Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Visions of the Heart ❯ Papa Dearest ( Chapter 17 )

WSJ: *Draped over Chiot, giggling and poking his felt antlers, which are slightly ascue*

Chiot: *Still singing "Yami Got Run Over By a Reindeer" at the top of his lungs*

Yugi: 0.0 No wonder you wanted to stay with us....

Yami: What'd they get into, the liquor cabinet?

Unmei: Nope. Christmas spirits.

Yugi & Yami: *Groan at the bad joke*

Unmei: ^^;

Yugi: Ugh.... Anyway, I'm Ki, my yami goes by Ka, and WSJ doesn't own anything except Jonathon and Shen.

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Visions of the Heart

Chapter 17 - Papa Dearest

"Welcome home Ryou!"

The Game Shop had been specially decorated, even though the guest of honor could see none of it. Blue and white streamers, Ryou's favorite colors, adorned every possible surface you could hang a steamer from. A card table had been set up in the middle of the room, and on it sat a huge cake, baked by Serenity and Tea, shaped like the Change of Heart. The black wing was chocolate, of course, the white wing vanella and the body marble.

Ryou stood just inside the doorway, Bakura standing next to him and trying to hide a grin from the rest of the room. The hikari's mouth was wide open in shock, and for a moment Yugi was afraid he was going to faint dead away.

"Th-thank you!" he stammered, stunned beyond belief. "You really didn't have to..."

"Course we did!" Tristan said. "You're our bud Ryou, you deserve it!"

It was two days later, Wednesday, after school. Ryou had just been released from the hospital, and Bakura had agreed to bring him to the Game Shop for a surprise welcome home party.

"Lemonade?" Tea asked. He nodded happily, and she poured him a cup.

"And after we have cake, I wanna duel you Ryou!" Joey said enthusiastically. "I never did get to see much of your deck. Other then that Man-Eater Bug..." He, along with Tristan, Tea and Yugi, shuddered at that recollection, and Bakura grinned at their discomfort.

Ryou brought his hand up until it rested on the front pocket of his jacket, where his Dueling Deck always lay. His face transformed into a look of vague horror, and then he said quietly, "I can't,"

The room went silent, as the reason for this statement dawned on each of them. All except Joey, that is. "So, you scared to duel the second best in the Duelist Kingdom?" he asked, puffing up his chest and grinning. Tristan scowled at him and Malik elbowed him in the side. The blond had the courtesy to look confused. "What?"

Ryou was close to tears. "I-I can't see the cards..."

Joey's eyes widened and his jaw shut with a snap. "Oh man Ryou! I didn't mean-"

"We know Joey," Yami said, putting his hand on the blond's shoulder. "I don't think any of us were thinking there for a moment."

Bakura scowled, wishing he could put a comforting arm around Ryou or something, but he had to keep up appearances for Yami and the others. Besides, Serenity, Tea and Yugi were doing their best to comfort him as it was.

The poor boy looked devastated. He might not have shown it quite as much as Yugi or Joey did, but he was just as much of a Duel Monsters fanatic as them. The very thought of never being able to play again...

"I'm ready to go home..." he whispered softly, his face cast downward. Bakura nodded and stepped forward, taking his hikari gently by the arm to lead him out of the shop.

Yugi looked up at his other questioningly. /Look at Bakura./

//Strange, he looks... Caring? No, that's not quite the right word for it...//

/Gentle? Sympathetic?/

//Yes. I don't think we have to worry about Ryou any more.//

Yugi breathed a small sigh of relief and grinned widely. /I'm glad./

Yami, on the other hand, had a small frown on his face. //I am too aibou, but there is something else. I sense a power coming from Ryou. It is unlike anything I have ever felt before. It is not the Ring, or any Millennium Item that I know of. I don't think it is even magical.//

/Should we worry about it?/

//I don't think so. Whatever it is, it is coming from Ryou, and would not be a threat to him. We will just keep an eye on it, and I'll try my best to figure out what it is.//

"Ryou, will you be all right?" Bakura asked softly as the two of them made their way down the street toward the Bakura house.

Ryou gulped and nodded. "I-I guess... It just came as a shock..."

Bakura frowned as they neared Ryou's, no, their home. "Do you know anyone who drives a dark blue Ford SUV?" He felt Ryou shudder under his hands, and looked down to see his hikari's eyes wide in surprise.

"My dad."

Bakura cursed, and then for the sake of forcefulness repeated it in Egyptian. "What the hell are we supposed to tell him?!? I was planning on at least having another week to come up with something!"

The concealed anger in his yami's voice made Ryou tremble, and Bakura immediately regretted being so harsh. He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.

"We'll have to tell him the truth... You're forgetting, my dad's the one who gave me the Ring in the first place. He even said when he gave it to me that he felt drawn to it, like it was magical." Ryou said.

"Do you think he'll actually believe us?" Bakura asked, giving his other a side-ways look.

Ryou shrugged. "Can you think of anything better?"

Bakura sighed and shook his head, holding the door open as he ushered his hikari inside. "Dad, I'm home!" Ryou called.

"Oh, Ryou," his dad said coming out of the kitchen. "How was scho-" He stopped as he saw Ryou with Bakura beside him, a hand placed protectively on his hikari's shoulder. To the surprise of both of them, he just sighed. "I knew this day would come," he whispered. Then, louder, "I know one of you is my son, and one of you is the Spirit of the Ring. So which is which?"

Ryou blinked and took a step forward. "I'm me dad. And, as you said, this is Bakura, the Spirit of the Ring. But how would you know?"

"It's a very long story," Shen Bakura sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "And one that involves your mother."

"Mom?" Ryou asked, surprised. She had died several years ago, when he was only ten, about two years after he'd gotten the Ring.

Shen nodded, and was about to say more, when he suddenly noticed the mostly-healed slash across Bakura's cheek, and the various cuts and bruises that peeked out from under Ryou's sleeves. "What happened?"

Bakura winced, and Ryou sighed. "That is a very long story too..."

"And we'd have to tell it sooner or later anyway." Bakura growled, again taking his hikari by the arm. "Come on, let's go sit down and get started."

The three took seats in the livingroom, Ryou and Bakura on the couch and Shen in a chair across from them. Ryou first told about what had happened just after he'd gotten the Ring, when Bakura had first been released, and when the beatings started. When he reached present day and told, with much sobbing and help from Bakura, how he'd been blinded, Shen almost strangled Bakura before Ryou got him to calm down.

Bakura traded seats with Shen, so that father and son could sit together. From here on he did most of the talking. He told about the Shadow Realm and the Locking Rituals, carefully leaving out the fact that he had almost sacrificed himself for Ryou's sake, saying simply that Yami and Yugi, (who he quickly explained about) got them out. He told about the fight(s) with Ushio, and Ryou's stay in the hospital.

He purposefully didn't tell about the murder convictions, or the stay in jail. He presumed that Shen had been caught in the glamour of Kaiba's false death along with everyone else, and he was right.

By the time Bakura'd finished, he had tears running down his face along with Shen and Ryou.

"So you are a mortal?" Shen asked. Bakura nodded, and Ryou's father looked thoughtful. "I suppose you'll continue to live here?"

"If you'll let me. I swear, I'll never hurt Ryou again. I was just blinded by my own want for power." Bakura said, and Ryou placed a hand on his father's arm.

"He's telling the truth dad. Bakura won't hurt me."

Shen considered for a moment, then hesitantly nodded. Ryou breathed a sigh of relief and gave his dad a quick hug. "Thank you. Now what about mom? How do you know about Bakura?"

Shen sat silent for several moments, contemplating. "Your mother was a wonderful woman Ryou. She had beauty like no one I've ever seen. Long blond hair and the biggest purple eyes I've ever seen on a human." Shen stopped and chuckled sadly. "And she was very, very talented. She never told me right out, but I think she was something of a psychic. Sometimes she would say something, just an off-hand comment, almost a 'what-if' sort of sentence, and then later it would come true. She knew you were a boy even before the doctors knew you were coming.

"When I first took up archaeology, she would travel around with me. She was actually the one who first found the Millennium Ring. She said she sensed a power from it, and that you were meant to have it. Later, she told me that the power she felt was another presence, a spirit, you," he said, motioning at Bakura.

"And that's really all I know about it. She was so beautiful, and I love her very much..." He smiled slightly, as though he had a secret he'd never share.

Neither Ryou nor Shen noticed that in the seat across from them Bakura had tensed up. "I know you told me a long time ago, but what was her name, Ryou?" he asked tightly.

"Angeline..." Both Ryou and his father said at the same time.

Bakura heard the name, choked, and nearly broke down into sobs. "Anjil..."

Ryou shrugged at his father and went to kneel in front of his yami. "Bakura, what is it?"

Bakura looked at his hikari with tear-stained eyes. "Bekhura... My name was Bekhura..." he said, almost to himself. "And Anjil... I thought she'd be with me forever..."

"Bakura, you're not making sense." Ryou said, clearly puzzled.

Bakura looked him sharply, both having long-forgotten that Shen was there. "Not making sense? I'll tell you what doesn't make sense! How are you to be my descendant if I never had children?"

Ryou blinked as the realization hit him, several question marks dancing around his head. "Erm..."

Bakura looked down at the floor, a single tear dripping from off the end of his nose to land on Ryou's hand. "Anjil and I were meant to be, I swear. She and I were both slaves, and grew up together. When I ran away and started robbing tombs, she came too. She wanted to. And..." Bakura trailed off, his mind in a different time.

After a time he continued, his voice more husky then before. "We had a daughter. Heaven knows how she survived that Ra-forsaken land called Egypt... We left her at the palace, and," Here Bakura paused to chuckle a little. "The irony of it all! The pharaoh raised her as his own!"

Ryou's jaw dropped. "Yami raised your daughter?!? Does he know?"

Bakura shook his head, still chuckling. "No. I-We never told him. One day we stormed the palace to confront Pharaoh, and she threw herself in the way of a sword meant for me."

"That's how Yami got ahold of you to seal you in the Ring!" Ryou gasped.

Bakura nodded. "You didn't think he'd actually caught me on his own, did you? No, after she died I couldn't keep fighting, not at peak condition. Strange that while she was my lover, she was reincarnated as your mother," he mused.

Shen just smiled slightly.

Ryou suddenly remembered what his dad had been saying a moment before, about his suspicions that his mom had been a psychic. His mind flashed back to one particular memory of when he was five...

Little Ryou ran inside crying, looking for his mother. "Mommy mommy, where are you?"

Angeline Bakura stepped out of her room, kneeling down to sweep her son into her arms. "What's wrong?"

Ryou sniffled and held out his slightly cut finger to her. "I gots a boo-boo!"

Angeline smiled and planted a kiss on it. "All better, my little Bekhura?"

"Wha's that Mommy?"

"Bekhura? Just a name, child, the name of someone I loved very much..."

"I wonder..." Ryou said, hesitantly. "I wonder if she knew?"

Bakura stared at him for an instant, eyes wide in disbelief, before breaking down into tears completely.

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WSJ: *Giggling hysterically* For anyone who's read further into the series and knows who Angeline Bakura really was, stay tuned. The relationship between her and Shen has evolved a lot, so eventually there'll be new stuff!! Stay tuned!

Unmei: *Sweatdrops*

Chapter 18: Story's finale/epilogue. Three weeks later, and most everything is back to normal. Shen, Bakura and Ryou visit Angeline/Anjil's grave, and Bakura finally has the chance to say good-bye. Ryou experiences something interesting. Could it be that his mother's powers lie also in him?

God bless minna-san!