So, another chapter comes and goes. Finally. This never-ending chapter I had to split three times just seemed to take forever.
Hey, has anyone seen Into the Woods? It's a musical, and we're going to be doing it at my school, but they've only given out the music CDs so far. I'm so exited, and nervous, casting gets posted today. I hope I get a part. Oh, wait I had a relivant point coming up there. And that was... Oh, yeah! The witch's Last Midnight song (I don't know the actual name of the song) mostly seems to me to be a perfect match to Bakura's feelings and POV. Like 'You're not good, you're not bad, you're just nice. I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right. I'm the witch, you're the world.' and 'You... had to get your wish, doesn't matter how, anyway it doesn't matter now.' Or maybe I'm just a tad crazy and overanylitical. (All the authors I know are crazy, just a little. I think it's an unofficial rule of authorness.)
Enough rambleing, you aren't here to hear me talk all day.
Just by the way of a diclaimer, If you think I own Yu-Gi-Oh, you must be more psycotic than Bakura. Or the other Bakura. Or the other, other Bakura.
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"Help..." the cornered teen with silky silver hair and soft green eyes whispered, as the stranger prepared for his final blow. The stranger wondered who the teen could be talking to, or if he was just suffering from delusions caused by despair.
Then everything changed.
The boy's whole demeanor shifted. All of a sudden he was looking back into the stranger's eyes with a totally bring-it-on but cool and composed not-even-worth-my-time look. His hands no longer blindly came up to protect his face, but rather reached for the weapon grasped in the stranger's hands. Then an amused smile broke across his face.
"Only slight wounds to non-vital areas. So well done for a pop quiz. Little master might get a reward for this." He said in a lightly amused tone.
"I'm only going to say this one more time. What the heck do you want with me, psycho?" The stranger demanded. He was now severely confused, thus consequently severely annoyed and agitated. This person facing him now was certainly the very same man who has led him through the alleys and given him the knife. But he had been just as sure a moment ago that the boy before him was not the same person as the shadowy figure in the alleyway. Then he saw the silvery-haired man's eyes. Contrary to his prior note of their being a brilliant and stunning green, they were now a dullish earthy red-brown, that conjured up images of drying blood in the stranger's mind. They also sparked with some nameless anger and shone with a slight gleam of hidden and supressed madness and bloodlust. The silvery haired man seemed to have forgotten his presence until he spoke. His eyes come back into a better focus and he fixed them on the stranger. He got a firm grip on the dagger's blade, and he gave it a slight but solid twist-flick. Suddenly the stranger was cradling a numb left arm and a hand twitching with pain.
"You must have learned to fight from someone experienced. Didn't anyone ever teach you never to fight with someone else's weapon? A special kink in the hilt, a matching pressure point in the hand. It makes the weapon slightly off balance, but you can adjust for it one you get accustomed to it. A perfect way to disarm and disable an enemy simultaneously, wouldn't you say? Of course, that's if you don't mind a little pain. And blood." The silver haired boy mockingly asked, looking at his messy and now partially mangled hand. All he got in response from the stranger was a grumble and a renewed attack.
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It was so easy to provoke the intruder that it was almost funny to Bakura. He sidestepped the stranger's swipe with perfect ease. Bakura carefully thought before he spoke again. Not that he wanted that to show.
"Now that you usefulness is over, you are expendable. And I just can't have you blab to anyone about this meeting or my presence. Goodbye." Bakura stated in a stark, bare, careless tone, adding a small smile at the end for good measure. A blatant out and out lie, but it would be good to have this boy, whom he had overheard to be searching for a way to make a body, then transfer a living soul to it, thinking he had barely gotten away with his life. The threat that life can be cut short at any moment was a wonderful motivator, Bakura had found. To have death staring you in the face really gets people moving. Bakura could feel struggles from Ryou at what he had said. His body froze up, his eyes glazed over and for a short moment were a muddy green-brown shade. He whispered one word.
"Sleep." Then his eyes resolidified into the terra cottaish red-brown, and Ryou's body was fully under his control once again.
"Come at me then, that is, if you think you can take me." The stranger called out.
"Weaponless and defenseless? Such a shame, it would have been a wonderful fight were it fair and even." Bakura said, circleing. Then found an opening and lunged as he added with a smile, "Too bad I don't fight fair. I fight to win."
The stranger ducked and executed an evasive shoulder roll, over his non-injured arm. He landed on his feet with his hand touching a large rock Ryou kept, but really didn't know what to do with. A bright flash of light suddenly filled the room, temporarily blinding Bakura.
"Good. Because I don't fight fair either." The stranger replied from somewhere in the room. Bakura suppressed a chuckle. The stranger had given himself away with the very sound of his voice. He had given Bakura, with his sensitive hearing and knowledge of Ryou's room layout, a perfect frame of reference for any sounds of motion, no matter how slight, to relay the stranger's exact posture and position. He turned to block the stranger's incoming attack with his arm, and was shocked to feel something cold and sharp slicing into his arm. His vision returning slightly by now, Bakura could just barely make out some sort of blade in his opponent's right hand. It seemed to be some sort of stone, but looked too smooth to have been carved or chiseled. Unless that was just the fuzziness of his vision tricking him.
It may have been the shock of being cut into unexpectedly, or the fact that he had been sure that the stranger was unarmed just a moment ago, but Bakura's instincts just took over at that point. He had not meant to strike a deadly blow, or even a permanently disabling one. With his lightning fast reflexes, he jabbed one of his knives firmly though the back of the stranger's left knee, and twisted hard. While he was doing that, he used the original dagger to slash up the stranger's left arm, and buried the whole width of the blade into the stranger's right wrist. Bakura's vision had finally fully returned by then.
The stranger's eyes glazed over for a moment, then he seemed to be taking stock of the situation. When he finished his conclusion was written all over his face. The stranger's look clearly said that he wasn't going to win any battles here and now, and a furtive glance at Ryou's window clearly stated an escape plan.
Bakura was in total shock over what he had done, and was mentally cussing up a storm in every single language he knew. He was still in shock when the stranger made his limping leap out the window, and so did nothing to stop him.
When Bakura came back to reality, he figured that the stranger wouldn't get very far with his wounds, and would probably outright bleed to death within the next few minutes. He was vaguely annoyed at having to go out sometime to find and hide the body, but he wanted his daggers back. He was disappointed; the stranger had shown so much potential to progress in finding a way to get his own body. Bakura was in such a world of his own, that he didn't notice the bloodstains all over himself and the room, or the pain from cuts of various lengths and depths. Neither did he realize there was a smooth, rounded hole of fair good size missing in Ryou's large rock, nor did he notice the shiny silver trinket the stranger had dropped during the battle. He was very distracted indeed, to miss that detail with his fondness for silver. Bakura returned to the millennium ring to contemplate these latest developments, and to sulk.
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Ryou quickly regained control of his body after Bakura left, and cast a dejected look over his room and himself. With a sigh, he set about cleaning himself and dressing his wounds. Once that was finished, he began the task of removing the blood from his room before it caused permanent stains. As he did so, he sighed again. Ryou doubted anyone could loose so much blood as was spattered around his room and still live.
He wondered what had happened to the stranger that had attacked him, during the time Bakura had kept him subdued, while trying to shut out the depressing near certainty that he already knew what.
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Wow. You all must really dislike this story, seeing as the last three chapters got zip, zilch, and nil reviews, respectively. Tell me the brutal truth, did I kill a good story idea? Or was it just rotten to begin with?
This story has just under 1 fewer hits than my other seven chaper story, and it has almost 80 fewer reviews(real, true statstics I calculated).
If trends keep going this way (meaning if no one shows any interest) I may just go back to Cultural Exchange, or A Duelist's Travels and drop this story. Even if I don't really feel like writing parody, humor, or Inuyasha right now.
So I want your truthful and fully honest opinion.
Should I continue this, or go back to Cultural Exchange?
Or is it just that my writing so pathetic and horrible that you don't really care about either story, and don't care if I stop writing altogether?
Bye For Now,
-Your Very Despondent Authoress, Kit