A/N: I start off saying that this is only going to be a 3-part story and now it's turning into a normal-length story...smh. I'm usually not into the reincarnation trope that is so popular with vexshipping because it's kind of considered cliché, but after writing on here for so long, I felt compelled to try it out, so sue me! Since I'm trying to write it into the canon, I'm crossing my fingers that it's not coming off similar to anyone else's story - there are so many reincarnation stories out in the YGO fandom, it's hard to keep track. This is also the first time I've written puzzleshipping into a story, but honestly after reading the manga, I can see some solid basis for that ship. ANYWAY...thanks to everyone who is reading and following the story, leaving reviews! :D I'm glad I haven't made anyone sick of this ship yet with how much I've been obsessively writing them for the past six months...

VI.

As expected, it was well into the night by the time that Anzu and Bakura had arrived at the village. After their fierce encounter in the desert, Anzu had kept several feet between them as she trailed behind him. She was exhausted, but knew that Bakura had no intention of resting. She followed him through the small village to the end where a camp was set up by the pharaoh's guards. They were laden with equipment, blocks, carts, and mules.

As Bakura made his way to a circle where men were gathered, Anzu paused next to a cart, unfolding the blanket to see what was underneath. She gasped, dropping it and jumping away upon meeting the empty gaze of a dead slave. Skittering away from the carts, she hastened next to Bakura, who did not even spare a look for her. She suspected that, like herself, he was still seething from their conversation earlier.

She clasped her opposing arm loosely, looking around at the faces of the pharaoh's guards. Many of them looked anxious and angry. There was a tense, stressed air around the camp. There was wooden equipment Anzu was unfamiliar with and it was clear that the men were waiting for something.

"When do you think the tomb robber will come?" one of the men was muttering to another in the circle.

"It won't be long...," his companion replied, nervously glancing around. "Or at least I hope not. It's bad luck to be this close to the pharaoh's tomb. It can bring on an earlier departure to the afterlife."

"Will he really try to go into the pharaoh's tomb?"

"I don't know...but Priest Mahado set the trap for him and is waiting. It won't be long now."

"Priest Mahado?" Anzu repeated. "Who is that?"

"The owner of the Sennen Ring," Bakura answered, appearing thoughtful. "They tried to reseal Akhenamkhanen's tomb and leave me inside it for Anubis's Judgement, but instead it was Mahado who had been left there." He ran a finger over his lips, smiling. "We're close, but we'll need to wait until my encounter with Mahado."

"But why?"

"Because we'll be too near Diabound – Zorc Necrophades may sense me. We'll have time to sleep and will have the entire day tomorrow to search the pharaoh's tomb." He gestured for her to follow and after a last look at the tense guards, she followed him.

Rather than remaining in the village, Bakura rummaged through the guards' equipment and apparently finding what he needed, led her away with an armful of what looked like linen. Rather than remaining next to the village, they walked some ways outside of it to where a sandstone cliff rose high in the sky. There, he tossed the linen and then began to construct a makeshift tent. After he had set up the tent, she saw that at the bottom of everything was what appeared to be thin pieces of sycamore fig firewood. Within moments, they had a comfortable camp set up with a small fire crackling.

Bakura knelt at the fire, poking at idly and while Anzu was impressed with his survival skills, she was not feeling kind enough to compliment him. Instead, she sat on the other side and wrapped her arms around her knees, resting her chin against the top of her arms. It was a tiny fire and the wood did not feed it for long unlike the fibrous cedars and pines she familiar with in Japan. The fire lasted perhaps a little over an hour as Bakura had only collected a small bit and it faded, leaving them with awash in darkness.

After a time of them not speaking in the darkness, her eyes adjusted and she rose to her feet, walking a bit from their little camp. As she did, she shook out her shoes, sighing to herself. Once her shoes were back on her feet, she hugged herself and looked up to the sky. She had never seen such a bright sky in her life. She could see the milky way clearly, the colourful hues of space hanging in the night sky. The abundance of stars was breathtaking.

She could hear Bakura next to her, but did not look away from the stars.

She wished she could voice her feelings to Bakura, but felt that it was pointless. He had been stewing in bitter memories ever since yesterday and was too caught up in his own hateful feelings to listen to anything she said. She was sure that he would make a sarcastic comment about the pharaoh and she was not sure her heart could handle that at the moment. She doubted that he would want to hear them even if he had been in a better mood. She could not imagine herself giving a love confession to anyone, either. The concept was too embarrassing for her.

Besides, she reasoned with herself, she was still angry with him for dismissing her night with him, as if she would have rather done that with the pharaoh. Over the course of the day, she had decided he had deserved that punch in the mouth. It had been wholly uncalled for and disrespectful to assume she had wanted that experience with another man.

If not for the calming view above her, her fury might have been renewed at that thought.

Tilting her head forward so it was level again, she looked over at the village that was simply a collection of dark, misshapen objects from this far out. She could not even see where the pharaoh guards were located from this side. She wished she could talk to him normally, but the atmosphere felt too tense, as if too much had been said between them. And yet, it also felt as if there was a great deal unsaid.

Turning away from the village, she took in a deep breath and then stepped closer to Bakura, causing him to glance at her. Stomping down her pride and the annoyance, she pressed her hands against his chest and leaned her forehead against them. Don't go, she told him silently. Please.

She felt his hand on her back, his chin on the top of her head and she wished she had the strength to say the words aloud. It seemed far too selfish to ask someone to stay with her when they had been wanting peace for thousands of years, though, and instead she said, "You're who I wanted last night. Not the pharaoh."

There was a pause and then he chuckled softly. She waited for his sarcasm, but he surprised her by saying simply, "Alright."

She smiled, accepting the truce and then slid her hands so they went around his waist. Pressing her cheek against his collarbone, she looked up and caught sight of the stars again. He was warm and solid right then, but soon he was going to be nothing but a memory for her – just like the pharaoh would be for Yuugi and all of them. There would be nothing left to remind them that they had existed. There was no grave or burial site, no photographs or videos of them.

Stay with me, she wanted to say, yet still the words would not come.

But when her arms tightened around him, she felt his pressure increase on her back and wondered if he knew what she was thinking.

Anzu slept poorly that night. The tent had been comfortable for what it was, but her dreams had been unsettling, not that she could remember any of them. When Bakura shook her awake, her heart was pounding in her chest and she felt breathless, as if she had been running. The sky had just begun to turn colours from dawn and he had a hard grip on her shoulder.

"You were yelling in your sleep," he said to her once she had woken enough to be aware of her surroundings.

"I haven't been sleeping well lately," she muttered dismissively, feeling his sharp, searching gaze on her face. She dragged a hand through her hair and pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead. Her head ached and she searched her foggy memory for her dreams, but could only catch pieces of them. A man that she did not recognize, his features sharp, his eyes narrow, and a headdress. The image was not clear enough and yet there had been something familiar in the expression.

Shaking the thought away, she scrambled out of the tent, smoothing down her rumpled clothing. Bakura followed more slowly, watching her suspiciously, as if expecting her to begin screaming wildly. She ignored this and rubbed her face vigorously to wake herself.

They made their way towards the village and after Anzu had splashed her face with some water and freshened up, they met back up and continued towards where the pharaoh guards had set up camp. As they descended down a sand bank, they heard shouts and Anzu looked round to see who was shouting.

"He's near," Bakura observed, frowning. "We need to follow."

"I thought we were going to wait until after?" Anzu asked breathlessly as Bakura broke into a run, forcing her to follow.

"The tombs are a maze of tunnels. We can easily avoid him and will likely be able to find our way into the pharaoh's tomb through his father's. He will lead us the way we want." He pointed ahead and she had to fight the instinct to run in the opposite direction upon seeing the large wooden instruments being pushed towards a tomb entrance.

They had to dash in front of the stone slab the guards were raising to close off the tomb. Anzu half feared being crushed by the stone as she began to lag behind Bakura, but with a deft pull on her wrist, he had tugged her inside and against him just as a resounding, thunderous sound echoed through the tomb entrance and they were enclosed in darkness. Anzu had to calm the rising panic in her as she blinked rapidly, unable to see anything. Slowly, though, once her eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting, she saw that there were, in fact, torches lit in the tomb. They did not appear to be fire, though, burning a dull lavender.

Magic, she determined, stepping out of Bakura's arms. They were the only ones in the entrance, surrounding by stone walls and hieroglyphs. Wherever the past him had gone, it must be ahead.

"He will be meeting Mahado by now," Bakura said thoughtfully. "I remember the way there...we will want to avoid them. We need to find a way to the other tomb."

"Are you sure he won't sense us?"

"There should be too much shadow magic here." He nodded towards the torches meaningfully. As they walked away, the torches furthest from them winked out. They clearly only reacted to one's presence near them rather than lighting the entire tomb. Behind them loomed darkness. "If we are lucky, he will not be able to tell us from anything else, but I wouldn't plan on being so lucky."

Anzu chose not to respond to this, her eyes watching the torches behind them as they walked. It was not exactly like in her nightmare – each one had gone out, as if she were racing against them. It was close enough to make her uneasy, though, and she wondered again if her mind had been warning her of what was to come.

Bakura led the way through the tomb, reading the hieroglyphs and occasionally running his fingers over the paint, frowning, as if having trouble deciphering certain ones. Anzu, staring at the symbols, understood nothing. She had been disappointed that her past memory had not assisted her and not for the first time, she wondered how the afterlife worked. She recognized her past self, yet she could not retain anything from that life. She had no memory of who she had been in ancient Egypt, what she had done, or even if she had lived long after Bakura's death. Upon reflecting on it closer, she supposed that she must have lived in different time periods, as well.

Were there other past lives of Bakura's, as well? she wondered, staring at a wall with a depiction of what appeared to be a royal ceremony. Bakura was several feet ahead of her, reading. Or did he not have any because his spirit was trapped in the Sennen Ring?

There was a distant sound of a cry and then a booming sound, followed by several shouts. Anzu jumped, startled, and Bakura whipped around towards her from the wall. "It wasn't me!" she told him immediately, raising her hands up in defense. He had been so absorbed in reading the hieroglyphs that he had not been aware that she was not next to him.

"Mahado must have found him."

Anzu moved closer to him, suddenly uncomfortable with the idea of even five feet being between them.

"Let's go," Bakura said, "and stay close."

They found their way through the tunnels and onto a thin stone bridge that crossed what looked like to be a brightly lit chasm. It was not hard to discover why it was so lit after looking down. Anzu sucked in a shocked breath, seeing the massive, demonic creature with the serpent's tail. They were closer than she had thought and, looking down, she recognized the man's features as the one from her dream.

"The Dark Magician," she murmured in realization.

"Yes," Bakura confirmed slowly, his arms folded. "Even before he was made to be one of the pharaoh's most loyal ka, he was an annoyance."

They watched as Mahado was struck down and the tomb robber Bakura took the Sennen Ring from him, chuckling, juggling in his hands before he pulled it over his neck. As he did, Diabound faded away, disappearing into a mist. For a moment, the tomb robber inspected the Sennen Ring in his palm and the smile faded from his face. Turning, he looked into a darkened corridor and Anzu's eyes followed his gaze. She felt Bakura freeze next to her and she, too, stiffened upon seeing herself walk out of the corridor with a brightly-lit, angelic ka.

Celestia, Lightsworn Angel, Anzu recognized in surprise.

"What are you doing here?" the tomb robber asked, a note of horror in his voice.

"You can't do this, Bakura," she told him in a shaky voice. "I'm not going to let you do this to yourself."

He laughed, sound bitter and slightly manic. "It's too late. There is more of him than there is me anymore." He flinched suddenly, grabbing his head as if he had been hit. She looked terrified, watching him as he clasped his head. She made to move towards him, but he waved a hand towards her. "Get out of here." He straightened with an effort, his face pinched with pain. It was as though he were fighting to remain in control. "Go – before you get dragged into this."

She opened her mouth and then her eyes widened. "Watch out!"

She had spoken too late, though, and he had no time to summon Diabound. Instead, she flung out a hand and her ka, Celestia, sprang forward as Mahado rose as the Dark Magician, glowing a brilliant purple. He blasted at the angelic ka and the past Anzu stumbled back, coughing out specks of blood as she dropped to a knee. Bakura, caught in the middle, seemed to be fighting against Zorc Necrophades, his hand clutching at the Sennen Ring.

"You will be next," the Dark Magician said, floating up. Celestia feebly tried to get between him and Bakura, but with a careless strike of his staff, he sent it flying into the opposing wall where it hit and then disappeared. Behind Bakura, Anzu uttered a groan of pain, her hand on her chest as she fell to her hands and knees.

"Kill them," a voice echoed in the chamber. "Kill them both!"

"No," Bakura snarled, still clutching onto the Sennen Ring. The Dark Magician paused, looking around suspiciously. Anzu, blood dripping from her mouth, raised herself back to one knee and then swayed to her feet.

"Shut up!" she screamed into the chamber. "Don't listen to him, Bakura!"

"KILL THEM!"

There was a sudden, fierce glow from the Sennen Ring that briefly blinded the three and even the modern Anzu and Bakura, watching from the bridge above, had to raise their hands to shield their eyes from the light. When the glow had subsided, the tomb robber had hold of Anzu and was holding her by her arm. He did not look at all like himself, though.

"You can't save him," he said in a low, guttural voice, a wide grin spreading over his face. "He is mine now." Weak and her life draining from her ka being destroyed, she could not fight against him. She was already dying and she seemed to be aware of that fact as she stared back at him.

He swung her off the narrow ledge and released his hand. There was a sickening crack as she hit the wall just as her ka had and as his hand released her arm, the Dark Magician sent a blast from his staff that sent the entire ledge crumbling. A moment later, both the tomb robber and Anzu were falling into the deep abyss of the tomb. Zorc had released his hold on Bakura and for a moment, there was a look of abject terror on Bakura's face as he fell and saw Anzu's body falling several feet from his across the shattered sandstone.

The Dark Magician made to try and grab at Anzu to save her, but she was falling too fast and she did not even try to grab at his hand. She had caught sight of Bakura and there was a strangely amused, resigned expression on her face after the initial shock of hitting the wall.

For several moments after the sound of the ledge crumbling had faded, the two spectators stood frozen, staring as the Dark Magician knelt and faded to become a stone tablet in the pharaoh's palace. Neither of them spoke, Anzu far too stunned at the sight of herself dying to utter a word. Somehow, part of her had known that she had died during the pharaoh's battle with Zorc Necrophades, but she never would have guessed that he had killed her himself.

"You shouldn't be here," Bakura abruptly said, his voice flinty.

"That wasn't you, Bakura," Anzu told him, stirring from her own morbid thoughts. "You weren't the one – "

His dark laughter cut through her words. "If you plan to try and justify that, I wouldn't bother wasting my breath if I were you. No matter how you look at it, your involvement in me there was what got you killed. It seems to be becoming a pattern."

A chill went down her spine and while she wanted to argue with him, he gave her no time. Without a word, he forcefully dragged her from the chasm that was now darkening with the lack of human bodies and through the stone tunnels. She could feel the tension in him every moment they paused for him to read the walls. She had seen him tense and worried before on her behalf during the duel between him and Marik; this, however, was on another level entirely. He would not even look at her. He seemed to be focused on finding the fastest way to get her out of the tomb.

They had been rushing through tunnels for so long that Anzu had lost track of time and Bakura, glaring at hieroglyphs, had been so absorbed in reading them that neither of them became aware of another presence until they had broken out onto another bridge. On the other side, Bakura had said briefly, was the entrance to the pharaoh's tomb. There was a large stone frame with engraved hieroglyphs and two painted figures that looked distinctly like Yuugi. The pathway it framed looked as though it went straight down, likely to the lower level where the pharaoh's tomb was located.

As they made their way across the bridge, Bakura suddenly halted. In front of them, a figure materialized in the darkness. Anzu drew closer to him and heard a chuckle behind her. Turning, she saw a copy of Bakura and then, glancing in the other direction, another copy of him.

"Like so many times in the past," Zorc drawled in Bakura's image, standing in front of Bakura with his arms crossed, "this woman always finds a way to meddle in my business. And every time, she dies because of it. You never really get a happy ending, do you?" He grinned, his eyes glinting red in the dark. In spite of him looking like Bakura, there was something ugly about him and somehow, he was nothing like Bakura at all.

"What are you talking about?" Anzu asked cautiously.

He burst into laughter and snapped his fingers. The copy of him materialized beside him and he spread a hand out. Anzu winced as her head suddenly began to twinge with pain. A rush of images passed through her mind, almost too quick for her to interpret – images of her in strange, period-piece outfits, and seemingly dying young. Yet nowhere in those other memories was Bakura. A carriage accident, a burglary gone wrong, a samurai in the wrong room, dying in an alley from a purse thief. The deaths went by so fast she felt nauseous, but she was always young – not yet eighteen. Another similarity, she noticed, was the Sennen Ring always somehow ended up with her. In the carriage, in her home, in the room, or in her purse.

"It took me awhile to find my way back to the pharaoh," Zorc said, smiling, "but I made sure you were never given the opportunity to find out who else was in the Sennen Ring. The tomb robber is cleverer than I thought. He never remembered who you were, but he was always trying to find a way to get out, to get you to help him." His eyes slid towards Bakura. "He always managed to find his own reincarnation in the world, but this was the first time he got the Sennen Ring to him. You've worked hard this lifetime, Bakura. I'm impressed."

"Not hard enough, clearly," Bakura coldly observed, his eyes narrowing on him.

"The girl's friends are on their way here, too. I've already sent another copy of me to deal with them." He grinned. "Quite the diorama you made. You really outdid yourself."

Looking at Bakura, nobody would have been able to guess that he was bothered by Zorc. His lip curled in a sneer of derision, his arms lying comfortably at his side. Standing next to him, however, the rigidity of his body and the subtle tightness in his jaw was enough to tell Anzu that he was bracing himself for the worst. Zorc was not just standing between him and his goal figuratively, but literally this time. He had not expected them to get this far without meeting Zorc and now they would need to go through him in order to get to the pharaoh's name.

Straightening, she squared her shoulders and propped a hand against her hip. Bakura was doing a fine job of acting unbothered, but she felt it was time for her to take some of the attention off him to give him a break from Zorc's glittering stare. "If you're going to monologue, then get it over with," she snapped to Zorc. "Otherwise, get out of our way."

The smile slide from Zorc's face. "You always had a mouth on you. But have it your way. We'll settle this the old way." He raised his arm and a grotesque shape appeared from his arm, transforming into a duel disk. Beside him, the copy of him mimed the action. "Two against two. What do you say, Bakura?"

Looking down, both Bakura and Anzu now had a duel disk attached to their own arms. Bakura glanced to Anzu, frowning, and she well understood his expression. It had been a long time since she had last dueled and while she had been good then, it had been when she and Yuugi were just getting into Duel Monsters. She had never been the one doing life-or-death shadow duels and certainly had never wanted to be good enough to attract that type of attention.

Bakura seemed to be thinking the same thing, but could offer no reassurances. Instead, he raised his arm, grimly drawing a hand from the top of his deck. "Not as if we have a choice, does it?" he said snidely in return.

"No," Zorc agreed with a smile edged with malice, "you don't."

Anzu felt her stomach dip when she looked at the cards she had drawn. They were recognizable, just like the ka her past self had possessed. Yuugi had helped her build this deck when the cards first came in the Kame Game Shop. He had built her a Light-based deck, full of angelic monster cards with effects. She had even dropped quite a chunk of allowance money on some rare cards. It had been a good deck when she had first started playing and she had beaten Jounouchi a fair number of times, but it had been forever since she had played. Even so, she recalled the cards as if she had been playing since primary school.

Drawing in a steadying breath, she played her first monster card and watched with apprehension as the monster appeared in front of her. She glanced next to her at Bakura, but his expression was impossible to read. "I'm not going to die," she told him firmly.

A corner of his mouth tilted up, a flicker of warmth crossing his eyes. "You seem confident of that. Fine."

Aside from the Battle City semi-finals, she had never seen more than one duelist play against each other. In spite of Bakura having an occult deck, she was surprised by how well their decks complimented each other. She had feared he would be holding her up throughout the duel, but found that she was able to do well on her own and had even saved him from a sticky situation more than once.

It was not until Anzu launched a trap card that eliminated the duplicate of Zorc that he became ruffled. Rather than annoyed, she felt the full force of his ire directed towards her in waves. Recalling the hatred in Marik's face when she had woken after his and Bakura's duel, she forced herself to meet his gaze without blinking. If she could survive a psycho like Marik hating her and trying to kill Malik through her, she could last the remainder of the duel.

He changed tactics and began to assault her with every attack and trap card, forcing Bakura to use his own monster and trap cards. When she would use a monster with an effect, Zorc would have a card to negate it. When she tried to use a trap card, he would have a face down card to counter.

"Resorting to bullying like usual to try and win, are you, Zorc?" Bakura remarked with a laugh when he had to once again block an attack on Anzu's life points with another special effect. "You're always such a poor sport."

"And you've always been a weakling," Zorc returned. "You wonder why you never truly gained the full power of the pharaoh." He spread his hands out, laughing maniacally. "What man can bring revenge when he is weighed down by a mortal heart? You were never strong enough for the power of the shadows! You were too scared to use it to your advantage! Only Zorc Necrophades, the true owner of the dark power, can wield it! I am not weighed down by pathetic mortal values."

This comment had seemed to wound Bakura's ego on some level, for he shot a dirty look towards Zorc. Anzu, having far too much experience in long tirades on dark power, ruling the world, and killing people, forced herself to ignore him entirely. She drew a card and glanced across at Zorc's single monster on the field. Because of Bakura, she now had three low-level monsters still on her side of the field. Bakura now had no monsters on the field since he had sacrificed his in the last turn when Zorc had tried to attack her since she had less life points than him.

This is it, she thought, looking back at the card. I can actually win.

"Nobody cares about your monologues, Zorc. Save it for Kaiba so you guys can compete," Anzu told him dismissively. Noticing his nasty stare, she continued before he could launch on to another rant, "I'll sacrifice all three of my monsters for this card – Arcana Force EX, The Dark Ruler."

There was a brief, stunned silence by both Zorc and Bakura.

"During each battle turn, I get to attack twice," Anzu went on, her heart racing in anticipation. Arcana Force EX destroyed Zorc's monster and then, on the second attack, destroyed his life points. As the wind from the blast faded, so did the duel disks and her monster. There was still a cloud of dust billowing around them.

"Well," Zorc said in the quiet that followed, "this took an unexpected turn. It's a good thing I always have a backup plan."

Anzu peered into the dust, realizing that it seemed to be getting thicker rather than disappearing. She could see neither Zorc nor Bakura and a feeling of dread made her heart sink. She did not think that Zorc would kill Bakura. Even though they were separate spirits, he had kept Bakura alive this long for some reason and she rather suspected he needed him in order to survive in his body. That did not mean that she was safe, though.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and thinking it was Bakura, turned. There was the sharp feel of pain in her stomach and the breath was knocked from her lungs. She looked down in shock to see the pool of blood as a knife was pulled from the soft flesh of her belly.

"You know," Zorc said thoughtfully, licking the blood from the blade, "you really do get in the way a lot."

"Y-you..." she whispered hoarsely, unable to finish the thought. The dust had finally begun to fade and she caught sight of Bakura over the shoulder of Zorc. He was scowling around him, and then when he saw them, everything in his face froze.

"It's fun, this thing we all have going," Zorc remarked in amusement, glancing over to Bakura. His face was only then beginning to register rage, seeming to be even paler than usual. "I'll see you in the next lifetime, Anzu." Casually, he pushed her over the ledge of the bridge and then disappeared.

As she fell, she saw Bakura lunge towards the edge, snatching at the air where her hand had been. Upon seeing his expression, she understood why her past self had seemed to be amused. She could not help but allow a wry smile to lift her lips.

For the first time, it had seemed as if there were real, raw emotion in his face. It was the first time he had shown he cared. Even from her vantage point, she saw the horror flash through his eyes when his hand missed hers.

Just as the thought registered, everything went black and she did not even feel it when she eventually hit the hard stone.

End Part VI