A/N: The readers have spoken! The rating will change and the scene is going to stay in :) this chapter is a little shorter because adding the next part of the story would have turned it into a 20-page story, so the next update will probably be faster. With that out of the way, please enjoy!

IV.

She was running, following a maze of sandstone bricks. In the dim glow of the torchlight, she could see nothing but her own feet hitting the ground. At the end of the narrow tunnel was a door that loomed ever closer as she ran. She could hear her breath in her ear, coming out in hard pants. As she neared the door, a loud crack sounded behind her. Darting a look over her shoulder, she peered into nothing but darkness. The torches behind her had gone out. When she turned back, she screamed in terror.

The door had disappeared, along with the floor. Her body went plunging down towards the deep abyss below her.

A hand caught hers and she gasped out, finding it difficult to take in even breaths. When she looked up to see who had caught her, the face was obscured in shadows.

"Reckless," the voice purred. It sounded familiar, yet it was impossible to place.

"Please," she begged, "help me."

A cruel cackle of laughter sounded somewhere far away, but it did not seem to be coming from the person who held her. She started in alarm and the person's head turned idly, as if to look behind them. The torches that were on the walls nearest to them went out, obscuring them entirely in darkness.

She could still feel the hand on her wrist, holding her at the edge of the stone pathway.

"The question is," the voice spoke suddenly in a soft voice that seemed to come right near her ear, "do you even know what help you need?"

And then, the hand released her and she was falling.

Eyes snapping open, Anzu woke herself with a gasp. At first, her body seemed paralyzed by fear, but once her heartbeat slowed, she was able to bring herself to a sitting position. Looking around the gloomy interior of her room, everything appeared as it should and she was quite alone. She pushed a hand through her sweaty hair, briefly closing her eyes.

Another nightmare, she mused before opening her eyes again. She had been having the same nightmare for the past two weeks since the end of the Battle City tournament. It was always the same: she was running down a stone hallway, the torches going out behind her. This one had varied in that there had been another person in the dream. The sound had sounded familiar and even the hand and the touch roused something in her memory.

She was not sure how to interpret the dream, but the fact that it continued to play out in her sleep made her uneasy.

Rising to her feet, she pulled on a cardigan and made her way out of her bedroom. She did not much want to sleep anymore. It was almost three in the morning and while she knew she would be exhausted, she did not want to revisit the tunnel. After making herself some tea, she stepped out onto the engawa that faced the small back garden. Out of her friends, she was the only one who lived in a traditional Japanese home.

Sitting cross-legged on the engawa, she cradled her tea and turned her eyes up towards the bright moon that lit the sky. It was strangely comforting. When she returned her gaze back to the garden, she almost screamed in fright upon seeing a figure standing in the garden. She swallowed the scream upon seeing the familiar wild, white hair that stood out so starkly in the night shadows.

"Trouble sleeping?" he drawled with a too-knowing, sharp smile. Anzu stiffened.

"What are you doing here?" she asked instead, setting her cup aside as she dodged the question. She had nearly spilled the hot liquid all over herself. As for Bakura, she had not seen him since he had carried her to her room.

Bakura's smile broadened and he crossed the garden so that he was standing in front of her. "I've heard about your plan to go the museum. It's time for the final preparations and you'll be helping me with them." Anzu cast him a sidelong, skeptical glance. "After all, you owe me."

"For what, exactly? Getting me nearly killed?" she retorted angrily. "I'm not doing anything else for you. I helped you enough to meet my end of the bargain."

He laughed and leaned forward, his fingers brushing the hair from her face. Where he touched felt warm and there was a swift, swooping sensation in her stomach. In spite of her annoyance with his presumptions, she leaned into the touch instinctively. Her body knew his hands well, even after only a handful of encounters.

"You'll recall that I didn't ask for you to come up there," Bakura reminded her, not withdrawing. His eyes had met hers in the shadows, locking onto her gaze with an intensity that made her body weak. She wanted to pull away, to disengage herself from the power he was exerting over her, but after the nightmare, she was thankful for the feel of him so near.

"And you should recall that your partner is the one that pulled me out of bed to help you so that Marik didn't get the Sennen Ring." She glared up at him challengingly and he cocked his head slightly, studying her with interest. "Give me one good reason why I should help you."

"Fine," he said after a moment's thought. "I'll keep your friends safe in the event that things don't go my way. That should be sufficient."

"And Yuugi?"

"That includes him. If he decides to get himself killed for the pharaoh, that's his own business." He withdrew from her suddenly, adding, "With how infatuated they are with each other, the likelihood of that is high."

Anzu chose not to address this, unwilling to admit that the amount of dedication between Yuugi and the pharaoh was strikingly familiar to that of two lovers. Instead, she picked up her tea and took a contemplative sip of it. Bakura was still standing in front of her, though his eyes had turned out towards the peaceful little meditation garden.

Her initial involvement with Bakura had evolved from the time she had first approached him. Where she had wanted to help the pharaoh, now she felt more inclined simply because it was Bakura. She was not about let him know that, however, and after her own near encounters with death, she wanted a little more reassurance that his final scheme was not going to end up with her battered and bruised like last time. Having felt it firsthand, she also did not want any of her friends to experience that, much less Yuugi. She feared the lengths he would go to for the pharaoh.

Then again, she was beginning to fear the lengths she was willing to go to help Bakura.

After she had been sipping on her tea for several minutes in silence, she at length asked, "So what do want me to do? And what does the museum have to do with anything?"

"It's time to get the next Sennen Items. I've waited long enough. But before that, there is one piece that's missing – the god cards and the pharaoh's name. And that's where you come in."

"I'm not stealing them, Bakura."

"If I wanted something stolen, I would do it myself," he said pointedly. He crossed his arms over his chest, his gaze settling on her once again. "Ryou's father owns the museum. I've already created the diorama needed to play out the next part, along with moving the mummy and setting up the rest of this shadow game."

"Then what do you need from me?" she questioned, her brow puckering slightly. "It sounds like you have everything figured out."

"Almost," he agreed. "When this plays out, another spirit will be released into the diorama – the second spirit that was locked in the Sennen Ring. He has not been housed in the Ring since the Sennen Puzzle was broken. He took on my image as he did in the past and placed his own spirit in the Puzzle. He will be working against the pharaoh so that he can return to the modern world and unleash his dark power upon it."

A chill went over Anzu at his words. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

He emitted a short, dark laugh. "No. I want the Sennen Items destroyed – that is my wish. This other spirit, Zorc Necrophades, used me in the past to his own ends. This time, I will get the upper hand and destroy him. If it means dying myself and bringing the pharaoh with me, so be it." He pointed at her. "And you will help me unless you want to see your world obliterated."

"But – what about the pharaoh? He took down this power in the past, didn't he?"

"He doesn't remember anything," Bakura responded, scowling. "He wouldn't be able to remember how to do it again without using the Sennen Items and they are no longer strong enough to house him. And I only have a fraction of my memory back. My intention is that Yuugi and your other friends will distract him while you and I work in the background. Once the door to the pharaoh's memory is unlocked in the Puzzle, so will he emerge in the diorama. All the pieces will be laid out."

Anzu set her empty cup aside and pulled her cardigan around her more tightly as she rose to her feet. She stepped away from him, into the garden and the moonlight. This was quite the task to take on. She had always had her friends near whenever they tackled an issue as massive as this. It had always been Yuugi, Jounouchi, and Kaiba at the forefront while she and the others had been there in supportive roles. She had been the one to help Bakura last time, but it had come at a cost to her own well-being. What Bakura was suggesting now sounded far more dangerous.

Moreover, it sounded like he intended a suicide mission for himself.

She turned and inspected him. He was watching her with a shuttered gaze and while he had made it sound as though there was no room for argument, it appeared as if he were waiting for her agreement.

"What happens to you if the Sennen Items are destroyed?" she asked slowly.

"All of the spirits in the Items will go on to the afterlife – including Zorc Necrophades."

"So, you'll...die, essentially."

He chuckled at this, as if she had told a joke. "Essentially. That was the plan thousands of years ago, but you see how well that went." When she made no response, he uncrossed his arms and approached her, tipping her head back so that she was forced to look at him. There was a strange look behind his dark eyes that she could not interpret. "You knew what the ultimate end would be for those in the Sennen Items. This should not surprise you."

"It doesn't," she said defensively, pulling away from him. "I'll help you, but I don't like putting my own neck on the line for something like this." This was a lie and they both knew it. Uncharacteristically, Bakura did not point it out to her and she did not try to further explain it. There was an emptiness in her chest, a sense of loss that had nothing to do with Yuugi or the pharaoh. Slanting a look at Bakura, she caught him watching her speculatively and knew he could see right through her.

He looked at the house suddenly and said, "Someone's awake." She turned, alarmed, and saw that a light had turned on in her parent's bedroom. When she turned back around, Bakura was already crossing the garden to the small gate that opened out into the alleyway. She hesitated and then hurried after him, stepping out of the garden with him so they were obscured by the alley shadows in case one of her parents stepped outside. They had become accustomed to her disappearing with her friends, even in the dead of night. It had become one of the top exasperating topics about her newly adventurous life addressed by her parents.

"Bakura," she whispered, reaching out to touch his arm. He paused, raising an eyebrow at her. "What about Yuugi? What do I say to them if I disappear with you?"

"By the end of this, I think that will be the last thing on their mind."

"I've already lied enough to them. It would be easier to tell them."

"Oh, but you've become such a good liar," he said with a malicious little smile.

As if he had slapped her, she jerked her hand away from him, anger flaring in her eyes. She thought she caught a hint of regret in his eyes and it held her tongue from spitting out the acidic words she had prepared for him. Instead, however, she pursed her lips and then reached up, pulling him towards her by the lapels of his trench coat. "I don't like you," she said, but it sounded as if she were trying to convince herself.

"Interesting way of showing it," he murmured and without needing encouragement, he kissed her, cradling her face in his hands. She would have liked to summon some type of willpower to push him away, to flounce off confidently as she had seen women do in movies, but instead she found herself responding in kind, clutching to the lapels.

She uttered a breathless gasp when he dragged her further into the darkness of the alley, pressing her against the wall. Her bare feet arched on the tips of her toes as she clung to him, pressing herself closer to feel every rigid line in his body. His hands pushed aside her cardigan, tracking up her shirt as he kissed her ruthlessly. The taste of him had become familiar, the smell of him intoxicating. As fingertips dusted across her ribcage, his thumbs stroking up the sides of her breasts, she broke from the kiss, feeling light headed. His mouth instead dropped to her throat and she whimpered feebly as one thumb found the hardened bud beneath her shirt. She trembled helplessly against him as the rough pad of his thumb caressed her, teasing it.

She became convinced that this simple touch would be enough to unhinge her. His tongue taunted her as he kissed her and she ached to feel it against the rest of her body. Even as she felt the pool of need begin to build in herself, she could feel the same impatience in Bakura, pressing against her thigh insistently. He might have been in better control than she was, but it was extremely gratifying to know that he, too, was suffering in a similar fashion.

If not for the sound of a door opening, Anzu might have let him continue to carry on in the alley. He raised his head from her, his gaze flicking towards the gate where the garden door was hanging open. Every sense in her body was screaming at her to beg him to do something, to stop another interruption, while her mind berated her for her idiocy and letting him go so far. In her ears, she could still hear the thud of her heartbeat sounding loudly. The kiss had lasted but a minute, but in her mind it had seemed to go on for slow, agonizing ages.

"Go," he said softly, slowly drawing away from her, as though reluctant. When the heat of his body and his hands had left her, she shivered as the cool air passed over her skin. She cast him a last look as she stepped towards the gate. A smile lit his features briefly and he put a finger to his lips before turning around and slipping down the narrow alley way.

Wrapping the cardigan around herself again, she stepped back into the garden and locked the gate. On the engawa, her mother was peering into the garden and smiled in relief upon seeing Anzu. "Sorry," she said to her mother with an apologetic smile. "I was having some tea and thought I heard a cat yowling."

Her mother took in her disheveled appearance with a knowing look, but said instead, "You shouldn't be walking into the alley without shoes. You could hurt yourself."

Silently, Anzu thought that she was hurting herself by getting involved with Bakura.

End Part IV