Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Pharaoh Bakura and Thief Atemu ❯ Chapter One ( Chapter 1 )

Priestess: I wrote this for a Millennium Kingdom plotbunny and because I was bored. I just felt nice because summer break is beginning, and it happened to be the most interesting one. I know this has already been done, but that was the humorous possibility. Mine is a more serious Yaoi possibility. Spoiler warning!

***

Atemu sighed as he continued searching for the disturbance he had felt in the Millennium Puzzle. He was bored. So stinking bored...

All this time trapped in a Puzzle. Frozen, suffocated, his memory sucked into icy nothingness. No love, no identity, no thoughts. He had his-or Yugi's-friends, but that wasn't really enough. He couldn't help but feel he didn't deserve them. He thought about his past victories, his misleading his victims, then murdering them or driving them insane. It had satisfied him then, but now they left him feeling empty.

More so, they left him feeling like a hypocrite. How could he blame the Spirit of the Millennium Ring for murdering innocents for his own ends when he did the same?

Bakura...

The very thought of him made Atemu's blood boil. But lately he had been having strange and arousing dreams about him which terrified the former Pharaoh beyond belief. Could he be developing feelings for the thief? He doubted it, but could he?

He was the King of Games, and what was love but another game? One that he was determined to conquer. He could outthink any opponent. He simply had to start applying that to his potential mates. What was that phrase that Yugi used? All's fair in love and war?

The Spirit had searched through the puzzle of his soul for what felt like an eternity. Time had no real meaning here, but he knew outside more time than he thought had past. Was it any wonder he was starting to have weird thoughts and dreams.

Every door he opened led to another door. Traps around every corner sent him back to the beginning. It wasn't that he was attempting to solve his past, not this time. There was `something' there, he couldn't place his finger on it but he knew the difference. It was like seeing someone else's fingerprints everywhere. As if someone had moved things.

He had gotten severely frustrated; every time he thought he was getting closer to whatever it was that was happening, it seemed to move just out of his reach. In through one door, up a stairway, down another and back again everything kept changing on him.

There was the sound of movement just ahead of him and he raced to the door, only to meet once again with an empty room. "I give up! Maybe all this time here has finally driven me crazy? Maybe I am just as insane as that damned Spirit? I'll go back and see if Yugi can help me figure this out once and for all."

There came laughter from the shadows, "Yes you are crazy aren't you, Pharaoh? Giving up so easily, wish I had known sooner that's all it took to break you."

"What are you doing here!" he demanded, immediately recognizing the voice.

A lean white-haired figure stepped from the shadows with a smirk that Atemu found frighteningly alluring. "Well, you called me. I guess I'm just a figment of your imagination that you conjured up in your insanity to keep you company."

Furious, Atemu made a grab for Bakura, who laughed as he vanished into the shadows.

Atemu shuddered. "If I conjured him up I'm definitely cracked. I got to get out of here!"

***

Bakura snickered cruelly at Atemu's frightened words as he sat on the couch of Ryou's house, the Millennium Ring shining brightly.

"Yes, Pharaoh. If you will not feel despair, feel fear. Be afraid."

Had he ever known true despair? Bakura wondered idly. He doubted it. Atemu knew nothing of pain, of suffering. He had felt the burning rage of hatred, but he had never fallen into the seemingly never-ending pit of sadness.

He had been sheltered and protected his entire life, having everything glossed over. He was living a lie. A gilded, beautiful lie, but a lie nonetheless. He was born into that lie. He would die for that lie.

He believed the Millennium Items were tools of peace, created for the benefit of all Egypt. He was so naïve. Bakura almost pitied him. Almost. But not enough to forget what his father had done. He would never forget. Ever.

That was what made him so dangerous, more than his cruelty and cunning. The fact that he had nothing to live for but his revenge. That living simply didn't matter anymore. He would do anything for revenge. And to gain that revenge, he needed the Millennium Items.

Did the high-and-mighty Pharaoh even know what he wore around his neck? It wasn't merely enchanted gold. Far from it. Did he even know what it took to "enchant" those disgusting things? Yes, he didn't deny it. They were disgusting, and vile, and Bakura hated them almost as much as he hated the Pharaoh.

Could he not feel it? Not feel the hum, the power, the darkness? Couldn't he hear the souls of the dead shrieking in anguish? Did they never tell him that to harness the power of the Shadow Realm, a sacrifice was required? A sacrifice of flesh and blood, a sacrifice of his people?

No, of course not. The Pharaoh had no connection to the corpses hung around his neck. Not like Bakura did.

He always heard them, always. Whispering in his ear, begging, screaming for revenge. The Pharaoh would never hear them. He would never know true pain, just like he would never know the truth of the lie he was living. Just because he was Pharaoh shouldn't give him the right to slaughter his people. But he didn't care about that, did he?

His father had slaughtered the village of Kuru Eruna. His soldiers, his Priests murdered them, killing them in his name, stealing and enslaving their souls. How dare he? How dare he?

Bakura was surprised the items were gold. They should be red, slick with the blood that has been shed for and over them. He wanted the Pharaoh's blood to be among it, he wanted him to feel pain. Raw, real pain. Physical. Mental. Emotional. He wanted him to truly understand pain, to hate him. Hate him.

He was going to kill him, and everyone that mattered to him. He was going to steal everything he cared for, killed everyone he loved, and then he would tell him the truth. He would tell him the harsh realities of the thing he called "Justice", tell him just how wrong he was.

And he would laugh when the Pharaoh realized he was right.

Bakura realized the Ring was glowing, and lifted it in his hands.

The spirits of Kuru Eruna were chanting in his ears, their voices faint and far away. "Show him your life..." "You have searched his memories in the Millennium Puzzle..." "Let him see your memories..."

He didn't understand what they meant, but the voices continued whispering, "Show him, show him..." "Let him see the face of truth..." "Show him, show him..." "Let him see the lie he has been living..." "Show him, show him..."

His mind went to the scrap of himself within the Millennium Puzzle.

He felt his soul sucked from Ryou's body, plunging into the Millennium Ring. He surged out through one of the pointers and into some nether verse which he wasn't in long enough to see. He was plummeting into a tunnel of gold, and he screamed...