Me: meh...
'Leanne: meh what?
Me: I can't make anymore mushroom soups now. The disclaimer blew them all up.
Angela: keeps contradicting herself
Me: ?? what the hell?
???: walks in, shaking a bit umm, hello? I'm, I'm here to take over for the other Disclaimer. He was, uh, knocked unconscious last time...
Me: cackles you scared of us? You should be. We're very scary people.
Disclaimer: erm, ErindoesnotownYu-Gi-Oh! There I said it! Bye! runs out
Me: aww, he left too soon... Tormenting the newbies is always fun...
'Leanne: -.-U but that's how you get on their bad side and then when they learn that they're necessary, they start to boss you around!
Warning: walks in and looks around so he came, then? Well, you're going to have to wait a bit longer for the yaoi, but don't worry, hentai fans! Never give up hope!
Me: yeah...
As the light grew and grew, Ryou couldn't help but to take notice of the blinding tear in the shadows.
It started as a small wrinkle in the darkness, and then shuddering from the amount of remaining black, it exploded into a ribbon woven of light stretching in every possible direction. Though he didn't know how, Ryou felt almost like this piece of mind he was just handed was connected to him, and not in the sense that he had brought it on. Something related to his mind...
As if on cue, a surge of memories flooded through him, causing the angel to shout out and fall onto his hands and knees.
"So, so...many...too, too much-" and he fell unconscious right there and then, lying on the frozen Terra.
Memory
An Egyptian boy ran blindly down the marketplace street, trying to find sanctuary, any at all, from the palace soldiers that crashed in the door to his mother's old inn. Actually he had no idea if the guards were still keeping up with him, but turning around was a risk he was not going to take. Unfortunately for him, this caused the adolescent to grow more and more curious with every pounding step in the dusty ground. "Meh, couldn't hurt..." His unusual white hair whipped around as he craned his neck to look over his shoulder, thus running into someone else and ending on top of them.
"Ack! So sorry, sir! Please don't hurt...me..." As he gazed upon the man he had fallen on, he felt his throught choke up and he gasped. The stranger's hair...silver.
The man in the red and white-striped cloak seemed to be thinking the exact same thing. "...Boy..."
When the teen heard his husky voice pass over his ears he immediately scrambled off and tried to stand up, without success and fell down again, though this time their heads had been closer. "I.." was all he could manage before running off.
Rushing down the alleyway once again, he knew that he would never be able to forget the stranger because of his beautiful silver hair.
End Memory
Ryou moaned when he woke up and found himself on the ground once more. The boy...it was him. It had to be him... He could hear all of his thoughts and everything. But that man...it was Nahkti, he looked so similar.
Ryou had a minimal amount of time to this paradox out before he was sucked into another memory.
Memory
"Bakura! Bakura, help me!" I screamed. It was no use. He had been drained already. I knew I would be, too if no one came. "Help me..." Bakura had lost all his memories by now... "Please..." The priest's magick was too strong. I for one should know...
My shackles strained as I decided to just hang limply from the dungeon wall.
End Memory
This time the angel sat up limply. That particular memory...he understood it...that was right before they were separated. For three thousand years...they had been apart. Now he knew what that feeling had been when he had first seen Nahkti, it was recollection. They were together, even so long ago. And now the same scenario had been brought up. He was trapped. Nahkti was gone. He didn't even remember what had happened after that flashback.
One thing was pestering him, though. How he had kept calling Nahkti, Bakura. That was his Egyptian name. That was also what the shadows had called him. Was that his true name? He sighed.
"Bakura..." The name had a funny effect on his tongue. Like he had said it so much before, it rolled off without strain from the harsh syllables.
Ryou looked up and stared at the searing light rippling slightly. It was so close...
Crunch
Pushing up off the frigid ground he had come to grow so accustomed to, the half-angel stood up, teetering and swaying. Ryou was staring at the ground, fighting back tears of vengeance and loneliness, still clutching his arm. "I'm coming, Bakura..." The albino suddenly jerked his head up and glowered at the light. "I'll reach you if you can't get to me." And with the amount of determination his voice held, it sounded like he could have done anything.
"Eeyah-!" Ryou charged at the light, going shoulder first. The only sounds that would've been heard were the angel's scream and heavy footsteps on the ice-like floor.
Approaching it, the stream seemed brighter than ever, and almost blinded Ryou. That is, if he cared. All he could think of at the moment was breaking free of his personal Hell.
As the warm light enveloped and threw him from the Shadow Realm, Ryou prayed to God that this would work.
Bakura had been collecting the food and various other things for his trans-desert journey for the last two hours. "Gwaaa!" He rolled his shoulders and rubbed his tear of boredom away. Maybe a nice nap would keep him awake for the trek. Chuckling lightly at his own brilliance, Thief King Bakura headed off in a definite direction looking for a spot of shade.
Rounding a corner out of the alley he had been occupying, the white-haired Egyptian stopped, now totally lost. 'O-kay! Last time I'll ever run off in a place I have no idea were everything is! Crap...'
Without warning, another albino tore down the street, looking behind him and muttering something under his breath.
"Huh-" was all that came out before Bakura was toppled over and underneath the boy.
"Ack! So sorry, sir! Please don't hurt...me..." What?! He looked exactly like Ryou! Tanned a bit more, mind you, but...
"...Boy..." Ryou...he was back? Had he escaped Yami's grasp?!
"I.." and the Ryou-look alike took off down the same alley he had just exited as if he were being hunted by the devil himself.
Bakura closed his eyes. No matter how similar he looked, he must believe that they're not the same. Whether Kyokae had fixed this, or if it had just been tapped from his own thoughts, he mustn't rely on his sense of sight alone. Not when his heart told him otherwise. So the shocked Thief King shifted from his back to leaning on his elbow and pushed his body from the blistering sun-kissed sand. He still needed to find just a bit more natron, anyway before he went on his way. And he knew exactly the person he would have to go to. An old commerade, one might call him.
Whipping his cloak around him once more, Bakura set out to find his man.
While passing silently through the crowds of people and keeping a sharp eye, the ex-demon scouted for any of the Dark Scorpions. Any one of them should have done, for they would know how to get what he needed.
Fortunately, as Bakura had been passing by a small wooden arch, he could make out a person sitting in the shadows. 'We've just found a scorpion.' As though a shadow, Bakura slipped inside, careful not to make any sort of a creak on the shallow floor of a tunnel connecting to the frame.
Once inside, he could make out a man widdeling down a wayward piece of wood, perched on a lone stool in the middle of the room.
"State your name and your intentions. I wouldn't like to distract myself from my work if unnecessary."
"Cliff, the trap remover. Long time, no see." He looked up, not in shock, but if only pleasant surprise. "Miss me while I was gone? Or still sore over the fact that I haven't joined you and your entourage?"
"No remorse, old friend." Cliff stood up to reveal himself fully. Classic brown hair cascading over his neck, forehead and glasses, a studded brown leather muscle shirt that showed off all his well-defined abs, a protective band of chestnut brown cloth and red pinstripes covering from his elbows to wrists on both arms, a ruby-red pair of pants with both a star on his belt and hard leather over his groin, finished off with boots that mirrored his armbands, reaching up to his knees. But most importantly of all features, his right arm was branded with a black scorpion running up his shoulder. It was the outfit of all Scorpions.
"I have a favour to ask of you and your team."
"Do tell, Thief King." He set aside the developing wooden animal onto the stool.
"I need safe passage across the western desert. I'm going to Karnak for the Sheath of Mortality."
Cliff raised his eyebrow. "You tryin' to top your records, or somethin'? No fool would rush in like that 'cause some guy took somethin' from ya." He crossed his arms and tapped his foot. "Or 'cause some gal asked ya. Is that it?"
Bakura glared. "I assure you, that is not the case. Now will you not help me or at least take me to someone who will?"
Cliff sighed and shook his head in disbelief. Bakura was really going to carry out this crazy plan. "Don't stress yourself, Bakura." The albino rolled his eyes at the casualness of his friend. "We'll help you across the desert and supply any distraction you might be in need of. The guards around there ain't the useless thugs that hang around here. You know this, right?"
Bakura smirked. "You underestimate me. It's my business to know."
"We'll leave now, then. Come, there is a safer passage to our lair through the tavern." And so both thieves left the small hut and slinked though the passing crowds.
Arriving at the bar door, Cliff assured Bakura that he personally knew the bartender, otherwise they wouldn't have stayed there for so long. The pair instinctively headed around back to enter from the personal quarters of the owner. No need to arise suspicion.
"Oi! Mie-ladn! Going down, alright?" A deep grunt replied. "That's an affirmative." Cliff lead him to another back room that held nothing but a couple smashed clay bowls and empty sacks lying on the warmed cobblestone floor. In fact, the only thing that really stood out in the dank room was a wooden trap door, apparently leading down to another storage room.
"And this, would be our headquarters at the moment." Cliff motioned for Bakura to follow him down once he had lifted a lock attached to the plank, exposing mud brick wall supported by beams.
"Hey, Cliff! Who's behind you? Have you really gone and done it this time?" Light chuckling was heard emitting from a doorway at the end of the staircase. Bakura leaned in a bit closer to his friend to whisper in his ear.
"What're they talking about?" He didn't have to ask how they saw both of them. The dancing light from a candle could seek out any shadow of almost any form from a distance.
Cliff shook his head subtly. "They're always joshing around that one day I'm gunna bring down the entire outfit by bring in different people. Other than Zaruug himself, I bring in the most candidates." Bakura nodded his head in partial understanding and decided that he should probably leave that topic off for now because they were both inside the dimly lit room now.
All that you could have seen with an untrained eye standing from the doorway would have been lofty shadows lurking around the randomly-placed candles around the room. But what should have been seen, and what the Thief King saw are both entirely different. With his eye, he could seek out a woman sitting high up with her foot dangling from a lump of something or other, a young teen, maybe fourteen or fifteen, sprawled out on the ground, a hulking giant melted into the far-right corner of the room and yet another door leading North.
When Bakura affirmed that this was everything in the room and no surprises could leap out at him, that was when the door slid open to reveal a burly, muscly man with a patch over his right eye and blue-grey hair. "Bakura," he barked softly, "You came. I was wondering whether you were going to show up ever again after the last tomb raid we went on."
The albino nodded. "I need a favour to ask of you and your team-"
"He's going to Karnak for the Sheath of Mortality." Cliff butted in, earning a glare from the thief king. He wasn't going to ask so outright! Well, that's Cliff for you.
"You're serious? Well, if you have an idea in your head, you should go with it. I assume you will be needing journeymen to go with you across the western desert? No one could make that trip on their own."
"Always right on target, aren't you, Zaruug? Well, I was hoping you could accompany me." Bakura walked from the doorframe to the center, or what could have been assumed the centre, of the room. "I leave tonight. Will you come with me?"
"No doubt, I will. But the rest...no, that's their option." He waved his arm to the rest of the group. Bakura frowned and received several smirks.
The woman was the first to come into the light. "I will come." Meanae the Thorn. Her Arabian accent and brilliant red sash around her throat charming any enemy they needed out of the way without a fuss. But of course, her thorned whip taking out the ones who did.
The boy stood up next. "It would be an honor, Thief King." Chick the Yellow. A leather strap around his shoulders held his selected weapon; a gigantic mallet.
The titan took three, huge steps so he stood next to Cliff. "I follow our leader into anything." Gorg the Strong. His spiked club, not to mention his size intimidating even the most confidant of warriors.
Cliff was the only one left to agree. "Well, what's in it fer us? I mean, you get you little prize and all goes great for you, but what about our trouble? Travelin' the desert ain't some small side quest. I want to know what we git."
Bakura smirked. "You take me for a fool, old friend? Why would I only bother to take the sheath in an imperial temple?" Cliff raised his eyebrows and smiled sadistically.
"I'll come then."
The light-haired man snorted and tapped his foot once on the floor. "We'll be leaving now, I hope?" he inquired, hoping to finish this quest as soon as he could and get one step closer to reaching Ryou.
Don nodded and then, the pack of six thieves left the tavern for the last time.
Natron = kind of salt only found in the desert
Me: meh...wanted to get a P.O.V. form Yami this chapter, but that'll have to wait. Ah, but what a twist, eh? I mean, concerning Ryou and all... shrugs shoulders
Shinu: huffs I don't see what's so special about it...
Me: ;; you still haven't gotten over the fact that you're not in the story, aren't you?
Shinu: to put it bluntly, yes.
'Leanne: shakes head R/R, mina.
