They walked for the rest of the night, the pyramids only growing closer when the sun started to peak from the horizon. In the distance, the whinny of horses could be heard.
"Pharaoh's men!" Little Bakura gasped, and ducked behind a large stone. It was probably going to be moved later that day, a part of the latest pharaoh's resting place in progress.
Ryou followed the child's lead, and jumped behind it as well.
"That was close…" he sighed, trying to keep silent. From around the corner, he could see the guards approaching. They rode slowly on a team of two horses. They were donned completely in white, scarves over their heads to protect them from the rays of the rising sun. They laughed back and forth amongst each other, pulling what looked to be a prisoner in chains.
"Who would have thought we'd finally catch the thief that pillaged the Great Tomb." One of the guards proclaimed, smirking back to look at the captured convict.
"Aye, Wajib." The other answered. "And stealing food from the market at that. We will collect a handsome reward."
"Are you sure we caught the right man?"
"No mistaking it, Heftet." The first guard pulled a whip from his belt, and lashed it back at the prisoner in question. "Keep up the pace, tomb robber!"
The other man laughed.
"Of course it's the right man. There's only one man in the entire kingdom that fits that description! White hair. Telltale scar." Wajib smiled. "That's our man, allright."
"The vizier, and the pharaoh, will be quite pleased. We've caught the almighty Bakura!"
Ryou gasped. Did those men just say…
He turned around sharply, to find the child gone. His heart started to race, and he leapt up without thinking of the consequences.
"Bakura? Where are you?" he shouted, face to face with the two guards as they passed by the stone. He froze.
The prisoner, a young lad around the age of thirteen, turned his attention at the mention of his name. He was thin, but well built, his sleek body more like a well-bred racehorse than a victim of famine and poverty. He was barefoot, his only clothing a tattered black loincloth. His white hair was a ragged mess. The scar on his face was still visible after all those years. Although his right eye was open, it looked terribly unfocused.
The guards looked at each other, and then turned their attention back to Ryou.
"Looks like there might be two of 'em after all, Heftet." The guards studied Ryou intensely.
"Or that the King of Thieves has a servant boy." The other laughed, leaping down from his horse. He leaned down over Ryou, the pungent stench of his breath causing the pale one to squirm.
Bakura just turned his head, refusing to even acknowledge the possibility that he didn't work alone.
Heftet grabbed Ryou's wrist, and pulled him even closer. He examined the unusual color and texture of Ryou's skin.
"Looks like he's never seen Ra in his lifetime." He muttered, pulling on his hand. Ryou, overcome by fear, was unable to protest. "Or a day of hard labor either."
He pulled a pair of shackles off his friend's saddlebag, and snapped them around Ryou's wrists and ankles. Ryou tried to resist, but one snap of the other guard's whip made him reconsider pulling away.
"But any friend of Bakura's is an enemy of the pharaoh's."
Once shackled, they shoved Ryou behind the horses, next to the captured Bakura. The thief took a quick glance at Ryou, and growled. Another crack of the whip, and the horses started walking, pulling both of them along with them.
"Wh…what happened?" Ryou whispered to the thief. The horses kicked up sand in his face. As he spoke, he tried in vain to shield his eyes.
"I don't know who you are, or how you know my name, freak." Bakura spat, snarling at the shackled Ryou. "A lot of good it's done you now."
"I… um…" Ryou attempted to think of a convenient story quickly. "I've heard of you… um… of your village."
The thief only scoffed.
"I have no village." He growled with a sinister glare. "The pharaoh made sure of that."
"Kul Elna…"
"Don't ever say that name around me again." He sneered. "Or I'll stain that pale flesh of yours with fresh blood."
Ryou looked to the ground, watching his shackled feet take a few more steps.
"I'm… I'm sorry…"
"You better be."
He watched the young Bakura walk. The boy looked so very tired, as though he had been walking all night. His shoulders hunched over, quite accustomed to sneaking through small passageways and hiding in shadows.
"You know what the punishment for grave robbery is, right servant boy?" one of the guards laughed. Ryou looked up.
"…No…"
Wajib smirked.
"Death." Heftet replied. "If you're lucky."
Ryou studied the face of the young teenager who would eventually be his yami. He seemed unconcerned that he was facing death. He seemed even less concerned that an innocent person was probably going to be killed with him.
He turned to Bakura.
"Aren't… aren't you afraid?" he whispered.
"They're the ones who should be afraid."
They reached the pharaoh's palace by the time the sun had reached its peak. Ryou was on the point of collapse when he saw Wajib dismount and walk over to him. He pulled Ryou up by his chains.
"The vizier will question you later." He snarled, hoisting Ryou inside the gates of the palace. The other guard did the same with Bakura. "For now, you can rot in a cell like the rest of the criminals."
The guards pulled Ryou down a long flight of stone steps, underneath the main floor of the palace. When they turned the corner, he lost sight of Bakura, who was being pulled in the opposite direction. The thief was putting up quite a fight, and several other palace guards were being called in to restrain him.
"Bakura!" Ryou shouted, as he heard the teenager scream amongst the cracking of several whips. But he couldn't turn back. The guard pressed against him, forcing him to continue downward.
They threw him in an empty cell. A thin layer of straw broke his fall, and he rolled into the corner. By the time he looked up, the wooden door was being locked. Their footsteps slowly disappeared into the silence.
Ryou looked around. The cell wasn't always empty. The skeleton still hanging from rusted shackles proved that. It also suggested the likelihood of escaping from such a fate alive.
He didn't have long to sit and contemplate his short future, however.
It wasn't long before the door was opened again, and a pair of particularly nasty looking guards hoisted the young Bakura inside.
His body was covered in slashes and abrasions. Most appeared to be caused by leather whips. A few of the deeper gashes were probably made by knives. The thief trembled as he attempted to sit up. His hands shook, jangling the shackles with an uneasy dissonance.
"…Ba..Bakura?" Ryou crawled closer.
The thief sat up, every inch of his beaten body trembling.
"Are you all right?"
"What's it to you?" he growled, wiping a trail of blood from the fissures that already lined his right cheek.
"Just… con…concerned?" he attempted not to sound suspicious. Bakura turned his head. "… It looks like the guards did a number on you."
"Save your breath." He spat.
Ryou looked around. The guards had supplied him with a bowl of water at least. He took the bowl, and brought it back to the injured teenager.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Ryou took off his shirt, and ripped off one of his sleeves. He dipped the fabric in the water, as dirty as it looked, and started to wipe the blood from his young man's back.
Bakura cringed, and swallowed a scream. The water stung as it hit the open lacerations.
"Keep that shit off me!" he shrieked, snatching the makeshift cloth out of Ryou's hands. He threw it back in the older boy's face.
"But…"
"Leave me the fuck alone!" he shouted. "I'm the king of thieves. I work alone. And I'll die alone!"
Ryou watched his yami's good eye glance at the wooden door. There were guards standing behind it, no doubt. In the other, he could see such pain, such emotion, dying to come out.
"If… if you don't clean it… they'll get infected." Ryou pleaded, dipping the sleeve in the water again.
"Why the hell do you care?" he snarled. "It won't matter. You know what the punishment for tomb robbery is."
Ryou's eyes betrayed their innocence. Were the guards telling the truth?
"Death, idiot." The young thief tore the cloth from Ryou's hand. This time he threw it across the room, striking one of the skeletons still hanging in the corner.
"They're really going to kill you?"
"Even for a servant, you're dumb." He spat back. "Of course they're going to kill me."
He leaned back, and glared out the small window. The sun was just passed the bars, letting the fullest amount of light into the cell. In its radiance, the blood glistened. While it didn't seem to bother Bakura, it made Ryou cringe.
"Probably by sundown."
The thief winced as he shifted position. Ryou, unable to look at the open wounds any longer, crawled over to the corner and retrieved the damp rag.
"Maybe sooner." He smirked. "I know they're real eager to put my head on a post. Probably would have done it already if the bastard weren't off performing a ritual with his ra-forsaken son."
"You mean… the pharaoh?" Ryou asked, hardly sneaking around the tender subject.
"Of course, idiot."
Ryou dipped the fabric into the water again, starting to clean a monstrous looking gash in his yami's leg. Bakura growled, finally picking up the bowl and throwing it right into Ryou's face. The force of the impact sent him tumbling back onto the straw.
"What is your fucking problem?" the thief screamed. Ryou looked up, with tears in clinging to the sides of his eyes. He didn't want to cry, not over his yami. Not over the spirit that tortured him and his companions for the past few years. But he could barely contain himself.
"I…"
"You jump out from behind a pile of rocks like I'm your long lost master, get yourself thrown into the pharaoh's dungeon with me, and you keep splashing water on me like it's going to make a fucking difference!" Bakura shouted. "Well it's not!"
Ryou cowered beneath his arms, waiting for the king of thieves to strike him. When the massive blow didn't come, he eventually peeked his head out.
Bakura was leaning against the back wall, his arms folded at his waist. If Ryou didn't know any better, he'd say the thief king was on the verge of tears himself.
"They killed everyone, you know." He finally spoke, glancing awkwardly at Ryou. "Everyone in my village. My father. My mother. You look a lot like her."
He watched the thief with a strange sense of sympathy, a feeling he never once thought he would direct towards his yami.
"I… I do?" Ryou forced himself to ask, pretending that he hadn't just seen the child version of the thief in Kul Elna a few hours earlier.
"Fucking bastard." He cursed under his breath. "All those years on the outskirts of the kingdom as a starving street rat, and now you want my head. You should have just killed me then, and been done with it!"
Ryou tried hard to imagine it. His yami, the epitome of dark power, was a scavenger on the sides of the street for food. A child stealing from the tombs of the pharaohs just to survive. Chased by guards, attacked by who knows what, living as an orphan in a deserted, dilapidated village. Always sleeping with one eye open, jumping at the slightest sound, trying to stay one step ahead of disaster. It was almost too much to bear.
For a thirteen year old, the thief's face depicted a lifetime of harsh tragedy.
"My family, my friends, everyone I ever knew. Burned into those gold trinkets for your fucking priests." He whispered, his scratchy voice like sandpaper against Ryou's heart. "You bastard. You sick power-hungry bastard. If I could just get my hands on those seven fucking items, maybe I could at least…"
His voice trailed off.
"You could… what?" Ryou interrupted uneasily.
"None of your fucking business!" The thief king suddenly realized he had been thinking aloud.
"Have… your revenge?" Ryou whispered, just as tentatively.
"Not like I'll ever get that chance." He let out a pained sigh. "I still hear them, pharaoh. I still hear their voices, every fucking night. Screaming as they're burned alive, their skin and bones melted into fucking pieces of gold! And I won't stop hearing them until I rip your head off and throw it onto the millennium stone!"
Ryou carefully crept up beside his yami again. The young man was livid, sweat dripping with blood, down his thin face.
"Maybe… maybe you still can…" he whispered. "You know, still… a..avenge your family…"
Ryou could scarcely believe what he was saying, actually encouraging the same behavior that he journeyed into this memory world to prevent!
"You're even dumber than I thought!" he spit in Ryou's face. "They're going to kill me at sundown."
"… Not… not if you can escape…"
"How the fuck?"
"You… you could fit through that window… if… if you could get up there… and… and maybe move one stone…" he whispered, as quietly as he could.
The thief glanced up. One of the stones did look a little worn. With enough time, he'd probably be able to push it free.
"Maybe you're not as dumb as you look."
Before he could even stand, however, the guards slammed the door open. One of them grabbed Bakura by his hair. The thief yelped in pain, trying to break free, but his battered body refused to perform any impossible tasks.
"Time to stand judgment before the millennium court, grave robbing scum!"
"…wa…wait!" Ryou jumped forward, leaping on the guard. A swing of his arm sent the pale boy flying back into the straw again.
"What do you want, servant boy?" the other guard laughed at Ryou's meager attempt at saving his friend. He yanked Bakura to his feet.
"You… you said you weren't going to kill him until sundown!" Ryou protested.
"Pharaoh says his crime's too heinous for him to be kept alive." The guard smiled as he grabbed the thief king by the neck.
"Can't… can't you take me instead?"
The guards looked at each other. It was certainly a strange request.
"You want to be killed first?" the first one laughed.
"Can't bear to see your master die, servant boy?" the other smirked as he threw Bakura back onto the ground. The thief king struggled to muffle another scream as the coarse stone threw dust into his open wounds. "Very well. Seize him."
Ryou barely had time to fully realize the consequences of his request before the first guard snatched him by the arm, and yanked him out of the cell. The door slammed behind him so quickly. He wasn't able to even catch a glimpse of the thief king's face.
But he felt good inside, for reasons he could barely understand, even though he had just bought the thief enough time to make an escape attempt.