Ladygodess: Okay not much to say here, so I won't keep you from the story that you want to read.

Warnings: M, Yaoi, with small abuse, not much.

Disclaimer I don't own Yugioh.

CHAP 10: Lost But Gained

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Bakura walked the streets thinking on what he should do, he had been gone for a few days now and he was heading home to see Ryou, he smirked as he never thought that he would find Ryou again, but it was Ryou that found him in a way, he sighed as he past a few of the shops, people ran in and out doing their daily things.

Bakura snorted in disgust as he watched them run around, he continued anyway not stopping at all. He shoved his hands into his pockets, "It seemed so long ago," he mumbled to himself. That day that changed his life as he knew it forever, he shook his head and looked up.

XXXX Flash Back XXXXXXXXX

Screams of pain ran out across the vast desert of Egypt as all the slaves around the area stopped for only a moment taking a glance at what was going on, a lot of the others just kept going or they would be whipped back to work, "Get going you dogs, the pharaoh's tomb won't build itself," a gruff voice yelled with a crack of a whip and a few shouts of pain.

A few of the guards stood around not fazed at all at what they saw, a water girl around eighteen, had fallen off the scaffoldings and had impaled herself through her chest on a piece of wood that was sticking up from out of the ground just missing her heart, but she would definitely die but slowly, her son sobbed at her side as no one would help his mother, her cries rang out for the release of pain or a quick death.

She lifted her hand to her sons face and cursed herself for not being more careful of where she had put her feet, her son only about five put his small hands on hers, she had fallen pregnant with him at the age of fourteen by a rape one night, even though she had wished the mans death, she loved her son and took care of him as well as a slave could.

"Ahh she dead anyway!" he snorted as if it was an inconvenience to watch and a waste of his time, he lifted his spear above his head, "pray to Anubis to take pity on a slave," the small boy looked up with tears of anguish as he stared at the guard with the raised spear.

Just as it was about to impale her through the heart everything stopped and a deadly quite settled over the land as time had ceased to progress, just as this happened a dark figure walked up and sighed "I get more calls here than anywhere else in the world, god damn pharaoh and his guards," he grumbled as he knelt down and placed his hand over the young mothers chest, a light ran through her and shot out of her mouth at an alarming speed towards the sky above them, "one soul closer," Bakura smirked but it faded as he looked at the boy, he gasped as he looked just like him but a younger form.

He shakily reached out a hand a caressed the boys cheek as he looked down at the girl and for the first time in his long existence did he feel guilty for taking a soul, he knew who she was as he did with everyone that he came to collect.
Bakura sighed as he looked up at the frozen child, eyes narrowed at the boy as if accusing him for his guilty feeling, "sorry it was her time, before she was born this was her time," he also knew that the boy could not hear him, but he felt that little bit better trying to pass it off as not being his fault and hoped the boy would understand.

He stood up then turned and started to walk away, everything at that point time sped back up and returned to normal, the mother's hand fell from the child lifelessly as the spear plunged through her and into the sand beneath her back, the small boy choked on a sob as his eyes filled with unshed tears from the shock. "Get her out of here," they had turned and almost missed the boy that sat there unknowing what to do now, his mother was all he had in this cruel and harsh world.

"What of the boy?" one off the guards asked as he kicked the boy away, he cried out and rolled in the sand sobbing, Bakura stopped and turned looking at the boy with curiosity.

"Call the slave traders and sell him, he's to young to work here" he just waved it off as he walked back to his duties, the boy cried out as he was roughly pulled up by his short white hair and dragged away screaming. Bakura growled in frustration there was nothing he could do for the boy, it wasn't his department and he wasn't allowed to interfere with the mortals like that.

Bakura stormed through the halls of heaven and had delivered the souls that he had colleted that day, tired he went to rest in his sleeping quarters, he had no home as he was in between as death was a mutual and he could live in the underworld or in heaven he had sleeping quarters in both realms, they weren't dark and they weren't light, there were many of them not just one as this would be to big of a task for just one.

He sighed as he walked into the quarters that they had given him while he was there, he flopped down on his bed and heaved a sigh then all of a sudden he sat up, a frown formed as he got up and out stretched his hand and fingers a portal opened up and he stepped through it, on the other side he stepped into a dark and damp room, the air smelled of old food and moss.

He leant on the wall closing his eyes and waited, his eyes snapped open as there were cries of anguish, a whip cracking, harsh words that held venom to them and the promise of more pain to come, the sobbing stopped to a hiccupping as the door was opened and a boy was thrown in onto the dirty ground, "you'll do better the next time your asked to do something, devil, or I'll send you back to your place in the under world" he yelled angrily at the boy then slammed the door leaving the boy in darkness.

Bakura watched with hatred in his eyes aimed at the man, he wished that he could send the him to the under world, his eyes lowered to the boy on the ground, he sighed as his form changed, a scar over his right cheek and eye, his short scruffy white hair and a red cloak on, his form became solid and it was what he had looked like before he died.

He used the wall to slide to the ground that he had been leaning on, his feet making a noise as he did this, the sobbing ten year old boy looked up and wiped his eyes, a faint smile on his face as he crawled over to the other and onto his lap and he cried on his shoulder, Bakura patted his hair to soothe him as his sobs soon become hiccups again.
"What did you do this time?" Bakura asked softly.

"I didn't get enough money for the jewels that he had for me to sell on the street" he sat up and winced in pain, Bakura ran his hand over his back as a warm feeling ran through the boys body, his wounds healing up as this was happening, the boy blinked in confusion, "How do you manage to do that?" Bakura chuckled.

"And were did you learn such a word," Bakura mocked him on the manage word.
"I maybe a slave but that doesn't mean that I have to talk like a buffoon," the boy huffed playfully, the outside world fading as the two spent time together as the boy had put it his time with Bakura was his utopia and Bakura ruffled his hair fondly.

"Your to meek to be a buffoon, Ryou" the boy poked him.

"I'm not meek, you're just bigger than me." he giggled.

"Everyone's bigger than you," Bakura rolled his eyes, but then fell on the boy as he yawned tiredly "hard day?" Bakura asked and Ryou nodded his head.

"I was up before the sun and I have worked all day without a break at all," Ryou closed his eyes for a minute then opened them and when he did he was met with bread and a bit of fruit and water. "Were did you get that from?" Ryou gasped, that was more food than he saw in a week.

"Boy you talk to much, you also ask to many questions and when you know the answer," he smirked as Ryou rolled his eyes.

"It's the will of the great thief king," Ryou smiled warmly as he took the bread and broke it in half, he held it out for Bakura but he shook his head and pushed his hand with the offered bread away.

"You eat it, Ra knows that you need it,"

"What about you? You have to eat as well and I don't think that I can eat all of this," Ryou looked at the bread and fruit.

"Eat what you can," Bakura leant his head back on the stone wall and watched the boy happily eat, he cursed as he was frozen in place and a blue card appeared in the air in front of him, he grabbed it and a name in crimson writing told him of his next soul to take.

He growled as the small card burst into flames and disappeared, this meant that he had to leave Ryou. His hard gaze softened as Ryou munched on the bread and drank the clean water. "I have to go now," Ryou's eyes snapped to Bakura's with a worried look.

"But you just got here," the boy blurted out sadly and suddenly.

"I know, I'm sorry, I will see you again" Ryou moved off his lap and Bakura stood up. "Don't get upset if you don't see me, I won't be back for a while" Bakura walked to the door.

"Where are you going? Take me with you please Bakura, take me with you?" Ryou jumped to his feet with the newfound energy as he grabbed onto his arm tears in his eyes.

"You ask this every time," Bakura eased his hands off his arm and he wished that he could, Ryou hung his head with unshed tears in his eyes. Bakura wasn't able to stay away from the boy since that day he took his mother, he felt that it was his fault that Ryou was in this situation and the more time he spent with him the more he liked him and visited every chance he got, just to talk and feed him. "You know that I'll be back soon to see you again?" Bakura hated to leave him.

"I know but what if I get sold, how will you find me then?" Ryou whispered.

"Like I have always found you, now I have to go, so be as brave as you can until I return," Bakura knelt down to eye level with the boy.

"I'll try," Ryou threw his arms around Bakura and held him like a lifeline, which in a way he was by bringing him food and comforting him ever since his mother's death.

Bakura pulled him back a bit, "just remember that we'll be together, one day without anyone to stop us,"

"You promise?" Ryou asked as he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Yes" Bakura kissed him on the forehead and stood up, he didn't want to tell him that the only way that they could even think about being together was if Ryou became a grim reaper which would never happen as you had to be chosen by the grim reaper himself. Unknowing to the boy the outside world had come to a stop as Bakura stood up and opened the door, he gave the boy a smirk as he closed it and vanished then the world went back to how it was.

Bakura leant on a stone wall outside a city as a war was about to start, quite a few of his kind had turned up waiting for the carnage to begin, to take the souls of the dead or dieing, "Bakura!" he looked up to see Marik sit down next to him.

"Hey," Bakura looked out over the field as the two lords rode out to meet each other as they talked to see if they could fix the situation before the killing began.

"Where have you been lately? Everyone is talking about you," Marik gave him a side glace.

"So, what else is new? They are just jealous that I get more souls than them," Bakura smirked as the meeting between the two didn't work out.

"They say that you have a human boy, that you go and see when you can, is this true?" Marik stood up as the leaders gave their soldiers a pep talk about honor and courage and dieing for their king.

"If it is, what's it to them? I take him food and talk to him that's all," Bakura stood as well and amusement shone in his eyes as he watched.

"You know that you can't interfere with the mortals? Bakura have you gone mad?" Marik raised his eyebrow at him.

"I'm not," Bakura shrugged it off, Marik sighed. "What did he do to get your attention?"

"I took his mother from him, Marik he was so young an innocent I couldn't walk away," Bakura smiled as his thoughts went to the boy and hoped that he was okay without him as he had been gone for a few months now.

"And so are the hundreds of children that we take, the infants and the young girls and boys that get beaten to death, the ones that fight back all because they wish to keep their virginity, the sick that die of plagues and diseases," Marik listed them off.

"He's not like them, he needs me in this bastard of a world, it's not as nice as the innocent like to think it is, if it wasn't for me he would be dead a long time ago, I offer him a little happiness just by me showing up and talking to him, he knows that the whole world isn't as cold as what it seems," Bakura sighed as the wind blew his long white hair in his eyes.

"You offer him little hope, once he dies which he will you'll never see him again, you are to attached to him and you'll be heart broken," Marik folded his arms over his chest.

"I won't let that happen to him," Bakura growled, he didn't like to think about what would happen though Marik was right he would be heartbroken, but he had a plan that would save him. They both started to walk down the hill as the armies ran to each other and their cries ran out as they clashed.

"All I'm saying is just be careful," Marik followed him looking over to the field and running a hand over his face in annoyance. "This is going to be a long day," he grumbled.

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TBC

Ladygodess: So there you have it, Bakura is a grim reaper or a collector of souls and his first meeting with Ryou. A water girl was of a young age and had to get water for the workers and guards all day from a well. OH! I don't know how long this story will be or how many chaps there are as my thoughts and plans for this has changed a lot (pulls hair) GRRRR.

Like it? Then R&R me (hands out plushies of Bakura and Ryou)