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Normal Writing: Common Time
Italic Writing: Dream/memory.
(.........) Yami thinking
/........./ Hikari thinking
'.........' Normal thought
"........." Normal speech
(A/N:.........) Author's Note
Chapter Fourteen
"Bakura, please. Don't hurt me, Bakura." Ryou pleaded, backing away.
The yami growled low in his throat, the knife making lazy patterns in the air.
"Yami? Yami, listen to me. Yami!" Ryou cried, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Would his yami really kill him?
It seemed so, as Bakura approached.
Ryou turned and ran.
- - - - - - - - - - -
In Bakura's twisted dream/reality, the guard fled. He ran away.
Bakura decided to give chase.
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Ryou glanced behind and saw Bakura coming up easily.
"Bakura!" He cried, running faster.
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The guard shouted words, but they didn't make sense to the thief.
Bakura?
Who was Bakura?
Wait..........He was Bakura.........and that boy ahead was Ryou.
Not a guard.
Ryou.
"RYOU!" Bakura skidded to a stop, howling the name out in total anguish, collapsing to his knees and clutching his head.
- - - - - - - - - -
Ryou stopped and turned around, hearing Bakura call his name.
He ran back, wrapping his arms around Bakura, forgetting about the knife.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry........." Bakura repeated, the mantra coming out a low and soft chant.
Ryou ran his hands through his yami's hair.
"It's okay, it's alright, yami." Ryou whispered.
- - - - - - - - - -
"Be quiet, you fool!" Bakura hissed at his companions.
They were slipping through a dark tomb.
A newly made tomb for a rich priest.
Bakura had wanted to go alone, but the "Thieves' Lair", as the place Bakura and Mariku set up was now called by everyone, considered him too untrustworthy to go alone. Which angered him. HE and Mariku had set up the place, but now they didn't trust him?
They were afraid he'd keep it all for himself.
Which he would have, too.
As it was, Bakura was only sixteen, but already a far better thief than any one else. His sense of revenge and his hate making him older than his years, and far more cunning.
"Shut up." The other man snarled back. It was bad enough he had to follow the lead of a younger man, who had more skills than he did, and was far more dangerous, but to have him constantly insulting him was grinding his nerves.
Bakura glared at the man, then turned around and examined the wall ahead. They had gotten the treasure, and now were trying to find their way out.
"It's a dead end, idiot. Come on, let's go try that other passage." The second man said, flinching at Bakura's glare.
"The other passage is a trap." The albino Egyptian said absently, counting the bricks in the wall.
"And how do you know that?" The first man asked, sneering.
"It is a dead end, for the air is stale there. There is a fresh breeze here, so this leads somewhere. The other passage is too obvious. Call it a hunch." Bakura explained.
"A 'hunch'?" One man asked, staring at Bakura.
"For some little feeling you are leading us around this labyrinth??" The other snarled.
"Come on, let's go. This little white-haired freak can rot and die as he plays in the dirt." The first sneered, turning and walking away. His partner followed him, lugging his treasure sacks.
"Your funeral." Bakura said lightly, examining a small crack in the stone floor.
Ah, there it was.
This whole tomb was a giant booby trap with smaller traps inside.
Bakura had just found the trigger to the big trap.
The empty corridor above must be a support system for this trap.
Stepping on a stone, touching a wall, something like that would trigger it.
The family of this dead priest wanted NO ONE to get through. Sure, they could get to the treasure (Which wasn't all with the priest's body, most had been in separate chambers) but they could never get out without figuring out the trap.
Which most thieves wouldn't be able too.
The tunnel the three thieves had entered was the small entrance so that the family could lay offerings for the priest's Ka.
But if a thief was to try and rob the priest, there had to be some way to stop them and still let the family be able to give up offerings.
This priest was rumored to be a great architect. He had, so the gossip says, designed his own tomb.
There had been a massive piece of stone at the beginning of the corridor, made to roll in from one side, crushing any intruder who didn't know how to unarm the trap.
If he did it at the beginning of the corridor, who says he wouldn't try again?
Bakura carefully examined every inch, without touching anything that could set off a possible, (and likely) trap.
In order for people to go in and out, there had to be a way to set and unlock the trap.
So the trap had to work on a simple fulcrum method, the stone delicately posed so that the slightest pressure on the trigger would cause it to move.
So, in order to get out, Bakura needed to find the trigger.
He examined the walls.
Large slabs of stone, with no chinks or depressions, and they were covered in hieroglyphics.
The ceiling was old stone lintel, same as the walls.
The floor was tiled stone.
Small pieces.
That was a glimmer of hope.
But no piece looked different from the rest.........
Bakura crouched down, examining the floor.
Hope slipped away, and Bakura rested back on his heels, dejected. He had his sack of treasure (all the best of the lot, he was sure to get in the room first), in one hand, and the torch in another.
He laid the sack down.
Wait.........
There, by that wall.........
A stone that was tapered slightly, instead of the usual octagonal shape.........
Bakura reached out and carefully brushed the dirt and dust off.
Yes, it was different.
Not by much, but it was different.
Bakura reached out and tried to lift it.
It was wedged.
Bakura had a hunch.
This was the key, the unlocking mechanism.
It wasn't a trigger.
Not to be proven wrong on this hunch, Bakura drew a knife.
Bakura inserted it into a crack around the odd stone, and pried it up.
There was a cavity underneath.........
Remarkable. This workmanship deserved credit.
There was a small wooden handle.
Bakura grabbed it and lifted.
A groaning echoed throughout the tomb, like some great beast that didn't appreciate being awoken.
A large section of the wall nearby shifted, then settled.
The groaning stopped.
So that whole wall was the trap? If you touched the trigger (which Bakura had yet to find), the wall would collapse, sealing the corridor.
But Bakura had discovered the key.
Where was the trigger?
He glanced about, and then heard a piercing scream down the corridor.
Shrugging, Bakura decided to see what was so interesting. He carefully hefted his treasure sack, and walked cautiously down the passage.
He turned down the other corridor, the one that was a trap, and carefully proceeded.
Most of the traps were either disarmed or triggered, thanks to the other two thieves.
They had survived all of the traps so far.
Until they got to this one.
Evidently it was the same kind of trap Bakura had just disarmed.
One of the thieves was trapped below a large slab of stone, and his partner was trying to free him.
Bakura arched an eyebrow in amusement.
This corridor was exactly the same as the other, with the same trap at the end.
They just didn't find the key.
The only difference between the two corridors was that this one was a dead end.
And the other was the exit.
"Told you so." Bakura said evenly, watching with slight interest as the one man tried to free his partner, reaching under the slab and trying to lift it.
Their treasure sacks lay forgotten on the ground.
The man below the stone slab was slowly being crushed, he was finding it hard to breathe.
(A/N: Okay, a bit of descriptive death here!)
He was on his back, arms and legs spread out, his head turned to the side.
His jaw was being pushed out of place by the monstrous weight. He could hardly open his mouth, and his tongue hung limp.
His eyes bulged, staring at his friend and at Bakura for help, pleading for help.
His breath came in wet gasps, as his chest was decompressed and his ribs cracked.
Blood slowly seeped from him, spreading out on the tomb floor.
"Help me!" The man's companion cried to Bakura, trying to lift the stone.
Bakura snorted in amusement, stepping forwards.
The two older men looked at him thankfully.
Bakura drew his knife again, and their eyes widened suddenly.
The man who was free tried to defend himself, but Bakura was quicker.
Dodging the man's blow, Bakura sank the knife between two vertebra in the back of the man's neck, severing his spine.
He dropped limply to the floor, still aware of what was going on even as his life dwindled out with his life's blood.
Bakura looked at the trapped man, and decided it wasn't worth the effort.
He picked up his treasure sack, and those of the other two thieves, and left.
The trapped man screamed as he was left in the dark, his partner's dead body lying nearby.
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(End this short Chapter.)
You like? I hope so! I liked writing this memory, it was fun!
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