Chapter 17: The Scars of Friendship

Marik's appearance sent the medical room into a frenzy. The doctor berated him for not having his wound tended immediately, and—because Anzu was watching—Marik bit his tongue to hold back anything regretful he would have said in response.

They removed the jewelry on his left arm, which went on a tray to be sterilized, leaving Marik feeling half naked. His wrist and forearm carried permanent marks where the golden bands had been part of him. His scales. His armor.

Now stripped away.

Then he was told to sit on a table, and the doctor prodded at the deep gash while Marik clenched his teeth against the pain. Once the man had a measure of it, he began blotting the wound and surrounding skin with some dark liquid.

In response to Marik's wild-eyed attention, the doctor said calmly, "It's antibacterial. We have to clear up this infection right away."

Marik used his free hand to grip the edge of the table, trying not to think of the past—of another time he'd been half naked in a procedural room watching his father scrub a stone altar with a dark liquid that looked just like the doctor's.

The air was growing hot, as if lit by candles. Seventy white candles.

Marik struggled to breathe.

The doctor spoke again. Marik couldn't make out the words past the pressure in his ears. He tried to speak, but his voice was paralyzed. He may as well have been gagged.

Control yourself, he ordered. He wasn't twelve years old anymore, wasn't bound at the nonexistent mercy of his father. But he couldn't convince his body of that. And without the Millennium Rod, Marik couldn't control anything or anyone, not even himself.

He was just a boy drowning in scorched memories.

Accepting a syringe from a nurse, the doctor plunged it into Marik's skin below the cut. Then, with a second syringe, he gave an injection above the wound as well.

Marik remembered a needle-thin blade against his back, cutting and lifting, cutting and burning, cutting and—

"Marik."

Anzu had apparently been saying his name, which he didn't hear until she forced her fingers beneath his, prying his right hand free of its death grip on the table. Since she'd removed his anchor, he clung to her instead. His fingers tangled in hers, his wide eyes swinging desperately to meet hers and the cool-blue calm within.

"Marik, it's okay," she said with an encouraging smile. "You're not alone."

He should have been. He deserved to be. But she kept making a nuisance of herself, refusing to let him fade away or rot, no matter what he deserved.

His mortal Nehmetawy.

He freed his voice at last, not caring how pathetic it sounded as he rasped, "Don't go anywhere."

"Obviously." Anzu squeezed his hand.

"The numbing should have kicked in," said the doctor's voice on Marik's other side, far more of a nuisance than Anzu could ever be. "I need to clean the wound of this sand and debris. Then we'll begin stitches."

Marik felt the pressure, the scraping discomfort, but he kept his attention fixed on Anzu. Her presence pushed back the scalding memories and made it easier to breathe, like a breeze underground.

She glanced over at his injured arm and apparently freaked herself out, because her face blanched, and she began babbling. "You know, when I had to go to the hospital for my hand, I told the doctor I had an accident cutting cabbage. Isn't that stupid? She obviously knew I was lying, but I just kept going on and on about cabbage, and I even asked her if she'd ever heard of red cabbage. Like, yes, Anzu, this top doctor has a ten-year medical degree and knows how to stitch people back together when they're broken, but you're going to amaze her with the revelation of red cabbage—as if she's never eaten okonomiyaki."

"I've never eaten that," Marik said, shoving down his guilt over her hand injury, refusing to look at the brace she wore. "What's it like?"

"Okonomiyaki? It's—"

"Red cabbage. What's it like?" She squinted at him, and he couldn't resist rolling his eyes. "I grew up in a tomb, if you recall."

"It's . . . it's cabbage, but it's . . . red."

He smirked as her face took on color to match her mythical cabbage.

"It doesn't really have a flavor!" she finally burst out. "It's just crunchy. Anyway, now it's your turn. What did you grow up eating? Rice? Dirt? Tomb foods?"

"Tomb foods?" he repeated with raised eyebrows. "Is that some delicate phrasing for cannibalism?"

She swatted his good arm with her brace, then winced. All of Marik's guilt came crashing back in, and he swallowed, struggling to find lighthearted words when his heart felt heavy as a stone. The doctor's ministrations seemed to pinch more than before, and he resisted the urge to look at whatever was being scraped from his skin.

"Rice," he said, finally latching onto the only viable option she'd given him. "Mahshi, usually, which was rice stuffed in zucchini or rolled in grape vine leaves. The Khouri clan grew zucchini and other squash. The Alnabil clan had vineyards and fig trees." His voice grew low, laboring under the pain, which came more from within than without. "A favorite for my father and sister was mashed fava beans, but I always detested them."

Ishizu insisted fava mash was sweet, but to Marik, it had always tasted bitter.

Anzu wrinkled her nose. "I don't like beans of any kind."

"Well, then, we have something in common." Truthfully, Marik had never imagined he could have anything in common with this bright-shining light of a girl who'd grown up a world away, with every imaginable difference between them.

"Sutures," said the doctor, like a warning. Not a moment later, the pressures against Marik's arm changed. Though it didn't hurt, he could feel the stitches being drawn through his skin. Tugging, itching.

Anzu spoke hesitantly. "If your clan wasn't allowed aboveground . . . how did you have vineyards?"

"The Ishtar clan wasn't allowed aboveground," he responded bitterly. "Our family was head of the joined clans, and supposedly, our limitations were a privilege. No distraction of agriculture or markets or worldly education. We were allowed to consecrate our time to sacred service and preservation of history."

"Eating beans sounds better than that." She gave a crooked smile, and he realized she was trying to get him to laugh, trying to lighten the mood or lessen his pain.

"Then you've never tried fava beans," Marik deadpanned.

He was rewarded with her laughter, which was all he needed to lessen the weight on his chest.

"All finished," said the doctor at last.

Marik looked down at the hideous combination of their work—his and the doctor's. The laceration below his elbow had become a puckered line of black-thorn stitches, the skin surrounding it an angry bruise, smeared with disinfecting chemicals.

"Now, listen up." The doctor spoke as he continued to work, spreading an ointment and fastening a white bandage to hide the wound from sight. "I've used absorbable sutures because I'm not your general practitioner, and I'm not about to send you home to pull stitches on your own in a week. But that infection concerns me, which means I need you to follow my instructions very closely. Keep this cut dry and keep it covered. If you expose it to sand and dirt again, you're going to have a real problem on your hands, meaning you might wind up with only one hand left. Are we clear?"

"Will it scar?" Marik asked softly, looking down at the bandage.

"Yes. Given the tissue damage, I'm sorry to say that scarring is a certainty."

"Good." Marik stood from the table, but the pain on Anzu's face halted him, twisted him into explaining himself. "I have plenty of scars, but the rest were forced on me. This will be the first one I've earned. It means I . . . protected a friend."

Heat flooded his neck and face. Once he'd said it out loud, it sounded naïve. Overly optimistic. After all, he'd only been protecting her from himself, so what was there to be proud of?

But then Anzu's arms closed around his neck in a hug, much gentler than when she'd hugged him on the beach, and it was like she was giving him permission to really believe it. Before he could catch his bearings, she'd already pulled back, tucking her hair behind her ears while her loose bracelets jangled against her wrists.

"Look at that." She smiled like sunlight. "A world where you and I can be friends. I knew it was possible."

Marik returned her smile.


Nakhti tried to suppress his churning emotions, tried to force them into the avenue he wanted, like a river carefully redirected.

But the river flooded its shores.

He appeared in Ryou's finalist room. The boy stood next to the small, circular window, looking out at dimming afternoon light across the ocean. Wilting like a cut flower.

"I don't need your pity," spat Nakhti. "I'm not a damsel in distress; I don't need you to come charging in against the fire-breathing pharaohs in some misguided attempt to save me. Especially when you're too weak to lift a lance. If I needed someone on my team, I'd be better off recruiting that sorry excuse for a tombkeeper rather than a squishy cream puff."

Ryou nodded wordlessly. His profile grew a little more despondent, like Nakhti had been the one carrying the lance, like his attack had landed a solid blow.

And Nakhti couldn't get the boy's voice out of his head—a memory from back on the island, when Ryou had said, You can't just have a normal conversation. Everything you say's got thorns.

Nakhti had told him he liked to see people bleed, and that was true. He liked to see people bleed because he was always bleeding. Because he'd been bleeding since the day Kul Elna died, and blood was the only thing left in the world he understood. Speaking with thorns was easy when everyone was his enemy. Everyone deserved to bleed like he did.

Yet here was this kid, trying to chop up Nakhti's simple little revenge world into shades of emotion, trying to introduce compassion and mercy. Ryou was carrying bandages to someone who would only strangle him with them.

Hadn't he learned by now? Hadn't Nakhti made his messages clear? Written them in the pain of Ryou's friends and the very scars across the boy's chest.

"I don't care if you bleed," Nakhti said harshly, stepping closer even though Ryou kept his eyes trained on the window. "I don't care if you die. I'd throw the knife myself. Do you understand, vessel? Do you have any idea who I am?"

Thief King, they'd called him in the past. Ra's champion. His life had served exactly one purpose—to tear down the palace and everyone inside. A fresh start for Egypt was Ra's injunction for him. Revenge was Nakhti's injunction for himself. The two orders carried the same destination. Nakhti had killed priests and palace guards. He'd stained his soul in ways no bandaged compassion could ever heal or hide. He'd even commanded the very items made from the blood of his family, enslaving their spirits, dancing on their graves.

Because there was no line he would not cross to see the pharaoh's court fall.

Baring his teeth, Nakhti growled out, "I am not your frien—"

"Look at that." Ryou interrupted gently, as he did most things. He pointed toward the window.

Nakhti rolled his eyes before stepping closer, squinting down at a mass of blue. For a moment, he couldn't see anything. Then he registered the dark, rippling shadow in the water.

Ryou smiled, his brown eyes sparkling like the ocean below. "Is that a whale? I've never seen one."

At that moment, it breached the surface, a dark figure in a spray of white. Despite himself, Nakhti lost track of everything he'd been saying, all his words vanishing into an awestruck half smile, because he'd never seen a whale before, either.

Then he caught Ryou looking at him like he'd just unearthed all his secrets. Nakhti wheeled away from the window, cursing silently.

"Chase down your little puzzle friend." He huffed, though for some reason, he couldn't summon much derision in it. "Tell him you made a mistake."

"Only if you tell me something," said Ryou. Nakhti turned, squinting suspiciously. The boy met his gaze. "Do you have any idea who I am?"

The spirit snorted. "I know everything about you, cream puff."

"So you know that who I am is the person chosen by the Millennium Ring." Ryou's hand closed around the item in question, his palm shielding the Eye of Horus. "It's quite temperamental, I'm sure you're aware. It could have chosen my father, or it could have chosen a tombkeeper, or it could have chosen anyone, really. I'm certain there were some very powerful options on the board—kings and CEOs and the like. People who might have really made a difference in terms of resources for the ring's purposes."

The more he spoke, the more Nakhti stiffened. He felt like he'd been caught in a net, but the ropes were only now becoming visible, strand by spoken strand.

"Instead, the ring chose me. It's bonkers, innit? Just a lad without a real home, locked up all day with occult games and Ouija boards because, for the longest time, I really thought if I could just hear one more word from my dead sister or my mum, I'd be happy. Maybe not even happy. Content?" Ryou gave a single dry laugh, looking down at the floor. His hand slowly lowered, and the ring's pointers jingled like a faintly disturbed wind chime, melancholic and aching. "Maybe not even content."

The boy swallowed. Then he said, "Maybe I'd just finally stop bleeding."

Nakhti should have felt the statement like a dagger to his stomach, a fresh reminder of the pain in his own past. But it didn't feel like that at all.

It felt like a bandage.

Ryou met his eyes again. "Don't complain to me about pity or about being a damsel in distress. Don't grouch at me for being on your team. You saved me first, Nakhti. You picked me first. When you could have had any powerful, impressive vessel in the world to command, you bypassed them for me. And don't think I haven't put it together by now—that when I was at my very lowest, alone in my flat, with death all around me and dark thoughts creeping in, those were always times when the ring took over, and I blacked out.

"You're a lousy friend, that's true, and I'd appreciate if you'd step it up—maybe try conversations instead of cuts—but at least I can see you've cared from the start, just too bloody stubborn to admit it. Well, you can drop the act, mate. Because you're not fooling me anymore."

Nakhti shook his head, but there was no energy in the denial.

After all, a good thief knew when he'd been caught.

"You reminded me of me," he finally whispered, his own eyes on the floor.

It wasn't quite that straightforward; after all, when the ring had first come to Ryou, Nakhti's sense of self had been tattered at best, like wool carded by the shadows, the fibers shredded apart by thousands of years in the dark. It was only now he felt like he was starting to weave himself back together.

But Ryou was right. Even subconsciously, there had been a reason the Spirit of the Millennium Ring rejected everyone except Ryou Bakura.

Nakhti's gaze shot up, sharpening. "This does not mean friendship bracelets and tea parties. Just because—"

"Oh, shut it." Ryou's face had taken on color. "I'm not implying that. But I do expect a little trust, and it wouldn't kill you to be kinder when you speak."

Nakhti smirked. He'd always enjoyed when Ryou showed a little backbone. From the moment the Millennium Ring had first come into contact with the boy, he'd known Ryou had an immense strength of spirit. His strength had just been drowning in grief. In loneliness.

Nakhti knew what that felt like.

"A little trust," he drawled. "How's this, then?"

He vanished, his spirit returning to the ring, and then he tugged insistently at their mental link until Ryou joined him. Since his own soul room was infested with shadows and an unspeakable monster, Nakhti invaded Ryou's.

"Do you mind?" Nakhti gestured impatiently at the RPG board beneath their feet. "Give me a little control here."

The boy hesitated only a moment before there was a relaxing in the environment. On the topic of trust, Ryou extended it far more than anyone deserved, least of all Nakhti. For as many similarities as they shared, there were also stark differences.

With a wave of his hand, the spirit banished every figure currently on the board. The landscape beneath their feet shifted in color and shape until it was a map of Egypt.

"What are you doing?" Ryou asked, his voice tinged with nervousness.

Nakhti hesitated. He could still retreat—close off, clam up, leave Ryou all alone, which would serve the kid right since he'd been foolish enough to distance himself from his real friends. But Nakhti knew the darkness that haunted Ryou when he was alone. He knew it as surely as he knew the monster in his own soul room and the mural on his ceiling.

He knew something else, too. In the shadow game, when Nakhti had faced death at the pharaoh's hands, when he'd been reliving the past again, unable to change it, unable to do anything but sink in the screams of the dead, something inside him had tipped to the verge of cracking. His sanity. Maybe his very soul.

At that moment, Ryou had thrown a dagger.

Then, instead of regretting it, he'd told Yuugi, I couldn't stand by, mate. I couldn't abandon him.

Those words still rang in Nakhti's heart, along with the ones he couldn't bring himself to say in return: I don't want to be alone anymore.

Instead, with all the same meaning, he said, "I'm going to show you my life. All of it. I'll show you what really happened 3,000 years ago." He held one hand over the board, swirling the sands of Egypt to life. "Buckle up, cream puff. You've never had a history lesson like this."


Note: This has to be one of my favorite chapters I've ever written. I hope you enjoyed. :)