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Exploring the Darkness

"... Bakura...?" Ryou's question hung in the air, his apparent hesitation making the familiar and yet not figure grin wider.

"Ryou, you can't be serious..." Malik hedged, glaring at what almost looked like Bakura, even if this was clearly the Bakura from Ryou's dream. The ghost, shadow, memory, whatever threw his head back and laughed, that too familiar.

"What, don't recognize me? Maybe this will be more familiar to you?" Bakura smirked mockingly as he started to shimmer as if he was just a heat-induced hallucination of the desert. Then the half-solid form steadied again, this time wearing a red robe, his white jagged hair shorter, with narrow silver eyes and a scar over his right eye. Bakura cackled nastily at the boys' rather faint expressions, even if Ryou had known. Actually seeing it wasn't really the same as thinking, hoping it was real. It hardly answered any questions either. Hadn't what Yuugi and the rest seen during the Egypt TRPG been real at all? Had Atemu been tricked to believe an elaborate hoax being the truth and his memories?

"Or maybe this will be more to your liking?" Bakura smirked as he shimmered again, becoming shorter and thinner whilst his hair grew longer, and finally ending up as the distorted version of Ryou that at least Malik was more familiar with. Ryou just shifted his weight uncertainly, since he hadn't really seen Bakura much. There had been the TRPG when he'd first met Yuugi and the rest... Bakura's voice, a darker, meaner version of his own, but beyond that? Not much at all. He wasn't sure what he was more comfortable with, someone he intellectually knew to be Bakura from either a description or his own dreams, or someone who looked like a slightly distorted version of himself (which was rather freaky). But at least this Bakura's voice was familiar, and in the end that was better than the other two "versions".

"Bakura... What's going on? Wasn't... the Egypt TRPG what happened?" He could have called the ghost... spirit, his "other" of course, and while he rather wanted to, the dream was still close to mind, and the name, since it was, after all, his name, seemed more right to say. Instead of answering directly, Bakura glanced at Malik and grinned, slightly nastily too.

"Hello Malik. Finally rid of your lesser side?"

"Not that that's any concern of yours, Bakura, but yes, everything is under control." Malik sneered, arms crossed over his chest. Ryou looked between the two, not certain whether he should snicker because of the wary, underlying "more-or-less-allies" feeling, or step between them so they didn't throttle each other.

The two stared at each other for a few more moments before Bakura abruptly turned back to face Ryou again, eyes narrowed.

"Don't loose that thing. It's important." Bakura snarled, indicating the pendant, and jumped off the tablet he was sitting on, starting to pace the dais. "I never thought... Maybe finally..." The spirit didn't seem to be in any mood for explaining anything, rather he just paced while looking pissed off and hissing unclear words. While waiting for Bakura... and wasn't that amazing, since he should have been gone with the Ring?... to decide he was ready to explain what was going on, Ryou turned the Eye pendant around in his hands, familiarizing himself with the heavy piece of gold.

"Ryou."

Taking the offered piece of cord Malik for some reason had had in one of his pockets; Ryou quickly tied it off and hung the pendant over his neck, letting it fall on his chest with a familiar and comfortable feeling. It wasn't the Ring, but somehow felt instantly right.

"So... why would you think Yuugi's retelling of what happened during the TRPG wasn't at least partly the truth?" Bakura's drawl interrupted Ryou's thoughts and the teen looked up from staring at his feet, rather confused.

"You mean you don't know...? I had a dream... in which the pharaoh's men slaughter a village because they've harbored a "cursed" man, in which a young man named Bakura is made into the scapegoat for several years of the Nile failing to flood because his hair and eyes are different... But I don't understand, why do you look different from what Yuugi described?" Ryou's voice was gentle and patient, but sneaky in its own way, encouraging you to talk to him, to answer his questions. Bakura opened his mouth thoughtlessly, and then snapped it closed, giving Ryou a short glare that turned into a quick, narrow-eyed grin and nod, recognizing Ryou's little tactic, but warning him to not use it on him.

"Curious, are you?" Bakura sneered as he almost absently let his gaze wander around the crude little shrine. "All of this... I made it myself. Hardly remember most of it, years of work, but I did do it." His voice was soft, dangerous, forbidding any sort of interruption.

"You want to know what your dream was, where it fits into the noble story of pharaoh Atemu and his sacrifice to protect the world against the dark god Zorc Necrophadisu?" Bakura's voice dripped of angry mockery as he talked of the pharaoh, giving Ryou a piercing glare.

Ryou just straightened his back under that judging stare, and crossed his arms, raising his chin in determination.

"Yes, I want to. I don't think it would be very nice to let Yuugi and the others think what they know of the Millennium Items is the truth, if it really isn't." Ryou scowled, his voice sharp but Bakura just laughed mockingly, a familiar evil grin on his face.

"Oh, it's the truth. Your dream fits into the truth, just not in the way you think, my host. Are you gonna come with us, or just stand there like a little mouse, Malik-chan?"

Bakura cackled at Malik's vicious snarl as the Egyptian stomped up to stand on Ryou's other side, opposite of Bakura.

"Good, good. Let's go then!" Bakura said gleefully, smirking evilly at Malik and Ryou, and too late they wondered where exactly they were going.

"Bakura, wait!" Ryou didn't have the chance to say anything else before Bakura had him take hold of Malik's arm, then grabbed the pendant hanging from his neck and a bright light flared, encompassing his whole vision and blinding him.

Consciousness returned slowly in a wave of heat and sunlight, sand rubbing his cheek where he lay on the desert floor. Disgustedly coughing out some sand, Ryou sat up, blinking in the bright light. To his right, Malik groaned and stood up slowly, scowling at their surroundings.

"Both of you awake? No broken bones or thoughts?" Bakura was standing a bit away with his arms crossed, looking out over the desert towards a city in the distance. He seemed to be the only one of them unaffected by their travel, and the only thing missing, Ryou thought, would be that trench coat he'd found stuffed in the closet, and then later, finding himself wearing it, after the Egypt TRPG.

"Your concern warms me, truly, Bakura." Malik snorted and looked around the desert, "and what are we doing here? And where is here?"

Bakura smirked and turned around to face them, superior expression firmly in place as he gave a short bark of laughter.

"Yuugi and his other little cohorts would probably recognize this place somewhat, even if they had to go through a labyrinth to get there. This is my memories; carved into the gold of the item my host is wearing around his neck by blood. Welcome to my world." Bakura mocked with a sweeping gesture ending to point at a shimmer in the ground behind them.

Turning around, they were in time to see the slightly different form of Diabound melting out of the ground with the younger Bakura in his arms. The young man looked triumphant, with curiosity burning in his bright eyes. Ryou's breath hitched, and then was released.

"Bakura... This was the first time, wasn't it? The first time Diabound appeared? But why..."

"Don't sound so confused, little host," Bakura laughed, a slight sneer in his words. "I think you're beginning to get it, but since you appear to be slow, I'll give you a hint. Everything has a beginning, doesn't it? And somewhere, people must first have found out about ka, and somewhere the book Priest Akunadin found must have been written, yes?"

His two "guests" were silent, blue and lavender darting between the Bakura by the smaller Diabound, and the Bakura in front of them, who was smirking in a confident, sneering way at them.

"Do you mean..." Malik and Ryou looked at each other, finally starting to understand what was going on here, what these memories were. "Do you mean... this is before the Items were made, before Atemu's father was on the throne?" Ryou said finally, hesitantly. It sounded amazing, but what else was there? Seto had clearly been in ancient Egypt, and also present in the "now", so reincarnation apparently did exist... but it was mind-boggling really to think that this was the beginning of everything that they'd had to go through.

"Bingo! And now that we've had the boring lesson of the hows and whens, let's do what you came here to do." That said, Bakura raised an expectant eyebrow and both Malik and Ryou sighed, but did turn around. This was what they had come for, or at least what Ryou absolutely had come to Egypt for, while Malik had curiously tagged along.

Bakura stared with a sense of awe up at the creature he knew was his. And not just his, but a reflection of him. He could feel that that was what it was. A mirror, of sorts. He didn't know what it could do, of course, but he knew it could be of help against... against... black anger rose up, enveloping the screaming red-hot pain, nullifying it.

Oh, he didn't know how yet, but the pharaoh would pay... and there were whispers in the darkness, feather-soft against his thoughts, willing to tell him just how to take his vengeance on the pharaoh if he would just listen. And Bakura, twisted and bleeding in his mind, finding new darkness and depths of himself that could relieve the pain and patch up the wounds, listened. And, oh, weren't the possibilities the voice whispered just wondrous? Of course, he'd need time to prepare it all, but he could be patient... a twisted smirk froze on his face for a moment, before he realized he couldn't stay here. The pharaoh would send out his guards, and he wasn't all that far away from the city, so he needed to vacate the premises, and quickly.

It wasn't easy to find somewhere to live, or work. He had been condemned by the pharaoh as a cursed man, and who would want a man like that in their homes? So Bakura went back to the hills, because there were caves there, and turned to the dead for money to get what he needed. And there was a certain... enjoyment, in robbing the pharaoh's ancestors of their gold and finery. They didn't need it anyhow, but he did. Surely they wouldn't object?

With a snicker, Bakura glanced at the sarcophagus, well, at any rate they couldn't object. Most days usually disappeared in a haze of darkness and the scent of papyrus. The whispers had convinced him to write it all down since he surely wouldn't be the only one who'd want to use the darkness, and who was he to deny others such satisfaction? But he couldn't help but not be disturbed over the fact that he simply didn't seem to be aware much of what he was writing... and of course, since he couldn't read, he didn't understand what it stood, but somehow he had the information he needed in his brain, so he would be able to do what was needed to implement his vengeance.

But...

"Blood... there's so much blood needed... But I don't want seven items... just one is enough..." The idea formed slowly in his mind, and he ignored the angry whispers. The book wasn't finished just yet, so he'd finish it, but he wouldn't do the whole ceremony. He didn't want, or need seven items. Just one, drenched in his own blood and determination, would be enough.

This was his vengeance, and no others would spill the blood. This was personal.

Pebbles and gravel fell away under the chisel and hammer's strikes and Bakura paused for a moment to dry the sweat running down his face. The shrine was crude, mostly unfinished, but it was good enough. Glazed blue eyes looked around the cellar room in satisfaction. A satisfaction that did only partly belong to the young human man, and mostly to the being whispering the darkness in the man's ear. It was more or less finished, years of work and yet only this rather crude, and barely worthy, ceremonial place had been erected. But it would do, and even if this boy wouldn't do it all, there was the book, and the shrine, and sooner or later, as long as the book was preserved, someone would fall for the temptation for power. Especially since after the manifestation of Bakura's ka years before, ka had slowly become more and more usual and that would guarantee some greedy individual sooner or later would want power.

Not to say Bakura didn't want it too, but Zorc Necrophadisu could not penetrate the diamond and blood wall that surrounded Bakura's soul and will for personal, as he put it, vengeance. It did not matter how much he whispered and tempted with ultimate power of darkness... Bakura would not be swayed, even if his darker impulses rejoiced at the thought of such power. Another time then. And of that, Zorc Necrophadisu was certain.

Ryou followed everything happen with a growing sense of unease. Bakura had in a whisper, even if it wasn't necessary to do so, explained that it was the being he now knew as the dark god Zorc Necrophadisu who had told him what to write, and how to make the shrine. That would mean Bakura had been manipulated by Zorc from the very beginning, and that beginning wasn't just from when Akunadin had ordered Kuru Eruna slaughtered, but even before that.

The thought was sobering, and hurt.

Oh, Ryou knew his other wasn't some lily-white, innocent child, that he had qualities that made him into what he was, and he enjoyed being who he was, but that didn't take away from the fact that Bakura had been manipulated from the beginning, and that Atemu was partly responsible for the mess the Millennium Items were, partly responsible for the creation of the monster within Bakura. Nothing was very clear-cut anymore, but had it ever really been? Just because you were on the side of "good", did that mean those who had other standards, ideals, were wrong?

No...

You couldn't say that.

Ryou glanced away from the memory version of Bakura who was still working on the shrine like a possessed man, and, Ryou guessed, that was what he was, and up at Malik instead. Who was glaring at everything and nothing in particular, apparently having reaffirmed some lingering anger against the pharaoh. Ryou bit his lower lip and gently laid a hand on Malik's shoulder.

"Yuugi-kun isn't like that, Malik-kun. He'd never do that." He muttered, and lavender flittered to look briefly at him before turning back to the scene in front of them.

"I know."

Ryou smiled encouragingly and glanced at the Bakura on the other side of him, who was glaring with narrow-eyed anger at having to watch his memories again. But if he was to have some help, it required Ryou, and now that he was here, Malik, to know what had happened.

"Yuugi-kun isn't Atemu, Bakura-san... so I won't help you hurt him. But... Atemu... if you need help, I will." It felt wrong to say that, it was Yuugi's other they were talking about after all, but he needed to help, anything else would be wrong. Bakura stared at him, narrow blue eyes glaring steadily and Ryou waited for the expected response, the exclamation of 'I don't need your help', but it didn't come. Instead Bakura nodded sharply.

"... Maybe that will be what can call him back... someone to use the pendant."

Ryou breathed out and smiled softly. He could do that... hopefully. It wasn't as if he'd ever used even the Ring, not really.

"I'll do my best."

Bakura just scoffed at that, turning away from Ryou to continue to glare at the memories playing out in front of them.

Ah... you like it? Welcome to the bloody beginning of Yu-Gi-Oh! But it's not over just yet.