Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! or Vampire Hunter D.

Early Happy Halloween!

I hope you have a good one, and of course...

Enjoy!

Chapter Seventy-Four: Turn Six

The explosion that came from within the bowels of the compound rattled those above ground. Competent lines of soldiers fell like so many dominoes, wrecking their preparations for the onslaught they expected from the past attack. Several lay stunned while others picked themselves up amongst the tangle of human bodies that they created. A few glanced up in time to see a strange fuzz fill the sky, darkening it with a curious opaque brown that appeared to multiply out of nothing.

The first soldier to realize that it was no haze—but some type of creature—opened their mouth to shout a warning, only to have their thoughts fall to nothingness as a sniper's shot cleared through the left side of their skull. The sound ricocheted off nearby buildings, causing the already distressed downed mob to fall to panic. Those now standing either ran around or over their dazed compatriots, while a fair few leveled their guns to try and find the source. An impossible feat with so many scrambling about; no one, if asked, would have been able to point out where the second shot fired from, or the third after a beat.

A small group in the center began to reform, dragging those uninjured by the hysteria into their cause. They were the ones with the calmest heads, the most training, and the desire to prove themselves to their superiors where their other peers were failing. Many, this group surmised, would be culled today—either from this attack, or by the Lady's wrath.

This band did not see the way their newly developing ceiling lowered and condensed, nor later on, did they see a large group sneak out past broken bodies in a desperate escape.

By then, it was too late.

Bakura stood in the empty hallway, the threatening creak of destabilized foundations surrounding him. A sigh of relief escaped his lips amidst the wreckage that had been wrought. There would not be much time for an escape; but to know even after everything that had been done to him…that Kaiba remained as willful as ever…it soothed some of the vitriol that swayed within the lone man. Also, it impressed him (in a disgusting sort of way)—it being the tunnel that had come forth from a volatile beam of lightning that left its acrid mark as jagged lines dug deep into the integrity of the compound. The impromptu cavern soon would be replaced with tons of breaking concrete, if the straining squeal from beams picking up the load were anything to go by. Bodies from those who had heard the commotion and had run to defend their way of life lay at the pale-haired man's feet. Now, it was his turn to put the final nail in the coffin of the one they venerated above all others. The Lady waited, resting, somewhere below.

Making sure his mask was securely tied and obscured beside his holster, he pressed his fingers to the wall and felt out using the magic within him. Metal would make things difficult, but he could sense what was part stone out there—at least stone enough to fulfil the curious rules that dictated his powers. If he maneuvered just so, he did not doubt he could find his way to the crux of the most immediate problem that they faced. He had no means to stop the growth of the vampire's warped society, not with how small and scattered the support would be, but Bakura could rip away a foothold and force their enemies to rebuild some of their advantage. It would even double as a distraction from further pursuit—for what was more important: restabilizing the area or chasing after the annoyance that caused it? By then, he hoped to be far enough away, with his family, dealing with a different set of problems.

His fingers still touching the wall, he willed Diabound into existence. So long as there was some form of stonelike substance, he would be free to pass through it, he reiterated to himself. He might even find a safer route down than his current fumbling. Bakura would have rather saved this ability for later, but it was his best bet to get where he needed to, as quickly as possible.

"For Kaiba-kun," he murmured, thinking of that frail body that had to be carried off by complete strangers, even as they were protected by his limitless will in the form of a polar white steel-colored dragon. Bakura's fingertips sunk into the concrete with the feeling akin to pressing into rough putty.

"For D-kun," he uttered a little louder, his heart aching for the moment they could be reunited. For the moment that he could apologize for not keeping his promise to stay by his side. His face neared the burying surface, and he took in a deep breath, preparing for the plunge like a diver to water.

'For everyone!' he screamed in his head, a shout of unheard, unending regret; whatever the outcome of this latest choice, Bakura knew he would be emerging as someone else. To his dismay, he could not dream that upon his ascent that he would emerge as someone better. Yet, whatever the cost to his person, he knew that it could help those that he loved. For that, it would be worth it.

He could almost feel something smiling from the wicked depths past the protective walls around his soul.

It took a lot longer for him to find the deep-seated crypt than he anticipated, but thankfully his intuition—and Diabound's guiding presence—aided him. Both led him down past a great area walled in steel and deeper still to swing under its defenses. Bakura manifested from the floor, hovering upwards like a specter, stopping only when his feet were level with the ancient hand-cut slabs that created the pathway though the tomb. He struggled to breathe in the darkness there, for oxygen was in short supply, but he ignored his need and unbelted his flashlight once more. What he searched for had to be within.

Without question, he had found the plot where a whole family lay buried. Within the narrow line of light that he aimed at the floor, he shuffled and searched for something to guide him. Graves rested in straight but varying intervals. Once more Bakura found his thoughts wandering to his father, and he wished he could have been there to ask him questions. Had he ever seen a place like this? What had his team learned from such an excavation? The young man felt a pointless sense of disappointment that he could not have found the place under less stressful circumstances; a feeling that was pushed aside as soon as he spotted a grave that looked disturbed. He hurried over to investigate.

His sense of time having been skewed, thanks to the depths that he had descended, Bakura wasted no time in scanning the area. A mound of dirt here, a slight and ages old shifting marked in the fine earth there. His growing tracking skills told him of a great tale of confusion, of a stumbling mess that led out past a sealed doorway. However, this tale was ancient, and just as he swiveled his light back towards the grave that he was so intent upon opening, he realized with no small amount of horror that his plan was moot. For the creature he searched for no longer lay in their resting place.

No, she was standing in one darkened corner, the beam of the flashlight catching one fine slipper. Her red eyes glittered with malice in the unforeseen illumination of her inanimate enemy. In a second, frigid hands wrapped themselves around his neck and pinned him to the very ground he had sidled his way through. Sharp nails dug into his flesh, and he gagged against failed attempts to catch a breath. He swung his flashlight into her temple, once, twice, thrice, to no avail. He kneed her, and found his leg pinned. In an attempt to elbow her, one of her own hands tore away from its work, slamming his arm painfully to the ground. The joint ground in the wrong direction, threatening to dislocate, and he bit back a wail of pain.

Bakura swung again, clipping the Lady's nose in the process, and to his surprise, he heard a soft crunching sound. Suddenly he could breathe again, and he gasped and heaved in mid-struggle as the woman above him tested her nose in disbelief. A small trickle of blood left one nostril when she tapped at the untethered meat of her nose, and the flesh shifted a little too freely under the pressure. She scowled, and cracked the bone and cartilage back into place, while Bakura tried to drive his thoughts away from his panic enough to focus once more.

"Foul thing," the woman hissed at him. "You think to harm your betters?"

Something within her statement yanked him from his flailing, causing him to snap with a kneejerk reaction as if he had been dunked in ice water. With a great drawing in of breath being the only marker for his intentions, he spit in her face—directly into her eyes.

A shrill shriek of rage spilled from between the blood red lips of his would-be killer. Following up the move with the same intuitive lead that had spurred him on before, he pooled all of his will into manifesting Diabound once more. The Lady fixed her wrath towards his face in the form of a lighting quick flex of her claws, but found she missed her mark. All she caught was air; the preemptive strike of his Ka sent her flying back with a tornado of psychic force. All around them previously untouched dirt scattered, decrepit torch stands clattered, and even Bakura found himself tumbling end over end at the mercy of his frantic request for aid.

Mid-roll, Bakura staggered to his knees and pointed at the area he knew the Lady had been thrown to. Coughing in the musty, dust-filled air, he used the gesture as a focus, setting Diabound to blast their surroundings once more with precision. He did not think that such moves would kill the vampire (as much as he would have hoped), but as he pulled his wakizashi from its sheath and his gun from his holster, he thought that if he could stun her long enough—

One of the blasts must have missed its mark, for the yowling creature bounded after him from the dark recesses of the crypt unimpeded, illuminated only by the single streak of light from his lost flashlight. Bakura could not keep himself composed knowing that unstoppable blur meant his end and let out his own cry of fear, firing off his gun while his mind begged to become intangible, or invisible, or anything. There would be no escaping those horrible teeth—

Bakura felt the pressure of the earth surround him as he sunk back into it, just an unmeasurable moment before the killing wind passed over his head, cutting a few stray hairs in the effort. Fatigue at Diabound's continued use was beginning to wear on him; he knew that this battle would need to end soon…and that running was not an option. As he descended to the best point to angle for a surprise attack, he reaffirmed his resolve. He had gone down there to disrupt a part of the newly instated system. Backing down would mean they won this battle, and he could not allow that. Not when so many others now running for their lives depended on him.

Ideas ticked through his mind as the propulsion of his Ka sent him flying upwards. She was too fast for his eyes, too in her element. He needed to find an opening, but he could not bank on her making a mistake. The need to win hounded him, and even as he found himself hanging in the air, his eyes useless in finding her with the lackluster light, he applied every teaching he had ever been offered to this exact moment.

The whistle of wind, akin to Ewan's sneaking sprint, sent him down low again like a buoy in ocean waves. The Lady, not expecting his swift return to ground, overshot her mark. Still, she turned in less than a second and was greeted with yet another pulse that launched her backwards. Two shots were fired her way before Bakura found his footing as fast as he could. Returning his gun to his side (he was unsure of how many bullets he still had in the chamber), he picked up a clod of dirt. The sling replaced the wakizashi in his grasp, and the whir of it barely connected to his ears before he instinctively snapped it forward. The clod smacked the recovering vampire in her face, stunning her as the crashing bullets had, which was just enough that his swift disappearing act would throw her off further. Instead of retreating to the earth, he cloaked himself in chameleon-like invisibility and glided back into the gloom. The shadows were now more his friend than hers, and the streak of light a shared bane.

He knew his bought time would be over as soon as it began due to the vampire's enhanced sense of smell…unless he found a way to nullify this advantage. Propelling himself forward by way of his Ka, feeling the strain of impending overuse, Bakura both observed and reacted. In what felt like slow motion, he watched dark locks twist about that bloodless visage, her too sharp canines poking over unnaturally red lips while she jerked her head his way. Each of her micromotions exhibited a beautiful dance of promised death. He readjusted mid-air, becoming visible in an instant, and kicked her square in the face, feeling the mutilation of cartilage under his bootheel. Stolen blood squirted forth, and even before she reflexively grabbed for his leg amidst this spray of crimson gore, he was gone. Landing, nearly tripping over a slight incline in the flooring, he scrabbled up a bit of ammunition that cut at the flesh of his hand. Setting his sling to its whirling whine, he wished that he had some garlic to repel her. Would her own blood cover up his scent enough?

All consideration for toying with her meal left the vampire. Her eyes burning red, the Lady leapt to where she heard the whirring, her claws grasping at—

Thin air.

She howled, voice reaching an animalistic grit, and swiped all around her, enraged. Then she paused, wiped at the blood that had slowed its exit from her flesh, and lunged back to where she had been. Still nothing.

The whoosh of his sling echoed from the entryway to the crypt, and she barreled forward in reckless abandon. He was there! A horrible, wide grin distorted her face. She dodged the chunk of dirt easily this time, but then her quarry was gone! All that remained was the great door leading in, and her momentum carrying her too far into it.

Bakura had no expectations that she would collide into the barrier, and it was good that he did not. She warped her stance mid-flight and perched sideways upon the invisible inconsistencies of the exit—peering out into the dark, waiting for his next attempt. An attempt that came not from the front, but from above.

Diabound fired a burst of energy, throwing her from her position and into the ground below. The dirt cracked and sunk from the impact; her face plunged deep into its surface. Bakura dropped from his position upon his Ka's shoulder with his blade gripped for a killing blow. He prayed that the timing was right.

She spun on him, then, and his calculated attempt to plunge the steel into her heart as she turned went through one of her outstretched palms. He let out a gasp as she used her own bones to act as a locking maneuver to draw him in. In a mere second their positions were altered—he, coughing as he tried to get air back into his lungs, and she in the act of straddling him, her unblemished hand making his task impossible. Her grip tightened and he felt the force of it threaten to cave in his esophagus. A strangled wheeze whistled past the barely present opening that was roughly silenced when his foe realized she could press harder still. His arms shook with his effort to wrench the blade back from her clawed grasp but found he could barely shift with the way he was pinned.

"I would call you brave, you insolent cur, if I felt you were anything more than moronic," the Lady whispered, creeping closer to his ear. The air that pooled around his face as she spoke felt like the threat of snow on the breeze. Bakura was finding it hard to focus; dots darker than the darkness were breaking his vision like so much ruined movie reeling. "I admit, as I awoke and prepared myself for the evening, I found the sounds above curious—and your sudden presence more fascinating still. From this display of the strange, I can only presume you are the one that the Sacred Ancestor wishes to remove from this earth. Again, your nerve is almost commendable. Come to save your allies?"

He let out a grunt, trying to respond in any way. Offer any distraction. Spit stole past the corner of his mouth, offering no more than a gurgling bit of nonsense for all the effort he put in. He could feel her lips pressed against his lobe now. Her teeth. Somehow, he managed to be grateful that her hand was in the way. Even as he slipped further down the slope to unconsciousness, it meant she had not pulled her final card.

Bakura's strength wavered, and the Lady bat away his hands with her injured one. At that moment, she released his now bruised throat to pull the blade from where it wounded. Yet still he could not find succor. He tried to take in a breath, but her weight crushed him, leaving him still wheezing, still fighting to remain present.

And then the blade was at his throat.

She grinned at him in the dim light, and he could not help but shudder. She traced the bloodied steel around his neck, leaving sticky and stinging lines here and there in her playful threats. "You show more promise than most. A pity: were you not already deemed a failure, and upon the list for slaughter, I might have wanted to give you a second chance. But the Great One will not suffer you to live. But what to do?"

Still, she toyed with him! Bakura tried once more to heave in a substantial breath of air and was once again denied. Tears now slid down his cheeks and he wrenched his head back and forth in frustration. How was he in this position?! He could not die here!

Let me help… A whisper from elsewhere wormed its way into his oxygen-deprived mind. The Lady was speaking again, taunting him, pressing the wakizashi further into his skin.

A promise kept…

The blade now warmed with a trickle of his own blood, soon to be met with the tongue of his captor. Her eyes flashed with want, cleaning the mess she had made as one would with the remnants of a popsicle. Then her tongue was at his throat, and she was lapping up what flowed from this new cut. Her lips pressed around the wound, and she prodded at it until it bled more freely, allowing her to drink a little more.

'No!' Bakura's mind screamed, and he felt that sudden whirl of energy within him, the last push of a runner nearing the finish line. A chuckle rumbled against the crook of his neck, sending both cold and hot streams to flow throughout his limbs. She mocked him!

Let me help…

The suction resumed with greater need. He heard her moan in pleasure and felt the pricks of her canines preparing for her true feast. To take and ruin whatever remained of him. Whether he remained 'alive' or not, did not matter.

First the creature from his dreams, and now this beast of a woman.

He wanted none of it.

"NO!" he roared, his voice raw and torn from the damage.

He was done.

Suddenly, the Lady was gone. Or the weight of her was. Bakura took in what air he could as he righted himself with a speed he rarely could muster. The vampire had been thrown once more, this time into a tall candelabra that had fallen into disuse. She lay there, sprawled, a broken edge jutting out from her midsection.

Bakura snatched up the blade that rested nearby him, and he stalked over to where she was shaking herself out of her stupor. "So many people, you've hurt," he began, his voice grating, harsh. "So many lives gone because of you. Good people on either side…because of what you all have done."

"No more!" he shouted, flipping the weapon to where it fit best in his hand. "I will end you here. Then, when I'm done with my own business, I will end everything that bastard has ever dreamed of. I will tear your dreams apart and from the hells that will devour you, you will watch as I destroy all you hold dear!"

"There's nothing that you can do, you pathetic worm!" she spat back, beginning to raise herself onto her feet. She sagged back, shock written on her face, as she realized the broken rod from the unused light source had somehow locked her in her position with the way she had fallen upon it. Trying to tear herself up, it became clear that she would be cutting herself nearly in half if she continued her struggle with any more zeal. No matter where she turned, he had the immediate advantage, if he claimed it. She looked up at him, panic now seeping in at the edges of that hateful gaze. "You nothing little human. It's the insignificant ones like you that make it so difficult to work with your kind. He is the righteous one who will find you and end you like the worthless bit of chaff you are!"

"Keep talking," Bakura growled, kneeling before her prone form. He knew her game and would not be falling for such simple stalling tactics…but he would let her try. His neck throbbed painfully where she had supped. He tried not to shudder in disgust as he imagined her saliva tainting what pulsed through his veins. "Not that it makes any difference. I'm not one who you can cow by promising me power. Nor can you frighten me with death. I've felt it one too many times to fear it."

For a second, he cocked his head in introspection at the actual count, and then let the thought fly.

"Why not use what time you have left to tell me something useful about yourself? Or explain why you seem to enjoy causing such disconnect between those you, if I'm guessing right, rule over? Some revere you out of their own greed, some despise you out of fear…Is it for the challenge, or are you just that ignorant to politics? What if another vampire, more human-friendly, wanted to usurp you? One who wouldn't dangle such a gift or demand utter subservience for your acknowledgement?"

"I will say nothing. You will come to me! Come to me and let me finish what I started!"

He did feel the compulsion of her command. So much so that he felt the nagging manipulator that haunted his dreams lash out with a surprising bit of unprompted aid before he could employ his own brand of protection. Offense bled through the recesses of his already battered and busy mind. It did not take kindly to this one's meddling. Bakura could not decide if he appreciated the assistance, or if he worried more about the changeling creature's influence upon his magical aptitude.

The Lady gawped at his lack of submission to her call.

"You cannot summon me, for I am not yours," Bakura explained, as if he knew what was even happening. "And you are not as grand as you think you are. Just as your sorely misguided leader is going to find out."

"As if you could do anything to him!" she shrieked. "Once I'm free I will rip that overconfident head of yours off of your body! And if it is not me, it will be him! You will learn your proper place beneath our heels before he ends your life. A mercy! A mercy to kill you when you deserve the worst tortures I could dream up!"

A strange grin strained his face. "The Great One cannot stop me."

"He will…and you will pay…"

"Not on my life, or my death. But…yes. I will pay. No matter the cost—he will know justice!" he cried, his blade raised high. He arched his back, and with all the force in his body, he smashed it down into the chest of the ruler of this place. The same energy that imbued him when he called forth Diabound seemed to flow into this pinpoint of will, and the vampire screamed in actual agony and terror before he heard an explosive pop and found himself covered in centuries old gore.

Bakura wheezed and choked, the blade half buried into the dirt, his hands shaking, cut and bloodied. He let go of the weapon and turned. The scent of dried dust that was once a person assaulted his nostrils from every angle—that and the unexpectedly wet remnants of goo that ruined what was left of the functional part of his clothing. He heaved. He gagged once more.

In the outer part of the flashlight beam's path, he vomited. So wracked with the overwhelming stench and return of his faculties to pain was he that he did not notice how the creature behind him flapped its wings, the wind catching in the fluff of its feathers.

Nor how the dark lines that had limned its body now donned a greyish shimmering look.

Only when he was done emptying the already meager contents of his stomach did he look up. By then, blood had been pouring freely from his nose from overexerting his power. The visual hardly registered by the time the being flickered out of existence, and he barely had gotten to his knees to crawl away from the mess before he swayed and fell forward into the crevice that he had created.

By the time he awoke, nighttime had fallen upon the outside world.