Disclaimer: I don't own anything pertaining to Yu-Gi-Oh, only this idea and having fun while writing it. No harm meant.

Spoilers: Not really, but one could also say for the whole series. This is AU kind of, and yet not.

Warnings: Blood and tragedy

A/N: New ficcage inspired by buying the first volume of the AE arc that Viz just gave out. Hope you'll like it.

Blood and Sand

The sun was burning hot, heat-shimmers in the air making the desert that spread out around the little village on three sides look like something out of a dream... or a nightmare. This was the second year in a row that the yearly flood of the Nile hadn't happened, and three years before that the flooding had been negligible.

The people of Kemet were on the brink of destruction from nature's refusal to give what it usually did. A brown, callused hand was raised to shield against the harsh rays, pale blue eyes staring up at the hard blue sky and then back to the desert. They may not live very close to the Nile, but they depended on its flooding too, since there was a small river up in the mountains they relied on to flood and give them water. As with the Nile, this hadn't happened for two years in a row. Bakura scowled up at the bright, white-yellow disk in the sky and wrapped the protective cloth he'd taken off earlier around his head, long white strands falling softly, but strangely jagged, down to his shoulders.

"Damn..." The teen muttered and turned around to go back to the village, jerking on his white fringe in aggravation. He was lucky the villagers hadn't blamed him. They all were wary around him, due to his pale hair and eyes, but over time and as nothing evil happened, they came to accept his strange coloring. At least he was dark skinned like everyone else.

Then the ground shook under his feet, and Bakura briefly wondered if it was the end of the world... no flooding, the earth trembled... but when he whirled around, he could see the shapes of approaching horses.

"Father! Father! Horses coming this way!" Running back to the village, Bakura almost stumbled as he ran, and the man who rushed out of one of the small houses caught him just as he was about to fall.

"Whoa there, Bakura, calm down. Who's coming?"

Shaking his head, hair and cloth flying, Bakura shrugged.

"I don't know, but they're coming in awfully fast..."

The thunder of the horses' hooves was easily heard now, and they weren't slowing down. As the riders entered the village, it was clear they were the pharaoh's men. But what were they doing here...?

"Kill them! By the order of our nisu, kill those who would harbor a cursed man!" The captain shouted, and the soldiers spread out, spears and scimitars flashing in the sunlight, throwing pretty reflections over the golden sand... sand that was now spattered with blood. Bakura stumbled back, blue eyes confused... what?

"In the house, Bakura!" His father pushed him inside roughly, but he wasn't going to stay here! He was grown-up, easily old enough to help! He ran out again, shouting for his mother to stay inside as he dashed out and met a nightmare worse than the imagined fears crawling in the darkness of the night, because this was real... worse than the absence of flooding, because they could have survived those... worse than anything he could have fathomed.

Screams rendered the air, tearing at it with glass shards. Blood coated the ground, ran over the sand and dried, coloring it a stark ruby.

Bodies fell, men, women children...

"Father!" Only his mother's hand on his shoulder, gripping more forcefully than he could ever have believed she was capable of, hindered him from running to his father's side.

His father, who was cut down while trying to protect one of the children.

"Mother?" He turned around, as her grasp had softened, and blood spattered all over his face and front as the woman fell onto the ground, her lifeless corpse making a muted thud of flesh striking the sand. The blood ran down Bakura's face as he stared, wide eyed, at his mother's headless corpse.

His mother... father... his family, his whole village, murdered!

WHY?

The scream wasn't that of a child, but a young man, broken, a wounded animal howling his pain to the skies. Tears, scalding hot, ran down his cheeks, splattered to the ground and mixed with the blood there before being absorbed by the sand. The pharaoh. Their pharaoh, the man put on the throne by the gods, the man who was supposed to protect them... had ordered his whole family, his village, his life butchered! The scream warped from grief and shock, into angered grief, smoldering hate.

WHY!

The crowd of people that stood along the street roared angrily, shouting accusations, curses, demands at the young man stumbling along after the horse he was bound to. A fruit, half rotten, suddenly sailed through the air, hitting Bakura's side with a disgusting 'splat'. This seemed to be the signal for others to throw rotten vegetables at him, and Bakura flinched and then whipped his head to bare his teeth, growling.

They wouldn't see him crying! He'd cried by his mother's corpse, no more! The soldiers, the same who'd murdered his whole village, quickly put a stop to the throwing, if only because the crowd was becoming more unruly and they didn't want to be hit themselves, or have to deal with a riot.

They finally arrived at a large square which led up to the long boulevard to the palace, and at the beginning of that boulevard, surrounded by guards and priests, stood the pharaoh. A crude execution site had quickly been brought up in the square, and Bakura snarled. What had he done to warrant an execution?

What was going on!

The soldiers came to a stop some feet away from the pharaoh; the captain jumped down from his horse and dragged Bakura up to the pharaoh, forcing him down on his knees before the man. The pharaoh was not a tall man, but he managed to be imposing anyway, his presence commanding and red eyes cold and calculating.

The roar of the crowds collected on the square slowly died away, and finally the pharaoh stepped forward, holding up his hands for silence.

"My people! Here we have the one who has caused the recent troubles in our land! Here we have the man who has been cursed by the gods! We cleansed the village he has been hiding in, since the people there didn't do their duty to the gods or the land by not killing him at his birth. We will now bring this fault to right!" Pharaoh Atemu called out and the crowds roared in satisfaction. Bakura jerked in shock, getting a hard cuff on the head.

What the..!

The pharaoh stepped up so he was standing in front of Bakura.

"Make him look at me."

Apparently, he wasn't allowed to look up by his own power, because the captain grabbed his chin roughly and jerked his head up so his own blue eyes met the red ones of the pharaoh.

"Majesty! I haven't do-" Another hit to the back of his head silenced him.

"Do not speak to the nisu without being asked to!" The man keeping him down on his knees barked. Atemu tut-tutted gently.

"You and I both know you haven't done anything..." The whisper crawled down Bakura's spine, and he shivered. "But the people need someone to blame, someone to work their anger out on. I won't allow this land to fall into riots and panic. I do what I have to, to keep my land together." Bakura's blue eyes widened as he stared into the red ones of the pharaoh incredulously. He couldn't... he wasn't... Pharaoh Atemu smiled slightly and tugged on a few spiky white strands. "Besides, anyone with hair like this can't be normal, now can he?"

The pharaoh stepped back; his whispers had reached no other ears than Bakura's own. The cold, pure calculating tone in them had turned the young man's veins to ice, even in the sweltering heat of the day.

How...

Bakura gritted his teeth and snarled as he was jerked to his feet again and dragged to where his executioner stood. Anger boiled, warming his blood. How could this have been allowed to happen! Wasn't the pharaoh supposed to uphold ma'at, and not break it? And if he did, wasn't he subject to punishment like everyone else?

It seemed not.

Well, if the gods would not punish their representative on the earth, if justice didn't exist, Bakura would have at least one thing, whatever he had to do to get it; vengeance. Vengeance for it all, for his family, his village, his life. If the gods would not bring justice to the pharaoh, Bakura would.

Deep in his soul, his burning determination, soaked in the blood of not only his mother, but his village, awakened something dormant, brought power enough to stir the deep magic everyone has slumbering in their soul, and formed it.

He was forced down on his knees again, head pushed down onto the stone slab and the captain stepped back, letting the executioner have free reign. As the executioner raised his scimitar, the white haired young man suddenly jerked his head up, blue eyes burning with a fire beyond hatred, beyond rage.

"Curse you, nisu! Curse you a thousand times over! If ma'at existed, you would have been punished for your crimes! But if ma'at will not give you what you rightly deserve, I will!"

The silence was absolute, no one even dared to move, or breathe it seemed like. The pharaoh's red eyes were narrowed with anger, but his face was paler than it should be.

"Vengeance on your soul pharaoh! I will kill you; have my vengeance on you, even if it takes me more than one life. I will deprive you of everything! CURSE you!" The young man spat at the ground in the pharaoh's direction, the blood and saliva mixture falling with a soft and seemingly impossibly loud splat on the ground. The pharaoh suddenly got his color back, even flushed darker.

"Execute him! Now!" Atemu roared, shaken by the dark promise in those words, but still feeling secure. The gods wouldn't punish him. The scimitar was raised again, but both the pharaoh and the priest collected around him noticed the strange dark tendrils of what seemed to be pure shadow pooling around the young man.

The scimitar fell, whistling, and the dark tendrils exploded, grew taller, longer, larger. Formed something that surely must have been a monster. A white snake curled around Bakura, its head hissing in warning, the human-like body mounted on the end of the snake had a hand raised, stopping the scimitar from descending any lower.

Bakura was confused and shocked, but none of it showed on his face. Whatever this thing was, it was his, had given him a chance at his vengeance. Whatever it was, he knew the key to his vengeance lay in this creature. They just needed to get away... something shifted and Bakura smirked.

"I will kill you nisu, and your soul will feel my vengeance!" Bakura roared, then started laughing, a laugh that sent a chill down the spine of all assembled. Then both Bakura and the monster faded away, and a moment later it was as if he hadn't been there at all, except for the already dry spot on the ground colored red by the bloody saliva. Whatever had happened was important and...

Ryou woke with a start, breathing harshly, and wide eyes looking wildly around. What... That wasn't what Yuugi-kun had described! But his other and Atemu had looked different from what his friend had told them they looked like back in ancient Egypt. His other had been younger... less muscle... longer hair and clearly blue eyes instead of silver... and the pharaoh... Atemu... he'd been as short as before... but older, his vibrant hair hidden under a crown instead of free... and his eyes...

Ryou shivered at the remembered cold calculation in what he could remember were usually compassionate, if determined, red eyes. What in the world had that been? Ryou knew he wouldn't be able to sleep after this, and got out of his bed, and sat down by his desk instead, deciding to write everything down so he wouldn't forget it.

Whatever it had been, he was sure it was important... hopefully not life-threatening though. He'd had quite enough of that... except that for all that had happened, for all that he wasn't aware for, since his other never let him remember anything, he still hadn't been with Yuugi-kun and the others when they got to know about the Millennium Items, and the other Yuugi... Atemu's memories.

He knew he should probably tell Yuugi, at least, about this, but... he didn't want to. This would be for him alone, whatever it was. Tapping his pen against the note-book while resting his chin in a hand, Ryou stared at the picture frame on the wall in front of him. Keeping it a secret wouldn't hurt anyone, and if it became dangerous, he'd immediately call Yuugi. Not, that he could figure out what good that would do, since Yuugi didn't have the Puzzle anymore. Just as he didn't have the Ring. Reflexively, Ryou's other hand strayed to his chest, but there was nothing there, like usual, and blue eyes closed against the empty feeling clawing in his stomach.

Shaking his head jerkily, Ryou turned back to his strange dream. Egypt. But it sure hadn't looked like what the others had described... Thinking back on the dream, which was still as clear as crystal, as if he himself had been there, Ryou realized something. /I could find that village! I could find it easily/ And he saw no reason not to go looking for it, because who knew what he could find there.

Of course, it could also be as empty as the bottom of the cookie jar hidden behind the sugar... he just couldn't help but eat them all up... Okay, that wasn't what he'd been thinking about. Going to Egypt... He had enough money for it, but he didn't really feel like calling his father.

Ryou yawned, but decided to take care of this before he got back to bed. Maybe then he would be able to sleep. The kitchen was dark of course, but a flip of the switch and light flooded the room. Ryou winced and closed his eyes, then slowly opened them, relaxing when they didn't stab spears into his eyes and brain. For having called this particular number very few times, his fingers flew over the keys, as if strangely familiar with them in this order.

"Malik-kun? It's Ryou. I'm sorry to disturb..."

"Not at all, Bakura, what do you want?"

For some reason, that simple question made Ryou unsure about all this. Who says it wasn't just some strange dream... but no. That had been... felt too real to only have been a particularly vivid and strange dream.

"Oh, you see... I'm coming over to Egypt for in few days... could you meet me?"

"Sure. But what are you doing here? Gonna meet your dad?" Malik sounded confused, and Ryou knew he had a chance for an easy way out. He could lie and say he was going to meet with his father. But lying didn't sit well with him.

"No, that's not it. I had this... dream. And I want to check if something's the same as in my dream." Ryou explained it all in a rush, knowing he sounded strange... crazy even.

"Ryou... a dream is a dream... It's not real you know."

"No! No, Malik. It wasn't a normal dream. I... I'll explain it to you when I meet you, okay? Or I could not explain it at all, and you can just forget I asked and just meet me."

"Forget it? As if I could! You're acting strange Ryou, and I want to know why. Call me when you know you're coming." With typical Malik abruptness, which could have been interpreted as rude, Malik hung up.

Ryou just smiled, relieved that Malik was going to listen. And hopefully not think he was a lunatic when he'd told him of the dream and that he wanted to try to find the ruins of the village from said dream. Not crazy? Ryou was beginning to doubt that himself, but right now he was tired, and he had a plane to book tomorrow, so hopefully all strange dreams would wait until later.

Nisu- proper ancient Egyptian word for king.
Ma'at- law, the order of the world

Whee. So. I could of course explain what's going on here, but I won't. Either you have figured it out, or you'll get to figure it out with Ryou and Malik. And you probably noticed that I used pharaoh when writing, but the word nisu in spoken words. That was mostly because we are all used to the word pharaoh, but the ancient Egyptians themselves wouldn't have used it.
And for those of you that have read Bakura x3 and that's reading this, I'm sorry, but right now nothing's coming. I'm trying, but I don't even know where I'm going with the fic any longer (it has changed two times already), so while I dearly love it it's simply not getting anywhere right now. Sorry.