Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Shades Of Gray ❯ Ryou's Confession ( Chapter 2 )

Necrophadisu, as you may already know by now, was the God of Darkness. In ancient times, centuries before the Millennium Items existed, the very sound of His name inspired enough fear to collapse entire societies into chaos. So it was forbidden to say or write His name, and before many centuries the name was forgotten.

Millions of texts have been written about him, but most have been destroyed by now. And even so, it is written in a magical language so ancient the gods themselves have forgotten about them. One of the texts written in that language was known as The Book of Millennium Magic.

Part of it was deciphered, but not all of it was-had it been, the Egyptians who summoned the ancient powers would have much rather been destroyed by the Hittites than bring such chaos upon the world.

But even without a name, He is someone you know very well.

He is darkness in his purest form-which makes it all the more sad that there is nothing pure about Him and never will be-and he exists within all of us.

He waits for our weak moments and pounces, though more often than not you manage to survive with little more than a few scratches and perhaps a bruise or two.

But sometimes…sometimes He catches us, if only for a moment. And then…you get lost in yourself and control nothing. You go nowhere, yet your body may go on a nightly killing spree. You never move your lips, yet you may be loudly cursing out a politician at his campaign.

And when you wake up, you may be standing before the corpse of your best friend with a bloody butcher knife in your hand.

He exists within God. He existed within Jesus and Moses and Muhammad and Abraham and whoever else you may worship. He exists within saints. He exists within demons. He exists within me.

He exists within you.

He is the thing which rests in the darkest corners of your mind. He is everything you repress, everything you hate, everything you try to deny because you want to believe you are a good person.

Deny it all you want-you know what I mean.

***

Ryou was getting worried, and Bakura was already worried: neither of them had seen, sensed, or heard from Necrophadisu for almost a month.

Usually, the times during which the Dark Lord left them be so He could do his mischief elsewhere-whether in the Shadow Realm or in another's mind, it mattered not-were blessings. But the last time it had lasted over two weeks he had been planning a massacre-suffice to say it wasn't pretty.

Now, whenever he was gone for too long, Ryou and Bakura always feared that he was planning some unmitigated disaster-and they were usually right.

Bakura tried to tell Ryou that nothing bad would happen, but he knew he was wrong.

And Necrophadisu wasn't even gone, not exactly. Bakura had checked their shoes and seen clear proof that he was obviously going out at night and doing something, but he didn't tell Ryou.

There was a lot that Bakura didn't tell him, as he didn't want the still-somewhat-innocent white-haired boy to suffer as he did, and Necrophadisu seemed only too happy to keep Ryou in the dark. But Bakura wasn't as lucky.

When Necrophadisu did His dirty work, He usually wanted Bakura to know about it-though He did enjoy waiting to give him the memories until later, it seemed to amuse Him that He knew whatever happened while Bakura was left in the dark.

It wasn't that Bakura couldn't use this to his advantage. Unless completely shut out, he was able to use his powers to-at least slightly-affect what was happening. One of the times he had been the most effective was during Battle City, which was probably why Necrophadisu had lost control of His disguise as Bakura so many times.

You know all those times the Ring blazed really bright? That was Necrophadisu battling Bakura away, and it seemed none of it had worked very well.

Little dueling slip-ups, not slaughtering Malik (Malik-or Namu, as he had then been called-had been Bakura's friend in Kuru Eruna before he died), being less aggressive than he should have been, sparing Ryou, all of that had been Bakura.

There was more than that. Every duel He ever lost, every being He walked by without killing, even the mere act of not ripping Atemu's soul room apart the moment He entered it-all that and more had happened because of Bakura, and Necrophadisu got his revenge for every one of them.

Another thing He delighted in was pointing out when He was doing what Bakura wanted, no matter how little he wanted it-not that He didn't twist things around horribly. He would easily burn down a house with the entire family still inside it and point out that Bakura (and Ryou) had hated the paint job.

Bakura hated this, because it increased the guilt and self-hate which already plagued him all day and night-both emotions that strengthened Necrophadisu immensely. He hated how Necrophadisu could make him feel as if it was all his fault, no matter how much Bakura knew it wasn't true.

Necrophadisu loved making him guilty, and probably would even if it didn't strengthen Him. Bakura's pain and misery also strengthened Necrophadisu, and Necrophadisu caused him much of both.

His power over Bakura's memories was one of His greatest weapons to cause the white-haired Spirit pain and misery, and His favorite memory to exploit was-predictably-the worst: the memory of the destruction of his family, the vicious brutal images no one-especially not a six-year-old child.

In his soul room, all memories were relived as if they were really happening, but Necrophadisu could exploit the memory even in Egypt-after all, each and every one of those images had been burned into his mind forever.

How many times had he curled up in a corner, clutching his forehead, crying and screaming and begging for mercy as Necrophadisu laughed and taunted him?

Too many.

And it wasn't as if he had many happy memories to relive-though he relived every happy one he could, as often as he could.

Most of them were from Ryou, who seemed to take for granted the beautiful sights he had seen growing up-a brisk breezy sail on a clear turquoise lake, a meadow dotted with yellow wildflowers, a beautiful sunset behind tall mountains.

He had visited museums and seen paintings, walked through woods and sat beside a campfire. They didn't need campfires in Egypt.

One of Ryou's memories which filled Bakura with the most wonder and awe was the memory of snow, that whirling torrent of the frigid crystals which piled into a soft feathery substance the pale hue of his and Ryou's hair. Before then, all he had known about snow was that it was a cold white powder which fell from the sky and made travel hard.

The best thing about that memory was that there was nothing sad attached: museums made him remember the past, fires made him think of Kuru Eruna, and so on and so forth.

One of the biggest reasons he was worried was because his birthday was coming up, and-through a cruel twist of fate-the massacre at Kuru Eruna occurred on his birthday.

And exactly fifteen years after that, to the date, he had met Zork Necrophadisu. And a year after that he had been sealed in the Ring. Ryou even gained the Millennium Ring on Bakura's birthday.

He hated birthdays.

***

"Are you sure about this?" Katsuya Jonouchi (cough-Joey Wheeler-cough-cough) asked skeptically, lifting an eyebrow at the boy who seemed to be Yugi Mutou, but was in truth an ancient Spirit known as Atemu-or, in this day and age, Yu-Gi-Oh.

"Yes, I'm sure," Yu-Gi-Oh replied. "I wasn't sure at first, but now I am. It's been almost a year, I'm surprised that I didn't figure it out sooner-there's somebody else who's been helping me in all of those duels against the Spirit of the Millennium Ring."

"Are you sure it isn't Bakura?" asked Anzu (they call Ryou Bakura, remember?)

"No, he isn't nearly strong enough," Yu-Gi-Oh replied. "Somebody else has been working behind the scenes, I'm almost certain of it."

"So you're sure Bakura had nothing to do with it?" she persisted, and they all jumped when a familiar voice interrupted.

"Were you talking about me?"

They turned, and indeed it was Ryou Bakura. His expression was unusually alert, and he seemed more graceful than usual, but it was him.

Stepping up first, as everybody had expected he would do, Yu-Gi-Oh asked, "Bakura, is there another Spirit within the Ring? A less evil one?"

Ryou's eyes widened, and the strange change that none of them had even noticed vanished immediately.

He tried to giggle, but it sounded much too nervous to be real. "So what are you suggesting?" he asked. "That there's some kind, gentle Spirit within the Ring who risks his life just to keep the evil Spirit from destroying the world?"

His four (five, actually, since Yugi was there, too) friends glanced at one another before beginning to question him all at once.

"Who is he?", "What's his name?", "How long has he been around?", "How did he get in the Ring?", "What's he like?", "Have we met him?", and the like could be heard, and Ryou seemed to grow more flustered with every question.

"I…" he began, and trailed off.

"Well, tell us, Bakura," Yu-Gi-Oh urged. "Who is he?"

Ryou sighed. "His name is Bakura, and he calls me Ryou. His full name is Touzoku Ou Bakura-sama, and it's probably even longer than that but he isn't telling me. He's been in the Ring as long as Necrophadisu-that's the evil Spirit-has because Necrophadisu used to possess him even before he gained the Ring."

He paused for a moment, seeming to get lost in himself. Yu-Gi-Oh wondered if he was mentally communicating with this 'Bakura' person. The words Touzoku Ou Bakura-sama struck a cord deep within him, and filled him with emotions he couldn't decipher-or didn't want to.

Or both.

"He's actually very easy to like," Ryou continued, coming out of his daze or internal conversation or whatever it may have been.

"Strong and talented and intelligent and understanding and not evil at all, but also very sad. He's actually saved all of from Necrophadisu plenty of times, and me too, even though he knows it's dangerous to defy Him-as well as that whenever Necrophadisu gets sent to the Shadow Realm he does too. And it's so much worse for him."

Ryou sighed, tears seeming to fill his eyes, and Yu-Gi-Oh was filled with a deep sense of compassion for this other Spirit. He really did sound very likable. "Why didn't we know about this before?" he asked. "Aibou and I could have helped him."

"Necrophadisu," Ryou replied simply, brushing a lock of white hair behind one ear. "He doesn't want you to know He isn't the only one."

"Well, doesn't that mean He's going to be pissed?" Jou asked, blunt as ever, and Ryou sighed again. For the briefest moment, his lovely emerald eyes flashed blue, then they turned back to emerald.

Weren't his eyes brown before he started explaining? Yugi wondered.

"Well, for some reason, we haven't heard from Him lately. I mean, He's still doing his evil deeds, but otherwise it's as if He isn't there."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Honda asked, but Ryou shook his head gravely.

"It isn't that He never disappears, but when He does it usually isn't much longer than a week. Once it passes nine days, we know He's planning something bad. Bakura's worried sick, but he won't admit it. He doesn't like making me worry, you see. He protects me."

"Well, can we meet him?" Honda asked, and everybody seemed interested right away. But Ryou shook his head, though not without regret.

"That would be too much of a risk," Ryou replied. "I don't want to push my luck-I've used it up just telling you about Bakura. Maybe some other time."

"Please?" begged Yugi, who had taken control without much warning.

Inside his soul room, Yu-Gi-Oh was deep in thought. Now that he knew about Bakura, he knew he had to help him. And to do that, he had to meet him first.

I will meet him, he thought, determined. I have to.

But how?