I'm so sorry for the terribly long delay! I hope you people are still around. And thank you very, very much for the reviews! ilu! I've posted a longer reply to some of the reviews I got in my livejournal (to be found through the "homepage" link on my profile), in case anyone but the reviewer is interested in reading them.

See chapter one for disclaimer.

Note: in the manga, Kaiba uses the BEWD he stole from Yuugi's grandfather in his duel against Yami, but it turns against him and destroys itself.

Chapter Seventeen

(In which things get explained.)

Kaiba turned towards the low table that was standing in the middle of the opulent room and froze. The card, the fifth Blue Eyes White dragon which should never have existed, had disappeared. A minute ago it had been there, now it was nowhere to be seen; a brief moment of cold fear was immediately replaced by fury: who had dared!...

He didn't have to search: between Isis, Jounouchi, Pegasus, and her, there was only one person in this room who would be both presumptuous and disrespectful enough of his bound with this one card to dare take it.

Pegasus' only eye was fixed on him, as if waiting for him to notice, and he was smiling. Between his right index and thumb, he was holding the card, in a way that was actually pretty normal, but looked deliberately taunting to Kaiba.

"Give this back," he ordered, low, threatening, and made a step forwards; he didn't even turn when the door opened behind them, and Yuugi and the others flooded in.

"I don't think you have any right to tell me what to do with this card, Kaiba-boy. Until I chose to release it to the public, this card rightfully belongs to me."

Kaiba clenched his hands to fists; Pegasus wasn't wrong, or he would have launched forward and grabbed the card by force already, but he wasn't right either: once a card was created, it belonged to no-one but the one who could use it best. It didn't truly exist until it was played in a duel.

He did turn, briefly, to the newcomers: he knew that Malik and Bakura might be a danger, but none of them seemed about the launch an attack; and if he were honest, he trusted the other Yuugi to be able to fight off whatever they might throw at him long enough for him to join in. Instead, Bakura – both of them – stayed by the door, and Malik came forward to be embraced into a tight hug by his sister, then stood still, started; he was staring at the girl, at Kisara, the soul of the dragons. Kaiba would have liked to deny the fact, but remembering the vision, seeing the way she moved, the blue of her eyes – he could not.

"She's awake," Malik said, still staring at Kisara, even as Jounouchi came forward and asked Bakura – the regular one – if he was all right. Kaiba ignored them.

"How dare you," he snarled at Pegasus. "You made a fake copy of the most powerful card in the game only to save your neck. How dare you say you still have any right on –"

"Ah, but it's not fake at all," Pegasus said cheerfully, ignoring everything else Kaiba had said; and before he could answer, he calmly walked over to where the girl was standing; he held out the card to her. "I think this belongs to you," he said friendlily.

Kisara hesitated for a short moment, then reached out with both hands to receive the present; briefly, her eyes flickered to Kaiba, before she looked back down at the card and closed her hands over it.

"Thank you," she said softly.

"It does belong to you," Isis agreed, speaking to the girl, but Kaiba knew it was really a warning for him.

He snorted. Yuugi was looking at him worriedly; Jounouchi looked as if he wanted to say something, but didn't quite know what; Isis contemplated at him with this annoyingly calm look in her eyes, as if she was figuring him inside out.

He had to get that card; he had to destroy it. He couldn't have another Blue Eyes White Dragon exist, one he couldn't control, one that would be played against him...

But this wasn't the same.

"You will need a deck," he told Kisara; she looked surprised for a moment, then she smiled and nodded; Kaiba heard Jounouchi murmur something derisive, but he ignored it.

Instead, he turned to Pegasus, who was still looking annoyingly happy.

"Did you install the chips that will make it recognisable to the duel discs, or is it just a painting?"

He tried to sound contemptuous, but didn't quite manage. This was a Blue Eyes White Dragon, after all, and Pegasus had been the one to bring it to life in his pictures first, whether he liked it or not.

"'Only' a painting' Kaiba-boy," Pegasus said. "They planned to use the chips from the stolen card of Soguroko Motou."

Kaiba shook his head. Ridiculous. They would probably only have succeeded in destroyed the card.

"I will do it," he said.

"Kisara will need no holograms to bring the dragon to life," Isis said, soft and severe, and laid a hand on Kisara's arm.

But the girl herself wasn't listening. Slowly, she withdrew herself from Isis' gentle embrace, and stepped forward to Kaiba, and simply handed him the card, eyes locked with his.

He snatched it away in a fluid movement, and clenched his fingered on it; he would own this card; he would win it or buy it from the girl, and then he would rip it into thousand pieces.

But not now. First, he'd make it whole; and once it was his, before he destroyed it, he would use it, once – and maybe, this one would not turn against him.

"What happened?" he asked, turning to Yuugi – the other, the one who was his rival and wasn't. "Did they surrender?"

"Yes," Malik said meekly, and threw a sharp glance at the new Bakura.

"No," aforementioned Bakura said, an edge to his voice. He was still standing by the door, arms crossed, the other Bakura by his side.

"I think, maybe we can sort this out," Yuugi said in spite of this; Bakura's lips curled into a sneer.

"I want to speak to him," he said, looking at Yuugi, tone so harsh that Jounouchi stepped next to Yuugi protectively; seeing this, Bakura smiled. "I won't attack him," he added softly. "I promise."

Yuugi looked down at his puzzle; Kaiba knew by now that his silence had to mean silent communication with the other Yuugi, his rival.

"Okay, wait a minute," Malik broke into the silence. "How is she awake? How did you find us?"

"He," Kaiba said, glaring at Pegasus as he spoke, "gave her a sedative."

Pegasus smiled mildly.

"It was perfectly harmless, and it was the only way to gain time. You –" He glanced at Malik, then at Bakura, and his smile vanished – "were waiting for her to awake to act."

"I wondered," the original Bakura murmured, and added, to Pegasus: "You said something to reassure me at once..."

Pegasus smiled again, looking self-satisfied; Kaiba remained silent; he didn't like what the man had done, he should have taken more direct action instead of stalling while waiting for their arrival, but maybe it had helped to keep Kisara safe, and that was what counted. She did not seem to hold it against him.

"And how –" Malik insisted, after a not fully friendly glance at Pegasus.

"He left us a message," Anzu explained. "Pegasus. We knew where you'd be."

"And Kaiba found a way to contact him," Honda added, and after a careful glance at Bakura, who was still fixedly looking at Yuugi and apparently ignoring everything else, added: "He had a receiver in his room."

"We searched that room," Malik said, and winced at the unfriendly look he got from Honda and Jounouchi. "Sorry. Sorry, I'm surprised, that's all." Isis laid a hand on his arm.

"Not well enough," Pegasus said cheerfully.

"And," Jounouchi added, looking at the original Bakura uncomfortably, "he told us that you were... er... fine?"

Kaiba held back a snort. He'd heard what Pegasus had said about the three of them, and he didn't feel as understanding as Yuugi and his friends apparently did. If they had hurt Kisara... But as it was, what he was curious about was how his rival would react, so he said nothing that could drag out the explanation.

As if on cue, Yuugi raised his head; the look in his eyes was sharp, and even though Bakura was the one he was looking at, Kaiba recognised him immediately.

"You wanted to talk to me," he said to the thief, in his different, deeper voice.

Bakura winced; next to him, his former host tensed, and exchanged a worried glance with Malik, and Yuugi's friends imperceptibly drew closer around him, sensing the confrontation coming. He remained still: the fury he felt at standing in front of him as he was, stripped of his power and the presence of the dark god, he must hide it, if he wished to survive.

"You think like him?" he asked, keeping his voice soft. "You are... 'willing to forgive the past'?"

"That depends," the pharaoh said coldly. "What were you trying to accomplish here?"

He nodded.

"I will tell you." He smiled thinly. "And I will give you the eye, pharaoh. Maybe we can sit down first?"

He didn't like the way they were facing him, a compact, united group. The pharaoh gave stiff nod, and after a long, sharp look from his one visible eye, Pegasus turned to lead the way to an adjacent room, were they sat down around a long dinning table, he and the pharaoh facing each other, like by a game board. Malik sat down at his right, Ryou to his left, while Pegasus took the head of the table, as if he were presiding the meeting. Kaiba remained standing, hovering somewhere behind the dragon girl's back.

"What I wanted," Bakura said when they'd all sat down, "was the Dragon's power. I have a card..." He reached for his deck; Honda rose to his feet, alarmed, and Bakura gave him a thin, bitter smile. "I have lost my power," he said, drawing out the card and laying it on the table, face up. "He is called Diabound. He is a thief's card: he can steal the power of every defeated foe." They all leant forward to look at it; Jounouchi actually picked it up.

"And then?" the pharaoh asked. "Would stealing her power have killed her?" He motioned at the dragon girl; Kaiba tensed behind her, and Bakura knew: if he said yes, here was someone who would not forgive so easily.

"The ritual failed," he snarled. "She was never supposed to appear – or I to regain this body." He calmed himself, and added, for Kaiba's benefit. "But I do not think so: a monster survives even when it is once destroyed in combat. I never meant to destroy the dragon for good."

Next to Yuugi, Jounouchi looked clearly uncomfortable as he put the card back down.

"You said you would give me the millennium eye," Yuugi said, then paused, and, turning to Pegasus, added: "If you are willing to..."

"It's yours," Pegasus said with an easy hand gesture, as if they weren't talking about something that had been ripped from his face.

Bakura drew it out from his pocket and laid it carefully on the table between them. There was hope yet, if not for him, then for the god.

"You will need it," he said. "And if you wish the regain your memories, you will have to fight a god. I will no longer by part of the battle, but you will not escape it."

"I am ready to do what I have to," the pharaoh told him, though he looked startled; he held out a hand for the eye; Bakura handed it over. "Tell me what you know of that battle."

Bakura shrugged.

"Not much – I have lost my connection to the god. He was part of me, when I was... When I did not have this body. His presence has been fading gradually." He closed his eyes briefly. "It wasn't a pleasant feeling."

"Why?"

Bakura pressed his lips together, and said nothing. When he had seen all the people he had loved – all the people he had ever known slaughtered, and his village destroyed, there had been nothing in him but a nameless void. Despair and horror, but both numb, far beyond pain. So he had let the dark god merge into him, and the newfound hatred and rage had kept him alive, and taken away everything else.

And now... the anger was still here, but clearly his own, not like an overbearing, foreign presence that could shield him from all the rest.

"He will try to kill you, within your and his memory," he added; he did not say that he would try to destroy everything and everyone else; he was not even sure anymore if that was what he wanted, with both Malik and Ryou by his side, when he had been certain that he would forever be alone. "You will have to face him. There is no way around this."

That wasn't quite true; the pharaoh could renounce to his memory, and to the battle; but he would not, in any case, and sooner or later, the god would find a way to freedom, he was certain.

"The ancient texts speak of an evil that was sealed away," Isis chimed in. Behind her, Bakura could see Kaiba shaking his head.

"We can defeat him," Jounouchi said confidently; on Yuugi's other side, Anzu nodded. Bakura pursed his lips contemptuously but said nothing.

"Does this satisfy you?" he asked instead.

The pharaoh nodded slowly.

"If you tell the truth, then I will not go into this battle wholly unprepared," he said. "That is worth something."

Bakura pressed his lips together into a thin line.

"I have your forgiveness then, pharaoh?" he asked, keeping his voice low.

If the pharaoh noticed any underlying sarcasm, he ignored it.

"For now," he said, "I will not act against you." (Next to him, Malik gave an audible sigh of relief.) "Unless," he added, and looked at his former host, "you want me to."

"What?" Ryou sat up straight; he'd been attentive but silent throughout all this. "No! I don't want, if you don't have to – I think maybe Malik and I can, if we're there..." He trailed off. "I don't want him gone," he said. Bakura stared at him; he still felt the savage, protective kind of tenderness as he always had, except that now that this was no longer his body, there was no longer a logical reason for it.

The pharaoh nodded.

"You really can't control him anymore?" Honda asked him, the look in his eyes hard. "I remember, the ring came back to him once."

Bakura shook his head. He disliked talking about his new weakness.

"I had a part of my soul placed into Ryou's body. That way, I could control him, at least long enough to retrieve the ring, without him wearing it. The connection has been fading since... since I've been separated from the god." He paused. "The one to your puzzle too."

"You..." Ryou stopped. "I thought the connection between the two of us was just growing." He looked around unsurely. "I was fated to have the ring, after all."

Bakura found himself at the end of a long, accusing glare from three pairs of eyes.

"I didn't come up with it." He tried to convince himself that he wasn't truly scared. He'd never been afraid of the pharaoh before, but he hadn't been mortal... "I just did my best to confirm him in his idea..."

But then, technically, he'd never truly been immortal, since there had been a way to turn him mortal... It would take some time for him to get used to the idea that he, too, had been manipulated by the dark god.

"Yuugi would like to talk to you," was all the pharaoh added in answer, speaking to Ryou, who nodded.

Yuugi came to him, later, when he was sitting by the window, alone; Kaiba had vanished, gone almost as fast as he'd come, not wanting to rely on Pegasus' hospitality any longer than strictly necessary. Kisara had stayed, however, together with Isis, though it had been clear that these two would find each other soon again. Ryou was curious about her. Malik and Bakura were close by, Malik talking to the former spirit intently, Rishid hovering not far away, like a protective shadow. They were out of earshot, however.

"Are you alright?" Yuugi asked, sitting down next to him, looking out at the garden. "Pegasus said you were, but..."

"I'm fine." He looked down at his hands. Odd to think that he didn't stand to lose everything; he hadn't really been prepared for that. Unless, of course, the spirit choose to throw it all away again. "Thank you for not..." He made a vague gesture in Malik and Bakura's direction. "You know."

Yuugi shrugged.

"If you want it, it's worth a try. But – are you sure?"

"Yes," Ryou said simply.

"Just – you've been stuck with them for a long time, and maybe – maybe you should spend some time away from them. And see a counsellor. Rebecca's grandfather knows someone, who'd believe you when you tell them the truth, and – just to make sure, you know?"

Ryou nodded slowly. It wasn't so far-fetched, to imagine that something had gone awry in his mind from the spirit – from both their presence. But for now, he knew that he didn't want what was left of it removed, and he was glad Yuugi didn't push the point.

"I will," he promised. Yuugi smiled at him and stood up.

"What did he want?" Malik asked, when he walked over towards them; Bakura was looking annoyed.

"I'll tell you later," Ryou promised, and slid an arm around Malik, who let his head rest on his shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know more about his battle," Bakura answered, a stubborn look on his face, half-glaring at Malik. "And about after, he'll find out soon enough." He paused, looked from Ryou to Malik, a little lost. "If he wins," he added.

"He's lying," Malik told Ryou, and smirked into Bakura's annoyed face. "We'll find out, you know."

Ryou nodded faintly; it sounded like a promise, and with Malik and Bakura next to him and his friends close by, he allowed himself, at least for a short moment, to believe in it.

end if chapter 17

AN: Why yes, my trilling conclusion is that... Ryou needs therapy. You know it's true. Well, that and the fact that Pegasus pwns everyone.

I feel kind of bad, because I didn't realise how phenomenally anticlimactic this was going to be when I planned it, the story ending with an explaining conversation instead of something more dramatic. Sorry about that. I also hope that it's not wholly unbelievable, from Bakura or Yami's side... Thoughts?

Diabound stealing other monster's attacks is anime-canon only, I think; getting the BEWD's attack is the reason why Bakura stages that duel against Kaiba at the beginning of the AE arc, and why he cuts it off as soon as Diabound has destroyed a BEWD. In this story, he simply choose a more complicated way to get the same results (and hey, kidnapping Mokuba can't be that easy either, high success level notwithstanding).

It never gets explained how Bakura gets the ring back in DK (or how he can posses Ryou in that church scene), so this is my explanation for it.

Epilogue shall be posted very soon. As always, I would love reviews!