Shivering in the corner of an empty room, a little girl with frightened blue eyes huddled with her knees against her chest. Pieces of torn rope and cloth lay at her feet, and a bloody knife was stuck in the wooden floor beside her. Her eyes stared ahead of her, at two bodies lying motionless on the floor: one a woman, and the other a man, both covered in blood.

However, her attention flickered away from the bodies to a sitting figure to the left that glowed with a strange aura, and wore a thin blue dress. Silently the figure crawled up to the little girl and placed a pale, thin hand on her bronze cheek to wipe away the tears.

"Um…un." The little girl whimpered as she looked up from the pale hand to the face of the figure, shocked to see a pale, gaunt face with sad blue eyes surrounded by lank red hair staring at her. Those eyes and that hair were similar to hers; it was like looking at the mirror image of herself, with pale skin instead of bronze.

'You'll be all right, just sleep and you'll be better.' A silent voice said in her thoughts though she knew it came from the figure in front of her, and comforted, she fell asleep in its arms.

Higure opened her eyes and stared unfocused at the wall in front of her, her mind swimming with her memory of what happened after her mother's death. She didn't remember everything clearly, but she did remember most—the figure who comforted her had protected her from the man's wrath when he turned to do her like her mother.

Only five at the time, she didn't realize what the figure was, except she knew it wasn't human, for it appeared the moment the man tried to stab her and rebounded his attack. Afterwards a glazed look appeared in the man's eyes, and he crumbled to the floor, barely breathing but alive.

After she fell asleep she didn't know how much time passed before a man wearing a hooded robe, and a golden eye in place of his left. Akhenaden.

Akhenaden found her in that room, sleeping in the corner, hungry and alone, and took her to the Palace where she lived from that day on.

She trusted Akhenaden; he'd saved her and she never thought of him as less than infallible, but now, after seeing that memory of the thief, she didn't know what to believe.

But she knew what she had to do. Quickly she stood and left the room, her eyes gleaming with determination, while the rest of her face was expressionless.

"Akhenaden!" Higure called when she spotted the Priest in the halls, a few feet in front of her.

"Higure, what are you doing away from your post?" The Priest turned around, his eye widening at the sight of the redhead. "You should be guarding the prisoners."

"I need to speak with you now, Akhenaden." Higure ignored the Priest's protest, her eyes losing their gleam and becoming like stone—as expressionless as her face, and her hand fingered the necklace around her neck.

"I'm busy now, Higure, we can talk at some other time."

"Busy? What sort of work could you have this far in the dungeons?"

"Very important work, so go back to your post." Akhenaden said impatiently.

"Up until the moment I spoke to you, you were walking along leisurely—almost bored. So whatever work you have isn't that important, unless of course you're skipping work by hiding out here."

"Higure...you're not going to leave me alone, are you?"

"No, and don't say you'll promise to visit me later—the last time you said that was over a month ago, and this is the first time I've seen you since." Higure paused, waiting for Akhenaden to protest, but he made no move to speak. "Follow me, i don't want to be interrupted." She brought him to a room with a wooden, bolt-less door—the only one in the dungeons that didn't have a locking bolt.

"If this is about food for the prisoners..."

"It isn't, but if you wish to be kind, inform the Pharaoh that this room needs to be restocked the next time you see him." Higure said her blue eyes flitting sadly from one empty shelf to the next.

"I don't know why you make such a fuss over whether the prisoners are fed or not, it's not as though they deserve it." Akhenaden mumbled, low but not low enough to escape Higure's hearing.

"Most of the prisoners are serving limited jail time—and though you may disagree, if a prisoner's released undernourished and with no means to assume a just life, he'll either die or end up back in jail. Desperation is a leader of crime." Higure wiped her hand over one of the bare shelves, leaving it a different color than the other due to the dust she wiped off. "It's only every three months that this room needs to be refilled, the least decency you people could show is to follow protocol. It's been six months since this room was filled."

"Just feed the prisoners less." Akhenaden dismissed Higure's words with a wave of his hand and then turned to leave, tired of the conversation.

"Have you forgotten that I get my rations from this room as well?"

The Priest froze at her words and turned around warily—he had forgotten—and eyed Higure carefully. His eyes widened when he noticed the thinness of her face and neck; though her arms were covered by the robe she wore, he noticed how poorly it fitted her, hanging down in places where it used to cling like skin.

"I...I'll make sure to inform the Pharaoh as soon as possible." Akhenaden's voice shook, and he couldn't look anymore at the woman, so thin and malnourished. Even her hair hung limp compared to how lush and full it'd been.

"Thank you."

"So what else do you want to talk about?"

"There was a new prisoner added to my ward today from the lower dungeons."

"New prisoner? What about...?" Akhenaden began but his voice trailed off when the conscious thought there was only one prisoner moved from the lower dungeons today flashed through his mind, and his eye widened. "You mean that Bakura was added to your ward! Your...ah! Get back to your post now, Higure."

"Akhenaden."

The Priest grabbed her roughly by the arm, and pulled her toward the door, fear in his eye as he realized that the only guard to the ward that housed the tomb robber was standing next to him instead of at her post.

"Ah! Akhenaden."

Feet still chained, Bakura stumbled out of his cell—in her haste the woman forgot to lock it back up, and now the tomb robber used that fact to his advantage.

While staying in this ward wasn't so bad, Bakura didn't want to hang around for his execution—he wasn't that crazy.

Making it clumsily to the small room with the table and chair, he took a deep breath, taking in the aroma of leftovers on the plate on the table.

"Best not let it go to waste." He chuckled and sat down, eating the food hurriedly—he even ate the fruit seeds. That's when he saw a sharp knife lying next to the empty tankard. "My luck just keeps getting better and better." He said, picked up the knife and used its pointed blade to pick the lock of the shackles on his legs.

Back at the food storage, Akhenaden glanced back at Higure at the sound of her gasp, surprised to see the wound on her neck.

"What happened to you, Higure? That wound...did something bite you?"

"It's nothing." Higure muttered and pulled the cloth of her robe sleeve up to cover it; however, that caused the wound on her hand to be uncovered—a wound Akhenaden quickly noticed.

"Your hand...what...? Higure."

"It's nothing."

Holding the knife in his left hand Bakura snuck around the halls of the dungeons, avoiding the guards as much as possible—he'd love to kill them, but that would make the others suspicious and he didn't want to be found just yet. Besides, by sneaking around he could evaluate the toll the torturing of the lower dungeons placed on his body and skills.

Thus, he now quietly snuck around the dungeons, trying to figure what was the quickest and easiest way to escape. He passed by a shut but unbolted door uninterestedly, and would've kept walking if a familiar scent hadn't crossed his path:

"Peach blossom." He whispered and closed his eyes, imagining the red hair and bronze skin of Higure, the first person he met since his mother that used that specific scent of perfume, and the urge to seek out Higure flamed within him. However, before he could move to open the door himself, it flew open and the woman, Higure, stepped out, but not by herself.

"Higure, where did you get these wounds from?" Akhenaden demanded, grabbing for Higure's sleeve when she managed to brush off his grip on her arm.

"I'm not saying. It's none of your business anyway."

"Higure, if someone attacked you then as your guardian it is my business. And if that someone was a prisoner it's the business of the Royal Court as well."

Higure opened her mouth to reply, but her eyes flicked in Bakura's direction and froze, as did her voice.

The thief could see Higure's eyes glaze in though, trying to figure out if she'd shut his cell door, and Bakura knew he needed to strike in order not to be caught. But he stood there frozen himself. The scent of peach blossom adultered by the scent of blood—an exotic mixture he smelled only once before—filled his nose, and he shuddered.

It was only a flash, but the memory of that day filled his thoughts—the memory of his mother, and her peach blossom perfume, and the scent of blood; the stench of blood and flesh boiling in the mixture of gold, made worse by the metallic smell, filled his nose ever since that day, but for the moment his memory made it worse.

His hand shook as he forced his thoughts on the present, and forced his eyes to look at the woman standing before him—he had to kill her, had to strike, but, but...

Her perfume filled the air, and her eyes and the shape of her face—Ra, they were similar to his mother's! His pulse quickening, he forced his eyes from her face, trying to block out his thoughts—and his gaze fell to the necklace hanging around her neck.

A thin braided string, black, the necklace didn't seem valuable but Bakura's heart quickened as he traced the string with his eyes—drawing in his breath when he saw the pendant attached to it. A red crystal in the shape of an angular teardrop, the pendant was hardly bigger than a real tear, but it consumed Bakura's thoughts. That necklace—that necklace was the same as his mother's—the very same!

"H..."

"Higure, what are you staring at? What is it?" Akhenaden asked, growing suspicious over Higure taking so long, though it'd been only a minute or two, and walked past her to peer over her shoulder—the door had opened outward and blocked Bakura from Akhenaden's view.

"YOU!" Akhenaden gasped at the sight of the thief, and pushed Higure out of the way, struggling to hide his fear with his anger.

His consciousness of the past and present already blurring into one, Bakura snapped when he saw Akhenaden push Higure out of the way, for in his warped sense of reality, he saw her as his mother, and his rage surged through him. He lunged at the priest with the knife.