I opted to give the spirit of the Millennium Ring its own name last time. My main reasoning for this was that I didn't want to call it "Yami Bakura" all throughout this story. I mean, we can get away with calling the spirit of the puzzle "Yami Yugi" because, well, at the very least, he's on Yugi's side. Sort of.

It doesn't feel right to connect the spirit of the Ring to Ryou any more than it already is.

I chose "Bakari" because, according to the sources I was able to scrounge up, it's either an African (specifically Swahili) name which means "Noble Oath" or "One who Will Succeed," or else it's an Egyptian name which means "Promising."

Any one of these is more fitting for the spirit of the ring (even ironically) than Bakura, which I believe is Sanskrit for "thunderbolt." Cool as that is, it doesn't fit our sadistic little thief spirit, now, does it? Now, I know that the spirit of the ring isn't supposed to be connected to the Thief King; it's a manifestation of Zorc. Even so, there's a connection. Even if it's a nebulous one.

Speaking of Zorc…I have no idea if he'll show up in this particular narrative.

Maybe?


Verse One.


For several days, people returned to Mokuba's motel room, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for several.

Fewer and fewer came after the first week—the Ishtars, save Rishid, were some of the first to stop—but Kay Mayer was one of the consistent ones. She seemed interested in spite of herself, and Mokuba thought she kept coming only because the stories interested her; that's all they were to this girl. Stories. He wanted to be offended by her nonchalance, but he just couldn't do it. He couldn't muster up the cynicism to blame her for not believing the things that Yami told her; if Mokuba hadn't experienced the events firsthand, he wouldn't have believed them, either.

Right now, the spirit-turned-flesh was idly sketching the rune-ringed unicursal hexagram he called the Seal of Orichalcos with a ballpoint pen while he talked. He said, "The reason, dear one, I know your name. Your true name, the one that you haven't used in so long. That is the permeating question for you, isn't it? The fundamental mystery that keeps you interested in me, despite how much I…unnerve you."

Kay flinched; he hadn't been speaking to her mere moments before. He'd suddenly looked up, glanced at her, and asked out of the blue.

"…Yes."

"I know, dear one, because I knew you when you lived in my land." Yami smirked his usual smirk, as Kay's eyebrows raised and she began to speak again. He cut her off: "Assume, just for the moment, that the stories I've been telling you are true, and not some elaborate role-playing experiment. My name is Atemhotep, if you recall. I was a king in Manetho's Fourth Dynasty in the place you call Egypt. I lived roughly four-and-a-half millennia before now. During my time as king, a young woman came to my court. She was a strange young woman, with pale skin, icy blue eyes, and shimmering alabaster hair."

Yami gestured to Kay as if this explained something. Kay continued to stare incredulously at him.

"We were not sure, my court and I, why this woman would have come to our land. With such pale skin, how could she possibly survive? Under the unrelenting rays of Ra's holy magnificence, she could never possibly live. Not like us."

The others, Mokuba included, looked at Kay. She was pale. The description fit perfectly. Of course, this proved nothing. Mokuba would have suspected that the ancient spirit was playing one of his games, just to see how long he could keep this poor woman dangling along on his strings, except for the way his brother…his brother…

Mokuba spoke. "When my Niisama first saw you, Miss Mayer, it looked like he recognized you. He knew your name."

He said this often. "My Niisama." He wasn't consciously aware of it, but this possessive reference was one of the only things keeping him calm enough to engage in the conversation. It comforted him. It brought Seto's image to mind: fierce and unwavering, unrelenting, immortal.

"Prob'ly he's seen her on TV," Joey Wheeler offered. "Kaiba watches news 'n all that, right?" Mokuba nodded. Joey turned to Kay. "Look, I know this shit is insane, so I'm not gonna say anything like, 'You gotta believe us!' Just makes us look desperate 'n stupid. Could be, Kaiba keeps track o' yer dad, and he's seen you. That guy's memory is so good he could make a computer look stupid. If he's seen you once, and heard yer name attached to the face, then he knows you."

"But," Yami said, "also keep in mind that a lovely young woman not unlike you lived in my kingdom. Her name was Kisara. Had she not died in her youth, she would have become a member of my family. My cousin, Seti, wished to make this young woman his queen."

"My family must have heard the name from somewhere," Kay said. "None of what you've told me so far this week could ever be proven true. I don't want to come right out and call you a liar, but I'm not exactly convinced of anything so far."

Yami smiled gently. "I would despair, dear one, if you were this easy to manipulate."

"Seti was going to marry her?" Mokuba asked. Yami glanced at the boy. "My Niisama's…ancestor? Did he love her? Or did he just decide he wanted to take her for himself, because he was going to be king?"

"Mokuba, I assure you, Seti was…what is the phrase? Head over heels. He was enraptured by her." He reached out a hand and tapped the boy's locket. "He is not unlike your Niisama, little one. He has always been…attached…to his dragon."

"What do I have to do with the dragon?" Kay asked.

Yami laughed out loud. "Kisara, my dear, you are the dragon."


Verse Two.


Before Kay had a chance to react to this absurdity, the phone rang, lending its incessant buzzing to the room like a horde of angry bees tired of having their voices silenced. One of the men in suits standing behind Mokuba answered it. "Good afternoon," the man said, in a falsely coquettish sort of voice. He listened for a moment, then his voice went back to its usual quiet rasp. "Mister Noa, sir. Of course. Yes, I'm—"

Mokuba lunged behind his chair for the handset like it was a religious idol that no one but he could touch. "Noa?!" the boy demanded, his eyes going wide and feverish, continuing the impression. Kay mused that when young Kaiba cradled that handset in both hands, pressing it against his ear and hoping it wouldn't disappear, was the first time she had ever seen him looking like a little boy his age should look in such a strange situation: lonely, scared, vulnerable.

The silence permeated, but Kay could hear the murmur of a man's voice on the other end of the line.

Mokuba nodded. "Uh-huh. Yeah. You…? Oh. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Sure." A smile graced his face, and Kay thought about how Renie had said once that Mokuba Kaiba would be a future heartbreaker. He had one of the most photogenic faces she had ever seen.

So, she thought suddenly, did his brother.

A few more affirmations along this line, and Mokuba handed the phone back to his attendant. Upon hearing from someone he obviously leaned on as an authority figure, the boy paradoxically looked and acted like he'd been weakened, like he'd regressed. The strong, angry, capable boy that had been leading this dialogue for so many days was suddenly looking nervous and jumpy.

Mokuba looked at her, and Kay wondered if he could read what she was thinking in her face, because he suddenly, immaculately composed himself. He turned to the others. "Noa's coming. He says he found Ryou Bakura. The Ring's back, just like you said, Yu—Yami. He says he's going to be looking out for him for a while, to make sure the evil spirit doesn't get loose again."

Yami frowned thoughtfully. "Hmmm…" He rubbed his chin. "Yes. Yes, I suppose that might work."

"Evil spirit?" Kay echoed suspiciously, and the others turned to look at her. The current entourage—Taylor, Wheeler, Gardner, Ishtar, and Mutou—seemed somehow to have forgotten that she wasn't a part of the inner circle, and had no idea what they were blathering about.

Only young Mokuba looked unsurprised at her interjection. "Mister Bakura is like Yugi. My Niisama says it's a psychotic delusion; an—object-focused dissociative disorder." He said this last slowly, with difficulty, but he seemed pleased with himself for remembering. "He has one of the Millennium Items, like Yugi does. His is a ring." Mokuba made a round shape with his hands, roughly the width of a soccer ball.

Every time Mokuba said the words "my Niisama," he looked at once happy and angry, sad and scared, resolute and confused. Kay wondered if there had ever been a more complicated sibling relationship in the course of her life; her own seemed positively normal by comparison, which was odd because Klarissa Bevinvier née Mayer was one of the most neurotic control freaks Kay knew.

Compared to Seto Kaiba, she apparently had everything pretty well in hand.

Kay remembered the duel, and her thoughts on the man softened considerably. The child in front of her was obviously dependent on his sibling, which years of studying psychology had cynically informed her was unhealthy, but thinking back on how the man treated his brother, she couldn't help but think it couldn't be that unhealthy.

The Kaiba brothers obviously loved one another. There was no questioning that part of it.

Still, for the man to conjure that many complex and conflicting emotions in a little boy, just by thinking about him…was unsettling. She could actually hear her sister saying, "That man really needs to get his priorities in line if he's going to be a good role model."

Kay was blindsided by a sudden, fierce defensive instinct at this thought. Some part of her, something she didn't recognize, railed against this conceived criticism with a kind of ferocity that she'd never felt before, and suddenly her thoughts were back with the "you are the dragon" comment.

She noticed Yami watching her. The amusement on his face suggested that he knew exactly what she was thinking, and found it hilarious.

She scrunched up her face in a surprisingly cavalier and childish gesture at the ghost king, who laughed and bowed his head. "We have, of course, been speaking of these things as though you are well aware of them," Yami said. "We have discussed strategies and traded war stories, expecting you to simply follow them. But of course to you, dear one, Bakura, Shadi, and Crawford are just nonsense words."

"Bakura is a friend of ours," Téa said. "But when the ring is around, it forces him to do terrible things."

"As Mokuba said," Yami put in, "he is like me. Except his alternate is much more overtly malevolent than I." He turned to the boy. "That Noa would offer to stand guard for Bakura is actually a great weight off our shoulders. I know you are worried for your family, but there is no one in Domino City better able to stop the spirit within the Ring than he."

Mokuba scowled. "Hmph. He's doing it because he wants to make sure the spirit doesn't go after me. The spirit's going to find out that my Niisama has the Millennium Rod. It's going to want it. And it's gonna try to take it, using me. Noa's making sure that doesn't happen."

Yami nodded. "I am sure. He is quite the devoted family man, Noa Kaiba."

Mokuba looked displeased. "He's been through so much already. My Niisama's been through too much. I hate this. Magic keeps ruining our lives. You guys are all sitting around the campfire telling ghost stories, like this is just a grand old time. Like always, you're waiting for my Niisama to fix things. You're just finally not pretending that it isn't him that really saves the world."

Yami raised an eyebrow. "You're right, little one. Without your brother's assistance, I would have failed in my mission a great number of times, before my ultimate failure. That is most likely why he has been chosen to replace me. The gods, like you, have tired of him standing to the side and doing silent work, while a figurehead takes the credit."

"I'm tired of my family getting pulled into a bunch of superstitious crap because apparently nobody who believes in it is good enough to do what needs doing. You, and Malik, and Isis and everybody, you all keep yelling at my brother because he doesn't believe in any of this, but you don't get angry enough or indignant enough to tell him not to save your asses when the stuff you keep telling him will save the world ends up failing horribly."

Yami chuckled, while the rest of his friends—and Rishid Ishtar—lowered their eyes.

"I have no words I would choose to defend myself from that accusation, Mokuba," the king said fondly. Then his gaze turned hard. "But understand that as much as I might agree with your assessment, I have no authority to thwart the gods. There is only one person who does."

"And who is that?" Mokuba snapped.

"Whosoever holds the Golden Seven in his, or her, possession."


Verse Three.


Seto choked, coughed, and spat up a gout of thick blood. He laughed, madness sparking in his eyes. "Is this what you have to conquer me, Seti? God-King of Egypt? Is this the final authority to which I have no choice but to fall to my knees?"

Seti snarled with fury, and a whip of sharpened air shot out from the sweeping arc of his arm and sent Seto sprawling up against the wall of his own soul room, which cracked but did not fall. Seto laughed again, though it sounded almost like sobbing.

"If I must beat understanding into you, successor, do not think that I won't!" Seti snarled. "I have tried to be patient with you, the same as I tried to be patient with the Ishtar boy! I have tried to explain to you the importance of the mission that lies before you! You drive me to this! This punishment you have invited upon yourself! The very essence of existence lies on the precipice of oblivion and you refuse to do your part because of some child!"

"I refuse to do my part because I hate you," Seto replied evenly, rasping because of his ripped, tender throat. "This supposed threat against existence has nothing to do with Mokuba. You raised the first fist. I am 'dooming the world' because you have tried to enslave me. I will not be ruled. Not by you, not by a god. And if this earth will fall because of it, that is not my problem. You, like every magic-addled idiot ever to cross my path, seem to think that because you have some power that I do not, you are then permitted to lord over me. I exist to prove you wrong. Stop blaming me for your own arrogant insanity."

"You call me arrogant?!" Seti thundered, and a shock of lightning crashed into Seto's body, arching his back and eliciting something between a whimper and a grunt. "I am a god!"

"You are an illusion," Seto whispered. "You are a petulant child, whining because his playmates will not play by his rules."

"You are a blasphemer! You spit in the faces of powers you cannot comprehend!"

"Send all the volleys and slings you like," Seto snarled. "You will tire eventually, you will make a mistake, and if I have to crawl out of my own grave, if I have to slither my way out of hell to capitalize on that mistake, then be damned sure that I will."

Seti stared at his descendent, then held out a hand and sent a gleaming, silver-white serpent screaming from his open palm, which rocketed forward and wrapped itself around Seto's body, forcing his arms out and pinning him in place.

"…Why do you fight me?" Seti asked. "What are you, that you would spit upon the honor and dignity of one chosen by the gods to help you?"

Seto sneered. "I am a father. You came into my home, and threatened the life and well-being of my family. You spat upon the honor and dignity of my boy, and have threatened more than once to kill him."

Seti's eyes narrowed, and the serpent coiled around Seto's neck, and bared the gleaming, dripping scimitars of its fangs.

The eldest Kaiba's terrible expression turned yet more terrible; he grinned, showing his red-stained teeth.

"…Nothing in existence will save you from me."


Verse Four.


There was an unspoken, corporeal animosity between the man in the red-and-black suit sitting behind the desk, and the man in the white robes standing before it.

"It's been years since I have been graced with your presence, Shadi," said Pegasus Crawford as he tucked a stray strand of silver behind one ear.

Shadi did not respond, not immediately. His desert-sky eyes gazed off distantly, holding his Ankh and his Scales without noting that they were there. He finally said, without looking at the man with whom he shared the room, "…The Kaiba boy is losing."

Pegasus laughed. "Losing. But not lost. He will rise up from the ashes."

Shadi finally glanced over. "You are so certain of this."

"I am," Pegasus said, leaning back. "No one thought he would survive Kaiba Gozaburo's training. He did. No one thought he would tear down Kaiba Gozaburo's empire. He did. No one thought his ridiculous game company would succeed. It did. No one thought he would live after I found him. He did. No one thought he would survive Battle City. He did. That man's entire essence can be wrapped up in the simplest tenet of honest arrogance: proving people wrong."

Shadi raised a thin, pencil-like eyebrow. "That man is, in no way, arrogant."

Again, Pegasus laughed. "No. I suppose not. He is almost crippled by his own sense of inadequacy. But he also refuses to be ruled. No one is permitted to drag him down to defeat, unless it is himself. He will be his own executioner. The ghost of Seti I will not win this tug-of-war."

Shadi turned his gaze away again.

"For the sake of this world's future, I hope the gods place as much faith in this man as you do."

"I do not need to have faith in my lungs to know that I can breathe," Pegasus said. "I have no faith in Seto Kaiba. I simply know the truth. He does what he was born to do, whether we believe in him or not. And he was born to climb, to climb and scratch and tear, until he topples Heaven."


Verse Five.


Isis Ishtar sat with her younger brother in the apartment she shared with him. She sat on the couch while Malik paced.

She harbored no animosity toward Noa Kaiba, but Malik was feeling protective. He disliked that his own instinct to protect his family, and to make up for his past failings, was completely at odds with what he knew he had to do: trust in the Kaibas. He hated Noa Kaiba. Hated his anger, his strength, his hubris.

And he hated most of all that Noa Kaiba was right.

That Rishid remained with the young Kaiba heir made matters all the harder. Malik knew that his brother was wiser than he would ever be, stronger than he would ever be, better than he would ever be. He could not justify his actions while Rishid worked to atone for them.

He could not hide the truth from Rishid's resolute, tired eyes.

"How is your hand?" Isis asked.

Malik looked down at his right palm, still slightly red. "Healing," he said. "The pain isn't noticeable anymore. Why did this have to happen? Where could we have gone wrong? Sister, what did we do to upset the gods so? Did I do this? Are my actions to blame for this repetition of history?"

"I do not know, Malik," Isis murmured softly. "I do not think that is the case, though. You should not hold yourself to the standards of the Kaiba family. Neither Noa nor Seto will ever forgive you. They will never absolve you. They will never forgive me, either."

"Do you think they will forgive Rishid?"

Isis smiled. "Maybe. Our brother is special."

Malik smiled back. "He is."

They waited a moment, sharing in silent pride.

"My point," Isis said, "is that the only Kaiba whose forgiveness is even possible for us to earn is from the little one. Let go of the guilt, my brother. Stand tall, and live as proudly as you see fit. The judgment of the Kaibas is too stringent. There is no possible way to live while carrying it on your shoulders."

Malik nodded. After a moment, he said, "…I hate Noa Kaiba. I can't help it. I can't help but hate anyone who…who…"

"…Anyone who what, Malik?"

Malik's eyes were wide and haunted. "…Who reminds me what I am."


Verse Six.


"You've told me that I'm a dragon, and that I'm somehow connected to all this because the ghost of Seti I remembers me, but I'm still having a hard time understanding what it is you're expecting me to do."

Yami studied Kay's face as though he were trying to determine just what species of idiot she was. He stole a glance at Mokuba, and his piercing gaze softened. He said, "…I am sure that this is the same difficulty which has caused my cousin to grow so impatient with Kaiba. I will explain this as best I can, dear one. I do not expect you to do anything. The reason you are here is because, as you say, you are connected to this. The gods have marked you for a purpose. It is not my place to tell you what that purpose is. Only you can determine that. When the time comes that you will need to know, then you will know. That is the nature of gods. They are rarely talkative, and never straightforward. Those who expect either tend to be disappointed."

Kay frowned, mulling this over. As a lapsed Catholic, she thought that this made an inordinate, and frightening, amount of sense. She couldn't help but feel skeptical, talking about the Egyptian gods and goddesses as though they were real; but then, she reminded herself, what exactly was it that made the idols of mainstream, modern religions any more valid than Osiris, and Isis, and Horus and Ptah?

"Your eyes tell me that you do expect something of me," Kay said. "You expect me to take part in this. To listen to whatever message your gods will send to me." She held up her hand. "I know what you're going to say to me. You're going to say that it's my choice to accept the call of the gods or not. But that doesn't change your real expectations. You're going to be disappointed, even angry, if I choose to go on with my life as if the past week never happened. Which, spoiler alert, I'm very tempted to do right now."

Yami watched her for a while, gauging her, before he broke into a beaming grin.

Joey Wheeler was the first to speak up. "…Good work, new girl. You get how things work with this sumbitch. All right. Lady's gotta point, Yami. She's really got no reason to believe any of the shit we've been talking about the past few days. Best we can do is do what we know we can do. If she wants to throw her hat in with us, s'all good. But we don't strong-arm people."

Yami nodded. "Fine, fine. All fine. Mokuba. Did Noa tell you when he would be here?"

Mokuba shook his head. "No. He just said he was going to walk down here with Mister Bakura. He mentioned he was going to stop by a gas station and buy some, uh…snackages." The boy smiled. "Then he said he'd be here."

Kay found a smile, as well.

"With Bakura?" Yami asked.

"Yes," Mokuba said. "He says he doesn't want to let Mister Bakura out of his sight."

Yami nodded. "Good."

"Are you sure that's a good thing?" Tristan Taylor asked. "I mean…I love Bakura like a brother, but…who knows when the spirit's gonna spring himself on us again?"

"He's much more likely to do so when left alone," Yami said. "Noa is right. Besides, if we isolate Ryou Bakura again, what are our chances for success, exactly?"

Tristan crossed his arms. "…Hm. Fair, I guess. Noa is pretty frickin' strong. Enhanced muscles 'n all that."

"Enhanced what?" Kay asked.

"Noa got in an accident," Mokuba said, "and Niisama helped him. Reconstructed his limbs and stuff."

Kay nodded. She figured there was more to it than that, but wasn't inclined to press. She probably wouldn't get the answers she wanted, anyway. This group seemed addicted to giving half-answers, and the Kaibas had more reason than the others to be secretive, she was sure.

"And Noa is…the man in white? From the tournament?" Kay asked instead.

Mokuba nodded. "My cousin."

It was blatantly obvious that Noa Kaiba and Seto Kaiba looked nearly identical to each other, and so Kay decided not to comment on it. The way the others were looking at her—all except Rishid Ishtar, who stood near the door like a silent obelisk—made her think that they expected her to say something along those lines. Everyone did, their faces said. Go ahead and get it over with.

Kay obstinately kept her lips closed.

A sudden crash from outside stiffened everyone's backs. Kay jumped in her chair, and she whirled toward the door. Rishid Ishtar had taken his hands from his pockets, where he'd kept them sheathed like daggers, and looked ready to pounce on something.

Joey and Tristan were on their feet.

The two suited men that were the young Kaiba's guards drew their side-arms.

Yami remained seated.

"Mister Kaiba?" came a voice from outside the room. "How did you…?"

"Niisama?" Mokuba almost whimpered.

The two guards glanced at each other.

The motel room door, which was locked, crashed inward. Wrenched off its hinges, the hunk of painted wood split down the center and landed with a heavy double clunk on the carpet. Kay stood up, inching backward, as she got a good look at the ghoulish figure in the open doorway.

Seto Kaiba stood there, his hair soaked with blood and sweat, his face dirt-streaked and gaunt. His clothes were rumpled, smoldering, blackened, and his eyes glowed like bright blue lamps. The hem of his trench coat looked as though it had been scorched by a bonfire, ragged and bitten, threadbare and smoking.

The elder Kaiba's eyes locked on Yami.


Verse Seven.


Seto was smiling, with blood on his teeth. He took a step forward, hunched over like he couldn't find the strength to stand upright, and collapsed to one knee. He let out a low, gurgling sound that they felt more than heard, and had no choice but to take it as laughter.

"Niisama!"

The black-haired boy's cry of elation-turned-horror was like a beacon to a blind man, and Seto's head whipped to the side, to focus on his brother. Mokuba looked so incredibly small at that moment. Seto began to speak, the sound slithering its way out of his throat and slipping through his clenched teeth.

"Look, my son. What is it your homunculus said? Look on my work, and despair."

That laughter again.

And then, speech again, in a different voice, a lower voice. A somehow dead voice.

"Go, then. Do your work, and show me the worth of a king. Show me your greatness! Show me how I've driven you to craven debauchery!"

Seto stumbled forward again. The first voice: "Do you think you can make this into a victory, my son?"

The second: "I am no one's son!"

"Do you think that by driving me to this faster, you will somehow win? Do you think I will be as easily manipulated as the children you have conquered so far? I told you, my son. I am a god. You have defied me for the last time."

Yami was on his feet. He did not speak. But those who looked at him saw something that they had never seen before on the man's face. He was a gambler, a manipulator. He took perverse joy in everything he did, and never was he found without a dark little smirk on his face.

There was no fear in him now, no apprehension. There was no surprise, no shock, no indignation. And there was no dark little smirk.

The spirit of Atemhotep—lost king of Egypt—was stark, raving, biblically furious.

Seto grunted with sudden pain, and doubled over with his fists cradled in his gut. He stayed there for several agonizing seconds, then lifted his head. In his second voice, he said, "If this is to—if this is…my last…chance…to speak as myself…then I—I will say…what must be said…to drive my anger…into your skull…"

The first voice: "Speak, then! Before you die!"

Seto grinned his hellish grin. Then he somehow, miraculously, manufactured his face into something lovely. He lowered his head, closed his eyes, and his lips curved into a gentle, summer-breeze sort of smile. He looked up at the boy.

"This is goodbye for now. Noa will take care of you. I love you, Mokie. I love you…I love you."

Then he screamed.


END.


The main difference between Seto, Yugi, and Ryou in the prospect of dealing with their ancient spirits is this: Ryou is submissive, Yugi is cooperative, and Seto is an asshole. For all I know, Seti is being honest in his interpretation of things, and he really wants to help. But he, like Seto, doesn't take well to being questioned.

Did Seto bring Seti's wrath onto himself? Probably. Is Seti's wrath justified? Probably not.

Seti didn't turn out to be all that different from the other spirits, after all, except that his anger seems to have been intensified. Maybe all that time with Malik tainted his sanity. I don't know. I certainly wouldn't question that.

But, Seto's reaction to Seti is turning out to be quite…uh…well?

Ahem. No comment.