Me: hello, and welcome to 'kept in the Dark; Chapter Five'!!
Kyokae: *nods* yup, and this time I'm even more confusing... Woah, is that even possible?
'Leanne: *also nods* apparently so...
Me: *sweatdrops* Shut up! ^^;;
Shinu: *sulks around* I still don't have that part you promised me...
Me: well, *nervous silence* I wasn't going to give you one...that was to shut you up...
Shinu: WHAT?!
Me: eh heh... *backs away*
Disclaimer: *knocks Erin-chan unconscious* Well, now that that's over...
Warning: Maybe some violence, attempts at shonen-ai...not much, really. The plot's going for a little ride this chapter, so expect changes.
Disclaimer: *mushroom breath* and that unconscious thing over there doesn't own the splendor of any anime show.
*
Nahkti stood in shame. At the moment, he had felt awfully stupid asking the enchantress why she had granted Yami powers. What had he expected to gain from interrogating her, anyway? How could she help?
Kyokae floated down to Nahkti's eye level. "It's quite unfortunate that that took place. If you are looking for help, I cannot supply beyond this poem."
The demon looked up suddenly. What kind poem? "Fine." He crossed his arms across his leather chest. "What's the catch?"
"You never trust anyone, do you?" Kyokae frowned.
"With the exception of one..." he mumbled.
"Yes. That would be Bakura Ryou, correct? Don't look so surprised. You don't need to tell me his name. However, there are a couple of things you will have to complete for me. There are four quests in all-"
"I knew it!" He immediately moved his arms to his sides, leering. "You never can just help someone without something in it for you, can you?! But I'm sure that doesn't apply to your dearest Yami, does it?" he added seething.
She frowned again. "That will do, Nahkti-ahmose. Do you want my help or not?" He sighed and shook his head. "Alright. I'm going to tell you the first part of the poem without price. You will have to earn the rest to prove that you really do want to save and love this 'Ryou'." Kyokae rose six feet into the air, vigorously writing the first verse in the air, heavy with anticipation. They appeared like a wavering blue flame.
'Who lies in ruin,
Sleeps in legend,
But is thinking of you?'
He took the words all in, memorizing each curve they made, Nahkti didn't want to forget anything. "What? What is this supposed to mean?" She only smiled before disappearing into her own plane again. "Wait! But, what about my quest?! What will you have me do?!" Nahkti screamed into the dank alleyway.
Her melodic voice once again lit the opening. "You will collect the Sheath of Mortality* for me. Bring it to me after the night emblem hides the sun. It will happen soon. You must hurry." Her voice faded into memory. The night emblem...?
Nahkti sat down and wrapped his quivering wings around himself to keep out the night air. He would have to figure the riddle out first. The night emblem... Something that signifies the night, possibly?
"Alright. What represents the night?" Stars, darkness... Nothing that could hide the Sun. "Okay, what /can/ hide the Sun?" The moon...? Of course! A solar eclipse. But... He stood up once again for the trip home. There wasn't going to be one for at least another fifty years. Nahkti defiantly couldn't wait that long. Maybe she meant another time...
"Ah! She's forcing me into my past!" He was going to have to re-live his life before he met Yami. The legacy of the Sheath of Mortality. The protector of Aki. The immortal sword that kept Egypt from the cold winds of Autumn and Winter, and he was to claim its sheath?! "Ahh, this is going to be difficult..." He took off towards his home.
*
"Uhh, that's Philae, but that's way to south... Even Aswan north of it..." Nahkti was going over his map of Egypt. Or the Egypt he would be visiting, anyway. The map was huge. In fact, he had to move all his pillows to another cavern to spread the entire thing out. Walking more North, Nahkti was standing east of the Valley of the Kings and on top of a town named Karnak. Also maybe twenty centimeters from Thebes, not far. Only perhaps a day's journey. Many temples were built around the two most important cites; Thebes and Memphis, the capital city. The sword and its sheath were kept in the temple of Ashita, (tomorrow). And that was somewhere in Middle Egypt. Probably not on the same side as the Valley of the Kings, and a smaller town close to immediate reinforcements was more likely to bypass the notice of people wishing to unleash it's full fury...
Kyokae had left a faerie shell on the platform. It would take Nahkti back in half an hour, and he still needed to choose where he was going to be heading. The faerie shell also contained a mirror lined with the same pattern of Kyokae's circlet, a way to contact her when he had gathered the sheath. It would drop him off at Abydos, a city surrounded by desert and on the west side of the Nile. He would be nearly a week's worth of constant travel and a trip across the Nile away from Karnak.
The eclipse was two weeks away.
That was hardly enough time to find his way there without being suspected of anything, and without getting lost in the palette of sand known as the Western Desert without his wings to guide him. He would look, talk, and otherwise be, an Egyptian. Himself, three thousand years ago. The Thief King Bakura.
*
"Uhh, wha...? What?" An angel engulfed in darkness shivered and sat up. "N-Nahkti? Where, are you?" He supported his body with one arm, rubbing his eyes with the other. Where was he?
Invisible to the eye, a shadow moved along the perimeter of blackness.
Ryou couldn't see, but he felt, almost sensed, a presence stealthily hidden to the lost and broken angel. "Who, who's there??" He tried to stand, but only discovered his weakened state.
His energy was still draining.
The shadows were whispering their own tongue, seemingly taunting the boy. Ryou slumped his shoulders. He could remember now. Yami had him captured and stole everything the angel, if he was still considered that much, had held sacred to him. His wings to lift his worries and pain, his life force and will to live, and his virginity. Ryou shivered again. "Nahkti... Where are you? Why couldn't you protect me like you said you would?" Ryou buried his head within the comfort of his arms and knees and began to cry.
"Oh, but did he /swear/ to protect you, now?" The shadows...
"Yes, maybe he didn't want to save you." Ryou opened his eyes slightly to see nothing by utter blackness.
"Tch, it seems you were nothing but one-day thrill." Every word seemed to infiltrate and poison the young one's mind.
"Tossed aside like a pair of wings that don't fly..." Ryou hunched his shoulders and let the last tear fall. Did he mean nothing to Nahkti? Were the whisperers right?
He straightened his back. "No! You're all wrong! Nahkti would never do that! He!...he loved, me." Actually hearing himself say that sounded rather pathetic. Ryou had known him for what, three days? He barely knew him. How could he be so sure?
The shadows grew more restless. "Nahkti, eh? Do you know who he is?"
Ryou furrowed his brow. "A demon, of course."
"No. He was not always a demon. You must know that. You are, after all, a mimicry of your living self." The boy averted his faded gaze to what he thought was the icy ground. "Nahkti, or should we say, Bakura, was a thief. A murderer."
"What?? What are you saying?"
"Shall we begin our tale, then?"
Ryou nodded subtly and closed his glazed eyes.
"This tale goes back nearly three thousand years ago..."
*Flashback*
"Hey, here comes that freak. Maybe we'll catch him this time, Azunith!" Two young boys darted out from behind a dead bush. A fair-haired child was crouching in the shadow of an oblivious man and had his arms filled with assorted goods. Fruits, cloth, some things weren't even recognizable to them.
The second boy spoke up. "Hey! You there! Put my father's things down!" The albino jumped in shock and swiftly turned in the direction of his chasers.
"No! Go away!" He darted into the massive crowd, drawing some glares. Looking back to make sure that he lost them in the mass of squirming flesh, Bakura couldn't see were he was going and crashed into a tall, burly man.
"Boy! Watch where you're going! Why are you running so fast, anyway? Have I caught a rotten little theif?" He had run right into one of the merchants.
Grabbing his small arm, the man dragged him to the two out of breath children. "Are these the two you stole from, boy?"
Bakura stared at the ground. "No. Why would they have these anyway? They're the same age as me." He motioned to his loot.
"Because, tramp, they're the sons of respectable merchants. You have a drunkard for a father." Bakura flinched. Why did he say something like that? He wasn't really his father, anyway. He had heard of stories of wonderful fathers, and his was nothing like them. He wasn't his father. He didn't care about him beyond the fact that he always made sure Bakura ate something each day. But he could stay out the entire day and night without him worrying. His mother was ill for most of the time and couldn't look after him.*
"Yeah, stupid. Now give us our things!" The first boy punched Bakura in the nose and the second took the items he had stolen fair and square.
The merchant waved the two off and glared at Bakura disapprovingly. "Nasty things, tramps are." he mumbled and wandered off. That was the first meeting of the two boys and Bakura.
A few weeks after that encounter, the priests from the palace came to make the ninety-nine sacrifices of Kuru-Eruna, killing almost every adult in the small village. Bakura had watched them in horror as they slayed his mother without a second thought. That was the day he became unbearably twisted. Bakura began to steal for a living, and enjoyed it.
Ten years later, he had grown into the most feared theif in Upper Egypt. After earning the title of Theif King Bakura, he went in search of the two men that caught him a decade earlier. When Bakura found them asleep together in the back of their joined shops, he kicked them awake and had finally killed them both. It wasn't as fun when his victims were asleep. Leaving their souls up to Osiris and Ammit, he left the new grave covered in fresh blood.
*End Flashback*
As the eerie voices of the hidden shadows ended their story, Ryou's eyes had become water-filled once more. "That is our story, little one. Our death tale."
"If not for your capture, you might have even ended like us."
"Our souls were consumed by Ammit and we're now condemned to this place."
"Those who enter, never come out."
"You will go insane from the lack of light and companions,"
"And then will join us here." The small and terribly hurt angel lay down onto the freezing floor. They weren't lying. Nahkti had been a killer and eventually become one that fed off purity. Ryou had forgotten how demons fed. Consuming and corrupting innocents, for the most part.
"Our time here is limited, little one."
"We take our leave now."
"Welcome to the Shadow Realm."
*
Me: Well then, that was rather odd.
Shinu: you wrote it.
Me: oh yeah...
Bakura *coughs* in later news...the Sheath of Mortality is just some random thing that popped into Erin-chan's mind to stretch the plotline. A sheath, if you didn't know, is what you carry a sword in. The sword of Aki literally means the sword of Fall (the season) and was also some random thing that decided to visit our authoress's mind.
Me: ^^;; yeah... heh heh
Ryou: what a strange childhood...
Bakura: -_-;;
Me: ^^ well, I really didn't feel like putting an abusive dad in this time. It's been done WAY too many times, and I wanted to stick to why Baku-chan went insane in the manga/anime.
Bakura: Am I still a tomb robber?
Me: uhh, I'm not totally sure about that. I don't think there's any evidence of that in Yu-Gi-Oh! so I might not. Besides, you have to get onto Yami's good side somehow, and that would not be a good start.
Bakura: well, neh! *sticks out tongue*
Everyone: *sweatdrops*
Me: oh, and during the flashback, you could read some of Bakura's thoughts. Ryou wouldn't have known these because neither did the shadows. But due to the fact that I wanted to include something to explain his behavior, I added it in. But try to think along the lines that the shadows wouldn't have known anything about his thoughts, all right?
Ryou: *goes back to read* Who's Azunith?
Me: uhh, I'm not exactly sure. The name just came to mind. ^^;; It's probably the name of some anime person... If anyone recognizes it, could you fill me in? That's gunna bug me now...
Shinu: erm, right... Well, anyway! r/r mina! Ja!
Kyokae: *nods* yup, and this time I'm even more confusing... Woah, is that even possible?
'Leanne: *also nods* apparently so...
Me: *sweatdrops* Shut up! ^^;;
Shinu: *sulks around* I still don't have that part you promised me...
Me: well, *nervous silence* I wasn't going to give you one...that was to shut you up...
Shinu: WHAT?!
Me: eh heh... *backs away*
Disclaimer: *knocks Erin-chan unconscious* Well, now that that's over...
Warning: Maybe some violence, attempts at shonen-ai...not much, really. The plot's going for a little ride this chapter, so expect changes.
Disclaimer: *mushroom breath* and that unconscious thing over there doesn't own the splendor of any anime show.
*
Nahkti stood in shame. At the moment, he had felt awfully stupid asking the enchantress why she had granted Yami powers. What had he expected to gain from interrogating her, anyway? How could she help?
Kyokae floated down to Nahkti's eye level. "It's quite unfortunate that that took place. If you are looking for help, I cannot supply beyond this poem."
The demon looked up suddenly. What kind poem? "Fine." He crossed his arms across his leather chest. "What's the catch?"
"You never trust anyone, do you?" Kyokae frowned.
"With the exception of one..." he mumbled.
"Yes. That would be Bakura Ryou, correct? Don't look so surprised. You don't need to tell me his name. However, there are a couple of things you will have to complete for me. There are four quests in all-"
"I knew it!" He immediately moved his arms to his sides, leering. "You never can just help someone without something in it for you, can you?! But I'm sure that doesn't apply to your dearest Yami, does it?" he added seething.
She frowned again. "That will do, Nahkti-ahmose. Do you want my help or not?" He sighed and shook his head. "Alright. I'm going to tell you the first part of the poem without price. You will have to earn the rest to prove that you really do want to save and love this 'Ryou'." Kyokae rose six feet into the air, vigorously writing the first verse in the air, heavy with anticipation. They appeared like a wavering blue flame.
'Who lies in ruin,
Sleeps in legend,
But is thinking of you?'
He took the words all in, memorizing each curve they made, Nahkti didn't want to forget anything. "What? What is this supposed to mean?" She only smiled before disappearing into her own plane again. "Wait! But, what about my quest?! What will you have me do?!" Nahkti screamed into the dank alleyway.
Her melodic voice once again lit the opening. "You will collect the Sheath of Mortality* for me. Bring it to me after the night emblem hides the sun. It will happen soon. You must hurry." Her voice faded into memory. The night emblem...?
Nahkti sat down and wrapped his quivering wings around himself to keep out the night air. He would have to figure the riddle out first. The night emblem... Something that signifies the night, possibly?
"Alright. What represents the night?" Stars, darkness... Nothing that could hide the Sun. "Okay, what /can/ hide the Sun?" The moon...? Of course! A solar eclipse. But... He stood up once again for the trip home. There wasn't going to be one for at least another fifty years. Nahkti defiantly couldn't wait that long. Maybe she meant another time...
"Ah! She's forcing me into my past!" He was going to have to re-live his life before he met Yami. The legacy of the Sheath of Mortality. The protector of Aki. The immortal sword that kept Egypt from the cold winds of Autumn and Winter, and he was to claim its sheath?! "Ahh, this is going to be difficult..." He took off towards his home.
*
"Uhh, that's Philae, but that's way to south... Even Aswan north of it..." Nahkti was going over his map of Egypt. Or the Egypt he would be visiting, anyway. The map was huge. In fact, he had to move all his pillows to another cavern to spread the entire thing out. Walking more North, Nahkti was standing east of the Valley of the Kings and on top of a town named Karnak. Also maybe twenty centimeters from Thebes, not far. Only perhaps a day's journey. Many temples were built around the two most important cites; Thebes and Memphis, the capital city. The sword and its sheath were kept in the temple of Ashita, (tomorrow). And that was somewhere in Middle Egypt. Probably not on the same side as the Valley of the Kings, and a smaller town close to immediate reinforcements was more likely to bypass the notice of people wishing to unleash it's full fury...
Kyokae had left a faerie shell on the platform. It would take Nahkti back in half an hour, and he still needed to choose where he was going to be heading. The faerie shell also contained a mirror lined with the same pattern of Kyokae's circlet, a way to contact her when he had gathered the sheath. It would drop him off at Abydos, a city surrounded by desert and on the west side of the Nile. He would be nearly a week's worth of constant travel and a trip across the Nile away from Karnak.
The eclipse was two weeks away.
That was hardly enough time to find his way there without being suspected of anything, and without getting lost in the palette of sand known as the Western Desert without his wings to guide him. He would look, talk, and otherwise be, an Egyptian. Himself, three thousand years ago. The Thief King Bakura.
*
"Uhh, wha...? What?" An angel engulfed in darkness shivered and sat up. "N-Nahkti? Where, are you?" He supported his body with one arm, rubbing his eyes with the other. Where was he?
Invisible to the eye, a shadow moved along the perimeter of blackness.
Ryou couldn't see, but he felt, almost sensed, a presence stealthily hidden to the lost and broken angel. "Who, who's there??" He tried to stand, but only discovered his weakened state.
His energy was still draining.
The shadows were whispering their own tongue, seemingly taunting the boy. Ryou slumped his shoulders. He could remember now. Yami had him captured and stole everything the angel, if he was still considered that much, had held sacred to him. His wings to lift his worries and pain, his life force and will to live, and his virginity. Ryou shivered again. "Nahkti... Where are you? Why couldn't you protect me like you said you would?" Ryou buried his head within the comfort of his arms and knees and began to cry.
"Oh, but did he /swear/ to protect you, now?" The shadows...
"Yes, maybe he didn't want to save you." Ryou opened his eyes slightly to see nothing by utter blackness.
"Tch, it seems you were nothing but one-day thrill." Every word seemed to infiltrate and poison the young one's mind.
"Tossed aside like a pair of wings that don't fly..." Ryou hunched his shoulders and let the last tear fall. Did he mean nothing to Nahkti? Were the whisperers right?
He straightened his back. "No! You're all wrong! Nahkti would never do that! He!...he loved, me." Actually hearing himself say that sounded rather pathetic. Ryou had known him for what, three days? He barely knew him. How could he be so sure?
The shadows grew more restless. "Nahkti, eh? Do you know who he is?"
Ryou furrowed his brow. "A demon, of course."
"No. He was not always a demon. You must know that. You are, after all, a mimicry of your living self." The boy averted his faded gaze to what he thought was the icy ground. "Nahkti, or should we say, Bakura, was a thief. A murderer."
"What?? What are you saying?"
"Shall we begin our tale, then?"
Ryou nodded subtly and closed his glazed eyes.
"This tale goes back nearly three thousand years ago..."
*Flashback*
"Hey, here comes that freak. Maybe we'll catch him this time, Azunith!" Two young boys darted out from behind a dead bush. A fair-haired child was crouching in the shadow of an oblivious man and had his arms filled with assorted goods. Fruits, cloth, some things weren't even recognizable to them.
The second boy spoke up. "Hey! You there! Put my father's things down!" The albino jumped in shock and swiftly turned in the direction of his chasers.
"No! Go away!" He darted into the massive crowd, drawing some glares. Looking back to make sure that he lost them in the mass of squirming flesh, Bakura couldn't see were he was going and crashed into a tall, burly man.
"Boy! Watch where you're going! Why are you running so fast, anyway? Have I caught a rotten little theif?" He had run right into one of the merchants.
Grabbing his small arm, the man dragged him to the two out of breath children. "Are these the two you stole from, boy?"
Bakura stared at the ground. "No. Why would they have these anyway? They're the same age as me." He motioned to his loot.
"Because, tramp, they're the sons of respectable merchants. You have a drunkard for a father." Bakura flinched. Why did he say something like that? He wasn't really his father, anyway. He had heard of stories of wonderful fathers, and his was nothing like them. He wasn't his father. He didn't care about him beyond the fact that he always made sure Bakura ate something each day. But he could stay out the entire day and night without him worrying. His mother was ill for most of the time and couldn't look after him.*
"Yeah, stupid. Now give us our things!" The first boy punched Bakura in the nose and the second took the items he had stolen fair and square.
The merchant waved the two off and glared at Bakura disapprovingly. "Nasty things, tramps are." he mumbled and wandered off. That was the first meeting of the two boys and Bakura.
A few weeks after that encounter, the priests from the palace came to make the ninety-nine sacrifices of Kuru-Eruna, killing almost every adult in the small village. Bakura had watched them in horror as they slayed his mother without a second thought. That was the day he became unbearably twisted. Bakura began to steal for a living, and enjoyed it.
Ten years later, he had grown into the most feared theif in Upper Egypt. After earning the title of Theif King Bakura, he went in search of the two men that caught him a decade earlier. When Bakura found them asleep together in the back of their joined shops, he kicked them awake and had finally killed them both. It wasn't as fun when his victims were asleep. Leaving their souls up to Osiris and Ammit, he left the new grave covered in fresh blood.
*End Flashback*
As the eerie voices of the hidden shadows ended their story, Ryou's eyes had become water-filled once more. "That is our story, little one. Our death tale."
"If not for your capture, you might have even ended like us."
"Our souls were consumed by Ammit and we're now condemned to this place."
"Those who enter, never come out."
"You will go insane from the lack of light and companions,"
"And then will join us here." The small and terribly hurt angel lay down onto the freezing floor. They weren't lying. Nahkti had been a killer and eventually become one that fed off purity. Ryou had forgotten how demons fed. Consuming and corrupting innocents, for the most part.
"Our time here is limited, little one."
"We take our leave now."
"Welcome to the Shadow Realm."
*
Me: Well then, that was rather odd.
Shinu: you wrote it.
Me: oh yeah...
Bakura *coughs* in later news...the Sheath of Mortality is just some random thing that popped into Erin-chan's mind to stretch the plotline. A sheath, if you didn't know, is what you carry a sword in. The sword of Aki literally means the sword of Fall (the season) and was also some random thing that decided to visit our authoress's mind.
Me: ^^;; yeah... heh heh
Ryou: what a strange childhood...
Bakura: -_-;;
Me: ^^ well, I really didn't feel like putting an abusive dad in this time. It's been done WAY too many times, and I wanted to stick to why Baku-chan went insane in the manga/anime.
Bakura: Am I still a tomb robber?
Me: uhh, I'm not totally sure about that. I don't think there's any evidence of that in Yu-Gi-Oh! so I might not. Besides, you have to get onto Yami's good side somehow, and that would not be a good start.
Bakura: well, neh! *sticks out tongue*
Everyone: *sweatdrops*
Me: oh, and during the flashback, you could read some of Bakura's thoughts. Ryou wouldn't have known these because neither did the shadows. But due to the fact that I wanted to include something to explain his behavior, I added it in. But try to think along the lines that the shadows wouldn't have known anything about his thoughts, all right?
Ryou: *goes back to read* Who's Azunith?
Me: uhh, I'm not exactly sure. The name just came to mind. ^^;; It's probably the name of some anime person... If anyone recognizes it, could you fill me in? That's gunna bug me now...
Shinu: erm, right... Well, anyway! r/r mina! Ja!
