YuGiOh- Final Eclipse, Chapter Two
Series:YuGiOh
Title: Final Eclipse Chapter Two
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): BBakura Ryou, Yami-Bakura, Malik Ishtar, Ishizu Ishtar, Rishid Ishtar, Yami-Yuugi, Atem, Mot, Sek
Rating: M
Warnings: Some swearing and general panic
Summary: I feel like I should start this summary off with something like "Things heat up when--" But no. I can't do that. I have standards. Ryou has been reunited with Bakhura, but that rather clashes with Sek and Mot's plans. I diverge further from le canon-ending and Tabletop shenanigans are had.
Previous:
Delusions
Bad Religion
Interlude 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
FE Chapter One
It was like looking at a double-exposed photograph; Ryou’s physical eyes were open, at least slightly, and the dim images of what was happening in the cave, of the Ishtar siblings setting up some ritual around the brazier, overlaid the image of his soul-room. He was peripherally aware of the sounds and movements happening outside, but his chief attention was focused on the Thief leaning against him and sobbing brokenly.
Words and arguments had faded and left the Thief curled half in Ryou’s lap with his arms clinging around Ryou’s waist. Ryou stroked his hair and they cried quietly and exchanged the memories of their time apart. Usually at these times, Ryou could feel Thief holding back pieces, sensoring out upsetting details, giving Ryou the Disney version of event. Right now the memories were rushing into Ryou’s mind unchecked, unedited, as the Thief seemed too lost and distraught to control his own mind. It was like when they’d first met, when the Thief couldn’t tell where the boundaries of his own consciousness were, when he’d still thought the snake was part of himself, when his thoughts and emotions were scattered, immediate, and intense.
It was like in three months, the snake had managed to undo all the six and a half years they’d spent together. Ryou closed his eyes and burried his face in the Thief’s tangled hair. He’d put the pieces together once, he could do it again. And this time he knew where to start, this time he knew who he was talking to, knew what was happening.
He sighed and turned his head a little, keeping his cheek pressed to the crown of Thief’s head. He gazed at the smooth, mocha color of the Thief’s shoulder, where his coat-thing had slid down. He hadn’t for an instant failed to recognize the spirit, despite the fact that his appearance had changed drastically. The Thief had always, even in their shared mental space, borrowed Ryou’s image for his own, but now he was entirely different. It was what the Thief had looked like in life, Ryou supposed, and the magic of whatever mad journey he’d been on had preserved that image and reminded the Thief of who he had been.
The change in the Thief’s (meta)physical appearance gave Ryou something to ponder on other than the extent of damage to the already tenuous state of his psyche. His body was stockier than Ryou’s, lean and muscular with skin a few shades darker than Malik’s. His hair was stiff and dirty-feeling, the way that Ryou supposed most people’s must have been in the days before indoor plumbing, but even that somehow added to the exotic sort of beauty in the Thief’s appearance.
“I suppose I never really expected anything one way or the other,” Ryou mused quietly and watched the Thief turn his head slightly to look up at him while not moving away any. “I mean, I never really thought I’d see what you used to look like, so I never bothered to wonder if you were beautiful or ugly,” he explained, running his fingers through the Thief’s fringe and pushing it back away from his eyes. “But I think I’m kind of surprised. I mean, it makes sense that you’d be built and everything, because you work so hard, but I guess it seems a little odd for someone who’s had such a difficult life to have such a pretty face.” He traced a finger along the line of the Thief’s jaw, squarer, more distinctly masculine than his own, and let his hand linger a moment before pushing another lock of hair behind the Thief’s ear. “I thought a hard life, and being in the sun all the time, made people’s faces look old very quickly. I suppose you were in the prime of life though... when you’d be the most beautiful.”
The Thief seemed to calm a little more, soothed by gentle, praising words, and his visible eye drifted almost shut again.
...
“Hmm, your other playable characters are really more effective than I thought they’d be,” the demon version of Bakura mused, smirking down at the table.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pharaoh asked, suspicion bleeding into his voice.
“Ah nothing,” the demon shrugged and sat back in his chair, grinning widely at Pharaoh. “I’m just impressed how close they are to discovering your true name.”
“... How do you know that?” Pharaoh asked, his eyes scanning the board carefully. He couldn’t see where his friends were, much less know what they were doing, how did Bakura? “You shouldn’t be able to see what they’re doing.”
Bakura shrugged. “Just because my players are more communicative than yours, don’t blame me.”
Pharaoh narrowed his eyes, glaring across the table at Bakura. “What players? You sacrificed the Thief King, you don’t have any other players on the board.”
The demon laughed. “Oh, why thank you for underestimating me again, Pharaoh!” he crowed jovially. Again? “But I’m not about to return the favor. You really thought I’d play alone against your five players? I have three, well only one on the board now, but also one in reserve, who should be getting into place right about now...”
“What do you mean in reserve?” Pharaoh demanded. And where did Bakura still have a player on the board? He hadn’t seen any characters on Bakura’s side besides the Thief King and the hooded NPCs.
“Well, he’s a minor actor, I think I’d rather forfeit him for a named-character,” Bakura mused, drumming his fingers idly against the edge of the table. “You really can’t wrap up a story without main characters, after all, and I have become so fond of our named-character.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Soul Allocation, dear Pharaoh, you’ve already used it once yourself in this game. Transferring one character’s hit-points to another,” the demon explained, winking at Pharaoh. “Works marvelously if you have a character on the edge of death and no time to heal them, or even a newly dead character can be revived, although that does cost double.”
The memory of his player getting strength from Yuugi’s flashed to the front of his mind and Pharaoh frowned. Bakura obviously intended to bring back the Thief King’s character, but what player did he intend to take the hit-points from?
“I’ll apply the technique to my dummy player,” Bakura explained with a look of smug satisfaction.
“What dummy player?”
Bakura’s lips split open into a wicked grin and he slammed down a new character sheet on the table. “It’s game-time, Mister President!” he declared.
Pharaoh blinked. President? “Kaiba? Kaiba’s here?”
There was a flash on the board, and Kaiba appeared suddenly in the streets of Amarna. Bakura threw back his head and laughed before bringing his eyes back to the board and raising the dice in his hand to throw. “Now, if you’ll just let me borrow your hit-points--”
...
There was a sudden, horrible shrieking of straining metal that made both Bakhura and Ryou jerk around to see what was happening. The steel panel that had replaced the door of Ryou’s soul room months earlier was ripping back, like the top of a can of fish, protesting loudly as it was pulled away from its moorings and thrown aside, revealing Sek and Mot standing together on the other side, Mot looking ammused as usual and Sek appearing absolutely livid.
“You worthless piece of shit!’ the Sek snarled, storming into the room. ‘You’ve damn near ruined everything!”
“Temper temper, Sek,” Mot admonished in a jovial tone. “Don’t get your panties in a twist. We’ve not lost yet.”
“Shut up!” Sek shouted without sparing a glance for the other demon. He glared down at Bakhura, who clung to Ryou, terrified silent by the sheer anger in Sek’s face. “Three thousand years of preparation and you couldn’t get it right! How dare you disappoint me! Worthless human garbage!”
“B-but- but I did what you t-told me...” Bakhura protested in a bare whisper, feeling compelled to make some excuse, to make Sek stop looking at him like that; it was too horrible.
“FOOL!” Sek screamed and cuffed him hard enough to send both Bakhura and Ryou sprawling across the floor.
“Stop it!” Ryou shrieked as he squirmed over Bakhura, covering him with his body as though Bakhura was some helpless infant. What was worse was that Bakhura couldn’t seem to make himself move, just cling and sob light a frightened child.
“Stay out of this!” Sek snarled, and raised his hand again, this time with his fingers curled forward, the tips lengthening into grizzly claws.
Mot caught his arm, holding Sek in place as he looked down on Bakhura and Ryou with that terrifying smile. “Little Bakhura, you certainly did well in gathering the Millennium Items, but how on earth did you expect Lord Apep to be reborn without a blood sacrifice?” he said in a calm, logical voice. “You’ve really thrown a wrench into the works by refusing to see the ceremony through.”
“But...” Bakhura’s voice sounded tiny to his own ears as he stared up at Sek, confusion and pain squeezing at his lungs. “Y-you protected me all those times just to kill me now?”
“A human is worth no more than the value of their blood,” Sek hissed.
Mot laughed as though it were a hilarious joke. “You must forgive him, darling, social discourse is not my brother’s forte.” He moved across the floor and knelt down next to them, smiling down at Bakhura. “It isn’t to say that your contribution isn’t appreciated, little Bakhura, merely that human blood is a most valuable commodity.”
Mot reached out toward Bakhura’s face, but Ryou slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch him!” he snapped.
“Miserable insect!” Sek snapped and made to kick him.
“Sek,” Mot said calmly, holding up a hand and raising an eyebrow slightly. “A little delicacy, please?” The slow realization that Mot was protecting him, them, from Sek made Bakhura’s blood run cold. The situation had gone from frightening and confusing to terrifyingly surreal.
Mot’s glowing blue eyes moved to look at Ryou, his smile softening to something almost pleasant. “Go back to sleep, little Ryou. It will all be over soon. You won’t have to worry anymore.” He dipped his head a little to catch Bakhura’s eyes, giving him the same nearly-human smile. “It’s too late to use you for the sacrifice now, Bakhura, I’m afraid you can’t have that honor anymore, but Lord Apep’s resurrection is going to take a little longer than planned now, and you could do us all a big favor by keeping the Pharaoh and his friends busy for a while. Don’t you want another shot at him? Do you know what he did to your little Ryou?”
Bakhura was shaking and couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought, much less words. He knew with a strange, foreign certainty that Mot wouldn’t wait for him to agree, and that it wouldn’t matter if he tried to refuse, but it seemed that Ryou wasn’t going to wait for his answer either.
“Get out!” Ryou shouted. “Get out of my mind! Get out!”
The words seemed to shake something loose in Bakhura and he suddenly seemed to have control of himself again, he gripped Ryou tighter. “No,” he whispered and then pressed his forehead into Ryou’s shoulder; he knew he’d lose his nerve if he looked at their cold, luminescent eyes another second. “I’m not going with you.”
There was a pause and then Mot sighed, “You’re right,” he said in a mockery of disappointment. “The boy really is a terrible influence. These modern people just don’t have any manners at all.”
“I told you to keep them separated,” Sek growled.
“You did, you did,” Mot agreed. “I was careless. I never thought a foreigner would have such a talent for magic. He caught me off guard.”
“Idiot,” Sek sneered. There was a momentary pause, just half a beat of decision making and then he ordered, “You take Bakhura. I’ll subdue this pest.”
A fresh thrill of terror ran down Bakhura’s spine and he tightened his arms around Ryou, twisting his hands into the fabric of his shirt.
“Your wish is my command, dearest,” Mot half-sang and then Bakhura was being grabbed around the waist.
“NO!” Ryou screamed, clinging and digging his fingers into Bakhura’s skin, even as Sek suddenly dissolved into a gigantic, black snake and lunged towards him fangs-first. One of Ryou’s hands let go of Bakhura and he felt himself lurch back, into Mot’s grip, as he watched Ryou lash his arm out towards Sek’s descending jaws. There was a flash and Sek’s snake-form flew back and hit the wall.
Mot started laughing hysterically, his grip on Bakhura slackening slightly with his mirth. “Oh shit! Who’s careless now!” he mocked as Bakhura scrambled with his hands, trying to get his arms more securely around Ryou as the boy stared at his own hand with a dazed look.
Look to your own tassk! Sek shrieked back and lunged again.
Bakhura was wrenched backwards and lost his grip on Ryou’s waist and flailed desperately, grabbing for Ryou’s arms and hands, watching the terrified look Ryou was wearing that he was sure he must have been mirroring as they scrambled to hold on to each other.
“Thief!” Ryou screamed, half a moment before Sek’s jaws slammed into his back.
Ryou’s eyes screwed shut and he screamed. Bakhura could hear the scream in double; he was screaming outside, in the cave, as well as their inner-space. A moment later there were other voices on the outside, shouting, asking questions. Bakhura couldn’t make out what they were saying, he was screaming too and only just clinging to Ryou’s wrists as Sek pulled and shook him viciously and one of Mot’s arms moved around Bakhura’s neck, choking him.
All at once the arms let go and Mot started screaming. Bakhura slammed into Ryou in the sudden absence of Mot’s grip and lay dazed for a moment before looking back to see Mot’s image wavering between the copy of Ryou and the giant snake, something like purple lightning crackling all around him.
What are you doing?! Sek demanded, his fangs still sunk into Ryou’s abdomen.
It’s him! They’re with HIM! Mot screamed, convulsing and wearing an agonized expression when his human visage flickered visible.
Hurry you foo-- Sek's words cut off in a scream of pain accompanied by sounds like a butcher-knife cutting through thick meat. Ryou tumbled down on top of Bakhura, knocking him senseless for a moment.
SEK! Huge, black coils rolled over Bakhura and Ryou, and the crackling, purple light licked at them. Bakhura closed his eyes and clung to Ryou, feeling the heavy, scaled body slide over him and turn, rushing back in the direction of the door, and pulling Sek with him.
And then everything became silent. He could hear distant voices, on the outside, but Ryou’s soul-room was utterly still except for the combined, hysterical breaths of he and Bakhura. Someone was shaking them, on the outside, calling their names. Bakhura ignored it, just quietly clinging and trying to calm himself, trying to soak in the heat and comfort of Ryou’s metaphysical ‘body’ and banish all the chaotic, terrifying thoughts and feelings from his mind.
“Th-Thief, we n-need to see what’s happen-ning outside,” Ryou whispered to him after a while.
Bakhura shook himself, not wanting to move but feeling more than compelled to agree with anything Ryou wanted. He nodded his head minutely and pressed his face against Ryou’s neck, letting Ryou pull them both up towards lucidity.
...
A pillar of golden light suddenly burst through the ceiling, throwing Hassan and Aknadin apart and dissipating the purple lighting between them.
Pharaoh closed his eyes against the light. Somebody shrieked with surprise. After an instant, the light faded and Pharaoh blinked his eyes rapidly, trying to clear the spots from his vision and see what was happening in the place where the pillar had landed.
Sand was swirling up from the floor, gathering and sculpting itself into the form of a human being. The features etched themselves into the shape of the Thief King Bakura, and several gasps were heard around the chamber.
The color of sand gave way to flesh and fiber and left the Thief King standing in the precise center of where the light had fallen. His face was oddly blank though, his eyes unfocused and his jaw slack. He swayed for a moment and then collapsed limply to the floor, his body exploding into sand once more.
There was silence.
“Wh-what was that?” Mana demanded somewhere behind him.
...
The Pharaoh raised his eyebrows in surprise, watching his opponent across the table suddenly double-over in apparent pain. He tilted his head slightly, wondering what had inspired such a reaction; the only thing that had happened on the game board was a miserably botched role. Why that should cause this Bakura physical pain, the Pharaoh wasn’t entirely sure. Perhaps too much of his power was being invested in creating the game-world?
“Something wrong?” he asked quietly.
The demon-Bakura looked up at him and quickly adjusted his posture, though the movements looked strained and stiff, as though he were still in pain. “My gambit failed,” the demon replied in what was surely meant to be a casual tone. “It’s because you’re side is cheating, of course.”
“Of course. Ra forbid that a demon would ever cheat,” the Pharaoh scoffed.
Bakura smirked. “I gave you every advantage in the world, Pharaoh. You have five players, I started this game with only four. And I just lost one.”
“What a pity,” Pharaoh said, leaning forward and feeling a smug grin curl his lips. “You really should take better care of your things.”
“Quite right,” Bakura agreed. “No use crying over spilt milk, though. And I still have my fail-safe left.” He tapped a finger against the hourglass that was counting down the minutes until Apep’s awakening.
“Indeed.” Pharaoh nodded, eyeing the hourglass. “I suppose the player you just lost would be the real Bakura?”
The demon grinned and pointed to himself. “You mean the one with this face? Oh, no no no, we never could get him to play ball. Very willful, that one. The best I could manage on that end was despairing apathy.”
Pharaoh raised a curious eyebrow. “The human spirit within the Millennium Ring then?”
“Oh so you already know about him?” the demon chuckled. “It usually takes a long time to break the spirit of someone like him, but of course, your father already did that for us, didn’t he.” He smirked, looking pleased with himself as Pharaoh felt his face twitch slightly. “We really had him well trained, but little Ryou is just such a bad influence, teaching him to be so naughty and disobedient. I’m rather beginning to understand my brother’s distaste for him.”
Brother? There was more than one demon? Mai had only talked about the one. “Who are you?” Pharaoh asked, narrowing his eyes. “Are you the parasite Mai saw in the Shadow Realm?”
“Mai?” the demon looked slightly puzzled for a moment before his face again brightened and he snapped his fingers. “Oh! The one with that amazing cleavage!” He snickered, shaking his head. “That was my brother,” he paused for a moment to stifle a laugh. “Oh was he angry about that little joke...” He wiped at a nonexistant tear. “No no, I was much too busy playing with you to go gadding about in the Shadow Realm.”
“With me?” Phraoh frowned.
“Oh yes.” The demon nodded. “And speaking of naughty little boys, I so very much look forward to torturing Malik after my master has taken your world to his bosom.”
Oh. That made the pieces click suddenly together in Pharaoh’s mind. “... I thought I killed you,” he said quietly.
“Well then, I guess you underestimated me, didn’t you?” the demon hummed, grinning impossibly wide. “And my master’s power. Silly you, thinking a handful of fragile little humans could stand up to gods.”
“You’re nothing but a demon,” Pharaoh snorted, crossing his arms and giving a derisive sniff.
“You’ll find, dear Pharaoh, that the difference between gods and demons is merely the difference between day and night,” the demon said, completely unfazed. “And after all, my master is far older than your great Ra. He was there from the very beginning.”
“Tell someone who cares.”
...
A/N: I totally wrote this all out of order. I wrote the two soul-room scenes first, and originally they were both from Ryou’s perspective and with a lame written segue, but the second half of it was really flat and lame, so threw in an ellipsis and I rewrote it from Bakhura’s perspective, but I was like “man, I can’t just have it change perspective in the middle of a scene or something” and so I wanted another scene in the middle there, but I couldn’t figure out what, so I just threw in a second ellipsis to mark it for later and rewrote that second half while I was feeling it. Then I wrote about half of the final table-top conversation at the end there, but then at first it ended with “You really should take better care of your things.” Then my computer broke. Two weeks later, I got my computer back all fresh and clean and I buckled down for another round of editing and writing. I went and wrote more exposition into the final scene and some “aha” time for Pharaoh. After that, I wrote the first table-top scene and the last thing I wrote was the little in-game clip. I was originally planning to have some of what’s going on out in the cave in this chapter, but I think I’m going to use that to start off the next chapter now.
So, for the first tabletop scene there, I actually watched that last bit of episode 212 one line at a time and copied down the dialogue for refference material before I wrote the scene. Y'know, doing that really drives the point home how unfortunate the Engrish on these subtitles is, and places where I looked at the word used in the subtitles and went "... what the hell?" then looked it up and found that the subber had apparently grabbed a dictionary and then written down the wrong permutation of the word, for example, Yami-Bakura likes to reffer to Kaiba as 'Shyochyo,' 'President,' but in the subtitles it said "Chief"; so I read the subtitle, "It's showtime, Chief!" and I'm like "Is he just being cute?" but then Pharaoh is all like "Wait, Kaiba?" and I'm like "Hm, does he call Kaiba 'oyabu' (boss or gang-leader, sometimes used in a because-it's-funny context much like 'chief') or something?" and had to go back and check, then look up the word and ladeedahdeedah. Anyway.
Mot's comment about Apep being an older god than Ra, there's some mythology that refferences Apep as being a previous sun-god. As with any mythology spanning a lot of centuries and a large landmass, and being largely based oral-tradition, stories about Apep (and all the other gods) vary and contradict each other a lot. In later times, a lot of Apep's attributes even got reassigned to Set. Poor Set, he was totally Ra's best warrior and defender (he's the one said to have struck the killing blow to Apep) but he gets all the shit, just because he murdered his brother, tried to usurp the thrown of Egypt, slept with his nephew (whom he also tried to kill a few times), talked shit about his family...
So anyway, sorry about the long wait! Join my friends’ RP and come play with me! I retconned Mot for it!
Title: Final Eclipse Chapter Two
Author: Fictatious
Character(s): BBakura Ryou, Yami-Bakura, Malik Ishtar, Ishizu Ishtar, Rishid Ishtar, Yami-Yuugi, Atem, Mot, Sek
Rating: M
Warnings: Some swearing and general panic
Summary: I feel like I should start this summary off with something like "Things heat up when--" But no. I can't do that. I have standards. Ryou has been reunited with Bakhura, but that rather clashes with Sek and Mot's plans. I diverge further from le canon-ending and Tabletop shenanigans are had.
Previous:
Delusions
Bad Religion
Interlude 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
FE Chapter One
It was like looking at a double-exposed photograph; Ryou’s physical eyes were open, at least slightly, and the dim images of what was happening in the cave, of the Ishtar siblings setting up some ritual around the brazier, overlaid the image of his soul-room. He was peripherally aware of the sounds and movements happening outside, but his chief attention was focused on the Thief leaning against him and sobbing brokenly.
Words and arguments had faded and left the Thief curled half in Ryou’s lap with his arms clinging around Ryou’s waist. Ryou stroked his hair and they cried quietly and exchanged the memories of their time apart. Usually at these times, Ryou could feel Thief holding back pieces, sensoring out upsetting details, giving Ryou the Disney version of event. Right now the memories were rushing into Ryou’s mind unchecked, unedited, as the Thief seemed too lost and distraught to control his own mind. It was like when they’d first met, when the Thief couldn’t tell where the boundaries of his own consciousness were, when he’d still thought the snake was part of himself, when his thoughts and emotions were scattered, immediate, and intense.
It was like in three months, the snake had managed to undo all the six and a half years they’d spent together. Ryou closed his eyes and burried his face in the Thief’s tangled hair. He’d put the pieces together once, he could do it again. And this time he knew where to start, this time he knew who he was talking to, knew what was happening.
He sighed and turned his head a little, keeping his cheek pressed to the crown of Thief’s head. He gazed at the smooth, mocha color of the Thief’s shoulder, where his coat-thing had slid down. He hadn’t for an instant failed to recognize the spirit, despite the fact that his appearance had changed drastically. The Thief had always, even in their shared mental space, borrowed Ryou’s image for his own, but now he was entirely different. It was what the Thief had looked like in life, Ryou supposed, and the magic of whatever mad journey he’d been on had preserved that image and reminded the Thief of who he had been.
The change in the Thief’s (meta)physical appearance gave Ryou something to ponder on other than the extent of damage to the already tenuous state of his psyche. His body was stockier than Ryou’s, lean and muscular with skin a few shades darker than Malik’s. His hair was stiff and dirty-feeling, the way that Ryou supposed most people’s must have been in the days before indoor plumbing, but even that somehow added to the exotic sort of beauty in the Thief’s appearance.
“I suppose I never really expected anything one way or the other,” Ryou mused quietly and watched the Thief turn his head slightly to look up at him while not moving away any. “I mean, I never really thought I’d see what you used to look like, so I never bothered to wonder if you were beautiful or ugly,” he explained, running his fingers through the Thief’s fringe and pushing it back away from his eyes. “But I think I’m kind of surprised. I mean, it makes sense that you’d be built and everything, because you work so hard, but I guess it seems a little odd for someone who’s had such a difficult life to have such a pretty face.” He traced a finger along the line of the Thief’s jaw, squarer, more distinctly masculine than his own, and let his hand linger a moment before pushing another lock of hair behind the Thief’s ear. “I thought a hard life, and being in the sun all the time, made people’s faces look old very quickly. I suppose you were in the prime of life though... when you’d be the most beautiful.”
The Thief seemed to calm a little more, soothed by gentle, praising words, and his visible eye drifted almost shut again.
...
“Hmm, your other playable characters are really more effective than I thought they’d be,” the demon version of Bakura mused, smirking down at the table.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pharaoh asked, suspicion bleeding into his voice.
“Ah nothing,” the demon shrugged and sat back in his chair, grinning widely at Pharaoh. “I’m just impressed how close they are to discovering your true name.”
“... How do you know that?” Pharaoh asked, his eyes scanning the board carefully. He couldn’t see where his friends were, much less know what they were doing, how did Bakura? “You shouldn’t be able to see what they’re doing.”
Bakura shrugged. “Just because my players are more communicative than yours, don’t blame me.”
Pharaoh narrowed his eyes, glaring across the table at Bakura. “What players? You sacrificed the Thief King, you don’t have any other players on the board.”
The demon laughed. “Oh, why thank you for underestimating me again, Pharaoh!” he crowed jovially. Again? “But I’m not about to return the favor. You really thought I’d play alone against your five players? I have three, well only one on the board now, but also one in reserve, who should be getting into place right about now...”
“What do you mean in reserve?” Pharaoh demanded. And where did Bakura still have a player on the board? He hadn’t seen any characters on Bakura’s side besides the Thief King and the hooded NPCs.
“Well, he’s a minor actor, I think I’d rather forfeit him for a named-character,” Bakura mused, drumming his fingers idly against the edge of the table. “You really can’t wrap up a story without main characters, after all, and I have become so fond of our named-character.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Soul Allocation, dear Pharaoh, you’ve already used it once yourself in this game. Transferring one character’s hit-points to another,” the demon explained, winking at Pharaoh. “Works marvelously if you have a character on the edge of death and no time to heal them, or even a newly dead character can be revived, although that does cost double.”
The memory of his player getting strength from Yuugi’s flashed to the front of his mind and Pharaoh frowned. Bakura obviously intended to bring back the Thief King’s character, but what player did he intend to take the hit-points from?
“I’ll apply the technique to my dummy player,” Bakura explained with a look of smug satisfaction.
“What dummy player?”
Bakura’s lips split open into a wicked grin and he slammed down a new character sheet on the table. “It’s game-time, Mister President!” he declared.
Pharaoh blinked. President? “Kaiba? Kaiba’s here?”
There was a flash on the board, and Kaiba appeared suddenly in the streets of Amarna. Bakura threw back his head and laughed before bringing his eyes back to the board and raising the dice in his hand to throw. “Now, if you’ll just let me borrow your hit-points--”
...
There was a sudden, horrible shrieking of straining metal that made both Bakhura and Ryou jerk around to see what was happening. The steel panel that had replaced the door of Ryou’s soul room months earlier was ripping back, like the top of a can of fish, protesting loudly as it was pulled away from its moorings and thrown aside, revealing Sek and Mot standing together on the other side, Mot looking ammused as usual and Sek appearing absolutely livid.
“You worthless piece of shit!’ the Sek snarled, storming into the room. ‘You’ve damn near ruined everything!”
“Temper temper, Sek,” Mot admonished in a jovial tone. “Don’t get your panties in a twist. We’ve not lost yet.”
“Shut up!” Sek shouted without sparing a glance for the other demon. He glared down at Bakhura, who clung to Ryou, terrified silent by the sheer anger in Sek’s face. “Three thousand years of preparation and you couldn’t get it right! How dare you disappoint me! Worthless human garbage!”
“B-but- but I did what you t-told me...” Bakhura protested in a bare whisper, feeling compelled to make some excuse, to make Sek stop looking at him like that; it was too horrible.
“FOOL!” Sek screamed and cuffed him hard enough to send both Bakhura and Ryou sprawling across the floor.
“Stop it!” Ryou shrieked as he squirmed over Bakhura, covering him with his body as though Bakhura was some helpless infant. What was worse was that Bakhura couldn’t seem to make himself move, just cling and sob light a frightened child.
“Stay out of this!” Sek snarled, and raised his hand again, this time with his fingers curled forward, the tips lengthening into grizzly claws.
Mot caught his arm, holding Sek in place as he looked down on Bakhura and Ryou with that terrifying smile. “Little Bakhura, you certainly did well in gathering the Millennium Items, but how on earth did you expect Lord Apep to be reborn without a blood sacrifice?” he said in a calm, logical voice. “You’ve really thrown a wrench into the works by refusing to see the ceremony through.”
“But...” Bakhura’s voice sounded tiny to his own ears as he stared up at Sek, confusion and pain squeezing at his lungs. “Y-you protected me all those times just to kill me now?”
“A human is worth no more than the value of their blood,” Sek hissed.
Mot laughed as though it were a hilarious joke. “You must forgive him, darling, social discourse is not my brother’s forte.” He moved across the floor and knelt down next to them, smiling down at Bakhura. “It isn’t to say that your contribution isn’t appreciated, little Bakhura, merely that human blood is a most valuable commodity.”
Mot reached out toward Bakhura’s face, but Ryou slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch him!” he snapped.
“Miserable insect!” Sek snapped and made to kick him.
“Sek,” Mot said calmly, holding up a hand and raising an eyebrow slightly. “A little delicacy, please?” The slow realization that Mot was protecting him, them, from Sek made Bakhura’s blood run cold. The situation had gone from frightening and confusing to terrifyingly surreal.
Mot’s glowing blue eyes moved to look at Ryou, his smile softening to something almost pleasant. “Go back to sleep, little Ryou. It will all be over soon. You won’t have to worry anymore.” He dipped his head a little to catch Bakhura’s eyes, giving him the same nearly-human smile. “It’s too late to use you for the sacrifice now, Bakhura, I’m afraid you can’t have that honor anymore, but Lord Apep’s resurrection is going to take a little longer than planned now, and you could do us all a big favor by keeping the Pharaoh and his friends busy for a while. Don’t you want another shot at him? Do you know what he did to your little Ryou?”
Bakhura was shaking and couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought, much less words. He knew with a strange, foreign certainty that Mot wouldn’t wait for him to agree, and that it wouldn’t matter if he tried to refuse, but it seemed that Ryou wasn’t going to wait for his answer either.
“Get out!” Ryou shouted. “Get out of my mind! Get out!”
The words seemed to shake something loose in Bakhura and he suddenly seemed to have control of himself again, he gripped Ryou tighter. “No,” he whispered and then pressed his forehead into Ryou’s shoulder; he knew he’d lose his nerve if he looked at their cold, luminescent eyes another second. “I’m not going with you.”
There was a pause and then Mot sighed, “You’re right,” he said in a mockery of disappointment. “The boy really is a terrible influence. These modern people just don’t have any manners at all.”
“I told you to keep them separated,” Sek growled.
“You did, you did,” Mot agreed. “I was careless. I never thought a foreigner would have such a talent for magic. He caught me off guard.”
“Idiot,” Sek sneered. There was a momentary pause, just half a beat of decision making and then he ordered, “You take Bakhura. I’ll subdue this pest.”
A fresh thrill of terror ran down Bakhura’s spine and he tightened his arms around Ryou, twisting his hands into the fabric of his shirt.
“Your wish is my command, dearest,” Mot half-sang and then Bakhura was being grabbed around the waist.
“NO!” Ryou screamed, clinging and digging his fingers into Bakhura’s skin, even as Sek suddenly dissolved into a gigantic, black snake and lunged towards him fangs-first. One of Ryou’s hands let go of Bakhura and he felt himself lurch back, into Mot’s grip, as he watched Ryou lash his arm out towards Sek’s descending jaws. There was a flash and Sek’s snake-form flew back and hit the wall.
Mot started laughing hysterically, his grip on Bakhura slackening slightly with his mirth. “Oh shit! Who’s careless now!” he mocked as Bakhura scrambled with his hands, trying to get his arms more securely around Ryou as the boy stared at his own hand with a dazed look.
Look to your own tassk! Sek shrieked back and lunged again.
Bakhura was wrenched backwards and lost his grip on Ryou’s waist and flailed desperately, grabbing for Ryou’s arms and hands, watching the terrified look Ryou was wearing that he was sure he must have been mirroring as they scrambled to hold on to each other.
“Thief!” Ryou screamed, half a moment before Sek’s jaws slammed into his back.
Ryou’s eyes screwed shut and he screamed. Bakhura could hear the scream in double; he was screaming outside, in the cave, as well as their inner-space. A moment later there were other voices on the outside, shouting, asking questions. Bakhura couldn’t make out what they were saying, he was screaming too and only just clinging to Ryou’s wrists as Sek pulled and shook him viciously and one of Mot’s arms moved around Bakhura’s neck, choking him.
All at once the arms let go and Mot started screaming. Bakhura slammed into Ryou in the sudden absence of Mot’s grip and lay dazed for a moment before looking back to see Mot’s image wavering between the copy of Ryou and the giant snake, something like purple lightning crackling all around him.
What are you doing?! Sek demanded, his fangs still sunk into Ryou’s abdomen.
It’s him! They’re with HIM! Mot screamed, convulsing and wearing an agonized expression when his human visage flickered visible.
Hurry you foo-- Sek's words cut off in a scream of pain accompanied by sounds like a butcher-knife cutting through thick meat. Ryou tumbled down on top of Bakhura, knocking him senseless for a moment.
SEK! Huge, black coils rolled over Bakhura and Ryou, and the crackling, purple light licked at them. Bakhura closed his eyes and clung to Ryou, feeling the heavy, scaled body slide over him and turn, rushing back in the direction of the door, and pulling Sek with him.
And then everything became silent. He could hear distant voices, on the outside, but Ryou’s soul-room was utterly still except for the combined, hysterical breaths of he and Bakhura. Someone was shaking them, on the outside, calling their names. Bakhura ignored it, just quietly clinging and trying to calm himself, trying to soak in the heat and comfort of Ryou’s metaphysical ‘body’ and banish all the chaotic, terrifying thoughts and feelings from his mind.
“Th-Thief, we n-need to see what’s happen-ning outside,” Ryou whispered to him after a while.
Bakhura shook himself, not wanting to move but feeling more than compelled to agree with anything Ryou wanted. He nodded his head minutely and pressed his face against Ryou’s neck, letting Ryou pull them both up towards lucidity.
...
A pillar of golden light suddenly burst through the ceiling, throwing Hassan and Aknadin apart and dissipating the purple lighting between them.
Pharaoh closed his eyes against the light. Somebody shrieked with surprise. After an instant, the light faded and Pharaoh blinked his eyes rapidly, trying to clear the spots from his vision and see what was happening in the place where the pillar had landed.
Sand was swirling up from the floor, gathering and sculpting itself into the form of a human being. The features etched themselves into the shape of the Thief King Bakura, and several gasps were heard around the chamber.
The color of sand gave way to flesh and fiber and left the Thief King standing in the precise center of where the light had fallen. His face was oddly blank though, his eyes unfocused and his jaw slack. He swayed for a moment and then collapsed limply to the floor, his body exploding into sand once more.
There was silence.
“Wh-what was that?” Mana demanded somewhere behind him.
...
The Pharaoh raised his eyebrows in surprise, watching his opponent across the table suddenly double-over in apparent pain. He tilted his head slightly, wondering what had inspired such a reaction; the only thing that had happened on the game board was a miserably botched role. Why that should cause this Bakura physical pain, the Pharaoh wasn’t entirely sure. Perhaps too much of his power was being invested in creating the game-world?
“Something wrong?” he asked quietly.
The demon-Bakura looked up at him and quickly adjusted his posture, though the movements looked strained and stiff, as though he were still in pain. “My gambit failed,” the demon replied in what was surely meant to be a casual tone. “It’s because you’re side is cheating, of course.”
“Of course. Ra forbid that a demon would ever cheat,” the Pharaoh scoffed.
Bakura smirked. “I gave you every advantage in the world, Pharaoh. You have five players, I started this game with only four. And I just lost one.”
“What a pity,” Pharaoh said, leaning forward and feeling a smug grin curl his lips. “You really should take better care of your things.”
“Quite right,” Bakura agreed. “No use crying over spilt milk, though. And I still have my fail-safe left.” He tapped a finger against the hourglass that was counting down the minutes until Apep’s awakening.
“Indeed.” Pharaoh nodded, eyeing the hourglass. “I suppose the player you just lost would be the real Bakura?”
The demon grinned and pointed to himself. “You mean the one with this face? Oh, no no no, we never could get him to play ball. Very willful, that one. The best I could manage on that end was despairing apathy.”
Pharaoh raised a curious eyebrow. “The human spirit within the Millennium Ring then?”
“Oh so you already know about him?” the demon chuckled. “It usually takes a long time to break the spirit of someone like him, but of course, your father already did that for us, didn’t he.” He smirked, looking pleased with himself as Pharaoh felt his face twitch slightly. “We really had him well trained, but little Ryou is just such a bad influence, teaching him to be so naughty and disobedient. I’m rather beginning to understand my brother’s distaste for him.”
Brother? There was more than one demon? Mai had only talked about the one. “Who are you?” Pharaoh asked, narrowing his eyes. “Are you the parasite Mai saw in the Shadow Realm?”
“Mai?” the demon looked slightly puzzled for a moment before his face again brightened and he snapped his fingers. “Oh! The one with that amazing cleavage!” He snickered, shaking his head. “That was my brother,” he paused for a moment to stifle a laugh. “Oh was he angry about that little joke...” He wiped at a nonexistant tear. “No no, I was much too busy playing with you to go gadding about in the Shadow Realm.”
“With me?” Phraoh frowned.
“Oh yes.” The demon nodded. “And speaking of naughty little boys, I so very much look forward to torturing Malik after my master has taken your world to his bosom.”
Oh. That made the pieces click suddenly together in Pharaoh’s mind. “... I thought I killed you,” he said quietly.
“Well then, I guess you underestimated me, didn’t you?” the demon hummed, grinning impossibly wide. “And my master’s power. Silly you, thinking a handful of fragile little humans could stand up to gods.”
“You’re nothing but a demon,” Pharaoh snorted, crossing his arms and giving a derisive sniff.
“You’ll find, dear Pharaoh, that the difference between gods and demons is merely the difference between day and night,” the demon said, completely unfazed. “And after all, my master is far older than your great Ra. He was there from the very beginning.”
“Tell someone who cares.”
...
A/N: I totally wrote this all out of order. I wrote the two soul-room scenes first, and originally they were both from Ryou’s perspective and with a lame written segue, but the second half of it was really flat and lame, so threw in an ellipsis and I rewrote it from Bakhura’s perspective, but I was like “man, I can’t just have it change perspective in the middle of a scene or something” and so I wanted another scene in the middle there, but I couldn’t figure out what, so I just threw in a second ellipsis to mark it for later and rewrote that second half while I was feeling it. Then I wrote about half of the final table-top conversation at the end there, but then at first it ended with “You really should take better care of your things.” Then my computer broke. Two weeks later, I got my computer back all fresh and clean and I buckled down for another round of editing and writing. I went and wrote more exposition into the final scene and some “aha” time for Pharaoh. After that, I wrote the first table-top scene and the last thing I wrote was the little in-game clip. I was originally planning to have some of what’s going on out in the cave in this chapter, but I think I’m going to use that to start off the next chapter now.
So, for the first tabletop scene there, I actually watched that last bit of episode 212 one line at a time and copied down the dialogue for refference material before I wrote the scene. Y'know, doing that really drives the point home how unfortunate the Engrish on these subtitles is, and places where I looked at the word used in the subtitles and went "... what the hell?" then looked it up and found that the subber had apparently grabbed a dictionary and then written down the wrong permutation of the word, for example, Yami-Bakura likes to reffer to Kaiba as 'Shyochyo,' 'President,' but in the subtitles it said "Chief"; so I read the subtitle, "It's showtime, Chief!" and I'm like "Is he just being cute?" but then Pharaoh is all like "Wait, Kaiba?" and I'm like "Hm, does he call Kaiba 'oyabu' (boss or gang-leader, sometimes used in a because-it's-funny context much like 'chief') or something?" and had to go back and check, then look up the word and ladeedahdeedah. Anyway.
Mot's comment about Apep being an older god than Ra, there's some mythology that refferences Apep as being a previous sun-god. As with any mythology spanning a lot of centuries and a large landmass, and being largely based oral-tradition, stories about Apep (and all the other gods) vary and contradict each other a lot. In later times, a lot of Apep's attributes even got reassigned to Set. Poor Set, he was totally Ra's best warrior and defender (he's the one said to have struck the killing blow to Apep) but he gets all the shit, just because he murdered his brother, tried to usurp the thrown of Egypt, slept with his nephew (whom he also tried to kill a few times), talked shit about his family...
So anyway, sorry about the long wait! Join my friends’ RP and come play with me! I retconned Mot for it!
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| Hesperadia an original character rp |
You wake up and you remember everything. You remember a dream. And in that dream, you died. You have a purpose. You survived because someone brought you here. You survived because you are needed. Of course, it is not that simple. You are not all-powerful. You are not a God, and things are still trying to kill you. You must still eat, and find shelter and clothing. And there are others like you. Beings ripped from the edge of nothingness. But don't worry. You're being watched over. But if you die again, you won't have another chance. And the world will die as well. |
| journals to be aware of //  hesperadia: main community // hesperadiaooc: OOC community // |
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