Chapter Two – Redoubtable

It had been a brutal battle. I'd been worried, slightly, about releasing the full power of my ka. I know the evil of my Millennium Ring has been waiting for just such an opportunity to try to weaken my resistance to its insidious whisperings, and try to break free of my control. Fighting that evil magic, ever since I first sensed it, ever since the Ring was given to me, has wearied me. I have battled every single day since then to master the evil in my Ring and thwart its dark wishes. Somehow, resolved as I have been, focused as I am, the evil in my Ring hasn't troubled me today.

It had been glorious, in a way, to see the fullness of my ka-being in action, again. My fellow priest, Seto, has never seen the full-powered Illusionist Magician before, and so, has always assumed my ka is weak. I have tried to brush aside Seto's derisive comments and thinly veiled insults with the knowledge that he couldn't possibly know how truly powerful my ka is, but still... The comments and insults, though I try to never permit my feelings to show, have hurt. Sometimes I have wondered if indeed my ka is as strong as I remember. Perhaps I had magnified it in my memory, giving it more power than it really possesses?

Watching, feeling, my ka anew, unfettered, unrestrained; I know my worries have been false. I hadn't magnified my power in my memory. If anything, my power, even though I've held it tightly leashed, has managed to grow as I've become a more skillful magician over the years. Fighting the evil of the Ring internally has conversely strengthened my connection to my ka, not weakened it. Watching the Illusionist Magician, my ka-being, battle, gives me confidence. Perhaps, if this fight takes the ultimate turn I dread, I am indeed powerful enough to perform my, no, Lord Anubis' ritual.

Bakura rages, and rants on. Wearing the old pharaoh's diadiankh, Bakura commands not only his highly powerful Diabond, but the ka-monsters of the old king's tomb as well. That is one reason I decided to stage my confrontation with the tomb robber here. It is only fitting that Akunumkanon, the previous king, whom I have always held in the profoundest regard, is permitted to watch as I try, in my own, humble way, to rectify the sacrilege Bakura has perpetrated upon him, and his final resting place. If the old pharaoh's ba is here, in the tomb he'd originally been placed in, perhaps witnessing my attempt to defeat Bakura will salve any injury the old king has suffered at Bakura's hands, and permit him to proceed to the afterlife. I am more than willing to serve my pharaoh, the one who made me a Guardian Priest, one last time. Perhaps my actions can serve as my apology that the sanctity of the pharaoh's tomb had been disturbed.

My trap -- it fails. The thief is too swift and saves his life. What is more, he traps me between the swinging blades. How can I stop him? He must not be allowed to live and threaten my king again. "Lord Anubis, is this the time? Is this the only alternative I have left?" I appeal directly to the presence waiting in my heart, for guidance.

"It is not for me to say. I am here, if you need me, but the decision must be yours."

Life... A precious gift. There are so many things yet undone... My pupil, needing guidance... What of her without me there? She has the skill; she has the heart, but her nature is so flighty. Will she master that on her own, and discover her true self, without me to guide her? My duty... Will one of the other priests step forward to take my position, willing to offer his life in place of the pharaoh's, if need be? Will they guard him as closely as I do? My pharaoh -- my friend. I long to help him bring about the Egypt shining in his heart... He is strong, and powerful -- his heart is the biggest I've ever seen, but sometimes... He doubts himself. He doubts his vision, and his abilities. Without me to bolster him, will he dare to pursue his dream? Or will the burdens of kingship and guilt beat him down, as they did his father?

I look up, watching the shining blades slice through the air, aware of the bitter irony that they had been set here to protect the pharaoh's resting place from thieves just like Bakura. To have Bakura turn them against me, the guardian of the tomb, and more; turn the treasures of the former pharaoh against his own son, fills me with a revulsion that borders on hatred.

If I fail to kill Bakura, all of us are threatened. Mana might never have the time to learn her truest heart, if Bakura's evil plan comes to be. My fellow priests will be his targets too, for each bears a Millennium Item. My pharaoh... he too, carries an Item. No! I will not allow Bakura to threaten him, just for the misbegotten magic he carries around his neck!

I, I believe in him. I believe in my pharaoh. I believe in my friend. His heart is strong. He has the favor of the gods. Even if I am gone, his dream will drive him, and the gods will appoint another to encourage him, if that is what my king needs. Tears swim in my eyes. It pains me to realize that I am not indispensable to my pharaoh. I know my childhood friend does value me, quite deeply; it is that as far as the universal order, ma'at, is concerned, it is the pharaoh who is most important, not those around him. No matter how deeply the pharaoh might care for me, or others, we are just tools of fate and his will. Any one at all can serve as the implement of the king's will.

Still, imagining someone taking my place protecting my king, or someone taking my role of bolstering my friend, hurts as if my heart is being ripped in two.

I have to...

I have to trust.

I take a step forward.

Bakura must be stopped.

Another step.

No matter what it costs me; life, magic, spirit, soul, heart, afterlife... I don't care, as long as my pharaoh -- as long as Atem is safe.

"Ka and Ba, spirit and soul; Lord Anubis take the willing offering of yb -- my heart, and my life, please bind my ka and my ba into one, thus granting me the power to protect my pharaoh and vanquish his foe..."

The words fail me. The rest of the intonation abandons me. No, I abandon it. My heart, one half of my willing sacrifice, makes one final, desperate effort before my life is ripped from me by the sharp, swinging blade -- irony of ironies that I suffer a thief's death while crying out my heart's ardent, final words...

"My soul will be your servant forever!"

The physical pain is immense, yet, swallowed up in the torment of losing my own heart. It is as if my will, my guiding force, my sense of who I am is torn from me, leaving me abandoned, and alone, wracked and broken in pain, confusion and fear...

"Come."

I look up. A hand reaches toward me. I reach up to take it and find myself enfolded in an embrace. My eyes close of their own accord. Or maybe it is the will of the god?

"Brave son. Your sacrifice is accepted. Heart and life in return for the power to bind your ka and ba into one, releasing the ultimate potential of your magic."

Comforted, grounded again, I recognize Lord Anubis as he extracts my ba and binds it to my ka-being. And that is when a miracle occurs. Two parts of who I am, melding in this way, at the hands of a god, my patron god, mesh and blend, becoming one.

I chance to open my eyes.

Lord Anubis is nowhere to be seen. I am held in the embrace of the purple-hued armor my ka-being wore, as my Illusionist Magician. It is odd to state it that way, but that is how it feels to me. My ka -- welcomes me, my ba, I guess, joyfully giving way before me. There is no resentment in surrendering and becoming one with me, rather, it is as if my ka is pleased to be made whole. Hence, the conviction that the armor and power of my ka is a gift, freely given, like a welcoming embrace.

How can I turn down such a generous gift? Especially when it is what I sought with my sacrifice? I, too, surrender to the unbreakable merging, giving up, once again, and for the final time, any chance at the afterlife. My only hope is that in this way, at one with the full power of my own ka, I will have the power needed to defeat Bakura, and save my pharaoh. I have no regrets as I reach toward my ka, welcoming it into myself, I hope, with as much generosity as it has shown me.

In that moment, in that joining, it is as if a secret, halved, with each half in the keeping of each part of myself, ba and ka, is also joined. That secret? My hidden ren. My true name.

My being, what is left of it, resonates with the syllables of my true name. Immense power flows through me, along with a depth of magic I'd never felt before. Grounded in that power, at one with it, I reach out and discover --

-- the power of Dark Magic. A power that has been there within me, unrecognized, untapped, all this time. Surely this is a power that can destroy Bakura's Diabond and seal the tomb robber's fate!

Now, through that same Dark Magic, I can see my patron. Lord Anubis nods his head sharply, once. "The contract of your spell is now complete. You have been granted the power you sought, and paid for with your life and heart." Anubis stares deeply into my eyes, perhaps taking the measure of the being he created at my request -- the being I have become. His hand comes to rest lightly upon my chest.

"I hope it is enough. I hope that you will be satisfied." He disappears.

The only satisfaction I need is Bakura's death. All that I need is to know that my pharaoh is safe. Ma'at will take care of the rest of my concerns; what is meant to be, will be.

The tomb robber rages on. His foul presence and the existence of his hatred-driven perversion of a ka offend me, driving my just rage into a towering pillar of power. At the base of that pillar, I channel the power of my anger into the Dark Magic I have become one with. Again and again I smite Bakura's ka-beast with bolts of pure Dark Magic. I am satisfied to see Bakura flinch at each hit.

The look of utter horror at his defeat when his ka-beast falls fills me with a sense of completion. The rubble of the chamber falling to pieces will bury the foul tomb robber's body with more honor than he is due, but there is no recourse for it.

With my enemy vanquished, my Dark Magic ebbs. The last spell I cast before the ritual that took my life was not one using my own personal magic. No, I'd used the power of my Millennium Ring one final time before sacrificing my life to become -- Dark Magician. That last spell I cast, when I was still Mahaad, the bearer of the Millennium Ring, even though I no longer hold the Item personally, sweeps over and through me, dissolving me just as the room caves in on top of me. My last conscious thought is that if I'd cast the spell properly, my ka should appear on the tablet I'd brought with me and left outside. If my spell is permitted to work, my soul will indeed serve my pharaoh as his loyal servant forever, as I intended to enclose it, with that final Millennium Ring spell, in the tablet for him to use.

Again, the magic newly revealed to me, Dark Magic, enables me to see in a realm beyond mortal sight. This time there are two gods regarding me. I recognize Lord Anubis. The other god appears as his twin, until I take a closer look. Lord Wepwawet, the Opener of the Ways. I am confused. I am dead, now, having sacrificed my life to become Dark Magician, but...

"Come," Lord Anubis holds out his hand again. I take it, trusting in the god I had served as well as I knew how all of my life.

"Though there are irregularities in how you died and what has happened to you, the proper forms must still be followed. For now, as with all newly dead, I will place you in the care of Wepwawet. He will lead you and protect you along the path to where you must go," Anubis tells me, suiting action to words by placing my hand in the hand of the other god. I cannot say the gods smiled, but a sense of satisfaction that I was obeying without argument seemed to flow around me.

Lord Anubis looks directly into my eyes. I can read the smile on his face when it is so broad. Pleased? Is my deity pleased with me?

"Your trust in us will keep you safe along your way. I have other duties to perform, but I shall see you again, soon." Lord Anubis disappears.

"Come," the grey-headed jackal god, Lord Wepwawet, commands. My hand still cradled in his, I follow where he leads.

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Author's notes -

:weeps: This was such a hard chapter for me to write!

Next chapter teaser -- Chapter Three -- Redemption

Reviews, comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Please feel free to email or message me if you see something awkward that needs to be clarified or fixed. I need all the help I can get.