Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ The Hotel of The Afterlife ❯ Chapter 1

Priestess: I love doing strange pairings, don't I? Well this time the pairing, or one of them at least, isn't strange. In fact, it's a damned cliché! But it's also a damn cliché that makes a lot of sense! Wouldn't you agree?
Oh…I didn't tell you what it was yet? Yami/Yugi, duh. And there's also Ryou/Malik, which isn't too uncommon either. But there are also some pairings that aren't at all common: Kaiba/Bakura, Akefia/Atemu, and Mariku/Seth, to be precise. I may also have a Mahaado/Aishisu.
Or, more precisely, the pairings are Puzzleshipping, Angstshipping, Antagoshipping, Casteshipping, Sirenshipping, and possibly Pleashipping.
The idea of the Egyptians (Akefia, Atemu, Seth, Aishisu, etc.) running a hotel in the afterlife that Bakura goes to frequently is an idea my brother and I thought up on the flight to Africa. (Visiting relatives)

***

The night was beautiful, peaceful, unbroken by the uproar to come. Stars twinkled happily in the velvety black sky, and pale light streamed from the moon to illuminate the slender figure in rumpled pajamas, staring moodily out the window.

Yami, as he was now called, inspected his reflection. With his pale skin, slender form, and shocking hair, he was almost identical to the sweet boy currently snoozing away on the bed. It was amazing, even eerie, to think about how closely he resembled such a pure and wonderful creature, when Yami himself was anything but pure.

Once, he believed he could do no wrong. Even as he slaughtered and drove insane anyone who crossed Yugi or his friends, played risky games and cheated in all of them, he always believed that he was right no matter what. It had never crossed his mind to think otherwise.

That was, until just a few months ago, thanks to a man called Dartz—and some other men, but Dartz was probably the most responsible. Though the duel itself had been against Raphael…

Look, if you know about the Orichalcos and Leviathan and such, I don't have to explain. If you don't…too bad for you. Manga-readers-only will have no clue. Then again, manga is the true Yu-Gi-Oh…enough rambling.

Though Yugi had whole-heartedly forgiven Yami, their relationship had been tense ever since. The body separating hadn't helped. They could still meld their minds, sensing and returning one another's thoughts and emotions.

They didn't do it anymore.

Yami's fear that he had not been the kind savior he and his friends believed he was, that he had in fact been an evil king who destroyed—or caused the destruction of—Egypt, had not been lowered in the least. In fact, he was now certain that he had in fact been evil. His friends didn't know this, but he was sure Yugi did. Sometimes he wondered if Yugi didn't in fact agree. Yugi had claimed that he hadn't meant anything he said when he and Yami were dueling, but could Yami really believe that?

He didn't know anymore.

***

Ryou Bakura yawned and rolled over in bed, opening his eyes a crack to look at the bed across the room. It was empty.

Of course.

A few months ago, Yami no Bakura, or Bakura as he was currently called, had returned from the Shadow Realm or wherever-the-Hell he had been (Ryou hadn't been particularly keen to ask questions) with his own body. That had easily been the most frightening thing that had ever happened to him, even more frightening than discovering Bakura's existence in the first place.

But, oddly, he hadn't gone on a killing rampage or even gone after the Millennium Items. He had brooded frequently at first, and often sat around staring at nothing. He rarely ate, and became dangerously thin and pale.

Ryou, who had always been too forgiving for his own good, pitied his other half and tried to help him by giving him some hobbies that had nothing to do with blood. For a month or two, he still rarely spoke, though now he sat around reading or writing or painting rather than staring at nothing.

Then he started going on the computer all the time, emailing somebody or another. Naturally, this had scared the Hell out of Ryou, but he didn't want to press him—especially since Bakura was astoundingly secretive. And then he started going out all the time, at night especially. Ryou started seeing less and less of him, and he wasn't sure whether to be happy, sad, concerned, or scared.

Bakura seemed happier now. He had gained weight, and was now back to the slender toned figure he had possessed when in Ryou's body. He smiled more often, not smirks but real smiles, and his eyes had lost some of their haunted look. Ryou was still concerned about what he was doing, but he couldn't say he was complaining.

He just hoped Bakura wasn't secretly going out and murdering people.

Again.

***

Bakura yawned and rolled over in bed, one hand unconsciously reaching out. Feeling nothing but pillows and blankets that were oddly dry, considering last night's actions, he groped blindly for a few moments before murmuring, "Kaiba?" in a sleepy voice.

"What is it?" came Kaiba's voice, not sleepy at all, spoken in his usual abrupt manner—but with an edge of softness he seemed to reserve only for Bakura and Mokuba.

Opening his eyes, Bakura sat up in bed. The blankets slipped from his bare shoulders, and he shivered in the cold air. Kaiba was just learning to use his electrical power and often short-circuited anything he hadn't already used magic to protect—and that included their heating systems. Luckily, he was rich, so he could just replace it.

"You're working already?" Bakura asked. "Don't you ever stop?"

"This is important, Bakura," he replied, sounding a bit impatient—but still warmer than he would towards someone else. Then again, for someone else, he would probably just break both their arms and ensure that they and their family forever lived in poverty.

"You are much too young to run a company by yourself," snapped Bakura, but his chocolate-brown eyes were concerned. "You're going to pass out one of these days."

Scowling, Kaiba turned around in his seat. "And you are going to get your eyes gouged out one of these days."

Bakura smirked at this threat. "Yeah, right. Like you could really gouge my eyes out, even if you did want to—which you don't." He lowered his eyelashes seductively. Kaiba rolled his eyes, but his scowling lips curved upwards against his will.

"You're right, I don't," he acquiesced at last, turning back to his computer and typing away. Bakura rolled his eyes and wrapped the blankets more tightly around himself.

For a long time, Kaiba continued to type, starkly aware of Bakura's gaze on the back of his neck. He wished that he had bothered to put a shirt on before getting to work. Suddenly the seat spun around. Bakura blinked at the unexpected movement. "Bakura, what's the afterlife like?" Kaiba asked, and Bakura blinked again at the unexpected question.

"I beg your pardon?" Ugh, I've been spending too long with Ryou…"What brought on that question?"

"Well, ever since we started—that—I was reading about Egyptian mythology, and I read about the afterlife thing. And since you were a thief, I realized you couldn't get that."

"Well, gee, thanks," Bakura muttered.

"And I started reading Christian stuff on the afterlife and all that was a nightmare, and I started reading Greek and Celtic and—anyway, I want to know. I mean—I don't want to know what my afterlife will be like. Don't get me wrong—I don't fear death. When it comes, it will come. I just don't want to know what it is. But—the Pharaoh has killed you so many times—"

"He's sent me to the Shadow Realm."

"But—aren't there different parts of the Shadow Realm? I mean, it can't be one thing—"

"It isn't," Bakura replied. "There's the Realm of Magic, where Shadow Games take place. And then there are the nine layers of Hell, each one worse than the last. Though the first one isn't really hell. It's…I think mortals call it Limbo? A sort of…" he paused, searching for the right words. "Nothingness…between Heaven and Hell. Oblivion. But the rest—take it from me, they're nightmares."

Kaiba's heart clenched at the haunted look in Bakura's eyes, sympathy and anger filling his stomach—sympathy towards Bakura, and anger towards the Pharaoh. "Don't give me details," he said softly. "I don't think I want them."

"But there's more," said Bakura, hating the pity in Kaiba's expression. "The thing that makes the Shadow Realm different is that it can be molded. And that can be bad—it usually is bad—but not always."

Kaiba pressed his lips together. Curiosity and concern battled a hundred restraints that had been instilled for years. Whatever of him wasn't fighting desperately wished Bakura would just explain.

"You know our past selves?"

"The Traitorous Priest and the Thief King?"

"Well, I'm not going into detail about ice and snakes, so let me get past the first few thousand years. Seth, Akefia, Atemu, Aishisu—you have no idea who's who, do you? Anyway, they run this huge hotel right in the center of the city of the dead, and I actually have my own suite. So the last several times, I just went there. It's amazing."

"So your afterlife isn't a nightmare?"

"I spent millenniums going through the nightmares, Seto."

"And you mentioned that there were too many people at the hotel due to the Orichalcos thing, so you and the other Malik returned to this life with your own bodies instead of in your other half's bodies?"

"Yeah. In fact, they said they would have to open the portal for a while and leave, because so many more people are coming to their hotel now that it's famous for being the only heaven non-Christians can get."

"When is that?"

"Umm…February 18, 2005."

Kaiba's jaw dropped, and Bakura blinked. "What?"

"That's tomorrow."