Me: =/ well, what to say...
'Leanne: (is enjoying summer holidays reclining in a random lawn chair in the middle of Erin-chan's room) Perhaps you should give us your explanation for a late chapter this time...
Sun: (crashes through the window and gives 'Leanne an evil sunburn and nasty tan lines for the rest of her 'mortal' life) ha ha ha! Fear my wrath!!
'Leanne: nooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!
Me: (takes the opportunity to run out of the room carrying the laptop) whew...
Warning: (was about to enter the room and sees Erin-chan run out) (turns around and follows) what was that about?
Me: '=l do you really want to know?
Warning: actually, now that you mention it, no. But anyway. Yes! It all ends this chapter!
Me: ?.? The story wasn't scheduled to end for quite a while...
Warning: no no. I meant the first of his quests.
Me: ah.
Disclaimer: (kicks a random rock)
Rock: (protests loudly and promptly bites Disclaimer's ankle) do not kick an ankle-biting pocky-eating rock! Bad for ankle's health and well being.
Disclaimer: O.o;; yeah... well, you know the drill. No own Yu-Gi-Oh! Do own plotline and original characters. Go away now. (kicks rock again and cackles)
The podium on which the Sword of Aki was kept creaked and swayed from the sudden impact of Bakura body slamming it, followed by several soldiers trying desperately to keep this thief from taking Karnak's idol of protection. The only thing that kept the harshness of Autumn and Winter from their doorsteps.
Thief King Bakura clenched his fists tightly as if the sword and sheath pair was his last lifelines. He knew that the Eclipse was almost complete, and his faerie shell was still on his will-hold-anything belt around his waist. The only chance for him was for someone else to get the shell for him.
Cliff the trap remover was by his side in an instant, much to the guards' shock. "I'll get it!" and he immediately began to fumble with Bakura's strapped belt. Fortunately, the conch shell wasn't near the back and was very easily reached.
Bakura nodded his thanks, for he was busy trying to kick the men scrambling around him and the sword. 'I only need the stupid sheath, bastards! Get offa me!' echoed in his mind. He had no time to ponder why Cliff knew exactly what he needed, and certainly wasn't complaining.
"Here! Just yell inta the thing, there ain't no time left!" Cliff shoved the opening of Kyokae's shell in Bakura's face.
"Now Kyokae! Take me back now!" he bellowed. Listening to his voice ring in and out of the twisted passage inside, a great, glowing vortex surrounded him and drowned out his call with its winds. The walls keeping him separated from the main temple shone with a blinding white light and then just disappeared. Bakura was left on his hands and knees starting blankly into nothingness with the Sword of Aki and its sheath under his palm.
"Well, look what ya got us inta this time. This is /just/ great."
This intruding voice in his Nothingness caught Bakura's attention instantaneously, and forced him out of desperate curiosity to turn around.
"C-Cliff..?" He sounded weak and a whole lot younger than he had been for a while. In fact, looking down at himself in shock, Bakura found him sitting in the same red and white cape, just at least ten sizes too large. And his belt was slung around his shoulder, not his waist. The scars where gone too. His wandering fingers, much reduced in size, told him that much.
"Ya, waddya want now, kid." Cliff the trap remover looked just the same as he did in Egypt. He groaned and flopped down onto the ground beside Bakura. "Well, we definitely have the time ta spare. Tell me o' your trip back to Egypt, my old - well, somewhat old, friend..."
Bakura snuffed at being called young. "And just why should I tell you, /Cliff/?"
"Because we have a lot of time ta waste sittin' here. Your gal won't show up for a while..."
"Hurmph! She's not /my/ gal! I don't have any girl. They annoy me, anyway..." He rolled over onto his side facing away from his uncalled for companion and rested on his elbow. "Now you tell me, how is it you know of Kyokae? And how you knew to get the shell for me?"
"Let's jus' say it's a gift given to me from an ol' acquaintance of mine. Besides, you probably wouldn' know wut I was talkin' about."
"Oh, I think you'd be surprised," and young Bakura once again rolled over onto his back with his hands and arms behind his head. "At what I could understand."
"Heh! Ya know, that sounds awful odd coming from a tiny, eleven-year old shrimp." He pushed his falling glasses further up his nose. "Do you really want to know?"
A chunk of silver hair fell in front of Bakura's face and was blown away in a breath. "Why would I ask if I didn't wanna know?"
"Because yer young 'n stupid. That's why."
"Hey! It's only my body that shrunk! I'm still the same Thief King Bakura!"
"Nahkti-ahmose-kha'y-bakura. You have my sheath?" A kimono-clad Kyokae appeared out of the whiteness and the relaxed albino immediately sprung up off the ground, holding the sword duo in his right hand. "You have called, after all." She mimicked a snake's head with her hands and a window of mist was created from her aura and she peered into it. "I see the eclipse has finished. And considering I had a few things to take care of first, you had probably finished on time. Am I correct?"
Bakura nodded sharply. He took the Sword out of the Sheath of Mortality slowly, as if it was a nostalgic item of his. But there was no hesitation when he tossed it expertly to Kyokae. "Now what of your side of the bargain?! You promised Ryou back to me, Kyokae!"
Staying far out of this conversation rapidly developing into a violent argument, Cliff kept his tongue stilled. 'So she still looks the same. Interesting.'
"You may have forgotten, but we had agreed to /four/ quests in all. You have taken the first small step into achieving that. However, you had completed the requirements for obtaining the second verse of my poem. Are you ready, Thief King?"
His eleven-year-old body growled, but obeyed.
Again, her free hand flew through the stale air to create many cerulean-tinted flames, each twisted into a single word.
'When does time stand still
But speeds ahead of the clock
Not knowing when to stop'
She sighed with her eyes closed, giving her the look of an exhausted mother. "I was planning on giving you this one later, but seeing as you're so adamant to go after your love, try this: You will retrieve his physical self."
Bakura narrowed his young, crimson eyes. "What do you mean, 'physical'?"
"What I mean is," She was getting slightly annoyed at him, now. "-he is in two halves. Soul half and body half. You should have encountered his soul between lapses of your memory world." Their child-looking company was getting more and more confused. "Yes! I had you merely re-live a memory of a time past for your first quest. The only things you could truly interact with were my shell I gave you, and Cliff. Can you comprehend me now??"
"What?! That all happened before?!" All she gave him was an acid leer. "Oh." He turned to read the words again. "And what's this supposed to mean, then? No clues, hints, this time?"
Kyokae could feel her eyebrow twitch. "No. No hints. Because I just told you /exactly/ what you're supposed to do. Do you understand?" Bakura nodded again. "Good. I take my leave, then. Oh, and Cliff? Next time, I expect you not to interfere."
The neglected thief laughed. "Depends wut's in it fer me." Kyokae rolled her eyes; very un-entity-like. "Dun worry, I'm goin' back ta my time, 'nyways." Cliff the trap remover tipped his glasses to signal his departure and evaporated. "Take care, Kyokae."
She smiled back, and snapped her fingers, triggering an enormous change of scenery. Everything, including Kyokae, the sheath, and even himself, started to blend and mix together. The colours dominated the Nothingness in an instant, and only a small room was left behind with red walls and a full-grown demon.
What it held was of more interest to the now pale again Nahkti. Like before, a white-haired boy lay seemingly unconscious on the floor. The same one that had been in his 'dream'.
"Ryou?! Ryou, is that you??" Nahkti could feel his eyes start to grow warm and wings shudder when he fell through the air to go to the other's side.
"Nuh..." He turned over from his side to his back, and for the second time, revealed himself as the angel Nahkti, well, Bakura had saved from Marik in the beginning.
The tears that had welled up in the demon's eyes before were slowly inflaming red lines around his iris. "Wake up, love. Please, wake up for me?"
Ryou's eyes flitted open to a slit; he was apparently still very tired. "Ba..kura?"
Something tugged at the demon's heartstrings when his angel called him that name from his past. But he definitely wasn't in a questioning mood and contented himself by embracing Ryou tightly, which lifted him off of the ground. And the feeling that both received from their mutually meaningful hug was pretty close to the best thing either had felt before.
"You came... I was so worried that you wouldn't come to save me..." Ryou cried into Bakura's shaking shoulders.
All of Bakura's heart wanted to scream out 'I need you, I love you. Don't ever leave me alone again', but for some reason from a long time ago, nothing could escape his lips save for: "Now, what kind of lover would I be if I didn't devote every second I could possibly put into saving you?" This light-hearted line cracked their grief-stricken faces and they both began to giggle. Then as the moment took over, it turned into a well rounded 'ha ha', followed shortly after by uncontrollable laughter. They were together again, they had made it!
The shared tears of happiness ran down their faces and Bakura's mind took to some things he had meant to ask from the times he had seen Ryou in his visions or dreams. "What happened to you, Ryou? Why do you not have your wings?"
The former angel pressed himself further into Bakura's chest and shoulder, still hiccupping with tears and laughter. "I guess it was kind of pointless trying to hope you wouldn't notice, eh?" He let out his last 'heh'. "Yami happened to my wings. He left me bleeding of my magickal energy, and so I'm left with almost nothing. That being, I'm not considered FullAngel anymore." A hollow smile from Ryou's eyes told what needed to be said without a voice.
This struck Bakura's fragile heart with a vengeance. Not only did Yami take his angel away from him, but he took his wings and energy stuff?!
"Damn him...straight to Hell..."
Ryou had a slight worry hanging in his heart. A thought that had bothered him while he had lain in this crimson room for so long. Perhaps Bakura would like him less without his wings? That caused him to cling even more to the body of his lover.
This concept leaked through the connection both shared and knew of only subconsciously. And when it reached Bakura, it came as a huge shock to him. So the demon gripped both of Ryou's arms tightly and pulled him off of himself in order to stare him in the eye. "Ryou, I could never love you less for such a superficial reason, please know that..."
A lot of the stress held in the angel was released by hearing the promise, but still some lingered in his watery eyes.
Bakura then pressed their lips together with a fierce passion and slid his hands from holding Ryou's arms to locking their fingers somewhat loosely. The rush of heat came running up Ryou's spine and was the cause for him to loose strength in his back and he slid, bringing Bakura down on top of him. His hands were moved above his head and out to the side.
They parted and Bakura put his forehead onto Ryou's own to whisper to him. "I could never love you less, no matter what." and he brushed his leather wings up against their sides.
Ryou's emotions were pushed to their limit, and overflowed through his eyes for the second time that night. He was pulled into Bakura's warm and welcoming lap and he clung desperately to his black turtleneck. He could feel arms wrapping around his waist to pull him closer.
They stayed there for quite a while until Bakura decided to break the piercing silence that had fallen over them.
"You know, I saw the most beautiful sunset when I went to Egypt." Ryou said something incoherent because it was muffled by Bakura's chest. "It was right above the Nile and hit every different coloured stone on the bottom. The light bounced off of every grain of sand, and illuminated every dune peak. And you know what the only thing I could think of then?" Ryou shook his head, digging his nose further into his shirt. "That you couldn't see what I could."
After Bakura had finished retelling his sight Ryou had just lain quietly for a while, thinking. "Why were you in Egypt?"
Through his entire journey in his homeland, Bakura had forgotten to tell Ryou of it. He just thought that maybe Ryou would already know about it for some reason. So he began at the beginning with his first meeting with Kyokae. He told him about reaching Egypt and finding the Dark Scorpions, the trip across the Western Desert and crossing the Nile. Getting to Karnak and going through the Temple of Ashita for the Sheath of Mortality and the Sword of Aki. Bakura flew back to where he had come in and the sword was still hovering in the air to show Ryou. He saved the second quest for last.
"...and then Kyokae changed wherever we were to this room."
"...so, this really is only my soul? And you have to get my body for the next line of her poem?" Bakura nodded his head twice. The angel took a second to really look at Bakura since he got there. He ran his fingers down Bakura's pale right cheek; where his old scars used to reside. "I generally though that when one goes to Egypt, they /get/ a tan, not loose one. Your hair's much longer as well." Then he looked down at himself. His clothes had completely changed from wearing his white Training Uniform, but a sky blue shirt and white denim pants. "I wasn't wearing these same clothes when I was in the Shadow Realm."
"Shadow Realm..?" Bakura asked blankly.
"Where Yami sealed and left me. But you know, that might be where my body is, and if this is my Soul," he placed a hand on his chest, "-then you might only be Soul too."
"Why do you think that?"
"Simple, we can interact. You know that a Ghost, or Soul, can't touch, feel, or hear a mortal, and visa versa. Angels and Demons only have limited interaction with them, but they still can't touch. They would pass right through one another. Only two Ghosts can actually touch and sense." Bakura shook his head up and down slowly, trying to figure out exactly what Ryou had said.
"Then a Soul would probably pass right through objects too, right?" He moved away suddenly when he got an idea and pressed his hands into the floor.
Nothing happened.
"Then this room must be made of the same material as souls! Then maybe only Ghosts can pass in and out of here! But then..." All the hairs on Bakura's head shot straight up in the air and he could feel his stomach drop to his knees, on which he was currently perched upon. "I'm a Soul too!"
"Kyokae sent you here, though. She wouldn't leave you with no way out. I came through this light I think I had created. Anyways, you have a body to go back to, and I don't, yet." He paused and surveyed the room again. "We need a name for this place."
"What about 'Pretty Boy's room'?" Ryou scowled. "Then how about just the 'Soul Room'?" This went over all right with Ryou, and the name stayed.
But something seemed to be nagging at the back of the demon's mind. Something that was apparently of some importance.
"You have to go on your quest soon, don't you?" Ryou asked with not more than a slight tone of disappointment mixed with his voice, and Bakura smiled solemnly.
"If we want to get your body back, yes. And I think I should go soon, too. It was late afternoon in Egypt, and if the timelines are the same, then night will be falling soon. That would be the opportune time for me to search. And I have to find a way into this 'Shadow Realm' as well."
As soon as Bakura had said he needed to leave, parts of his soul and sword began to drift away into a new breeze.
Ryou whimpered and clung to the other soul's rapidly departing arm.
"I'll come back for you, I won't take long," consoled Bakura. He took Ryou's hand in his, (as nothing of him was left now except for that hand and most of his face), "Rest now, you'd need it."
)(
When Bakura came to his senses once more, he found himself lying spread-eagle in the middle of the map he had been examining prior to his trip back in time. Groaning, he pushed himself up with his bruised wings and rubbed his head.
"Uhg, it feels like I have a freaking hangover..." He turned around only to find the source of all his aches and pains: Kyokae's faerie shell! (which he promptly glared at and nearly chucked it at the closest sharp object before he remembered that he needed it to talk to Kyokae). This caused him to draw his attention to the humongous mess he had forgotten about.
He muttered something or other under his breath in Demonic to summon a couple animated statues to clean up. While the stone gargoyles and Cerberuses were flying around like miniature tornadoes to various parts of his lair, Bakura sat in the very middle of his pile of pillows to collect all of his thoughts that were confusing him every time he tried to sort them all out. Ones about his past, and some about Ryou, and Yami.
'Why is he so Hell-bent on taking revenge on me? What did I do wrong?' His thoughts continued mostly on that train of thinking and led him to suspecting something that may have happened in the past. Perhaps he still has memories yet to unlock from his days walking the Earth as a mortal? Kyokae had probably just shown him one of many, and Bakura doubted she would give him any more now that he had received one.
But Bakura also wanted to complete this quest as soon as possible, so he left his cavern in the statues' care. The only demon he knew of that could help him find another plane was another from his past in Egypt. So Nahkti-Bakura flared his wings and took off.
"Next stop, the forth ring of Hell; Kaiba Seto's residence."
Me: (faints, then wakes up immediately) OMG!! That took /forever!!/ to finish! (faints again)
'Leanne: (even she's dead tired helping Erin-chan out) I desperately need a new host...
Me: ;o/ well, that three-week trip to Ottawa might have something to do with it. And now I'm going to Winnipeg for a week! . But I'll try to type the 14th chapter of Wake Up as soon as possible... (shifty eyes)
Chibi Kyokae: ahg!! I've been turned chibi! Life as I know it is over!! TwT (= crying cat face) ja...
