Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Fallen Angel, Risen Demon ❯ Hatred and Accusations ( Chapter 7 )

Priestess: Another short, sucky chapter. The lack of italicized beginning thingy couldn't help, with the short anyway. There were three reviews which by my standards is very low. I would like to make it clear that I have updated once or twice every day, and have at least 29 stories to work on at the moment. If no one reviews, I can simply work on them. On one I've had at least six reviews a chapter-and it's only on one site!

And, as you will see, Atemu and the Mutous weren't the only ones affected by Bakura's death.

(Banging is heard in closet)

Priestess: Don't mind that. I just locked up a few characters so they can't kill me over the end of this chapter.

***

Ryou was still in shock as he entered his house. He stared at his hands. That pale skin was infinitely stained with blood. Including his, now. Bakura had redeemed the taken lives by taking his own. It was time Ryou did the same.

After all, he wasn't good enough. He wasn't good enough to go with Yugi and the others into his heart, to seek the Pharaoh's memories...even without Yami Bakura, he just wasn't good enough.

He pressed the knife against his pale wrist, feeling weak in the knees as the knife raked his skin. The result was immediate. Ryou gasped, tears filling his eyes as he opened them to inspect his wrist.

It was a thin red line, bleeding just the tiniest bit. He was truly pitiful: he couldn't even commit suicide right!

He lifted the knife again and slashed blindly, inwardly surprised that he wasn't backing out at this failure. It was like the brief moment of pain was fueling him-he wanted more.

It was even sharper and stung more than before, but it was several inches away from his wrist. That was what he got for shutting his eyes, but surprisingly he was satisfied. Even though he had failed, the hurt thrilled him. It was incredibly addictive.

He traced the cut with his knife for fifty minutes. It was excruciating, but pleasurable. The wound deepened, widened, and lengthened with each cut. He ended up with a 2-inch cut which bled like a little river, dripping over his arm.

His lips curved up as he wiped and disinfected the cut.

Really, this was much better than suicide.

***

The man unwrapped the blue fabric from his long-ish white hair. His outlandish white clothes seemed to fall away in shimmers as the fabric fell to the ground vanishing, and he was left wearing a blue high school uniform like a larger (duh) version of Yugi's.

"Recognize me yet?"

He smirked-a familiar smirk, though lacking its usual maliciousness-at Mariku's stunned expression. "What's the matter?" he said with faux-sweetness, the spectacular sky blue eyes glowing brighter than ever. "You look like you've just seen a ghost."

Mariku shut his gaping mouth, realizing he'd been insulted.

"You're dead!" He cried. "How can you be here?!"

Bakura stared steadily at him with his new, supernatural blue eyes and replied, "I'm here to see Atemu. Surely you've heard of him."

"And since when did you call the Pharaoh by his name?" Mariku replied incredulously.

Bakura shrugged. "I'm dead. I don't have the best track of time."

Mariku still eyed him suspiciously. He wasn't acting like himself. He had been so vicious. Now he seemed so...peaceful. It was as if his evil had been washed away with the hue of his eyes, leaving his soul as pure and luminous as them. Eyes are the window to the soul...

That had never seemed truer.

***

Ryou's eyes were empty.

Once they had been bright eyes, vibrant emerald with vivid lime highlights. After that they were sweet eyes, deep soft brown. Now the hues were once again bright emerald lime, but in spite of this they were in no way vivid.

He gazed dully at the spring grass, lightly gripping the chains of the slightly rocking swing he was sitting on.

He had already been a bit unstable-he wrote letters to dead people! Not to mention he had Yami Bakura living in his body, had being the operative word.

But now he had no Yami Bakura in his body, and he had lost half of himself.

Yes, it sounded stupid. After everything that had happened, what finally pushed him over the edge was losing the cause of half his troubles! Because besides being half his troubles, he was half of him.

The twisted, evil half, yes, but the strong half. The sure half. The only being who wouldn't abandon him-who, in fact, was impossible to get rid of.

And now he was gone. The one thing Ryou could always count on, and he was gone.

He was so pale now that, if it weren't for his eyes, he could truly be an albino. His face was gaunt, his slim frame utterly emaciated. But he hadn't quite gone as far as Atemu had, for the mere reason that he had been stabilized by the cuts.

Maybe Yami Bakura wasn't entirely gone.

Stabilized by the cutting, he still went to school and kept up the act. He shrunk and paled and lost his innocence, but he didn't lose his mind entirely.

It became a cycle. He experimented in different locations and made a science out of it. If it was pain that he wanted most, he would cut in more sensitive areas. If he wanted blood, he would cut in less sensitive areas. He could cut deeper there before he felt the need to stop, thus there was more blood.

Suicide was no longer a part of his life, for they say that pain releases a chemical in your brain that some people find to be very enlivening. But he wasn't enlivened, just stabilized. Cuts couldn't fill the emptiness his yami once occupied.

It couldn't fill the emptiness in his eyes.

***

Isis appeared first, simply appearing. A flicker of sunlight landed by her, taking the shape of Malik. Malik was holding the Millennium Puzzle, and as it shined Atemu appeared. Then a spark of electricity fell from a phone wire and turned into Kaiba. The Blue-Eyes White Dragon drifted down, setting Kisara on her feet before vanishing into her.

They all saw the two 'dark' yamis talking, but none of them moved. Malik and Kaiba were stunned. Isis...seemed entirely impassive. Atemu was filled with deep, fervent hunger which just about terrified him.

At last, Malik spoke. "Were his eyes always that...that blue?"

"No, they were brown," replied Kaiba. "That might have been because of being in Ryou's body-it certainly changed several other things about his appearance, like his muscles and tan and stuff."

"But Ryou's eyes were bright emerald..." murmured Malik.

"Would you please stop discussing my eyes?"

Malik and Kaiba jumped about three feet high as they realized Bakura was standing right in front of him, gazing impassively at them with his impossibly blue eyes.

"Well, it is a bit noticeable," remarked Mariku, appearing from behind Bakura.

Bakura rolled said eyes and said, "I didn't visit the land of the living to discuss my eyes. I did it because I know about Necrophadisu."

***

Ryou glanced up, the sun making his eyes ache slightly. Said eyes widened.

Without thinking twice, he jumped to his feet and sprinted as fast as he could to the Turtle Game Shop.

Yugi, he thought. You aren't going to believe this!

***

"I don't believe it," said Yugi. "I know!" replied an excited Ryou. "Isn't it incredible?!"

"Um..." replied Yugi uncertainly. "Well...are you sure you saw them?"

"What do you mean?" Ryou replied, sounding dismayed. "Of course I'm sure! Why would I lie?"

"Well, not lie, exactly, but..." Yugi sounded very uncomfortable. "Maybe you...saw it wrong, or...something." Ryou's jaw dropped and his eyes filled with hurt. "I-I can't believe you just said that..." His face twisted with infuriation. "You don't trust me!" he screamed. "You never trusted me!"

Tears spilled from his eyes, but his jaw set angrily. "You'll pay!" he shrieked. "You'll wish you trusted me! You'll see!"

Then he turned and ran, not giving Yugi a chance to react.

***

"Is something wrong?" inquired Bakura after everybody except Atemu had left to Kaiba Mansion. "Nothing," lied Atemu. "I'm just...surprised."

"That I agreed to help save the world?" Atemu stared at him, unnerved that he could read him so easily. "Yes. That, and...What you said yesterday."

"What about it?"

Atemu took a deep breath. "Was it true?"

From Bakura's expression and the hurt in his stunningly blue eyes, Atemu had the strangest feeling he had pierced him with a huge knife. "Was it true?! Why wouldn't it be true?"

"Well..." Atemu had no idea how to reply to this, so he went into instinctive defensive mode. "It isn't as if you've been very trustworthy in the past."

"So? I'm a thief. I lie. But what's in it for me to lie about being in love with you?"

Atemu fumbled for a reply, and had to pick the worst one possible. "I don't trust you."

Now the feeling wasn't strange at all. He would have felt very stabbed if Bakura had said that to him.

Bakura's voice was dripping with frigidity as he replied icily, "You didn't trust me when I came to tell you I was intending to die, and where did that get you? You went insane."

Atemu gasped. "How did you know about that?"

Bakura's eyes hadn't been so malicious since three months before his death. "You think it wasn't obvious? I can't tell you how many times I peered into my mystical pool only to see you sitting in a chair, gazing at things which were never there?"

Now Atemu was furious. "You speak as if you were never insane!" he shouted, without anymore guilt at knowing he was saying the most hurtful things he could say.

"At least I was left with a mind!" Bakura yelled.

"At least I was left with a heart!"

Immediately he knew it had been a mistake. The hurt turned to anguish, then Bakura's face twisted with infuriation. "Fine," he hissed, his eyes glinting eerily ruby. "Fine." His fists clenched. "I can see where I'm not wanted. Save the world yourself, then, since you're so experienced at it. Get everything destroyed, see if I care!"

Then he vanished.

***

Atemu eyes were filled with disbelief, guilt, and anguish. Then, with a choked sound, he sunk to his knees. Burying his head in his arms, he sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

In a garden in the next afterlife, a man who was formerly the mightiest thief in all Egypt did the same thing.