Disclaimer: I still don't own!
I am going back 250 years with this chapter so that everyone knows what happened in the past.
Chapter 3
Yami wondered through the hallways of the house that he was Lord and master over. He was well aware of the whispers and rumours that surrounded him in the house. They suspected him of witchcraft he knew. He had heard the whispers behind closed doors in the servant's quarters.
He had always been interested in foreign places and had visited many. On one such visit to Egypt someone had offered him a golden pyramid shaped item that the seller told him was called the Millennium Puzzle and possessed strange powers. He had bought it and taken it back home with him.
The servants had seen it in its glass case where Yami had placed it in the room where he placed all the things he brought back with him. Sometimes he took it out and asked it what dark powers it possessed but the Puzzle never moved or made any indication that it was anything out of the ordinary. The servants heard him talking to it and this is what had started the rumours.
The rumours spread from the servants into the surrounding houses where the families lived. The families became scared and it was feared that the master of the house was a witch. A plot was hatched to rid them of the evil in the house and they met to march on the house and kill the master.
Yami, oblivious to the plot decided to go down to the cottage in the grounds where he liked to go when he wanted complete peace and quiet. He made his way down lost in his own thoughts and did not see the people lying in wait including some of the servants.
Once Yami was inside they surrounded the house and began to shout that he was a witch and needed to die.
Yami hid inside the house in fear but eventually they broke in, found him and plunged a dagger through his heart. Triumphant, they went to the house and found the Millennium Puzzle which they broke into pieces and putting the pieces in a box, they hid it in the cellar behind the old fireplace that was there but not used. There were loose bricks at the back and they hid it behind these.
Fifty years passed. Yami remained a ghostly presence haunting the house and grounds where he had grown up. The house lay empty for that time until a rich Egyptian bought the house and filled it with décor and artefacts from his home in Egypt.
Unaware of the history of the house, the new master employed new servants from the surrounding areas. One in particular was a white haired man whom the new master took a liking to. His name was Bakura.
With Bakura came a similar looking man also with white hair and both of them worked hard to gain the master's trust.
The house did well having many orchards that grew delicious apples and other fruits and the master became richer. Bakura was a favourite of his and became his chief servant.
One night when the master was lonely he took Bakura into his bed and the white haired man was sworn to secrecy. But Bakura had his own secret. The man who had come with him, Ryou, was his own bedmate though no one knew about it and they were very discreet about it. Ryou wore chains when they made love as they played their own roles of master and servant. Their secret love making and happiness was not to last though as one day the master himself decided to pay Bakura a visit in his own quarters.
He opened the door and stared in disbelief. His favourite servant and secret lover was making passionate love to another! And not just anyone, it was Ryou.
"What the hell do you think you are doing?" He demanded and Bakura leapt off of Ryou and made a desperate grab for his clothes.
"Master Marik! Please forgive me!" Bakura said more upset that he had been caught but needing to sound sorry enough to not lose his job.
Marik crossed the room in two strides and grabbed Bakura by his throat.
"You piece of filth." He snarled in Bakura's face. "You'll pay for this insult!" And he threw Bakura against the wall where he hit with a nasty thud and crumpled to the floor laying still.
"Bakura!" Ryou cried scrambling from the bed still in his chains and trying to get to Bakura.
Marik turned his attention to Ryou and grabbed him by the hair.
"You'll die for this." He said without feeling. He felt so betrayed as he had actually fallen in love with Bakura but had kept it to himself and now all he wanted was revenge.
Dragging Ryou to the window, he pulled him up by his hair to a standing position.
"Time to die betrayer." He said and releasing Ryou's hair, he pushed him and the white haired man crashed through the window to his death screaming as he went.
Marik calmed down and left the room exiting without being seen. He was back in his study when the servants brought him the news that two of his servants were dead.
It was easy for Marik to put on a shocked face when he was informed and ordered that the bodies be buried in the back garden as no house needed a scandal like that.
The deed done, Marik returned to a normal life feeling too betrayed to miss Bakura.
On the night of the murders, Yami was in the cottage where he had been killed. No one came there and he preferred it that way as he could assume his solid form without fear of discovery. He had long discovered that although the Puzzle had been broken, it had at last granted him its power when he had discovered its hiding place in the cellar. He had not been able to retrieve it from there but it helped him and little by little he learned how to use the powers to help him.
He felt a sudden jolt in the spiritual world which he was naturally connected to and knew that someone close by had died.
"I sense two souls." He muttered to himself and making himself invisible, he left the cottage and made his way up to the house.
Rounding a corner he saw a body on the ground and looked up to the broken window to see a ghost in chains looking down at his own body sadly. Yami floated up to him and in through the window.
'He is pure soul.' He thought as he flew in. Then there was a dark presence in the room and Yami noticed a second body slumped against a wall. Yami recognised Marik's favourite servant and he wondered what had happened.
Bakura stepped from the shadows and eyed Yami suspiciously.
"Who are you?" He demanded floating over to Ryou's sad form and placing a protective ghostly arm round him.
"I am Yami and I died here fifty years ago. I haunt the house and grounds after being killed over false accusations."
"What do you want with us?" Bakura asked still wary of this newcomer.
"To help you. I felt you cross over into the spiritual world and came to see if you needed help."
"We don't need any help and if you're done being annoying you can leave." Bakura said rudely.
Yami began to glow with dark energies and Bakura suddenly looked fearful.
"Be aware that I have power here and I won't hesitate to use it. I can send you to hell if I so wish." Yami said dangerously.
"Fine I'm sorry I'm just so angry."
The energies lessened somewhat but still remained slightly just to remind Bakura of who was boss.
"Why were you killed?" He asked them both.
"The master took a fancy to me and made me his bedmate, he came up here tonight and found me with Ryou in bed and so he killed us both."
"I'm sorry." Yami said.
"Well maybe Ryou and I can find somewhere else to go." Bakura said and began to lead Ryou out of the room.
"Be careful, you may not be able to go far."
"What do you mean? You can go all over the place can't you?"
"Yes but I was granted power to do so, if I try and leave the grounds of the house, I can't."
"Well we're going to try." Bakura said determined and he stalked out of the room with Ryou in tow.
Yami sighed as he remembered what happened when he had tried to leave the grounds of the house. He had walked out of the gate only to walk right back through them again and into the grounds again. It was never ending and inescapable.
Bakura marched boldly down to the front door and walked through it only to walk right back in again.
"Damn it." He said angrily and kicked out at the stair banisters. His foot went through them and he fell to the floor.
"It's not fair." He said dejectedly and Ryou comforted him.
"I'm here Bakura, maybe we can find a way to escape. If we are trapped here there must be a way we can be released."
"I don't know." Yami said. "I have tried the library but I couldn't find anything. I will help you look again though."
"Thanks, I'm Bakura by the way and this is Ryou." Bakura said and Yami grinned.
"Well nice to meet you both though different circumstances would have been better." He said and the other two smiled ruefully.
They searched the library from top to bottom and eventually found an old book that Yami had never seen before.
"It must have been put here by the present owner." He remarked and the three of them pored over it.
It was a book of ancient rituals and history and they scanned it Yami turning the pages for them as he could become solid and the others could not.
"Here it is! 'To release a trapped soul another must take it's place'" He read "Well in order for you two to be freed, you must trap another soul here." He said closing the book.
"How do we do that?" Bakura asked.
"Oh I'm sure you'll find a way." Yami said returning the book to its place on the shelves.
So it began. One by one, Marik's servants began to vanish mysteriously never to be seen again as Bakura and Ryou worked as a team to lure people to their attic room that was abandoned after the night they had died. They found that portals could be opened to trap people and rip their souls from them leaving no trace but nothing seemed to work.
"There must be something we're missing." Bakura said frustrated after their tenth attempt failed.
The three of them studied the book again and found smaller writing that they had not seen before.
"The soul must be totally pure and innocent." Yami said. "Well all those people must have had something in their past that rendered them useless, you must find a pure soul to take your places."
"But that could take forever." Ryou said and clung to Bakura weeping silent ghostly tears.
"We'll find someone soon." Bakura said comfortingly as Yami replaced the book once again and left them to it.
The years passed by and after the master died, no one else bought the house or inherited it as he had died without an heir. It slowly fell to ruin round the three ghosts and Yami retreated into his world of the cottage leaving Bakura and Ryou alone.
Bakura became more and more bitter and twisted as the years went by. He became angry at everything, angry that he couldn't assume a solid form, angry that no one ever came and mainly angry that he couldn't even touch Ryou properly.
Ryou withdrew and became very quiet only speaking when Bakura yelled at him for something.
Then when almost two hundred years had passed, someone did buy the house.
Sugoroku Motou bought the house and set about cleaning it up. He restored it to its former glory and filled it with beautiful furniture and decorated it throughout. Bakura watched the work going on but didn't attack anyone as there were no pure souls among the people who came and went. Sugoruku sensed there was something not quite right about the house and Bakura knew it. He began to have a little fun at scaring the people who came there.
He moved things round and made fuses blow. He banged doors and touched people's shoulders with ghostly fingers.
Sugoruku began to regret buying the house with all the weird goings on and eventually it got too much for him. He shut up the house and left it after covering everything up and leaving to go and live in the city.
When his grandson was born, Sugoruku immediately knew that there was something different about him. He was charged with spiritual energies even as a young child and Sugoruku knew that he was pure.
He decided to leave the house to him when he died so that he would have a place to live and also he knew that Yugi would be able to perhaps sort out whatever it was that was in that house.
"There's something in that house that needs help which I could not give." He thought to himself as he wrote his will out.
When Yugi arrived at the house after Sugoruku died, all three ghosts felt him and knew he was pure.
"Gotcha." Bakura said with glee rubbing his transparent hands. "Do your thing Ryou."
"What's his name?" Ryou asked and Bakura vanished for a moment before coming back.
"His name is Yugi."
Yami in his cottage also felt the presence of Yugi's pure soul and knew he would have to check it out before Bakura managed to lure him to his death. He had not expected the rust of feelings he felt for the young man when he first saw him though.
"I cannot let Bakura have him." Yami thought to himself.
TBC…
Well that's the history of the house and how Yami, Bakura and Ryou became ghosts. I know I said earlier that Bakura couldn't touch anything but he learned as the years went by how to move things and slam door etc. He still can't become solid though. Those of you who worked out that Yami is a ghost too WELL DONE you get a gold star and a Yami plushie! Hehe see you next chapter which will return to present day.