A/N:

M.M: Thank you for reviewing! I'm glad you like my writing. I ws actually professionally taught, but sadly (for real world careers) I prefer writing fanfiction. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell was my soul book (though my username existed before her book; she totally copied me. Hahaha).

Guest: I am assuming you are my fan-stalker-sama, if you aren't I apologize in advance. Still thanks for reviewing! I'm trying to update whilst I have inspiration. And before fanfiction kicks me out before I remember my password. Thank gods I was logged in on an ancient computer. This is 'the' chapter, but none of my comic scenarios are how Yami reacts. This is the harking back to the original 2005 version.

Ch 25: Self Mutilation

Three weeks ago

Ok, Yami tells himself as he sits primly in front of the largest bespoke source of processing power, he the Pharaoh of millennia past. He can do this. It's not as if he hasn't had lessons from Ryou's and Yugi's training crash course from hell to modernity last February. He certainly can use this computer. Besides he ought to be more focused at the mystery before him.

And he is. Less than a full week has passed since Yami bore witness to Bakura—before the shoplifting of what had been the strangest and yet, Yami knew it had to be linked. Miracles aren't so all seeming with the missing link. He would know, as one of the many Pharaohs that took the history of the pyramids of long ago with him. He…just needed the link.

This computer and it's search engines (Yugi had recommended the one his Grandfather had spent all of the last month marveling about Go-gal, or Google. Named after some obscure mathematical number he thinks Solomon and Yugi had raved, with a revolutionary algorithm. So far, Yami mused at tapping at the keyboard, he wasn't very impressed with the results shown to him, though querying for: 'blood stains and long sleeves' seemed to pull up a lot of poorly designed graphic boards for depressed teenagers.

Eventually Yami found he had to switch to English. Thankfully he still had a modicum of innate English language skills from Yugi's more instinctive studious habits before the influence of Joey. Thankfully the English side of Google held the elusive missing block of his puzzle.

It made sense, what the World Health article conveyed. Part of him was simply amazed the computer had produced a result from a few keywords and matching keystrokes. Another, larger part horrified as he read this article from nine years prior.

Self mutilation. Exactly, perfect, defining. And Yami couldn't fathom it.

Present

Yami flipped Bakura's wrists over, as he shook like a leaf desperate to stay attached, or in Bakura's case, upright. He had run down from his bedroom, when he'd heard the first curse to check on whoever was injured. Racing down two floors and skidding to a stop at the doorway between the shop and the back room, he ripped open the door. His heart stopped. Bakura, buttocks pressed on the floor, knees bent, legs spread, scratched at a spot on his arm, letting out low screams.

But, it was the crazed, deranged look on his face, reminiscent of Millennium World, that sucked him to the ground, gravity forcing him to his knees in front of Bakura. He wrenched Bakura's arms apart, not realizing why or that he had, in fact, grabbed the former thief. As Bakura's attempts to get out of his grasp increased with severity and warm liquid coated the tips of his fingers, Yami, stomach twisting, flipped Bakura's arms over.

And stared. Lines and rows of scars and cuts, and blood as far as Yami could see. He pushed Bakura's sleeves up with his wrist, still grasping Bakura's wrists. "Bakura," he breathed, "what is this?"

Anger flared in Bakura; his eyes flashing, he knocked Yami's hands away and ripped his sleeves down over his hands, curling the fabric into his fists. A cool smile pasted on his face, he responded in an equally chilly tone, "It's nothing. Pretend you never saw it." His eyes narrowed. "You certainly don't want to deal with it."

Yami sat back on his haunches, trying to envision all of those awful marks underneath Bakura's sleeves. There were so many, he couldn't keep track, must less count them up. "Who did this?" His mind refused to cooperate.

Bakura would've snorted at the nonsensical garbles spilling out of Yami's mouth like verbal diarrhea, but his heart pounded erratically in his too tight chest. He tried to inhale more air, more anything, to jumpstart his brain. "I said don't worry," he said lowly.

Yami looked up from Bakura's sleeves, into the hate filled eyes that didn't quite mask the panic as Bakura's eyes darted from one wall to the other. His breath caught in his throat as he heard Bakura's reply, like he was underwater, muffled. "You did this to yourself," he realized trying to grab for Bakura's arms again.

Bakura jumped up, knocking the table and boxes of sorted novelty items over, scattering plastic toys across the work area. His mouth opened and closed, completing the underwater sensation for Yami, as his mind worked to explain the cuts away.

"What happened here?" Solomon called, holding the door open. He caught the sight of Bakura smashing into the table and the torrent of novelty toys raining to the floor. He surveyed the room, Bakura standing erect and Yami kneeling on the floor, looking up at Bakura, looking torn.

Relief smoothed out Bakura's face, before he muttered an apology. "I have to go," he said in such a quiet tone Solomon had to place a hand to his ear to hear properly, and he still was not a hundred percent certain that was what Bakura said. Bakura dashed out of the store as fast as his legs would carry him.

Solomon turned his attention to Yami, the once Pharaoh, now the boy he had begun to view as another grandson. His heart ached as he took in Yami's appearance, still kneeling on the floor, a hand pressed into his trembling lips, the dazed look of one who had a gregarious epiphany, the absolute vulnerability of his expression, reminding Solomon that Yami, indeed, was just a boy.

He noticed the bright red droplets on Yami's fingertips. "Are you hurt?" he asked. Yami shook his head and wiped the blood off onto his shorts. Solomon reached a hand to Yami. "C'mon, up you go." Yami stood at his full height, a couple inches taller than Solomon. He conveyed his dilemma, staring down into Solomon's eyes.

Solomon squeezed his shoulder. "I think you should go after him." Yami nodded, eyes glassy and pained.

Yami caught up with Bakura at the park not too far off from his home. Without conscious thought, his feet had led him there. When he approached, finding Bakura slumped under a tree, looking exactly how he felt, he immediately recognized this park when Bakura admitted Ryou was forcing himself to vomit.

"Are you sad, mister?" A young voice jarred Bakura from the stinging in his knuckles and the pounding in his head that kept rhythm with his heart beat. Bakura glanced up from underneath his bangs. The little boy from months ago peered up at him, holding a bright blue ball in his pudgy fingers.

The kid smiled brightly. "I remember you, you know! You aren't mean at all," he exclaimed, catching Yami's attention as he watched from a couple meters off.

Bakura smiled, not sardonically, but not happily either, "You aren't aware of what I've tried to do, kid."

The little boy gazed up into Bakura's eyes. "I still don't think you're mean," he said finally, running off to answer his mother's call. Bakura slumped back into the embrace of the tree trunk. He reached into his pocket, finding comfort in his worn card. After slicing his thumb open, he eventually switched out the dull blades for sharper, new ones after he finished ripping them out of the razor.

He had hoarded the old ones in his dresser for a few days unsure how to dispose of them. Taping gauze over a cut on his arm, encouraged him to tape up the blades in a thick coating of gauze and dropping then in a public recycling bin.

Yami sat down next to him, as he had last time months ago, as Bakura flipped the card upside down, relaxing in the feel of the razor blades slipping up, then down, then up again. "Yes?" he asked, getting the inevitable conversation out of the way, so he hoped, quickly.

"That kid looks likes you," Yami said, unsure where the ideal place to begin was.

Bakura dug at the ground with his injured foot, which subsided to a dull ached, shoe misplacing blades of grass and upturning the tiny iota of the park's landscape. "No he doesn't."

Yami grabbed Bakura's hand as he continuously subconsciously cracked his torn knuckles, "What did you do now?!"

...

So, I am dumb. Part of this chapter is not supposed to be here. Since erased, but lucky early readers.

A/N: The penultimate chapter fans, I hope the seven year wait has been worth it? That's how I do depression, for years at a time. I know there are date mistakes (that probably only I noticed in earlier chapters—how that happened whilst referencing 1998 calendars, I don't know), but the foreshadowing for this chapter is in the beach chapters. They weren't just tribute filler.

Google debuted on September 4, 1998, and it was innovative for its time, but other search engines, like Duckduckgo, have been around since 1994. I was going to use Duckduckgo, but the factoid was too hard to resist. From my own web browsing (I was searching the prevalence of mental health in Asian countries, so changing the web extensions on Google) in 2009, I noticed was limited on results, so I imagined 1998 was probably lacking as well.

The World Health Article released in 1989 and used to be easier available online (again web browsing—though on a tangent it should actually be available by copyright laws, but whatever). I referenced the abstract to jog my memories, which fanfiction won't let me link. Title: "Self‐Mutilation and Eating Disorders" Authors: Armando R. Favazza MD Lori DeRosear DO Karen Conterio

I hope the flashback (they'll be another next chapter don't break up the story pacing, but I truly think flashbacks are necessary, and a little bit humor is needed.