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Misseystar: Yes, that was premonition, to an extent. He's obviously having a little trouble controlling it at the moment though!
thunder mouse pikachu: Yugi isn't actually a God of anything, as far as the story has said for now at least. That was just a kind of divine flash, warning him. There is a hint as to why in this chapter.
Special thanks also to: ObiWanGirl, CrazyAboutYugi, Ril, Countessina, Abi2, White Phoenix Eternal, trekkie-54, Bi Panda, Yami Yami Yugi, Yugi-obsessed, Kitty Neko, Anna EC, Babsey The Great, DarkWolf193, BadLuckShuichi, yamiyugifanadic, tamachan444, Tahirah, Flowers, Dark Amethystunicorn, SoulDreamer, Insane Pineapple from Naboo, Sabby-chan Yaoi Fan, Madame Ruby, Sabbie The Unloved Goddess, Smarty1, One Winged Tenshi, Evil Cheese Of Doom and Morgaine: Lady of the Lake.
Yugi suddenly froze mid-step as more images assailed him, though this time they were far less powerful than before. "The courtyard!" he yelled, turning and running back a little way with Yami close behind him. "He's there! We don't have long!"
The two darted down a side street and burst into the open at a full sprint. Across the other side of the vast open space, they saw Bakura, a knife pointed at his chest with both hands on it, ready to strike.
"Bakura, stop!"
If the thief heard them, he made no sign of it. He appeared to be whispering to himself, his eyes clenched shut as he tried to psyche himself up for the final blow. The blade began bobbing up and down slightly, as if Bakura was giving himself a countdown, and a single tear slipped down his cheek.
Bakura didn't want to die. He didn't want to go to Duat; to face Am-Heh's ferocious wrath. He didn't want to leave the world behind. He didn't want to leave his friends. But he had no choice. He'd hurt Malik; he'd hurt the families of the other guards… and he'd just keep on hurting people. Better to spare them now, than drag them down with him.
It wasn't like there was anything to stay for now anyway.
"Bakura!" The sound of two people slowing from a run to a stop accompanied this call.
Against his will, Bakura paused, hesitantly turning to see who'd called him.
"Bakura, stop!"
"Leave me!" he cried, tightening his grip on the blade. "I'm warning you, I'll do it!"
"No," Yugi whispered. "If we weren't here, you'd have already done it. We're not leaving you Bakura."
"Go away!"
"Bakura!" Yami barked, stepping closer. "What's wrong with you? And where's Malik?"
That did it for Bakura. Without a word, he let go of the knife, allowing it to slowly drop from his fingers. "I don't know…" he whispered softly. "I don't know where he is…" Bakura dropped to his knees as he finished talking, his body slumped in a dejected fashion, and he took a deep, shuddery breath. "Malik's father… Yami, I was the one who defiled your father's tomb… I killed Malik's father… I told him tonight, and he…" Bakura's eyes lidded slowly, and his fist curled up by his side. "He left me… he swore he hated me, and he left…"
'That must have been what I saw,' Yugi realised. 'I somehow saw them having that conversation… but how…?'
"But where is he now?" Yami persisted, sure that they'd be able to get something out of Bakura.
"I don't know!" the boy cried. "I wouldn't be here if I did!"
With an exclamation of defeat, Bakura snatched the blade up again. "I can't live without him!" he sobbed. "I don't want to!" He raised the blade to arm's length, and – not hesitating this time – thrust it directly toward his throat.
"Bakura!" Yami cried in horror. "Don't!"
Adair and Akemi both stopped in their tracks. "Was that the Pharaoh?"
Akemi nodded. "He was calling to Bakura. He must be over there."
Adair shot a glance at Akemi. "Well done genius," he remarked, beginning to run. "How about less talk and more action?"
Akemi glared silently at Adair's retreating form for half a second. He hated the boy's cockiness sometimes. For now, though, he had to just let it drop. There were other more important things to worry about.
Wordlessly, he too began to run in the direction of the courtyard, and within a couple of seconds had caught up to his more arrogant counterpart.
None of the three boys were sure of what had just happened.
As far as Yami had been able to see, Bakura should have been as good as dead. The blade had come far too close to his throat – even Bakura shouldn't have been able to stop that in time. Nothing short of divine intervention would have saved him. Yet something had. The blade was suddenly halfway across the courtyard, and Bakura was on the floor, only semiconscious.
Bakura's thoughts – as incoherent as they were – lay largely in the same direction as Yami's. He hadn't seen either boy move – they hadn't had a chance to – and he could have sworn he even felt the tip of the blade on his throat. He reached up to his neck with one hand and wiped at the base of it, finding a small smear of blood on his fingers. So yes, the blade had scratched him, and the other two had been too far to do anything. Even if they had been close enough, they wouldn't have been able to react in time. All Bakura knew was that he hadn't stopped it, and his head suddenly hurt badly.
What the hell had happened?
Yugi lay sprawled on the floor, the cobblestones incredibly uncomfortable for his delicate frame. All he could remember was Bakura picking the knife up and trying to kill himself. He remembered he'd panicked… but then what? All off a sudden, the knife was right out of the way, and he was here. Slowly sitting up, allowing his vision to catch up with him, he glanced about.
No-one else was around. No-one could have thrown anything, and he and Yami were still where they'd been. So what had stopped Bakura? Who or what had done it?
Destiny.
The word flicked through Yugi's mind in a split second, and was gone again. He hadn't even heard a voice; it was like he'd felt it being said, like how you can sometimes tell someone's crying without hearing or seeing them. You just feel it, somehow.
"Hey guys… did you just–"
Yugi was cut off by a yell from the nearest wall of the courtyard. "Bakura!"
The tomb robber eased himself up into a seated position, confusion still across his face, and saw Adair and Akemi hop down from the wall, having climbed it as their fastest means of getting in. "Bakura!" Adair cried again.
The tomb robber climbed shakily to his feet, dusting himself down. "…yeah?" he asked, not sure that he wanted to know. The boys seemed panicked, which could only mean more trouble for him – which he didn't need right now.
"It's Malik!" Akemi called from behind Adair. "We just saw him get–"
"Malik?!" Bakura cried, rushing over to meet the two halfway. Suddenly, his worry about the knife was forgotten as something more important arose. "Where?" he demanded, grabbing Adair by the shoulders and shaking him, as if it'd get the answers out more quickly. "Where is he?"
"We just saw the guards take him," Akemi explained. "So right now he's probably in the palace cells already."
Bakura let go of Adair, stepping back as his left hand curled into a fist. His arm shaking with the tension, he brought it up to his chest, over his breastbone, and stared down at it as if examining it. "I see…" he murmured quietly, his arm beginning to shake even more violently. "In the cells…"
Without a word, Bakura deftly spun round, striding across the courtyard and picking his knife up, sheathing it once again. He carried on in the same direction, padding almost completely silently across the cobbled stones. "I'll be back in the morning," he stated over his shoulder. "Don't wait up for me."
"Wait Bakura!" Yugi called. "Don't go yet!"
Bakura stopped dead, and turned to glare at the boy. "And why not?"
Yugi faltered. "I…"
"Don't you understand Yugi? Malik is in trouble! If I don't go and rescue him now, he could be dead by morning!"
"But you can't go… not now…" Yugi whispered.
"And why not?"
Destiny.
Again, that feeling floated round Yugi's mind. "I… don't know…" he admitted quietly. "But I know you can't… please, Bakura…"
"Bakura," Yami called. "Yugi somehow knew you were going to try to hurt yourself. Somehow, he knew you'd be here. I don't know if even he knows how… but right now, I think we should trust him. He is the son of a God."
"I don't care!" Bakura snarled angrily. "Right now, Malik could be getting beaten, or raped, or having his execution planned or anything! I have to go and rescue him!"
"Bakura," Akemi softly called. "Think about it. They'll be waiting for you. What good will you be to Malik if they kill you?"
"I don't–"
"Bakura," Akemi interrupted. "Wait 'til morning. We can all go together, and help you. I think we know someone who can get us and the Pharaoh into the palace without causing as big a fuss."
"You do?" Adair asked, surprised. "Who?"
"Lateef, of course."
At Bakura's house, everyone sat together, Lateef blinking sleepily at having been dragged out of bed. "What do you mean, I can get you into the palace?"
"That 'Masika' girl," Akemi stated. "You and her get on well. All you need to do is get into the palace, pose as a slave, and find her. Get her to let us in, and we can march straight through and get Malik back. The Pharaoh can go and challenge the High Priest, and everyone's happy."
"Sounds too easy," Bakura snorted. "Something'll go wrong, and you know it. What if Masika calls the guards? What if Lateef gets caught sneaking in? What if Malik's al-fucking-ready dead?" He was still pissed off that the others had refused to let him go now, rather than tomorrow, and was deliberately heaping scepticism upon the plan as his means of venting.
"Of course it's too easy!" Adair exclaimed. "That's where the fun part comes into play. We'll have to slay Gods know how many guards to be able to rescue Malik, and the Pharaoh will doubtless have to slay Set too!" Adair's face grew a large grin. "Come on Bakura, since when have you ever been one to turn down a chance for revenge?"
Bakura positively snarled at Adair in reply. It was revenge that had caused all this in the first place. It was ultimately because Bakura had gone for revenge that Malik was arrested now. And the sequence didn't end there – how many guards would they have to kill to free Malik? How many more children would he be responsible for rendering fatherless? "No," he stated through gritted teeth. "It won't be fun. If possible, we don't kill anyone. Knock them out, put them out of action, but we don't kill. Except you, Yami," Bakura added, turning his gaze to the Pharaoh. "If you don't kill that bastard High Priest, you'll have a lot to answer for – to me, your people and the Gods. Make sure you get it right."
This order didn't even warrant a response. It went without saying that Yami's plan was exactly that. There would be no mercy for the butcher. Tomorrow, the tear of every parent of every person he'd had killed would judge the High Priest. The grief of the mother; the anger of the father; the cries from the children; they would all burn in Yami's heart as he broke Set's reign of terror. He would be the people's Pharaoh once again.
"Lateef," Yugi began, speaking softly and breaking the tense atmosphere in the room. "Do you think you could get us in to the palace? I mean, do you think Masika would trust you?"
Lateef, who had been sitting in silence all this time, maintained that silence for a few moments longer. "…I don't know," he finally admitted. "It's true that we get on well, but… it's asking her to take a huge risk. If she gets found out, and if something were to go wrong, she would suffer horribly. So would her grandmother, and her grandmother is the most important thing in the world to her. I'm willing to try, even if it is all I can do… but I can't speak for her. It'd be like asking you to get us in, knowing Yami's life was on the line. Would you do it?"
The room fell almost completely silent at this, as they mulled the answer over. Yugi, Yami and Bakura in particular looked deep in thought, each wondering if they could risk their love's life, knowing that the reward for success would be Egypt's liberation.
"…I couldn't…" Yami finally admitted.
"…I don't know if I could…" Bakura hesitantly added, referring to Malik.
Yugi waited the longest of all before answering. He could feel the eyes in the room on him, and he wanted to word his answer carefully. "…I don't know either…" he finally confessed, contemplation deep in his eyes. "I've been away from Yami before, so at least I wouldn't fear the unknown… and I've died before, so I know what awaits on the other side… but even knowing that, it's so hard to risk it. How hard would it be for Masika, knowing she risked losing everything and not knowing for certain that she could get it back again?"
Lateef nodded slowly. "I glad you all understand what we're asking of her," he whispered, before – perhaps for the first time in his life – a steely look came into his eyes. "But I'll try. For my friends, and the people of Egypt, I'll try."
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