(NOTE 3/8/06: Chapters have been restored to their original order! Assuming nothing ELSE goes wrong, here ya go!)
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Okay, actually, during the re-editing mentioned above, the first copy of this chapter was accidentally deleted.
I apologize for the loss of my original saucy, witty banter. And as you may have noticed, I make it a point NEVER to reorganize the way I post my chapters unless I have no other choice. I feel its educational to be able to look back and go 'Gad-DAMN! What a lousy, crappy writer I used to be!'
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What?
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Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh
Claimer: The stuff I invented for this fic is mine0
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Still sore from being crushed by a giant tail, Yami was quite pleased to be able to snidely nudge Bakurah into using his new undead slaves as an advance force, marching ahead of the group and killing everything that would be there to endanger the mortals and themselves.
Speaking of the mortals, none of them seemed even remotely comfortable with Bakurah's new toys, even though this was a serious increase in protection for them. All of them deliberately spent extra time fussing over Rosa, who had been badly stunned and battered in her encounter with the parked car but was going to be all right.
As the group continued on, the four mortals stayed in a little cluster up at the front, with Rosa trailing just beside them. They were acting practically like a herd of gazelle, continuously glancing behind them at the trailing demons, and while Ryou's gaze was only a little nervous and Yugi's was only a bit more skittish, Jou and Honda were throwing real fisheyes Bakurah's way when they thought the necromancer-demon wasn't looking right at them.
Which meant that if Yami wanted any conversation to pass the time with, he was stuck with only Bakurah. The mortals were going even slower than before, too, so the uneasy boredom hung in the air like an approaching summer thunderstorm.
Bakurah hissed in annoyance as he caught the sixteenth wary glance headed his way.
"Pharaoh, you know those dolts better than I do," the fiend began, apparently too annoyed to care who he was trying to start a conversation with, "Is there a particular reason they're being stupider than ever now?"
"…I will assume you are not including Yugi as a 'dolt'," Yami replied, managing to keep his voice calm despite the implied insult.
Bakurah eyed him slyly from the corner of his eyes.
"By that, could you possibly mean that you believe the other three are all idiots?" Bakurah shot back, sounding almost amused.
"…Perhaps not Ryou," Yami suggested, trying to see how much leverage he could get, "Since you have such an interest in him…"
Bakurah's eyes narrowed for a minute. Then, to Yami's amazement, he merely shrugged.
"Of course. He is interesting," the fiend openly admitted.
"Yes, Ryou is definitely the most interesting mortal here…especially more so than your current interest," Bakurah added a second later, laughter in his tone.
Yami only vaguely realized through his shock at the thief's casual admittance that he was also gaping like a fool in astonishment. And then, when Yami finally registered the second part of Bakurah's second sentence, the mage-demon was enraged enough to flash his fangs at the other in warning.
"Relax, he is no danger from me Pharaoh," Bakurah sneered, though his own fangs were bared as well, "He's got enough hungering after his life without my assistance. But that's not the point right now, either - tell me why the other mortals - the really complete idiots - are acting so strangely now!"
Yami took a moment to compose himself before answering. He'd figured this would happen the second he'd recognized Bakurah back in Yugi's house, and had been free long enough to know exactly what the problem was besides normal mortal squeamishness.
"For your information, they're feeling sickened and disturbed as well as being terrified of you only because of the reinforcements you decided to bring along with us," Yami said, gesturing to the various corpses they were now walking past - another pack of Crawkers, bigger than the first group.
"Mortals are so picky about the treatment of their dead," Bakurah sighed, rolling his eyes in annoyance, "It's nothing permanent, and any damage is easily repaired…we're required to make pacts with the gods so the souls can still be judged, for Ra's sake! What is so disturbing about that?"
"You'll never believe this," Yami replied, "But in this part of the world, the dead are cremated almost immediately after death."
"You're right, I don't believe it," Bakurah agreed, "What the hell is 'cremating' supposed to be?"
"That means they burn the corpses to ashes, put the ashes in a little jar, and bury the jar under this tiny obelisk thing with the person's name on it," Yami explained, taking a long step away from Bakurah as he spoke.
A very wise move, that. The necromancer-demon froze in mid-step, a look of complete astonishment on his face. As soon as he determined Yami was telling the truth - the mage-demon not trying to hide that at all - Bakurah's nearly bugged out in purely sickened astonishment.
"They do WHAT!" Bakurah nearly roared - the mortals ahead of them stopped and turned to see what was happening.
"That's how they do it here," Yami told him, taking another step away as a precaution.
"They burn their dead…" Bakurah repeated with a shudder, "What the HELL! That's just SICK!"
Ryou had his mouth open, possibly hoping to avert whatever fight he saw brewing, but Bakurah cut off anyone else's words with a loud stream of curses and diatribes. And this was the best possible reaction Yami had predicted Bakurah would have upon hearing this piece of information.
"BURNING the bodies - and only the PRETENSE of a PROPER grave - that is completely UNNATURAL!" Bakurah ranted, "HOW do they expect to return if they don't HAVE a body? HOW do they bloody expect to get to the AFTERLIFE without even having at least the Book? And its just a bloody little obelisk thing that ONLY has their NAME? If they even KEPT their body it'd be too EASY to kill their souls by breaking their names - WHAT THE FUCKING HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS CENTURY?"
"Calm down!" Yami yelled, straining to be heard over Bakurah's raging, "I know what you mean but screaming about it won't help! This is just how things happen here!"
"So you don't CARE if your little friend there is doomed to wander as a lost spirit forever?" Bakurah shot back, gesturing at Yugi and still very completely outraged.
Yami didn't have an answer to that. Well, he actually DID, but it made him sound utterly contrite and he wasn't about to hand that kind of victory to the thief this easily. Practically jumping from anger, Bakurah's next move was to stalk right over to Ryou, all pretense of disguising his interest long since gone.
"YOU!" He snapped, jabbing a finger into Ryou's chest, "YOU are getting a bloody proper funeral if it's the last fucking thing I ever do, whether you like it or not! I will NOT sit around and have your soul MUTILATED like a damned sacrifice's!"
Bakurah then proceeded to storm past the stunned mortals, heading up towards where his skeletons were clearing the road, gnashing his teeth and cursing the incredible disgusting stupidity of all mortals in general but of the local population of mortals in particular. Apparently he was going to find something his servants hadn't gotten to yet and kill it as slowly and brutally as possible. As for the rest of their group, Ryou had gone bright red in embarrassment. Jou and Honda were both pale, and Yugi was somewhere in between.
Where exactly, Yami couldn't be certain of. This was because he had suddenly determined that not meeting anyone's gaze was an excellent method for dealing with his complete shock and embarrassment over the situation.
'I suppose that's one method to let someone know you like them,' the mage-demon told himself wryly.
Of course, when - if! IF Yugi received similar information, Yami hastily corrected himself, and especially IF Yami was going to be the person delivering said information, the boy was most certainly going to get it in a much less mind-boggling way. Unless, of course, it was interest from someone else: when it came to Yugi, as far as Yami was concerned, the rest of the world could go hang.