A/N: Oh hey. This is still a thing. It's only taken (checks) a year and a half to get a new chapter out. ;;; Special thanks go out to DarkMK on Ao3, who helped kick my butt into finishing this chapter. Still took a while, but without them it still wouldn't be done.
Historian's Note: This story takes place before, during and (eventually) after the original story through Millennium World, following the canon established in the manga. There will be spoilers, so proceed with caution.
Soundtrack: 'Haunted' on 8tracks.
Warnings: Body horror, major character death.
Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! and related characters are © to Kazuki Takahashi.
…
Haunted
Part XVII
Raven Ehtar
…
Ryou stared at the Millennium Scales.
It wasn't a difficult image to process. A golden set of scales held out before him in a large, brown hand. Both of the pans were empty, but one dipped down sharply as though holding something of great weight.
A part of him wasn't at all surprised at the Scale's judgement. When the Item had been passed before all of his friends, the pans had remained steady, perfectly even, not even a wobble. It was only when they were passed before him that they moved, that they 'sensed evil or deception' in his soul. He wasn't entirely surprised, but it still hurt.
He looked up at the guardian who called himself Bobasa. He'd appeared strange and foolish before, even grotesque given his method of protecting the Millennium Items in his body, but generally he had been friendly – jovial, even. Now his face was dark, brows drawn low in a scowl he leveled at Ryou. Ryou's stomach dropped.
As though from a great distance, he heard his friends all react to the Scales judging him unworthy. Yugi's voice stood out the most, his tone dismayed, but with an undercurrent which suggested that he – like Ryou – wasn't entirely taken by surprise.
"But… why me…?" He looked at Bobasa, doing his best to appear innocent, nonthreatening, nothing more than one of the Pharaoh's friends who wished to help.
Bobasa's expression grew darker. Looking into his eyes, Ryou felt a kind of understanding pass between them. This strange guardian knew there was darkness within him, and he was not about to let himself be cajoled by protests of innocence, however convincing they might be to others. The Millennium Scales had revealed him, and Bobasa would not be swayed.
How much were the Scales judging his own soul as opposed to that of the spirit that rode along with him? Was he unworthy on his own, or was it Koe that prevented them from joining the others on the rescue mission? The Scales sensed evil or deception… Guilt wriggled within him as he recalled all of the lies by omission he had been responsible for over the last year.
Someone called out to him – Yugi, upset by what the Scales were showing for all to see, but the words were lost on Ryou. All of his focus was on the man looking down on him as though he needed no Scales to see the worth of Ryou's soul. It was all he could do to keep from shrinking away from that heavy glare. Perhaps all the practice of hiding a second soul helped to keep his spine straight.
"Bakura. I'm sorry… But you cannot enter!" Even Bobasa's voice had changed, no longer jovial or comically presumptuous. Now it was as heavy as lead.
Ryou locked eyes with those of the giant man. He didn't sound like he was sorry at all, and he certainly didn't look as though he regretted the need to turn him away. Ryou understood. It only made sense that he be turned away… but it didn't soothe the rage he could feel bubbling up inside him. They couldn't afford to have a traitor amongst them when they were going to rescue the soul of the Pharaoh, and Ryou couldn't even say that they were wrong to pinpoint him as a traitor. He wasn't sure where the rage most wanted to lash out to, at Bobasa or at himself.
He swallowed it all down as best he could, held it back and out of sight. Bobasa might not be fooled by his mask, but the others… there was no need for them to know that their supposed friend was exactly what the Scales revealed him to be:
Deceitful. Evil.
He spread out his hands, a picture of openness. "But I want to find th—Yugi, too!"
No one seemed to notice his near slip, and Yugi was quick to jump in to his defense as well, practically stepping between him and Bobasa as he shouted. "Bakura's our friend!"
Yugi's unquestioning defense of him stung. Out of anyone, Yugi had the least reason to trust him, and yet there he was, standing up for him. It was strange to have someone actually come to his rescue. After so many years on his own, finally there was someone at his side to lend their strength.
It hurt that he didn't deserve it.
Easier to look at were those in whom he saw doubt – such as Jonouchi. He said nothing, but his eyes were dark, his mouth set in a disapproving line. He made no move to defend Ryou, because there was a part of him which accepted – which knew the Scales told the truth.
That was easier to see. It helped to stoke the rage inside and kept him on his feet.
Bobasa was not moved. He refused to allow Ryou to join the rest of them, to follow them into the memories of the Pharaoh. The irony wasn't lost on him that he was being refused not only entrance in the museum his own father ran, but from the past which he, of all of them, would be the most familiar with. He'd lived a lifetime under Ra's merciless gaze in ancient Egypt, something which even the Pharaoh's spirit could no longer claim, as he had no memory of it.
And he was the one turned away.
He put a hand on Yugi's shoulder, stopping him from beginning another round of futile protests. "It's alright, Yugi."
The boy stopped and looked up at him, eyes grown stormy with distress. "But Bakura… You're our friend, too. You ought to be able to come with us. I trust you, whatever the Scales say."
The cuts in his heart grew a little deeper, and he was certain some of the pain must have shown when he attempted a smile. "It's alright," he repeated with a shrug. He could feel Bobasa's heavy stare on him, and studiously ignored it. "I don't know why the Scales reacted to me like that, but on a mission like this it's better to be safe than sorry, isn't it?"
If anything, his words clouded Yugi's expression more. It was more than Ryou could take, seeing him grow so upset on his behalf, when Ryou knew that the Scales were perfectly correct in their judgement. He'd lied to his friends, was still lying even now. He was a liability, a walking harbor for the danger they meant to go and fight. He had no right to stand beside them, and no right to the loyalty Yugi was showing him.
He took a deep breath and stepped away from the group, pasting on a false smile as he did. "Well, I guess that's it then… I'll head back home. But you guys have to find—" the Pharaoh… Bakhura… "—and bring him back!"
Yugi looked torn. Anzu and Honda were looking between him and the Scales in Bobasa's hand, and the damning way it tilted. Even Jonouchi looked a little upset, though to Ryou it looked more as though he were upset by Yugi's distress rather than Ryou's exclusion.
Not caring anymore if it looked exactly like the retreat it was, Ryou turned away and jogged back up the way they had come. "Bye, guys, see you later!"
Behind him he heard someone shout his name, but he didn't stop. As soon as he turned a corner and was out of sight, he broke into a full run.
It had been a long time since he had last felt so desperate to get away. But the looks on everyone's faces, from pity to distress to aggression, was too much to take. It was too much focus on him, too much scrutiny. He could wear masks, but there was something deeply wrong when one of those he had to deceive believed him so completely. It made the guilt wriggling in his gut twist even more tightly than the dark looks given him by either Bobasa or Jonouchi.
Beyond his own guilt, there was also the fact that he was a danger. Koe wanted to go into the Pharaoh's memories. There was something there which would somehow complete his quest for power, three millennia after it had begun. After so much time and effort, Ryou doubted that he would be put off by a single man denying him, no matter how many Millennium Items he was holding. It wasn't much, but with the possibility of Koe taking him over, the best Ryou could do was to take his body as far away from his friends as possible.
They couldn't trust him, but he would still do his best to protect them.
I hate him!
Tears stinging his eyes, running as fast as he could across the slick floors, he wasn't even sure if his hate was for Koe, Bobasa, or someone else entirely.
He burst into the more populated areas of the museum and forced himself to slow a little. Privileged son of a museum official or not, he could still end up being held by museum staff for breaking rules. He still got his share of curious looks as he walked briskly through, his face damp with tears. The front doors were in sight before it occurred to him that Koe had been remarkably silent this whole time.
He slowed further, and then stopped, forcing guests to go around him like a current around a stone. Carefully, fearing what might happen even as he did so, Ryou reached out, seeking the other presence within his mind which had become so very familiar.
Koe? Are you there?
Such a ridiculous question. Of course he was there, he was always there. The spirit was lodged inside his skull, as much a part of Ryou as he was a part of the Millennium Ring.
And yet, there was no reply to his cautious probing. Not a shiver, not a whispered word – not even the ubiquitous sense of being watched.
For a second, something close to panic raced through him. If Koe wasn't answering him, if he were really gone, then where had he gone? Had he somehow managed to escape Ryou after all this time, and gone into the Pharaoh's memories, unseen and unsuspected, without his host?
He reached up to his chest, and the familiar shape of the Ring was still beneath his shirt. He calmed slightly. Koe might not be responding to him, but so long as Ryou still had the Ring, he couldn't be far.
All things considered, that shouldn't have been as comforting a thought as it was.
A guest jostled him on their way past, bringing him back to the present. Murmuring general apologies to no one who heard him, he got out of the main pathway, ducking down one of the side halls leading to the exhibits. With Koe suddenly gone and showing no sign of wanting to take over his body, the need to leave as quickly as possible evaporated. It left him at a loss. He was barred from going with the others, there was apparently no need to keep Koe as far away from everyone as possible… and he wasn't actively acting against his friends as Koe's puppet. Where did that leave him, then? What was he meant to do? He didn't want to leave, but was there any point in staying?
Ryou wandered down a line of exhibits slowly without seeing any of them. It was quiet, long enough between any new displays being revealed that traffic had died down, and on an awkward hour and day of the week. There weren't very many guests in attendance, and Ryou took the opportunity to stop before one of the displays and surreptitiously dry his face as best as he was able. He was glad that none of the museum employees seemed to have noticed him – at least no one other than the gift shop check out girl and the ticket taker at the entrance. If one of the researchers who normally worked in the back had spotted him in his mad dash or saw him with such a face they might go to his father with tales. That was the very last thing he needed right now – his father's clumsy attempts at understanding, at fixing whatever it was that upset his son. It might not be so bad to endure if his father had anything but the most basic idea of how to interact with him, or if Ryou's troubles were anything like what could be helped by a well-meaning parent.
Sniffling back the last of his tears, Ryou caught sight of his own reflection in the glass case of an exhibit. He looked… fine.
Reflections could be such liars.
He took a deep breath, hand still near the Millennium Ring as he tried to think of something, anything he could do. It wasn't as though he had much of a plan before Bobasa had barred him. The plan, if it could even be called that, had been to remain as near to everyone as he could and act as a sort of buffer between all the players in the unfolding drama. Between his friends and Koe, of course… but also a buffer between everyone else and Bakhura.
He'd known before arriving that the day would involve delving into memories in some way. The Pharaoh's need to rediscover his past would have been enough to know that, but there was also the diorama Koe had insisted he make. The one which depicted the landscape of the ancient world, the board on which lives had shuffled across so long ago, struggling, surviving and fighting. He'd put it together to Koe's exacting specifications, drawing on the memories of Bakhura to get the details just so, and set it in one of the most unobtrusive rooms in the museum as an amateur display. His father had been impressed with it, his face shining with pride, but Ryou found he could take little pleasure in its completion – not when he knew, even vaguely, what it was intended for.
He was perhaps the only one who knew all of what was happening. The only one his friends could have spoken with, anyway. Koe knew more than he did, but the spirit of the Ring always knew more than he did, and worked hard to keep Ryou as ignorant as he could. For a long time, he had been entirely successful, keeping his very existence hidden for years. There was no doubt at all that there was more which was still hidden.
Ryou knew more than his friends, who all and thought him blissfully ignorant of the worst of what was happening. He knew all of what they were about to bear witness to for the first time. Yugi's spirit as the Pharaoh of Egypt, the war that took place there, and duel monsters come to life as spiritual components of living people. They would see Bakhura there… would they also see Kul Elna? Would they see what was done to it, that a man they might have thought of as 'good' had sanctioned a genocide? Would they understand what it really meant for the Items they held in their hands, what Yugi and Ryou had been wearing for years? Would they care, once they found out?
They would learn all of the things which Ryou had years ago. Most likely they would also learn what he had only recently discovered, the true identity of the spirit within the Millennium Ring.
Zorc.
Should he have told them that much at least? Warned them of the power they were going to be facing, the sort of monster they were going to have to fight? It wasn't like their other adversaries over the last year – humans who craved power and would do what they needed in order to achieve it. At least with them there was the reassurance that they were, in fact, human. Zorc was not. He wasn't human, and he didn't want power.
He wanted destruction and death, all to the purpose of non-existence. There was no reasoning with a creature like that. Ryou questioned whether or not there was even any real chance at fighting against it.
He should have warned them.
Maybe that was why the Scales had judged him wanting. Not for the silences he had kept in the past, or even for the ancient soul he harbored. If it truly was only his own heart it was weighing, then perhaps it weighed him and knew that the silences would continue. The Scales peered in on his heart and found it too heavy with secrets he intended to keep.
It was quiet in this part of the museum. Quiet and unpopulated save for himself, the displays housing nothing of much interest save to the most diehard of all Egyptian history enthusiasts. Shards of pottery, scraps of linen and papyri, the tattered pieces of everyday lives which had survived the centuries, devoid of nearly all meaning without those lives they had once been a part of. Ryou was alone, only the echoes of memories around him.
"This must be a dream of yours, Sheut. For it's not as any place I have ever seen."
Ryou froze, heart and breath stopping right along with his thoughts.
Sheut?
Slowly, feeling as though every limb were carved out of stone and would crack under the pressure of his daring to move at all, Ryou turned around.
There were many items in the Domino City Museum which had come from the ancient past. Just now, a great amount of it came from Egypt, from both the museum's own collection and the touring exhibit it was hosting. If one allowed, they might delude themself into thinking that they were in the past, themselves.
The man standing before Ryou completely shattered the illusion.
Bakhura. Thief King, enemy of Pharaohs, defiler of graves, and raiser of Gods.
Bakhura, the one who lived through the night of screams to bring the nightmare home to those who had first gifted it.
Bakhura… the voice in his head, the secret second life he had lived… the man whose very death he had witnessed, which he had felt…
Standing in front of him.
He stared, mouth hanging open. It was Bakhura, the same man he had sat beside on the sand dune, looking down on the sleeping city of his enemies. Taller and dressed in nothing but kilt, sandals and the vibrant red coat, it was only too easy to see the darkness of his skin and the cut of his muscles. It was also, in the light of the museum, much easier to see the violet of his eyes and the pale starkness of the scar running over one and down his cheek.
An unexpected echo of pain ran through Ryou. He remembered what he had gone through for that scar. The whipping, the infection, the knife… as sure as it had been himself, Ryou had felt it all. It took a force of will not to touch his own face and make certain that there was no mirroring scar, however much it felt there ought to be one.
For his part, Bakhura was staring right back at Ryou. His body was tense, with none of the ease Ryou had come to know from riding along inside his mind to be seen. But the expression on his face… No scowl, no glare, his eyes were a stormless evening, the ghost of a smile haunting his lips. Ryou found himself reflecting the expression, though he was unsure, if he attempted to speak, if what would come out would be a laugh or a sob.
"Sheut…?" Bakhura asked, and the uncertainty in his voice made Ryou tremble like a leaf. "That is you? I have found you, as you once found me? Or has my mind at last frayed too much to hold its shape?"
Ryou tried to speak, and nearly choked. He closed his mouth, swallowed, and tried to think. Was Bakhura here, was this real, was it a dream, was he real…?
He took a breath, having to remind his lungs that air was a thing he needed, and dared to take a step forward on legs which felt too unsteady to hold him up. Bakhura watched, unmoving, as Ryou approached him, step after shaky step, and stopped less than an arm's length from him.
Nearness offered the same evidence as distance. As much as anyone would ever be able to tell from looking, and Ryou was perhaps the most qualified to make this judgement, it was Bakhura. Same face, same hair, same eyes… and the look he settled on Ryou was much the same as the one he had given him in the desert, when there had only been the two of them and a distant city.
"Yes," he said at last, voice thick to his own ears. "Yes, it- it's me. You've found me." His voice cracked on the last words, and the tears he'd shed earlier threatened a return, his vision going soft around the edges. He felt dizzy, as though the floor had tilted under his feet. He concentrated very hard on where he was, and what was around him. On Bakhura.
He lifted a hand. In the back of his mind, it was just to help keep his balance – a hand to steady himself when everything was turning on its head. But when he put out his hand, he reached for Bakhura, the last stable thing he had left. Hadn't Bakhura been there nearly half his life, and gave him a second life to share? Wasn't he here now, when all else was crumbling away, abandoning him…?
He stopped, mere inches remaining between his fingers and Bakhura's coat.
"… Sheut?"
He couldn't. He couldn't risk touching Bakhura. What would it mean if he were really real, standing with him, alive in the museum? And what if he weren't…?
"Yes," he said again, allowing his hand to drop back to his side. He cleared his throat, determined to control himself. Rather than succumb to tears, he put on a smile. "I don't understand how, but… yes. You're here."
"Here," Bakhura repeated, watching Ryou closely. It felt strange to be on the other side of his stare, to be the observed rather than the observing. As when they had been in the desert, Ryou felt the distance and difference between them keenly, wishing more than he would have thought possible to know exactly what Bakhura was thinking, what he was feeling. He felt adrift, closed out while he was trapped inside his own head.
At last Bakhura turned to look around the room and the displays. "Here," he said again. "Where is 'here'? Do you know, or is this yet another place which is none at all, a dream with no reason?"
Ryou gave the smallest of laughs, shaking his head, restraining himself from holding his head in his hands. "No, this… this is real. We're awake and you're… with me. Where I live."
Even as the words left him, Ryou was questioning how true they really were. Was he awake? He hadn't remembered falling asleep before appearing in the desert, it wasn't so impossible that he had decided to find a quiet corner of the museum and dozed off, was it? He might be asleep, dreaming that Bakhura was with him – or he was asleep and Bakhura was with him, just the same as in the desert but for the scenery. Certainly everything felt unreal enough for this all to just be in his head, but…
Bakhura still hadn't moved, simply looking around at the illuminated displays, each revealing aged pieces of the past. Pieces of Bakhura's past, Ryou realized. Or if not his, then certainly pieces he would recognize for what they were. What must it all look like to him, to see such everyday items aged, damaged, and revered?
"Then you live in a strange place," he commented. "Though it is perhaps not so surprising that a sheut would live amongst memories, large or small."
The laugh caught in Ryou's chest bubbled up further, almost choking him. How close to the truth that statement was, that he lived in memories!
The sound of Ryou's aborted, strangled laughter brought the violet eyes back to him. Even in the unnatural brightness of the museum's lights, they had grown dark, brows drawn low in a frown. "You are upset about something. What is it, has something happened?"
Has something happened? In a dizzying spool, over seven years' worth of memories unraveled in Ryou's mind all at once. Yes, he could say that something, several somethings, had happened, and were continuing to happen even as they stood together. Ancient wars, atrocities carried out in the dead of night, revenge and justice all tied up round each other and out of shape… all coming to a head now. Today. Thousands of years and so much blood, so much suffering, and it was all meant to come to an end today. With him locked out, unable to even see how it ended.
And yet… Ryou raised his eyes, a strange realization dawning. Bakhura's memories, other than the long, never changing one of being trapped in the desert, ended at the battle in the temple, and the curse which he had enacted on himself and Pharaoh. Ryou knew that, knew that anything which had occurred in modern time would be beyond his knowledge. But somehow it had never fully dawned on him that that meant he knew more of what was happening than even Bakhura.
How was it that he had ended up the one holding the most threads of this strange tapestry?
He wished he dared to reach out and touch Bakhura, to confirm that he was no longer alone.
He shook his head. As unreal as this all felt, and how little he trusted the norms of the real world to apply, there was the vague concern that a guest might see Bakhura – or worse, someone with the museum who knew Ryou might see him with Bakhura. They needed a quiet corner, some place where no one at all was likely to walk in on them, where they could sit… and Ryou could try and explain everything.
"I… have a long tale to tell."
...
In the end Ryou found them a smallish room, sometimes used for curio displays which weren't all that spectacular on their own. At the moment it was being used as a storage space, with little in the way of organization, but providing for the dual needs of privacy and seating.
Ryou wasn't certain how long they'd been cooped up in the room together. Hours for certain, but how many? There was so much to tell. When they had met on the sand dune, Ryou had been too uncertain to say much of what he knew, of what was happening beyond the desert and the players whom the Thief King knew. There was no knowing, he'd reasoned, what that sort of knowledge might do to the soul who was Bakhura. At the time, Ryou had been less certain of the connection between Koe and Bakhura, and if he should voice what he knew from his perspective.
Now it hardly seemed to matter. Whatever was happening, it was certain to bring a conclusion of some sort or another, and Bakhura… he deserved to know. In a way they were all here due to his actions, his planning, so he ought to know how it had all played out over the millennia.
Ryou wanted him to know. They were the last who were left, together, waiting to see what would happen at the end of it all. He wanted them to be on equal footing for that, so neither of them felt alone.
Bakhura listened as Ryou spoke, not once interrupting, no matter how long he went on. Initially Ryou was surprised, but eventually decided that all the time in the night desert must have improved his patience immensely. He sat, still and silent as Ryou explained everything he knew, discovered and experienced over the last seven years. Those times when Ryou dared to look him in the eye, he didn't appear to be shocked, or to have any trouble absorbing what he was being told, however outlandish it must have sounded.
By the time Ryou finished talking, his throat hurt, and he desperately wished he'd brought a bottle of water with him to the museum. When had been the last time he had spoken so much all at one time?
At first, Bakhura said nothing at all in the wake of Ryou's speech. The silence felt deafening, oppressive.
"It's a great weight you have had to bear all this time, Sheut," Bakhura said quietly. Surprised, Ryou looked up into his face. He smiled a tired, sympathetic smile which…
"A heavy burden indeed, to be the shadow of one such as I."
It was strange and off balancing to be outside of Bakhura's thoughts, to feel as though he ought to know everything the man thought and felt, and yet be so divorced from him. But the look which Bakhura leveled upon him… there was no distance. It felt as though Bakhura were peering in, directly into his heart, and knew Ryou even more fully than Ryou had ever known him.
He glanced back down to the bench they shared and the little distance which remained between them. Distance. Yes. Close, but not touching. To touch would be a final proof of what was really real, and either way…
"The shadow carries only a fraction of what the body takes up," Ryou said.
It earned a soft, appreciative snort from Bakhura. With that, Ryou felt some of the tension begin to ease. Lacing his fingers together and keeping his eyes turned down, he asked, "What do you think will happen? They've all gone to the past, or a recreation of it, and Koe has gone, too. Do you think… do you think it will all happen just like it did in the past?"
Bakhura considered the problem for a moment, and then a sighed. "With the Millennium Items all together and thrown into the fray, it's unlikely. The Items and their power, the fragment of Zorc – Koe – not to mention the addition of your friends and the- the Pharaoh's own ignorance," Bakhura's tone twisted on the title, an echo of long held hate, "it seems impossible that events would remain completely unchanged. There is something in the past which is needed, but if it were something which were perfect as it was, why revisit it? No, there will be changes. Oh yes." He snorted softly, and said, almost under his breath, "All futures have their pasts…"
"… and all presents their reasons for being what they are."
Bakhura startled slightly when Ryou echoed the words of his old mentor – their old mentor? – finishing one of his favorite turns of phrase. Ryou smiled, turning his head enough to see a little of the surprised smile on Bakhura.
Ryou fidgeted with his fingers, debating a few moments before his next question. "Do you… regret anything you've done? In all the time you've had since it all happened, have you ever wished that you did things differently?"
Again, Bakhura considered the question carefully before giving his answer. Ryou did his best to not fidget in the silence, to not imagine all of the possible answers he might be given, what they could mean – both to Bakhura and to him.
"Regret… is a useless sentiment. To regret what has already passed is a spoiled indulgence. Things are the way they are, and no use in rending one's soul over that. We can only continue on from where we stand now." He paused, and shifted in his seat, his coat whispering as it moved. "Everything I have done was done by my own choice. Everything Pharaoh did was done by his own choice. To have made choices other than we did would have required that we be… other than as we were. Different people. To regret our choices would just be to regret who we were."
Ryou stared blankly into the floor, thoughts roiling around the words, trying to fit them around his own turmoil. It felt as though Ryou had done little else but regret over the last year or so – or longer. But did that mean that he also regretted the person he had been, for the choices he had made? If he were sent back in time to make those choices again, would it be any different – or would he still be the same person? The him of the past, he might never make different choices, locked into the mold of who he had been. But who he was now, in this moment… what choices would he be making now, and would a future version of himself look back and regret him?
One could become locked in indecision their entire lives, thinking like that. Forever frozen in uncertainty over what the stranger in their future would think of what they were doing now.
Maybe it was a useless sentiment.
Bakhura shifted, recalling Ryou's attention. "Back then, when I first made this gamble of mine, it was when I believed the odds were in my favor. Temporarily skewed away from me, but salvageable with a bold enough gambit. And even if I lost…" he shrugged. "There was nothing I had which was worth losing, or worth living for in hopes to gain."
Frowning, Ryou lifted his head to look on Bakhura. The man was staring off into some faraway place – the past, into himself, or somewhere else entirely. It was hard to reconcile this man, reflective and calm, with the one Ryou had grown up knowing. Reckless, impatient, indomitable, fierce, driven to the point of… well. Where they were now.
He was a different person than he had been. And yet.
"Has that changed?"
Bakhura tilted his head, still staring into space. "The odds have… shifted. Still in my favor, I believe, but they are not so fixed anymore."
"And your losses?"
The man blinked, and Ryou abruptly found himself staring into a violet gaze. Bakhura's eyes searched his face, tracing over every feature almost like a physical touch. "The stakes have risen for me. Yes. That is fair to say."
Before Ryou could think of anything to respond with, either to himself or aloud, Bakhura stood up, took the few steps the small space would allow, and gave a mighty stretch. "Aah, what is all this talk of regrets? There is no purpose in it, and if there were, what is there to regret, Sheut?" He turned back around, and it was as though he had stepped through time to become the man he had once been. His face was transformed with a wide, arrogant grin, eyes flashing defiance, feet planted wide, the set of his shoulders speaking of a man who would not bow. "I am the King of Thieves! I have stolen everything from bread and beer and reeds on which to sleep, to gold, ivory – to the very body of Pharaoh Aknamkanen himself! But the greatest thing I ever stole, do you know what it is, Sheut?"
He paused, waiting for some reply, but Ryou could give him none. He recognized the intensity of his look, felt a replying echo of it deep in his chest, familiar for how often he had been a part of it.
"Time," he said when Ryou did not answer. "I have stolen time out from under the noses of the very Gods, so even death could not contain me! I could have existed an eternity!"
Ryou stared up at him. This was the man he had grown to know through the years. He who raged and defied, who dared any to even try and topple him. It was who he was – who he presented himself to be.
But Ryou knew more than what was shown on the outside.
"An eternity," he agreed quietly. "Trapped under a sky of stars that never move."
Bakhura's grin turned into a glare, the sort which he would turn on his enemies. Ryou didn't flinch. Somehow it was easier to hold Bakhura's eye when he was being glared at then when he was simply being looked at. Easier to brave a storm than to be seen.
The glare didn't last. Soon Bakhura's expression softened, and his posture relaxed. The Thief King retreated, and he was simply Bakhura. "Perhaps existence for its own sake wasn't something to be sought," he said quietly. "But if I hadn't survived as long as I had…"
He trailed off, one of his hands clenching tight into a fist at his side, though only a shadow of a frown pulled at his brows.
"If you hadn't…?" Ryou prompted.
Bakhura looked at him, having let his gaze wander away with his thoughts. The look he fixed Ryou with was, in some ways, more terrifying than any scowl, mostly because Ryou had no idea how to interpret it. Without speaking, Bakhura closed the space between them until he was standing directly in front of Ryou, looking down on him with that strangely shadowed, haunted look.
Ryou felt lost, more separate from Bakhura than ever, with no clue of what thoughts could be stirring up such storms in his eyes. When Bakhura lowered himself until he was on his knees in front of Ryou, able to look him directly in the eye, Ryou's heart knocked painfully against his ribs.
He was so close. Close enough to see individual lashes, the striations in his eyes… Close enough to smell the desert and spices on his skin, to feel the warmth of him.
He wanted to back away, regain the distance he had just been cursing, but he was frozen.
"If I had not survived as long as I did," he repeated, soft and low, "then I never would have gathered up all of my soul."
Somehow there wasn't enough air in the room – possibly in the whole museum. He wanted to look away, to break from the gaze which looked directly into him, that was squeezing out every breath and making his heart gallop.
"Sheut…"
"I'm not your sheut," he said, desperation bringing back his voice. He shook his head. "Not really. I told you, I'm just—"
"Nothing you have said has convinced me of that. Do you think all of this was a coincidence, a happenstance? Was it mere accident that you – you – were the one to come by the Ring? To be chosen by it, to endure it, to learn all its secrets? Would anyone have served, do you think? … Do you think anyone would have seen me in the way that you have?" He shook his head, and reached up to Ryou's face.
He nearly flinched away – not from Bakhura, but just from the knowing a touch would bring. Reality or dream, magic or insanity… would it be better to just never know-?
Bakhura's fingers, his palm… they were warm as they grazed over his cheek, cupping his jaw. Ryou's breath shuddered out of him. It felt as though Bakhura's hand, once proven real, was the only thing holding him to reality at all.
"You are nothing which could ever be described with 'just,'" Bakhura said, so low it was hard even for Ryou to hear. "You are my Sheut… and glad I am to have found my shadow at last."
The Millennium Scales had looked within Ryou hours before, and had judged him as wanting. Because he harbored evil in the form of Koe, because he was dangerous to the mission due to his split loyalties, or because he was, in his heart, evil in his own right. The question on how he had been judged had bothered him, possibly more than the judgement itself.
Looking on Bakhura, his warmth suffusing Ryou through his palm, from his words… he understood that the Scales had judged correctly, according to their own standards.
He could not say that, when looking at all of the decisions Bakhura had made in his life, that he would have acted any differently. He couldn't say he saw all of Bakhura's actions as right… but neither could he say they were entirely wrong. Knowing what he did, and how he did, could he condemn Bakhura? The child who had lived, had grown and learned, and who had sought justice for his people from those that wronged them? No. And in that moment, he knew.
If given the opportunity, Ryou would side with Bakhura.
It was no wonder the pan of the Scales had toppled when it came to Ryou. It had been weighing two hearts together as one.
Ryou placed his hand over Bakhura's, cool fingers against warm hand, and smiled. "And glad am I to be found," he said. "To have found you. My… ib. My heart."
For a moment Bakhura looked utterly blank, shocked. And then he smiled, slow and tentative, as the dawning of a new day at last chasing away the night of millennia. Ryou felt as though his heart might burst with it, his own smile threatening to dissolve into helpless laughter while he clung to Bakhura's hand. His hand, real and held in his. It was enough to make the room spin, he was so giddy with it all.
The first blow of pain nearly sent him to the floor.
Ryou gasped, pulling away, clutching at his chest, his head. It felt like he'd been stabbed – had he been stabbed?
He looked at Bakhura. His hands were clapped over his face and he was shouting without words.
Ryou tried to fight down the welling of panic. Something was wrong, but what? Pain wracked through his body, centering in his chest and crawling along his spine, pooling behind his eyes, but where was it coming from?
"What is it?" He shouted to be heard over the wind rushing in his ears. "What's happening?"
On the floor, Bakhura shuddered, still holding his face in his hands, and cursed. "Zorc," he growled, voice thick and furious with agony. "It must be. Whatever is happening in the past, it's having its effect."
Another wave of sourceless pain hit, and Ryou gasped, biting back a scream. It felt as though someone were trying to pry his skull apart with a chisel while his heart went wild, threatening to burst. "But why would it do this?" he managed, tasting copper.
Bakhura gave a ragged laugh. He sounded exhausted, as though in the last minute he'd trekked the entire span of a desert on foot. "I think perhaps I was wrong. Do you feel it too, Sheut?"
He wanted to laugh, but had no breath to spare. Could he feel it? How could he not? His entire world revolved around nothing but agony, and he wanted to know if Ryou could feel it? He opened his mouth to say as much when… he felt it. Through the pain, the fear and the taste of blood, he felt the shift.
It was a strange sensation, but distantly familiar. An old sensation, not felt for years – not since the day Ryou had first put on the Ring.
It was the sensation of his mind rearranging itself into new patterns. Only now, rather than stretching and making room for another to share space with, it felt as though pieces of him were being ripped out, and whatever remained was left to collapse and fill in the spaces as best it could. Gaps were being left behind. Fragments of memories he hadn't even realized weren't his were disappearing, leaving empty coldness, a visceral feeling of wrong, of losing who he was—
And it hurt.
"What…?"
Another laugh laced with pain, and something more terrifying to Ryou in that moment. Acceptance. "I think this is a sign of your friends' victory."
Victory. Yugi and the others, they were succeeding, and discovering the truth of Atem, of the Items, and of Zorc…? And that would lead to this, to Bakhura's mind separating from his? Was the same thing happening to Yugi?
He felt dizzy, nauseous. The shifting and changing in his skull was like having bits of the world disappearing around him. Wherever he reached out to steady himself, something was missing or had shifted. Wherever he stopped, the ground was uneven, threatening to topple him over. He tried to straighten up in his seat. Surely there was something they could do? Bobasa might know what was happening and would tell him – even if Ryou was too corrupt to follow the others, surely he could be told what was happening?
If Bobasa wouldn't say, or couldn't be found, Ryou knew where his model had been set up. Destroying it might stop whatever was happening.
As he straightened, he saw Bakhura was still where he had fallen to the ground, the red of his coat spread round him like a pool.
"Bakhura. We- we need to go – find someone. Whatever is going on, they…"
Bakhura lifted up jerkily, and turned to look at Ryou. Any thought he had of seeking help fled, words dying in his throat.
The left side of Bakhura's face was crumbling away like sand.
He was on the ground beside Bakhura with no recollection of having moved. He went to touch his face, but stopped short, fingers hovering, terrified of what his touch might do, terrified of what might happen if he did nothing.
"What's happening, what do I do? Bakhura, what do I do?"
Moving slowly, sluggishly, Bakhura shook his head. To Ryou's horror, that only sped the crumbling of his features. Skin, cheek, jaw, hair, creeping closer and closer to his eyes, the awful decay wouldn't stop.
"What do I do?"
"Nothing, Sheut," Bakhura said, his voice strange and strained. "There's nothing to be done. It's beyond us, now. Zorc is… finishing the sacrifice begun by Aknadin. He's taking the last soul of Kul Elna to give Him strength."
Ryou's mind went blank. "What? How… ?"
"I am nothing but a spirit already," he said, the very motion of him speaking speeding the crumbling. "Dedicated… so much to Him. He… need only reach out… and take what… is left…"
"No!" Ryou took hold of Bakhura's arm, as though to hold him together with his grip alone. His arm, at least, was solid. For now. "He can't take you, I won't let him!"
Bakhura huffed, the ghost of a laugh. "Fierce. Willing to face Zorc Himself? I told you… my sheut…" He reached up, and for a second time cupped Ryou's cheek. The texture of his thumb tracing over his skin was gritty.
"I'm glad he's not taking every piece…"
"No."
He cried out as another stab of pain came – as more of their intertwined memories were torn away from each other, he realized. As Bakhura was being – absorbed? Eaten? Dissolved? – he was being ripped away from Ryou. All of the links they had created in order to coexist in the same body, let alone those which had been built up and strengthened in the intervening years, were being unceremoniously wrenched apart.
Ryou tried to hold on, clinging to the memories he knew were not his alone, hoping it would slow or stop what was happening, to keep Bakhura from crumbling completely. His attention turned inward, it seemed as though there were no part of himself which had not been touched by Bakhura's memories in some way. There was no place to concentrate on, the tearing was everywhere. And those few memories which Ryou seized on and held with all his might… those were also pulled away. Bakhura was slipping out of his grasp, leaving him alone and tattered.
"Sheut."
The name called him back, and he opened his eyes.
Half of his face was missing. The crumbling was spreading steadily down to his shoulder and arm. Ryou could feel the firm flesh under his fingers begin to soften and shift. And yet, somehow, he was still able to give a half smile, and to speak.
"I am sorry, Sheut, to have caused you pain…"
"Bakhura, don't," Ryou gripped his arm tighter, the same way he tightened his grip on the memories. Both were slipping away. "Don't leave me alone, please. Not again."
He just smiled the half smile he was capable of, and gave the gentlest ghost of a caress to Ryou's cheek – before his fingers also began to crumble to sand.
Ryou flung himself forward on top of Bakhura. It was all he could do, to try and physically hold him together just as he tried to hold their minds together. Neither did any good, and he shuddered with every new breaking wave of pain.
Soon, there was only one memory left. That first memory, the first point of connection between him and the Spirit of the Ring – Bakhura – formed all those years ago. The hard bright marble and the iridescent bubble. Two memories which were identical in a very specific way, and had fused when brought together.
Unlike every other memory, here, there was no telling where one of them began and the other ended. Here, there weren't two memories, two experiences to be torn away from one another. Here, their minds were as one. Threads of thought and emotion wove and twisted together to create a single cord. It was their strongest link, and Ryou clung to it just as he clung to Bakhura. For a moment, the strength of it resisted the pull, and Ryou's heart leapt—
Until the cord began to fray, threads snapping.
Bakhura's crumbling arms tightened around him, pulling him close in a final, macabre embrace. Against his ear, with a voice like fine gravel, Bakhura whispered.
"Don't… forget…"
The final cord snapped.
Bakhura fell away, leaving nothing but sighing sand, where once there had been a man.
Pain unlike anything Ryou had ever experienced lanced through his skull, his chest. The old loneliness contained in the broken memory combined with fresh despair, and Ryou screamed until the shadows took him.
...
Coming to Egypt as himself was more unsettling than Ryou had anticipated it would be, and in ways he hadn't expected.
After the… events at the museum, Ryou had been unconscious for a long time. A couple of days – long enough for his father to set him up in a hospital and have him monitored. Although from what Ryou could gather, no one there had any idea of what had happened to him or what was wrong. The most they had been able to say with even a modicum of certainty was that his body was 'under a lot of stress.' Where had it come from? 'Working too hard at school,' was what the doctors said. His father had immediately blamed himself for allowing Ryou to build the miniature set for the museum, deciding that was the thing which must have put Ryou over the edge.
Ryou never attempted to correct them. They were close enough. Having a soul ripped apart from your own was bound to cause some sort of physical stress.
After waking, and once he'd been allowed visitors, Yugi and the rest had come by to see him, and to recount what had happened once they had made it to the Pharaoh's memories.
Ryou had done his best to appear interested and engaged with what they were saying, but… They told him very little which he didn't already know. Most of what was new to him were changes made possible by their interference and the magic cast by Koe and Zorc. He was glad to hear of Zorc's ultimate defeat, at least, and there were some details Bakhura had never been personally privy to…
But he also got to hear of the battle in the forgotten temple, and how Bakhura had fallen, and been sacrificed. And he got to hear the way in which his friends spoke about him. As an enemy. As evil, and irredeemable. As a monster.
Ryou had listened, the hollow place in his heart aching, threatening to collapse in on itself.
Bakhura was gone. And so was Koe.
He was alone.
When plans were made for everyone to go to Egypt as a group, Ryou had almost refused to go. They intended to travel to Kul Elna, a location the Ishtar family line had never lost track of, and to perform a ritual in the forgotten temple to send the Pharaoh – Atem – to the afterlife.
He almost refused. When he imagined actually setting foot in Kul Elna himself, where everything had started on the night of screams, it made every inch of his skin crawl. And to stand in the temple? The place where an entire village had been murdered as a boy watched, where Bakhura had fought, died, and enacted his curse? Where he had ultimately been sacrificed as well, his soul ripped away from him? How would Ryou bear it? How could any of them bear it?
And yet… to not go? To refuse the very last chance he may ever have to stand in the place where Bakhura once had, to stay at home and not see the tale all the way to its end, when he had stood witness to its beginning… It would feel like a betrayal.
So, here he was. And it felt nothing like how he expected it to.
He'd thought that on arriving in Egypt, he would be awash in sensations and pseudo memories which weren't really his own. That nostalgia and the new sense of emptiness which plagued the edges of his awareness would worsen. He'd expected it, been braced for it, but it hadn't come nearly so strongly as expected. Instead he'd been struck with a feeling of wrongness. The Egypt of the present was very different from that of millennia ago. So while there was a sense of familiarity, it was overwhelmed by one of unbalance. Nothing looked, sounded, or even smelled the way it ought to.
He'd expected it to feel almost like a homecoming. Instead he was only reminded of how much he did not belong.
And now.
The forgotten temple, with the slab set in its floor and all of the Items fitted into their places. The door, emblazoned with the Eye of Wadjet, which so many had set themselves to open – either for power or, as now, for resolution. The shadows clinging to every pillar, gathering in every corner, watching… Did the dead of Kul Elna still linger, or only the memories of them?
Was Bakhura among their number now?
The duel. The final duel between Atem and Yugi, which would decide if Atem would move on to the afterlife, or if he would remain a prisoner of the Puzzle – and with Yugi.
It was a difficult duel to watch unfold. It was difficult to watch as the two squared off and battled not only each other, but themselves as well. If Yugi won, then Atem would be allowed to pass on, to join the family and friends he'd lost millennia before. And Yugi… he would lose that second spirit who had been with him for so long. His 'other me.'
It was probably inevitable that Yugi won. But when he collapsed to the ground, shoulders shaking, Ryou could only ache in sympathy. Whatever the method, losing half of one's soul was bound to be painful.
"You did it, Aibou. You won."
It was… difficult… watching and listening as Yugi mourned in front of them. As everyone around him called out to Atem, asking if he must really leave, even as the door swung wide and the way to the afterlife opened. It was difficult to know what he felt as Atem, the Pharaoh, spoke to them all as friends whom he would miss.
Ryou wondered if he would ever be able to think of Atem without a subtle, bitter aftertaste coating his tongue.
The final farewells were called out, tears were shed, and Atem turned away, holding out a thumbs up to everyone he was leaving behind – "Everything is okay." His figure shimmered and wavered in the light, changing shape to one which was Pharaoh and not Yugi, and through the light Ryou could see…
Silhouettes. People awaiting Atem on the other side. Ryou heard gasps as those around him seemed to realize what they were looking at. Ryou squinted into the light, trying to discern the features of who was waiting, his heart suddenly hammering as he went from face to face.
It was hard to see through the glare, but… there were eight all together. The priests, Kalim, Shada, Isis, Siamun, Seto, and Mahado. There stood Atem's father, the late Pharaoh Aknamkanon, his proud smile visible even through the glare of light as his son finally came to join him. And standing at Aknamkanon's side was his brother, Atem's uncle. Aknadin.
Ryou stared, blood turning to ice before abruptly feeling as though every last bit of him were burning.
Aknadin was there, in the afterlife, safe, after all that he had done?! Why? Surely, surely when his heart had been weighed, the blood of Kul Elna must have weighed the scales against him. Surely no one could see the horrors he had wrought, whatever his reasons, and be able to wipe them away, to say it didn't matter? Who could look on such callous evil and judge him worthy of the light, the same light as was granted Atem…?
Every one of Ryou's muscles locked in rage, and not for the first time he was glad he had been turned away from going into the past with the others. Whatever his hopes or intentions on going, looking on Aknadin now, he wasn't certain if he would have been able to restrain himself if he'd met him. Looking on the old man's face, smiling so beatifically, as though his soul and conscious wasn't stained with blood and terror and screams…
All Ryou could think of was causing him pain. Of avenging, even in some small way, the deaths of all the innocents in Kul Elna. Avenging Bakhura, and the years of suffering he went through all because of him.
He took a long breath, and tried to relax. There had to be some reason why Aknadin was there, some logic to it that Ryou simply couldn't see. It wasn't his place to judge souls, and obviously those who did had found something worthwhile in the old butcher. What it was he wasn't ever likely to know… or to accept even if he did.
But if he were accepted into the afterlife, then surely…
Ryou squinted harder into the light, tilted as Atem's form began to obscure what he could see. He searched, straining his eyes until they watered and his skull throbbed, but…
He wasn't there. Bakhura was nowhere to be seen.
On one hand it made sense. Why would Bakhura wait for Atem to cross over into the afterlife, or stand with the likes of Aknadin even if he did? No, Ryou couldn't see him keeping company with priests and Pharaohs. Even the Bakhura who had spent thousands of years as a spirit under a sky which never moved, in quiet reflection – even that Bakhura would not have stood with such people.
And yet… did it mean something more? Had Bakhura's heart and soul been found unworthy, and the way to an afterlife forever barred from him? At the culmination of all things, why wouldn't Bakhura be there, if only to see it all finally come to a close?
Ryou had come. Where was Bakhura?
Why had everyone else been forgiven, but not him?
It was hard to breathe. The temple – the tomb felt close in a way it hadn't before. He had to force himself to breathe, to not call out as the door began to close behind Atem forever. He held himself still as all answers, too, were sealed behind the Eye of Wadjet, protector of both the living and the dead. He stood, and tried not to resent how those around him, his friends, didn't seem to care or to even notice the injustice of what they'd just seen. Even if they never thought of Bakhura, did none of them understand the significance of Aknadin standing there…?
The door closed with a dull boom. Silence hung for a moment.
And then the temple began to shake. The slab with the Items cracked and broke to pieces, falling into darkness.
They ran, leaving the dead to the shadows, the Items lost.
Ryou clutched at his shirtfront, the missing weight of the Ring still strange. Gone forever, now, just as Bakhura was.
Koe was right. Bakhura was dead and dust, and only Ryou's memories of him remained.
…
A/N2: I dunno if the end of the manga/anime and what could be seen through the door bothered anyone else the same way it did me… but it REALLY bothered me.
No real notes for this chapter, nothing really esoteric showed up for once. Yay!
Thanks for reading, everyone! No idea when the next chapter will be, but I'm trying to be a bit better this year with production. Fingers crossed!
