Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Seraph ❯ Chapter 7

Warning: Tendershipping with Ryou seme

 

This is AU, seriously so

 

:blah: = hikari to yami telepathy

 

-blah- = yami to hikari telepathy

 

Bakura wasn't sure if he was relieved that fewer people were staring at him now that he wore the school uniform, or if he missed the attention. A Consort who drew the attention and appreciation of other Adepts was far more valuable an asset than one who didn't, so he'd learned how to be desired from the moment he realised that, to please Seraph, and improve his position. There was no one here who mattered, no reason to try to appeal to anyone but Seraph, so he should have been relieved that fewer people were staring at him, but...the people who still stared at him were the ones who undressed him with their eyes, and who'd been gaping at them most when Seraph displayed his ownership.

 

-Are you sure I can't just get qualifications through some sort of home tutoring Seraph-sama?- It was how he'd gotten up to a level to be accepted into the school after all.

 

:No. If I have to do this, you have to. And my father would get suspicious if he didn't get reports from my teachers every so often. It'll be easier when we get to university, I promise.:

 

-As you say Seraph-sama.- He knew that university students didn't have to wear these stupid uniforms that were awkward to fight in, so there was that at least, but he wasn't entirely sure he wanted, or needed, to get these qualifications that meant so much to humans. Seraph already had a very well paid job, and so did he, jobs that were guaranteed until they died.

 

He was getting more stares now than he had yesterday, Bakura had a feeling it was something to do with the way Seraph had styled his hair, up in a high pony tail, since even Yugi's groupies had given him strange looks. But he wasn't sure why, he'd seen the style in a few historical anime. Or that could be it, the style was hopelessly old fashioned, but he'd seen it in modern times...on girls. He just hadn't realised, but it really didn't matter as long as Seraph was happy.

 

Like the previous week Seraph hid his collar, and the Millennium Ring using Shadow Magic before P.E., so they could wear them without any trouble, but this time when they walked into the gym they found Hitaka had set up boards and suspended bricks like the ones used in those martial arts displays.

 

“Bakura, I believe I was promised a demonstration?” For a moment Bakura thought the teacher was talking to him, and didn't understand what he meant, then he remembered that pupils were addressed by familial name, and the man meant Seraph. This was going to be good.

 

“Yes sir. Is there anyone else who can do this sort of thing?” It seemed almost a rhetorical question as seraph walked over first to the boards, nearly two inches thick, pressing his knuckles against them, and then punching through without even bothering to draw his hand back. Then he moved on to the bricks, smashing them with the edge of his hand, using just three inches to build momentum.

 

“If you can't do it without the wind-up and momentum to help you then you can't do it. That's what I was taught.”

 

His attitude rendered Hitaka speechless. Not that Bakura objected, but eventually he had to take charge of the class again.

 

“Pair off as you did last week.” And the man started teaching them again, childishly simple techniques, meant to avoid doing too much damage, that assumed possession of strengths the people who needed these lessons didn't have. Bakura was tall enough, and Honda didn't fight his attempts to throw him, so it didn't matter that he still didn't have his full strength, but even with Jou's cooperation Yugi was just too short to pull off the throws and other moves that Hitaka was trying to teach them.

 

“Yugi-dono, these lessons are useless, you'll have to forget them anyway when I start teaching you.” He tried to console the duellist after another failure, one that hurt him instead of letting him throw Jou, but Hitaka heard him.

 

“You don't approve of the way I'm teaching Hiei?”

 

“No, the techniques you're teaching, they're fine for the stronger, bigger pupils, but...” Bakura paused, and then spoke up loudly enough for everyone to hear him. “How many of the defenders here can't throw their attacker, even when he's cooperating?” Nearly two thirds of the girls lifted their hands, and even two or three of the boys. “Your techniques assume near parity in size and physical condition, but that won't happen in real life. And you can't teach us what we need to know. Smaller, weaker means going for killing or disabling blows immediately, and carrying a weapon.”

 

“Prove that you know what you're talking about child.”

 

“Then...attack me twice. The first time...I'll use your techniques, as long as you don't let me win with them. The second time...let me use what I know, what you won't be permitted to teach. If you have any faith in your teachings that is.”

 

--0--

 

Yugi couldn't quite believe the way Bakura was challenging Hitaka-san. No one else would defy a teacher that way, but Yugi had been having problems doing what he'd been told to, and he wasn't the only one it seemed.

 

“I'll tell you if he's letting you throw him or anything Shadow. You do have a point.” Ryou was smiling coldly as he stalked over to them, after throwing his partner across the gym.

 

:Do you agree as well Yami?:

 

-Yes. I hoped this would be useful, but...I know that you were doing exactly what you'd been told to do when you were hurt trying to throw Jou. You just don't have the leverage it takes aibou.-

 

:Bakura's taller than me too, do you think he can help me mou hitori no boku?:

 

-I don't think he'd have agreed to try if he couldn't aibou.- There was that weird hesitance again before Yami continued. -But you can always ask him after this.-

 

“You aren't really trying.” Ryou's voice distracted Yugi from his internal conversation and he looked over to see that Bakura had thrown Hitaka-san.

 

“What do you mean Bakura?” Yugi guessed he had a right to sound angry at the implication.

 

“A real attacker, even the thug I assume you're trying to emulate, would have centred himself better, you deliberately left yourself wide open for that throw. Why not have someone else play attacker, someone who doesn't have anything invested. That or do it properly.”

 

“And you'd know this how?” Hitaka-san had stood up by now, and was trying to use his height and muscled bulk to intimidate Ryou.

 

“I've been undergoing treatment for one of the less serious cancers for most of the past year, I came off the chemo about two months back, and I've finally managed to get back into condition. But...just under two years back I fudged my age to enter a tournament in Kyoto. I got thrown out for being `too vicious' and that's when I told the organisers my age. I didn't mean to break his spine, and he pulled illegal moves first.” Ryou's voice sounded almost plaintive as he finished his explanation, and Hitaka-san turned pale.

 

“You...you're claiming to be that fighter? How did you avoid the police?”

 

“You don't need to know that, and the records have been wiped anyway. I know I displayed the same little party trick I did for you at the tournament. Are you going to fight properly now?” Mockery laced Ryou's voice and Hitaka-san obediently attacked Bakura gain, this time easily forcing the yami to the ground and pinning him there.

 

“T-try it my way now?” Yugi couldn't quite believe he was hearing the Thief King Bakura stumbling over his words, almost in fear of a human.

 

“Yes.” Hitaka-san seemed slightly flustered as he stood up, and Ryou glared at him so hard he almost flinched. “Just take a moment to catch your breath.” Ryou seemed to calm down at that, and moved to help Bakura up.

 

:Mou hitori no boku...:

 

-I'll sharpen your senses, yes Aibou.-

 

“Are you alright Shadow?” Ryou barely voiced the question as he gently stroked Bakura's back and pony tail.

 

“Hai, it's an involuntary reaction Seraph-sama, I just have to remember that.” Then he almost grinned at Ryou. “Gives me some motivation though, doesn't it?”

 

“Hai, I guess it does.” Ryou broke out laughing at that. “I think he's ready for the next match Hitaka-san.”

 

:What are they talking about?: Yugi knew he was missing something, but he couldn't see what was making the spirit of the Ring nervous.

 

-It sounds like your teacher was aroused when he was pinning Shadow down, perhaps he's been raped in the past.- Yami's mental voice held a studied indifference, that told Yugi louder than any words could that this was something that bothered him.

 

:In Egypt you mean?: Yugi couldn't imagine anyone raping the spirit of the Ring now.

 

-Yes aibou, in Egypt.- There was an air of resignation to Yami's reply, but it didn't matter, did it?

 

Hitaka-san screamed, and Yugi looked up to see Bakura no longer defending himself, but doing his best to disable their teacher. Yugi didn't know why the specific points that Bakura hit were working so well, but they did work, and Yugi wanted to be able to do that.

 

“I think I've won this time Hitaka-san. I apologise for the damage, but the size difference is enough that in a real fight, unless I was in top condition - and under most circumstances for those who need these lessons most - my only chance would be to leave you in enough pain that I'd have time to run away.”

 

He didn't reply, and Ryou came to kneel beside him, using a new sort of magic to heal him. “You won't be able to teach for the rest of this class, but you should be fine by the end of lunch. You didn't think to limit Shadow, and he held back a lot, not strength-wise,” Ryou's grimace was obvious, “but in technique, he could have killed you easily.” Then Ryou stood up and took charge of the class himself, focusing on techniques that worked regardless of strength, according to Yami.

 

--0--

 

By lunch time Ryou was ready to scream. None of the larger boys had wanted to listen to him, and the jocks had heckled him until he'd taken all of them on at once, restricting himself to non-permanent damage with difficulty. He couldn't believe how stupid they'd been, he'd admitted to breaking someone's spine...and they were still giving him a hard time? And the children who really needed these lessons were no better, he'd tried teaching them just four moves in total; two disengages, one nerve point in the lower arm, and one way to trip someone who had hold of you, he didn't think any of them would be able to repeat one of those techniques even the next day, let alone when they needed it.

 

“I never realised just how easy you were to teach before, Shadow.” Ryou kissed his Consort hungrily and pulled his hair out of its pony tail so he could run his hands through it more easily as they made their way to the yard.

 

“It helped, I believe, that the body you granted me was based on your own Seraph-sama. This body is vastly superior to my previous one in many things, rate of healing foremost among them.”

 

“Yes, I never realised just how fast I heal, even without the aid of my ki, until I saw your surprise when your bruises went from purple to yellow inside a day, and disappeared the day after.” His friends looked astonished at that, either at the rate of healing, or the fact that he'd never thought it was unusual.

 

“Yami asked what your meant by the aid of your ki.” Yugi was far too reliant on allowing Yami to think for him in Ryou's opinion. He could think for himself, Ryou knew that, he'd seen it, but he seemed to prefer not to if it had anything to do with conflict.

 

“First, ki is the energy generated by the interaction of your soul and your body. Everybody generates some ki, but with training people can learn how to generate more then normal - how much more depends on the person and how much effort they're willing to put into training, among other things. If you can control your ki you can concentrate it in injured areas, and accelerate your own rate of healing, in extreme cases to near instantaneous, but that's pretty rare. You can also sort of `feed' your ki to someone else and that can increase how fast they heal too. But I don't advise anyone to do that unless it's a matter of life and death. Most Adepts can use ki to some extent, how much varies.”

 

“And that's what you're going to be teaching me Bakura?” Yugi was looking at Shadow in a mix of wonder and doubt that annoyed Ryou.

 

“Yes, that's going to be the first thing I teach you, simply because the worse condition you're in, the easier it is for you to learn to sense your ki unless we go the roundabout method of getting you to learn how to sense your Shadow Magic properly, and then teaching you to be aware of your ki the same way. But you'll learn the more purely physical stuff too.”

 

“But...will I be any good at that?” Yugi sounded anxious as he set his bag down beside him. “You said the techniques we were learning in P.E. were useless for me, and Yami told me I'm too short to get the leverage I needed.”

 

Ryou laughed at that, and Shadow joined in as well. Yugi began to look offended, but that was cute on him and even funnier.

 

“Yugi, you're taller, and broader than Fae, he's an alpha enhanced Adept of the Children of the Fairest and he has absolutely no magic. He's also an unarmed combat specialist, and he could probably defeat any three other alpha enhanced Adepts in a fight that prohibited the use of magic.” Ryou nodded to his Consort, letting him pick up where he'd left off.

 

“As long as he was permitted to use his ki. Fae's one of the Adepts who generates a lot of ki, and uses it incredibly well. He has so much ki that he looks about twenty, even though he's more like sixty, and he heals from broken bones in a few hours, at the outside. There's really two options to do well in a physical fight for someone your size. First, if you have the right body structure - which you don't - go for muscle mass, learn how to lift weights, really heavy weights. Secondly, learn to draw on some form of energy, your ki reserves as I plan to teach you, or Shadow Magic the way Yami does, to enhance the natural strength and speed of your body.”

 

“Oh, right.” Yugi didn't seem to have anything else to say after that.

 

--0--

 

It was three weeks since Shadow had first started coming to school with Seraph when he started wearing jewellery again. But he was wearing jet beads in his hair instead of rubies, and Yami was sure there was something subtly different about the bracelets and anklets, he just didn't know what. Yami was sure that meant that the drugs Shadow'd been given had worn off, Seraph had said something of the sort anyway.

 

-Aibou, you should ask Seraph when you can have your first fighting lesson from Shadow, and where.- Seraph because both the other yami and the assassin had made it very clear that Seraph was the one they needed to talk to, even for this.

 

:Now? And...I thought you wanted me to get on with Bakura.: Yugi sounded surprised, he didn't seem to have taken Seraph's assumptions and behaviour as indicative of what he should do, and it sounded almost as if he'd finally come around to being willing to make an effort to get along with Shadow.

 

-I do, but...Shadow would just tell you to go and ask Seraph, I'm sure of that from the way he always reacts when there's any important decisions to make. Or even any decisions that affect both him and Seraph.- It was one of the things that worried Yami about their relationship, and something that scared him a bit at times about his relationship with his own hikari. The only times Yami made decisions for both himself and Yugi were when Yugi was endangered, but Yugi fairly often forgot about the effects his decisions could have on Yami. It didn't matter, Yami firmly dismissed his thoughts, Yugi was the important one anyway, he always had been.

 

:I'll ask them when they're together, how does that sound?: There was the air of someone offering a compromise to make the other happy, even if he was wrong, in the way Yugi answered. Yami knew that he was right, Shadow would say they should ask Seraph, but...

 

-Thank you aibou.- He wouldn't start another argument with his hikari over how unhealthy he felt Shadow's relationship with Seraph was. He knew that Yugi had to be getting tired of it, as tired as he'd gotten of Yugi's old assumption that `Bakura' had been abusing `Ryou' when it seemed obvious to him that `Ryou' trusted `Bakura' more even than Yugi trusted him. Well, that or `Bakura' was much stronger than he was, or `Ryou' much weaker than Yugi which was obviously not the case considering the deep well of power he'd always been able to sense in the white haired boy.

 

Come lunchtime Shadow had curled at Seraph's feet to eat, leaning casually against the assassin's legs. It looked a bit odd, but not too odd considering how fem Shadow tended to look and act around Seraph.

 

:Then again...I think I'll let you talk to them.: And Yugi pushed Yami into control, leaving the spirit exasperated and almost angry. But it did give him the chance to see something he hadn't realised before: Shadow'd stopped eating when Yugi began approaching them, ready to talk, just as Seraph had, but once Yami took over he moved to rest his head in Seraph's lap, nuzzling at the crotch.

 

“What is it Yami?” Seraph sounded half amused, and half...gloating?

 

“Aibou wanted me to ask about when he could take his first lesson with Shadow and where.”

 

“He couldn't ask himself?” The amusement was growing stronger now.

 

“I thought he was going to.” Yami replied with a grimace. “But...he switched places with me before I realised what he was doing.” Not that Yami thought he'd have been able to refuse his aibou even if he'd been given the chance to.

 

“Then if he can't be bothered to talk about this with us he can't complain if the arrangements inconvenience him.” Seraph sounded annoyed now and Yami couldn't blame him. He pulled a card out of the trouser pocket of Shadow's uniform, lifting his yami into his lap to do so and handed it to Yami around his Consort's body. “He should meet us there at nine on Sunday morning. And he shouldn't plan on leaving until six in the afternoon. He might not need all of that time, but just in case...”

 

“I...see. When will I have a chance to set up the Shadow Magic traps?” And he also contacted Yugi.

 

-Can I invite them to go to the arcade with you and your other friends today?-

 

“You can come an hour early I suppose.” Seraph's response came simultaneously with Yugi's.

 

:Go ahead.:

 

“By the way, aibou and his friends are going to the arcade after school, would you two care to join them?”

 

“Please?” Shadow whispered the word, lifting one hand to Seraph's shoulder.

 

“We'll come with you then.”

 

--0--

 

Bakura didn't look directly at any of Seraph's friends - better friends since they'd learned how lethal he was, or so it seemed to him - when they met in front of the school. It was inappropriate for a Consort, even an Adept Consort to fail to show proper respect, or to seem too curious. But he watched them from below his lowered lashes, and the corner of his eyes, noting which of them were the most comfortable with him, and which the least.

 

Anzu apparently wasn't going to the arcade with them - probably her part time job kept her from arriving with them, but he suspected she'd join them later on. Bakura wasn't entirely sure why but it felt as if she was treating him like she would a female friend, not a male, ever since he'd explained what a Consort's duties consisted of. It didn't matter that she liked to talk to him most about cooking and other wifely things, he enjoyed cooking now, as much for the fact that he actually had enough food to worry about how it would be best to cook something, and that he had a choice of what to cook now as for any other reason. Having enough food was still something of a novelty to him, as was having so many clothes that you could put on a fresh outfit every day, and enough water to clean oneself daily and wash your clothes after only wearing them once. Jou and Honda seemed to have given him the same sort of status they would the lover of any friend, which wasn't that different from Anzu's attitude, and about what he'd hoped for, but hadn't dared expect. Yugi's attitude was just about what he'd expected though, barely hidden hostility, and remembrance of the things he'd done in trying to put his people to rest. The Pharaoh was the really odd one, he was trying to make overtures of friendship towards Bakura every time Yugi let him, and he was almost acting as if he was interested in Bakura.

 

It didn't matter, and they'd reached the arcade by the time he finished his musings. He looked around, uncertain as to what his role was meant to be, half hoping for instructions. Seraph had taken him to places like this before, because they helped you improve hand-eye co-ordination and reflexes, but never as a group thing, and he didn't know if he was supposed to play one of the games himself, or just act as the appreciative audience for the others.

 

“There's this assassin game Ryou spent all visit playing the first time we came here.” Honda took an almost protective hold on his shoulder, guiding him towards one game console that had a plastic `gun' instead of a joystick. “Why don't you try it out?”

 

“I won't be as good as he was.” As far as Bakura was concerned that was a given, that he could never be as good as Seraph, at anything. But he got through all of the levels without being killed, until they began to repeat from the beginning. When he saw that he just put the gun down and left the machine, looking for Seraph. In the end it was Seraph who found him of course, taking hold of him, and pulling him into a secluded corner, reinforcing their privacy with magic.

 

“Shadow, Saturday afternoon I've managed to get a tribunal hearing about what Solar did to you.” They wouldn't really have had a case if it had just been the aphrodisiacs, while technically Seraph was the only one entitled to use them on Bakura it would have been a sign of weakness for him to have to ask for a tribunal to help him enforce that, but using the other drugs on a Consort made it an entirely different matter, and once Seraph had realised what Solar had done he'd made a point of documenting it very thoroughly.

 

“Oh, thank you for the warning Seraph-sama.” Bakura smiled up at his master, then opened his lips ever so slightly, inviting a kiss. It was a forgone conclusion that Solar would be ruled against of course, but since he could request a combat trial to determine his punishment (including whether or not he'd be punished at all), and possibly even demand to face Bakura instead of Seraph Bakura would need to prepare a deck to use against him. But he put all of that from his mind as Seraph took his lips, letting the privacy shielding drop and kissing hard enough to bruise if Bakura hadn't known how to yield and offer himself with every part of his body.

 

--0—

 

sglily: I don't know why, but my Bakura muse is always submissive, in bed anyway. I've got Shadow, a sex demon Bakura paired with a death demon, and a Bakura who gets off on having Ryou cut him up, even though he dominates his hikari in other ways.