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(.........) Yami's thinking

/........./ Hikari's thinking

"........." Normal speech

'.........' Normal thoughts

(A/N: .........) Author's Note

Normal Writing: Common Time

Italic Writing: Dream/memory.

Chapter Seven

Mariku led Bakura to his house, which was a great big manor with servants working out front.

Bakura was led inside and brought before Mariku's father. His presence (and grubbiness) was explained, and with a bit of reluctance, he was allowed to stay.

Grinning at his new friend, Mariku hauled Bakura to the bathing rooms, got him cleaned up with new clothes, and showed him to one of the unused rooms.

"I'm glad my father allowed you to stay. Oh, you'll probably be having lessons with me too. Father wouldn't want you to be unlearned." Mariku babbled cheerfully.

Bakura eyed his 'new friend'. Mariku did have a charming personality and all, but lessons? Sighing, thinking he had no help for it, Bakura agreed. Who knows? It could be of use later on, when he was a master thief.

But he would leave Mariku and his family alone. They were being kind and generous, which is something someone as abnormal and poor like him wouldn't expect from nobles. The fact that they took in an orphaned, dirty, and probably thieving kid proved that.

"So, what do you want to do? I can show you around the house.........the grounds.........and then we can go to the market place! So, Bakura, what do you want? Does that sound good?" Mariku was anxious to get to know his friend.

Ryou woke up with a start as his alarm clock rang. Well......that had been interesting. He could still see the grand house with the slaves in better clothes than a commoner. That would be a nice place to live. And to think Malik lived there in his past life! Not that he would remember any of it..........

Ryou sighed and went to get ready for school, taking a shower and eating a quick breakfast. His yami was still asleep in his soul room, and Ryou could 'feel' him tossing and turning fitfully. At least at school Ryou would have something to distract him and focus on so that he wouldn't have to witness anymore of Bakura's memories.

Walking to school, he was glad that it was a nice day. If it had been raining it would have been the one thing to complete a bad day. Bakura was getting hard to ignore.

Wait.......it would be one of the things that would complete a bad day.

The other thing stood before him, cracking their knuckles and grinning.

Vetch and his group of bullies, preparing to pick on him again. Yesterday he got off because Joey and Tristan were with him, but the white haired boy was alone today.

"Hey, there, wussy. Time for another 'lesson' in respect." Vetch grinned, and Ryou gulped. His yami was no help on these type of things, lately. He was too distracted by his memories to be of any help.

But his feelings of panic and fear must have been strong, or the memories were not too bad, for he felt Bakura stir in the back of his mind and take stock of the situation.

Then white hot rage poured across their bond and Yami Bakura took control. He was careful to keep Ryou's look, though.

"Well? Let's get started then." Vetch growled when he got no answer. He and his cronies advanced, reaching for 'Ryou'.

"No."

They halted as if they ran into a invisible wall.

"What? I think I misheard you." Vetch growled, cracking his knuckles again. No one, NO ONE defied them.

"Sorry, I should have figured you wouldn't be able to understand a simple word. I said no." Yami Bakura stated, as calmly as ever. Or as much as he could be. Below the surface, in his eyes, there simmered a rage so potent that Ryou knew that if he didn't stop him soon, all seven of the bullies would be in the Shadow Realm soon.

/Yami! Yami, stop this! Please!/ Ryou pleaded. As much as he would've liked the bullies to leave him alone, he couldn't let Bakura kill again. Not after all that from Battle City......

(Quiet Ryou.) Yami Bakura hissed across their link.

/Yami! Please don't hurt them permanently! Don't kill them!/ Ryou insisted.

There was a moment of silence.......then...........

(Fine.)

Vetch swung a harsh right hook at Bakura, thinking to hit him now for his defiance.

Yami Bakura ducked, lunged, and swung a fist all in one smooth move. It hit Vetch square in the face, and the kid staggered back.

One of his buddies leapt forwards to take on the enraged yami, and Bakura knelt, spun an extended leg, and knocked the bully's legs out from beneath him. He stood, elbowed the kid running at him from behind, and whirled to block another punch from Vetch.

It had been a while since Yami Bakura had been in a good fight.

He laughed maniacally as he kneed Vetch and left him gasping for breath.

Suddenly, a strong arm wrapped around his waist and another around his chest, restricting his arms and effectively pinning him.

"This'll teach you." Vetch growled, wiping blood from his chin. He swung back and punched Bakura cross the face, snapping his head back. Bakura struggled wildly in his captor's grip.

"Oy! Yami B.! We'll help ya, hold on!"

Vetch whirled around and saw Tristan and Joey running from across the street. He growled and motioned for the kid that was holding onto Bakura to keep him constrained.

"We'll take these two, you keep him down! He still has to learn his lesson!" and Vetch went at Joey and Tristan with flying fists.

As they fought, Yami Bakura used his Ring to send a rather painful shock through the kid that held him.

With a cry, the bully released the spirit and jumped around, waving his arms rather comically.

Yami Bakura staggered a bit at the sudden release, and Vetch turned and delivered a powerful punch to the side of his head, sending him sprawling and dazed.

"We're not through with you yet!" he snarled.

Climbing to his feet, another bully was reeling from a hit delivered by Tristan and ran into Yami Bakura. He stumbled again, feeling the rough texture of the road beneath him instead of the sidewalk.

/Bakura! Look out!/ Ryou screamed.

"Yami B.! LOOK OUT!" Joey shouted at the same time, pointing down the road.

The road that Bakura was standing on.

With a car coming right at him, its horn screaming.

In sudden desperation, all his thoughts on Ryou, Yami Bakura sealed Ryou into his soul room and hoped that would shield him from any pain that their body would feel.

The car was too close to dodge.

But he'd try anyways.

Yami Bakura threw himself to the side, but the car hit him with a sickening thud that sent winces through all present.

Yami Bakura lay on the ground, and then the Ra-cursed rain started. Joey and Tristan were kneeling over him, the bullies running off. His vision blacked around the edges, and then covered everything.

White walls.

Yami Bakura blinked, the room coming into focus.

He hurt, a lot. An incessant beeping grated on his nerves, that is what had woken him up.

Growling with the effort, he sat up and looked around.

He was in a hospital room, that much he knew. He remembered dimly that he had been in a fight, and Joey and Tristan had come to help, then something had hit him and he now woke up here.

/You were hit by a car, yami./ Ryou's voice said softly over their link.

(Oh.) that would explain why he hurt so much. (Told you those things were demons.) Yami Bakura said, trying to lighten up Ryou, for his hikari sounded a bit depressed.

Ryou gave the impression of a tentative smile over their bond, when the door to Yami Bakura's room opened and he was distracted.

"Ah, your awake. Good. You have visitors, Mister Bakura." The doctor said as he walked in. He checked Bakura's pulse and nodded with satisfaction.

"Truly you are a marvel. You were blindsided by a car and yet are healing nicely with nothing serious to stop you from leaving soon. You're lucky." The doctor walked to the door.

"Do you want to see your visitors? Are you up to it?"

"Yeah, sure." Yami Bakura said, startled at how weak his physical voice was.

/Do you want me to take over?/ Ryou asked, but Yami Bakura shook his head mentally and physically.

(No, you don't need to be in this position. The beating from the bullies and the wounds from that demon car are too much for you to handle.) Bakura answered.

/I'm not as weak as everyone thinks./ Ryou protested.

(I know. But if I can barely handle this, I'm sure YOU couldn't.) Bakura pointed out, and Ryou fell silent. He hadn't known it was that bad.

/I'm sorry, yami./ he whispered. Yami Bakura blinked, confused.

(Sorry for what? It was my own stupid fault for letting them get me in that position, not yours.)

/I still feel bad......../ Ryou began, but then his friends came walking into the room.

"So, Yami B. You get in a fight with punks, get hit by a car, what do you plan to do now?" Joey said, curving his hand as if he held an invisible microphone and trying to sound like a TV producer.

Tristan elbowed him as Yugi, (or rather Yami, since the Pharaoh was in control), walked forwards a bit hesitantly.

"Bakura?" He asked softly, and the Ring Spirit, though hurt and a bit dazed, still had his attitude.

"Yes, Pharaoh?" He asked snidely.

"Bakura, I think it was a noble thing you did, defending Ryou from the bullies and taking the blow from the car for him." Yami said, though it was obvious he was a little reluctant to say it.

"Actually being decent? Wow, that's a first." Bakura remarked. "Never thought I see you being humble, Pharaoh."

"It has happened a time or two, but not often." Yami answered back, smiling slightly at the usual verbal exchange between the two.

"How is Ryou?" Tristan asked.

"Fine. A bit confused, since I locked him in the Ring when I saw the demon contraption coming at me, but fine." Yami Bakura answered. The doctor poked his head in.

"Excuse me, but Mister Bakura needs his rest. He'll be out in a couple of days if he is doing better." Ryou's friends waved good-bye to him, and left.

(Well, they were being nice.) Yami Bakura remarked with a bit of wonder. They were always cold to him.

/That's because you did something good./ Ryou answered back.

"I think you should get some sleep." The doctor said. "Take these for the pain." He handed Bakura two pills and a cup of water.

Yami Bakura's good mood vanished.

Sleep.

Sleep meant dreams.

But the drugs he had taken were affecting him and he nodded off.

"Where did he go?"

"Find him!"

Bakura cowered behind a stand in the market, trying to hide his stark white hair. He pulled a piece of clothe from a bale and covered himself with it. The guards and the noble he had stolen from ran past, not seeing him.

When he thought it was safe, Bakura slipped out.

"HEY YOU!"

The merchant saw him holding onto one of his fine clothes, and jumped to the conclusion that he was stealing it.

"THEIF! GUARDS! THEIF! THEIF!" the merchant bellowed, pointing at the fleeing Bakura.

"Ra." Bakura sighed as he ran again.

Evading the guards, pocketing a few things he saw along the way, he reached Mariku's home without further mishap.

He walked inside and was careful to seem as casual as usual.

"Hello, Kura!" Mariku bounded down the steps and slung an arm around Bakura's shoulders.

The white haired thief winced a bit at the nickname Mariku had thought up for him, but he let him use it.

"So that's where the nickname came from?" Ryou asked as he smiled at the sight of the hyper Mariku, so like Malik, and the somber Bakura.

"Yes. Which is why I let Malik call me it. It brings back good memories. But sometimes bad ones." Yami Bakura whispered, watching his younger self and his friend.

"Bad ones?" Ryou began, but then the scene changed.

Fire. More fire. Bandits were running through the market, robbing and stealing and burning.

They found the large manor where Bakura now lived. They howled in glee as they pillaged and burned their way through, killing slaves.

The Pharaoh's guards were running around outside, trying to subdue the invaders. The bandits found Mariku's father trying to get his son and Bakura out of the house.

They fought and killed Mariku's father, causing the kid to wail in rage and grief and attack them barehanded.

Bakura went too, not wanting his friend to fight alone.

Mariku was easily subdued, but Bakura had learned about hand-to-hand combat and was able to whisk away a dagger and kill one bandit. The one that held Mariku. Once he was free the two boys ran, with Bakura in the lead.

He had found a secret room, and that is where he had hidden everything he had stolen.

The bandits followed them, amused at their antics and thinking that they couldn't escape them.

They were right.

They broke their way into the room, where they stopped in shock.

Gold and other valuables was piled up in there, the result of years of secret pick pocketing and stealing. Snatching baubles from market tables and sneaking into houses.

"Bakura! What is all this? This isn't father's!" Mariku cried, staring around him.

Bakura shifted his feet slightly.

"I'm afraid I haven't been honest. I steal. I'm a thief. I've been one since before you met me." He turned to the bandits, who were helping themselves to his hoard.

"It won't matter anyways. We're dead." Bakura shrugged.

"Maybe not." The lead bandit, a tall Egyptian in rich red clothe with gold adorning his arms said. "You are obviously a skilled thief, to get some of the things in here. Like this." He held up a scarab beetle pendant, the symbol forever lasting life. "This could only come from someone the Pharaoh liked."

"We could use your skills." He smiled at Bakura, who considered his options. Better this than be killed.

"And Mariku?" He asked, suddenly suspicious.

"We don't need no rich man's brat." The bandit dismissed Mariku with a wave of his hand.

"NO! I'm not leaving without Mariku! He's a brother to me." Bakura stated, and realized he spoke the truth.

"Well, if you think so, I guess it is worth it to get someone of your potential." The bandit motioned for them to follow him.

Ryou woke up in his soul room and shook his head. To think that that was how his yami became how he was! He saved Mariku's life, which was indeed a noble thing to do. There was more to his yami than there seemed.

He drifted back off to sleep, and found himself in another memory.

"Hurry up, Bakura!" Mariku whispered, clutching his bag of gold.

"I'm coming. Just a moment." Bakura whispered back, dragging another bag and admiring a new armband with a bejeweled Osiris head upon it.

"The Pharaoh will know we're here within moments, we tripped that alarm!" Mariku said, clambering out of a window in a vacated store room.

"You mean YOU tripped it. I had avoided it and told you where it was, you were just to clumsy." Bakura replied easily, smiling as his friend protested.

They vanished into the deserted town, skirting patrolling guards, and went to their new home in the desert.

The Bandits' Lair.

End Chapter.

Thanks to all reviewers!

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