Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Birth of Darkness ❯ Birth of Darkness ( One-Shot )

"Bakura! It's time to come inside! It's almost dark."

A small boy of about eight came disdainfully to his mother's call, trying to hide the cut on his forehead and various other injuries covering his body. However, his white hair did little to conceal the blood already matting in its filthy locks.

"Bakura, have you been fighting again?"

The boy mumbled something inaudible.

"What was that?"

"I said I wasn't the one fighting!" he shouted angrily. He ran past his mother into the mud shack the two shared. He collapsed onto the single mat on the hut's dirt floor, burying his face in the only blanket, and trying not to cry. He lifted his head suddenly when he felt his mother's hand gently stroke his hair.

"Did the other children beat you up?" she asked quietly.

"Y- yes," Bakura choked out between repressed sobs.

"Oh baby, I'm sorry. I told you not to fight them so you didn't fight back."

Bakura nodded, a few tears escaping to trail down his cheek, leaving trails in the dust as they went. He wrapped his small arms around his mother's neck and wept softly. She returned the gesture and held her son close.

"I'm so sorry Bakura." She rubbed the child's back soothingly. "I wish I could take better care of you."

"It's not your fault father left, mama. It's mine... Mama?" He pulled back a bit to look into his mother's face. "Are you crying?" Bakura wiped away the droplets forming in her dark brown eyes and licked them from his fingers.

"Don't be sad, mama. We'll find a way to survive as long as we have each other. In this life or the next."

His mother smiled sadly and caressed her son's cheek lovingly. "Of course we will."

Bakura yawned. "I'm tired, mama."

"Then go to sleep. We'll clean you up later."

The young boy curled up on the mat and snuggled into his mother's warmth as she lay beside him.

"I love you, mama," he whispered, falling into blissful sleep...

"Wake up! Wake up!"

Bakura awoke suddenly to the sound of screaming and his mother's desperate pleas.

"What's going on?" he asked sleepily.

"The village is being raided! We have to leave. Now!"

The boy's scarlet eyes widened in fear and the screaming outside their hut grew louder. His mother grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. She peered out the door, and Bakura saw through the opening soldiers marching past and into people's homes. It was the middle of the night, but the light from hundreds of torches made the entire village seem ablaze.

"Come this way. Hurry." Bakura's mother led him out the back door and the two snuck past the soldiers to the outskirts of the village. The noise behind them gave wings to their feet as they heard the voices of their neighbors shrieking in pain.

When they reached the temple marking the village's borders she pushed Bakura inside.

"We'll stay here and hide," she whispered, but just as she was about to enter the temple herself, a shadow loomed in front of her, flickering in the firelight. She turned and came face to face with a large Egyptian soldier, a bloodied sword clutched in his right hand.

He grabbed the frightened woman by the hair and lifted her off the ground. Bakura watched from the temple darkness unnoticed as his mother's terrified cry was cut short and her body dropped into the dirt.

Bakura couldn't move or think. The soldier left the body where it lay to return to the carnage. The boy stared into the empty eyes of his only loved one; her severed head rolling far enough from her body to stop just within his reach. On his knees, he reached a tentative hand forward to stroke her hair in disbelief.

"Mama...?" he whispered. His eyes filled with hot tears, his body recognizing what his mind refused to accept.

"No... Mama, we're supposed to be together forever. You can't leave me! Mama!" He clutched the severed head to his chest and shed countless drops into the mangled hair. Blood soaked his clothes, but he didn't notice. An eternity passed with an endless chorus of dying screams in the background.

Bakura didn't move until the noise stopped. He set his mother's head down and looked around the corner of the temple doorway. The entire village had been destroyed. Houses lay in ruin, the streets were littered with corpses in all manners of evisceration, and the dirt had turned to mud with the outpour of blood.

His small body shook from fear and cold; the soldiers appeared to be collecting the bodies and were heading his way. He dashed back into the temple and sat in the darkest corner he could find. Not five seconds later and aging man with a beard, obviously a high official of some sort, entered the temple followed by several others of similar status.

"Is everything prepared?" the man with the beard asked the others.

"Yes, this sacrifice will surely be enough for our purpose, Priest Akunadin."

Akunadin sighed sadly. "This is a terrible thing we have done. I fear the gods will never forgive us."

"It is for the appeasement of the gods that we do this. Besides, Kuru Eruna is a useless village of thieves. The kingdom will be better off without it."

"Will it be better off without the women and children of this village as well?"

"They aren't important. Look-"

Their conversation was interrupted as the soldiers finished amassing the bodies onto a pyre in the center of the temple. Akunadin did nothing to acknowledge the task's completion so the other priest gave the signal for the ceremony to begin.

A stone tablet was brought forth and placed beside the pyre. In the tablet were seven oddly shaped indentations carved among the hieroglyphics. Crucibles filled with gold sat on either side of the tablet ready to be poured.

Bakura watched in horror as fire was set to the bodies, his mother's included, and their still-burning flesh was added to the melted gold.

The gold and human concoction flowed into the tablet, and as it cooled, formed seven shining objects, each embossed with the Egyptian eye.

"These, as recorded in the book of the dead, shall be known as the millennium items," Priest Akunadin proclaimed. "We plead to the gods that their power shall be enough to defeat the foes of Egypt. There are seven items, one for the Pharaoh and each of his priests. Together they hold the endless power of the other realm. Should they ever be recollected in this temple, in this tablet, that power shall open the door to the darkness. May we use and protect them well."

All was silent at the end of Akunadin's speech. The millennium items were removed from the stone and the distributed among the priests. By the time all had left the silent village of Kuru Eruna it was almost dawn. Bakura still sat holding his knees to his chest inside the temple, to shocked and afraid to move.

As the first rays of sunlight passed over the red-stained floor of the temple Bakura finally managed to stand. Limping tiredly, he made his way to the temple's center. He ran bloody fingers through the few remaining ashes of the burned people. His mother... They killed her. The truth was finally clear. His mother was gone. He was alone and they had killed her. The pharaoh's minions had slaughtered a whole village and taken away everything he ever had.

Bakura looked with empty eyes at the stone tablet. A few traces of gold remained in one of the molds. He ran his fingers along the edge of the mold's circular edge and imagined that this was the gold of his mother's flesh. He would never see her again.

"Mama..." he sniffed, falling to his knees from sheer grief.

He gasped when he felt the gold remnants on his hand seep under his skin and disappear. He felt a dark energy move though his veins and strange thoughts creeped into his mind. Those items were made with the flesh of his family. By right they should be his!

Bakura looked at his hands. This was the blood of the only person who ever loved him. This was the blood fueling the power of the rulers of a country that had forsaken him. He should have that power! It belonged to him!

"I swear," he whispered, growing louder with each word. "I swear to whatever gods are listening that even if it takes me an eternity I will avenge my mother's murder and take back what is mine! If it is the release of darkness that they fear, then I shall become the darkness!"

He stood up and licked the blood from his hands.

"I will become stronger than the Pharaoh. I will do what no one else can. I will steal back my mother's flesh and all people will bow before Bakura, the king of theives!"