Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Unbreak My Heart ❯ The Best Birthday Ever ( Chapter 4 )

Priestess Aishisu: Once this is over, I'm planning on writing a fanfiction called 'The Secretsof Kuru Eruna' which will explain exactly how they found out about the Necrophadisu thing and how the yamis and hikaris switched places and all of that stuff. So for those people out there who want to know in detail what Kuru Eruna is and such, be patient.

***

"Let me get this strait…Just as the Spirit of the Millennium Ring said, we somehow time-traveled here. Not only do you have no idea as to why or how, but you have no idea how to get us back," Yu-Gi-Oh said, somewhere between irked and disbelieving and in awe. "Is that about right?"

Kaiba nodded. No one else replied. Bakura was gazing out the window. Kage seemed to be watching him intently, obviously wondering what was going on, and Atemu was worried about that. Kage had to be quite cunning to be the King of Thieves, and the last thing he needed was two Bakuras in the state their Bakura was in-or worse.

"And both the Millennium Item Spirits look different," Yami Malik remarked. They were in Kaiba's living room, sitting on couches, the future selves facing their past selves. "And I mean besides the fact that the Pharaoh is at least like a foot taller."

"Six inches."

"Whatever. Why is it?"

No one replied. Kage noticed Atemu glance at Bakura, who didn't seem to react. His chocolate-brown eyes narrowed slightly. They looked different, it was true. But more than physical appearance, all four of them seemed to have been emotionally affected by something or another. Bakura most of all. He knew he didn't act like that.

"Are you saying I'm going to be one of you freaks?" Seto asked.

"Unfortunately," replied Kaiba. He allowed himself a small sigh and the tiniest, sheepish smile. "But then, I didn't really have that much choice in the matter."

"How so?" Seto asked, skeptical. He still was convinced this was a dream, or in some other way not real. But rest assured that this was just typical Seto denial, so none of you should worry about it.

Kaiba didn't reply. Instead, he glanced at Bakura like Atemu kept doing-though he didn't seem quite as anxious as Atemu did, just the tiniest bit concerned.

Though for him that was a lot.

Turning back to the past beings or whatever you want to call them, he lifted his palm and closed it into a fist. Seto blinked, as did Yu-Gi-Oh, and all four of the PBWYWCT (Past Beings or Whatever You Want to Call Them) leaned forward curiously.

Was it their imagination, or could they see slight shimmers in the cracks between his fingers?

All four of them gasped when he opened his hand. Glittering sparks of silvery lightning played in his open palm, leaping from finger to finger to form a sparkling disk. He curved his fingers inwards into a half-fist, and the circle became a flashing ball of rippling white fire. He closed his fist, and the lightning vanished.

"That and I was going to die, but mostly that," he said calmly, as if he hadn't just conjured up lightning and held it in his palm. "I have some other powers, but it's the lightning that couldn't be ignored, especially when I started sprouting it whenever I was even the slightest bit upset."

"Y-You…I…How…?" stuttered Seto. "Did you just…how did you…?" he trailed off, looking as if he were about to pass out. Yami Malik stared, Yu-Gi-Oh seemed stunned, and Kage was almost entirely unaffected.

"Can everybody else do that?" Yu-Gi-Oh asked after a long silence during which the future/present beings seemed to be understandably bored out of their minds (well, Bakura was still staring out the window)

"Malik can shoot gold fire…I don't know about anybody else."

"I can?" Yami Malik asked, and Kaiba shook his head.

"The light halves and dark halves split a couple days ago. I guess we should have been more surprised about that, but really we only had a minute or two to feel anything before…" he froze, realizing that he might say too much. Atemu was glaring at him, and the PBWYWCT all seemed to be listening intently. "Long story. Anyway, no, you can't."

The PBWYWCT exchanged glances. Now they knew they were missing something.

***

"Happy birthday!"

Bakura jumped about twenty feet when he entered the room. Atemu, Isis, Kaiba, Malik, Mariku, Mokuba, Ryou, and Yugi were standing in the middle of a decorated room; looking at him.

So that'swhy Kaiba sent all our past selves to Downtown Domino looking for an address that didn't exist, he mused, eyebrows lifted.

"I'm not sure if you know, but I don't really celebrate my birthday too often," he informed them, finding himself sitting at a table.

"Shut up and eat cake," Kaiba retorted, putting down an absolutely gigantic cake (no candles, of course) with…Bakura stared.

"How in the world…?" he murmured, tracing the outline of one of his eyes. Black frosting got on his fingers, and he licked it off . Delicious.

"Apparently 'Yu-Gi-Oh' is this big TV show in a lot of countries, including Japan. Not Domino, but I can go to the other side of the country pretty easily."

"Just out of curiosity, why are you eight doing all of this for me?" he asked as Kaiba stood up and left the room.

"Most of us because we want you to be happy, me because I want an excuse to eat cake," Mariku replied, expression carefully impassive.

He wasn't fooling anyone.

"Here," said Mariku, giving him what seemed to be a CD. Bakura unwrapped the dark blue paper with silver leaves (probably stolen from Kaiba) and gaped at it. It was all the Evanescence songs ever made, including ones that were never released.

"How did you get this?"

"With Kaiba's computer, of course."

Ryou then gave him a gigantic painting kit. Bakura was surprised that Ryou knew how much he loved painting, but then they had shared a body.

Kaiba, who had reappeared with about three gallons of mint chocolate chip ice cream, gave him a laptop-no surprise there. The fact that it was the most amazing laptop he had ever seen, and the reason (Kaiba had made it himself) was, however, rather surprising.

"Where did Atemu go?" he asked suddenly.

"Probably to get his present," Yugi replied, giving him a diary-the most beautiful diary he had ever seen, with marbled pages and a black leather cover stamped with silver leaves. There was a small poem at the top of every entry-but, upon closer inspection, the poems all seemed to be snippets of songs.

"Me and Isis only got one gift," said Malik. "But that's because we've spent all the time since you four returned to Japan looking for this so there wasn't time."

"It might make you sad now, but we know you'll love it someday," Isis added, handing him a small velvet pouch stitched with ancient symbols he recognized from somewhere. "The pouch will hold any item you need which can fit in it as long as you never shut it while it's empty, but the true gift we put in ourselves."

Bakura opened it and his jaw dropped.

His fingers trembled as he extracted a blue stone the exact hue of his eyes, perfectly round and almost humming with power.

A complex web of ancient spells only he could see-not to mention only he could decipher-glowed upon its lovely surface. But it was not the power or the beauty which made this item so precious to him.

"My mother's amulet…"

It had been the most valuable item in Kuru Eruna, he remembered. He wasn't certain what it did, but as he closed his fingers over it energy surged through him. The tiny spark of soul he still had swelled, filling his body. A delicious warmth spread through him, and he could almost hear his mother's singing.

My soul! He realized, pressing a hand against his broken heart. He could feel it beating wildly in his chest. It's whole, but it isn't…it isn't like before!

Malik and Isis had, without realizing it, just done half of Atemu's job for him. Bakura had a soul again, instead of a scrap of one. Anything spiritual was finished-he was alive.

Now all Atemu had to do was pick up the shards of his heart and put them back together again, and-though it would be almost impossible-for the first time Bakura felt as if he might actually have a chance at doing it.

"I…" Bakura swallowed a lump in his throat. "I love it already. Thank you."

He put the stone back in the pouch and tied it around his neck with a silver thread, tucking it under his shirt-the pouch obediently became the size of his toenail. He could feel a pulsing in it, and he almost smiled. It was beating like a heart-a heart that wasn't broken.

Since Atemu wasn't there yet, he sampled the ice cream and smothered a moan-it was perfect, luscious and creamy and loaded with just the right amount of rich chocolate.

"Hey, don't I get to give you my present before you eat?" Atemu asked, and they all looked up. "It took me forever to find it."

Bakura's jaw dropped. Curled up in Atemu's arms was a panther kitten barely the size of his head-an albino panther kitten, white as the moon with eyes the color of Atemu's. They were rare enough in the world, much less Japan.

The moment Atemu put it on the table, it started jumping around. "It's a she," said Atemu as Isis used her powers to levitate everything on the table. "I named it Bast, after the Egyptian cat goddess of the moon and love, but you can change it if you want."

Was he kidding?

Bast was sniffing around, nipping at everything with her tiny white fangs. She was the most adorable thing any of them had ever seen.

Bakura smiled in spite of himself and picked her up. She nuzzled his cheek, purring as he looked around at the eight faces on the table.

Some of those faces he hardly knew. Most of those faces he had learned to hate. All of those faces looked back at him with emotions he wasn't used to people feeling towards him.

They were his friends. All of them.

"Thank you," he said softly, running his fingers through Bast's soft white fur-just as a mystery someone would give anything to do with his pretty white hair. "Thank all of you. This was the best birthday ever."