not intended… or… No, that's not right…
He was now confused and depressed as well as bored. Wonderful.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
She watched the metal cube melt with a sigh.
There was a time when she could have moved any inanimate object with ease using the "magicks" of matter-transfer (it's actually less magic than physics). That time had been less than three weeks ago, and that time was different from now.
"Looks like you need some work, hmm?" Zack was understating the problem, which was in itself highly surprising, since he has this reputation for an unsympathetic approach to people. He had apparently finished examining the molten blob of metal on the specially protected surface, and was taking some notes on a clipboard, though with his sort of mind he seriously didn't need to. He was being nice to her out of pity – even though his physical existence depended on the Spirit of Light awakening and he would see to it that it happens, no matter what. You probably couldn't call him nice, but he was being diplomatically nice right now, at least.
"I did ok at the start…" she began, but didn't finish.
"Try the next one." Not a command, but not quite a request either – Zack was good at that sort of thing, it appeared to come with the persona.
The next test was to try and move a similar metal cube, but this time through dimensions. It wasn't particularly hard – the world that the cube is transported from was the dimension that the Council School was anchored to, so you didn't even have to account for planetary movements and other things like that. You didn't even have to physically move it anywhere; you just had to change its energy in a certain way to fit this dimension. You didn't need too much energy to do that – the key was just to be aware of the other dimension and control your own awareness, it wasn't hard…
But she never had any control over anything, did she?
There was a sort of mental snap, followed by a feeling of having your mind forcibly pulled out of the capacity of your brain. Everything threatened to fall to immeasurable pieces – the very structure of herself was stretching apart. And she was suddenly too aware of the dimensions, her awareness was too thin and too sharp. Protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks… Nameless particles moved around and through each other in their seemingly random orbits and impossibly complex movements resulting from bizillions of simple motions, powered by energy when they are just much more complex structures of energy themselves. Her senses dwindled to a pinpoint when she struggled to pull herself back to her body, which really didn't help at all.
From the roots of her mind there was a more powerful pull that made her thoughts curl in on itself to become a point, but with more substance than just a point. And when the tide of white came, she was carried away with it.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The Spirit of Light pulled the body and the tiny dot of an only-human mind to the place of no-places: the warped and smooth and well-stretched flows and twists of nothing-but-everything-ness that permeated every world yet were not part of it. This place yet not-place has no name, but some ironic joker had once called it the Time-Space Continuum, though it was by no means continuous.
The body and mind curled and rested into a slowed ebb of the flow, space was even enough here and for a stretch ahead, but time was rather inconsistent. In this space where she resided time moved like normal to her, but compared with the area surrounding it time was quite slow. She would not know that this was so, for her mind was limited to her body and its sense of time, but the Spirit had broader senses than that, and so was better informed in choosing this particular piece of "Here".
For the sake of it: "Here" is where the Now can be stretched onto a semblance of Forever.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bakura Ryou curled up in his comforting soul-room bed.
He felt like time was being tardy and particularly enjoyed taking impromptu coffee breaks whenever his yami took over. Really, did things have to go so slowly? He just wanted control of his body back so that he can finish his homework and hopefully get some sleep so he won't die of exhaustion. He was especially dreading having to run the 3000 metres tomorrow for gym class (why did gym teachers have to be so mean? It's only the third day of the term tomorrow!).
Sleep…
His body was bound to be tired after Yami no Bakura was through with it. And no, Bakura didn't want to think about what his yami was doing; it was too… well, it was something that he preferred to avoid thinking about, thank-you very much.
He really should get some rest, fretting over things wasn't going to help at all, he would just be that bit more exhausted when he got control again. Even mental rest would be better than no rest.
When that thought passed, his mind slept.
… I hope my writing style isn't too annoying?
Next chapter: Yami no Bakura's disturbing idea of a birthday present, drama, arguing, acts of defiance and a spectacular coincidence.