Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ When Angels Cry ❯ Tears Of Blood ( Chapter 3 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

When Angels Cry 3- Tears of Blood

“This is me, for forever

One of the lost ones.

The one without a name, without an honest heart as compass”

“Oh how I wish, for serpent night

All I wish is to dream again.

My loving heart, lost in the dark.

For hope I'd give my everything.”

“Walk the dark, but sleep with angels”

Bakura woke up, sitting with a wince. Was it over? How much time had passed since the last time? What would they do to him today?

He heard footsteps and fought back the feeling of dread that rose like bile in his throat. They may have been angels, but they had no imagination for this sort of thing, unlike the humans who had been the last to do this to him. (Luckily…)

The door opened and a sandy-blonde male entered the room, a faintly steaming bowl of slightly greenish liquid in one hand, rags in the other. It was a wonder he'd even been able to open the door with all that in his hand. Bakura gave an inaudible sigh of relief.

“How's your back?” Marik asked gruffly, not moving from the doorway.

“Painful.” admitted the other.

“It is to be expected. And… your wings?” Marik inquired, placing the bowl on the side-table next to the bed.

Bakura looked behind him tentatively. The feathered limbs were matted with dried blood, and because of poor quality of diet they were tattered where feathers had fallen out. The muscles had also begun to waste away, his body using the proteins to try and keep the rest of him alive, and the once powerful wings that had proudly carried him in flight he knew would not carry his weight were he to try and use them now.

“As you know, none of us can heal you. We do not have that power anymore. But we can use medicines to help your body heal itself.” Marik said quietly, noting Bakura's distress at the state of his poor wings.

Bakura nodded listlessly and lay back onto his stomach as he had been while asleep.

The fallen angel began to bathe the left wing, gently washing the dried redness from the feathered limb. As he did that, there was a brief knock and a winged man the mirror image of the one tending Bakura strode in like a whirlwind.

“Oh my God Bakura! What did they do to you?” he exclaimed, clapping a dark hand to his mouth in shock.

“Who in hell are you? And why are you here, tenshi?” growled Marik suspiciously.

“Shut up, outcast. Bakura, I'm here to take you back.”

“Where to?” demanded a very irate ebony-winged angel. “Heaven? Those bastards were the ones that did this to him you idiot!”

“… Of course not Heaven.”

“Where then? Why can't he just stay here? He's been treated better here than he ever was in Heaven.”

The two angels faced off across the room, so alike, yet so different, fists clenched.

“Would you two stop it! For God's sake, Bakura does not need his only allies to fight each other.” ordered an irritated sounding Dartz, who entered the room followed swiftly by Ryou, whom took over Marik's forgotten task of cleaning the dried blood from his wings.

“I wish I could heal you, but the Archangel laid a geas on us that binds all healing magic in your presence.” Ryou lamented, squeezing the cloth. The bowl ran red.

Bakura, (whom had lifelessly been watching the whole thing, mildly irritated that they were talking about him as though he was not there) merely said: “It's fine.” expressionlessly.

Dartz stepped forward and taking a second rag, proceeded to clean Bakura's second wing.

The two paused in their arduous task when they heard Marik comment; “For a tenshi, you're not as weak as I would have expected.” approvingly.

Apprehensively Dartz and Ryou turned their heads to see a dark purple aura rising and shifting around Marik and a silvery lavender aura of equal proportions surrounding Malik.

“You're not so bad either- for a Fallen one.” countered the tawny-winged male, lavender eyes glittering.

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“Remind me again why I'm carrying you around on my back?” asked Marik.

“Because my wings haven't recovered enough yet, and I need to apply for this job.”

“And the point of that would be…”

“None of your business.”

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“Class, today we have a new student joining us. This is Yami Takimura. Yami, would you like to introduce yourself?” said the principal, before pushing someone forward and leaving.

The students looked up to see a young man with tricoloured hair, red eyes and whom appeared to be wearing rather a lot of black- and studded accessories.

Around his neck hung an old fashioned gold cross which bore a ruby in its centre with what appeared to be small chips of diamond around it. The design seemed almost Gothic in its age. As if that wasn't strange enough, beside the cross hung a single small, white feather.

“Very well. I am Yami Atemu. I would prefer you did not have anything to do with me. People who do tend to have… bad luck one might say. I am sixteen and I was adopted. Is that enough, sensei?” he said in a cold and emotionless voice.

Shakily the teacher nodded. “There is a space behind Kaiba-kun. That will be your place, Takimura-kun.” she explained nervously.

The teenager's eerie red eyes stared at her fro a minute or so, and back to the spare seat before silently stalking between the rows of other children and slipping into the indicated space behind the brunette. She shivered, though she was not cold. Those red eyes were too old to belong to a sixteen year old teenage boy.

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Lunch came, and Atemu took his lunch outside the classroom and sat under the maple tree that stood in the centre of an abandoned courtyard (the other students were either sill eating, or out playing some form of sport.)

“You still wear that stupid necklace.” sneered a voice.

“And you're still a close-minded idiot.” Atemu calmly retorted, unwrapping a riceball. “Now make like the wind and blow, Jounouchi.”

“Y'know, I don't think I will. You see Yami, your cousin's not here to save you. So I was thinking…”

Atemu cut him off. “Not your best talent.” There was a loud crack and a fist made contact with his face and Atemu lifted delicate fingertips to the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. “You shouldn't have done that.” he said softly, staring at the red liquid fascinatedly.

“As I said before I was so rudely interrupted… I was thinking I ought to pay you back for everything you've done.”

“And just what would that be?”

“Well… everything. But mainly just for existing.” sniggered the blonde boy, failing to notice that the voice was not that of the teenager in front of him.

A white hand shot out and grabbed Jounouchi by the ear, tugging him back from Atemu, whose ruby eyes were wide in surprise.

“The last time I saw you do that, I believe I warned you what would happen. This is your last warning. Dartz isn't here to stop me snapping your neck. Now get out of my sight.” came a cold voice.

As the blonde boy scampered off, rubbing his ear and muttering under his breath, Bakura's brown-red eyes caught Atemu's, softening slightly as they alighted on the boy. “Hello Atemu.” he said softly, voice gentle and loaded with some form of emotion that neither could quite identify.

“Don't call me that!” Atemu hissed at him, anger rising at Bakura even thinking he could just talk to him as though he hadn't abandoned him for thirteen years. “No-one is allowed to call me by that name.” The already paler than usual Bakura went even whiter and he had an expression on his face as though he'd been slapped. “Especially not you.” he finished venomously.

An expression of sadness came over the angel and he lifted a hand as though he was going to caress the teen's cheek, but dropped it before he could make contact. “What happened to you? You are not the boy I remember.”

“No, I guess I'm not, am I? Well I was bound to change in thirteen years, Bakura.”

“Not like this. Your eyes are too bitter to be a child's.”

“Becoming an orphan, then losing the rest of your family, save your cousins, then being separated from even them for seven years'll do that to you.” snapped Atemu, eyes snapping in anger.

“None of which is my fault, Atemu.”

“I said don't call me that!” yelled said boy, clenching his fists at his sides. “You weren't there when I needed you! You promised you'd see me again and you left for thirteen years! Not even a single word of communication did I get from you! Explain that, Bakura!”

A pained grimace crossed catlike features and Bakura closed his eyes wearily. “I can't.” he whispered, and the words tore at him. He longed to tell him everything- what the laws stated, how he'd broken them to save the boy… How he'd been punished for seven years as a consequence. But his pride refused to allow him to admit he'd cared enough to break the laws, let alone get himself caught.

“I never want you to come near me again. Ever. Do you hear me?! Never again.” Atemu spat.

The pale man turned his back, shoulders slumped slightly, long white mane cascading to his hips now.

Later, Atemu would wonder vaguely where his wings were- and why the angel was wearing a shirt with red designs.

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“Are you going to give up on the spoilt brat now?” Marik enquired.

“That is the child you went through seven years of what amounts to torture, albeit angelic torture for reviving? Damned ungrateful if you ask me.” Malik added disgustedly.

“Where'd you come from Malik?”

“Recon. Thought I'd pay a visit.”

Bakura turned dull eyes to Malik, then back to Marik. “To me or him?”

At this perfectly serious question Marik cracked up laughing and Malik did also, though a tinge of pink crept up his cheekbones.

“I fail to see what's so damn funny. I was merely asking a question.”

“So? Are you going to take the hint and leave the brat alone?” Marik repeated after he'd finally managed to control his laughing. “I mean, you went through seven years of agony and for what? This child basically tells you to fuck off…”

“Marik!”

“Malik my dear, I'm a fallen angel- I can say `fuck' as much as I damn well please. Fuck, fuck, fuck. See? No lightning bolt from God or anything.” the dark angel smirked, winking roguishly. “… and you, Bakura, you can't tell me you still want to protect him. Not after that.”

Bakura knew Marik was right- he should just do as Atemu said and never see the boy again. But the fact remained that something was going down in Heaven, and Atemu was the target. Someone had to protect him. Not to mention that more demons had, according to Dartz escaped through the Gates to Earth.

Not to mention he found he really didn't like the idea of never seeing Atemu again…

“I have to stay Marik. The demons…” Bakura said in a voice that was tired, and defeated.

“Don't come crying to me everytime the brat upsets you then.” warned the fallen angel irritably.

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Atemu had not seen Bakura for a week, and he thought that maybe the angel had taken him at his word. He had been rather angry and he regretted letting it get the best of him…

He ignored the guilt he felt everytime he remembered the way the angel had gone even whiter and had looked as though Atemu had slapped him across the face. He especially hated it when he remembered the not completely disguised dejected air of hurt with which Bakura had walked away into the school.

`I have to stop thinking like this. He deserved everything I said. He's an angel, he could've saved Aunt and Uncle. But he didn't…' He mentally slapped himself when he saw the time.

“Get moving!” he told himself, clasping the gold necklace around his neck from sheer force of habit as he ran through the door.

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He slid through the door of his History classroom fifteen minutes late and pulling at the collar of his standard issue school jacket (he'd brought the uniform the second day)

“I'm sorry I'm late, sensei!” he gasped, looking up at the clock with uneven breathing from running in a futile attempt not to be late.

“It is fine, Takimura-kun. Please, take your seat.” he heard a familiar voice smoothly tell him.

He looked at the occupant of the teacher's desk, and he saw a man sitting calmly on the narrow-backed chair with his legs crossed, apparently completely at ease with his position.

“What the hell are you doing here?” demanded Atemu, staring at the familiar mane of silver-white hair framing a pale, angular face with slightly slanted catlike russet-brown eyes.

Bakura raised an eyebrow.

“I am teaching. History I believe. Please take your seat or take a detention slip.”

“How can you be teaching?”

“I applied for the job like most people and I got it. Now please sit down and show proper respect due a teacher.”

“But!”

Bakura lifted a hand, and a look somewhere between anger and… pain? crossed his face before he said; “See me after class Takimura-kun.” with quiet authority.

Atemu reluctantly obeyed, a look of fury on his face as he stormed to an empty desk as far from the front of the classroom as possible so as to be nowhere near the angel.

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The class progressed, and even Atemu had to admit the angel knew his stuff. The only thing that interrupted the lesson was one of the children throwing a paper ball at Bakura's back. It appeared to hit Bakura where his right shoulder-blade appeared to be (where Atemu knew there to be a furled wing) and he let out a cry of pain.

He whirled around, face livid. “If whoever threw that does it again…” he threatened. “…not even your Guardian angel will be able to save you.”

“But sensei, it barely hit you.” Atemu pointed out. Even if Bakura's wings were sensitive, such a light tap from a paper ball of all things couldn't have caused that much pain.

“Atemu-you-are-already-staying-after-class-do-you-really-wa nt-to-try-for-detention?” the white-haired angel-slash-teacher said in one breath through gritted teeth.

The hot, young new teacher's use of the just as hot new kid's first name without even a -kun or -chan had started a huge wave of rumours whispering about how familiar they must be for him to call him by his first name and skip the honorific of even the closest friendship.(1.)

Speculation ran rife throughout the class as to exactly what their relationship was…

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The class ended and Atemu collected his books and bag and went to the board at the front of the classroom, upon which Bakura currently was leaning his head on his arm.

Atemu frowned. He may have been angry at the angel, but by nature he was not a callous person- and he did not like people to be hurting needlessly, even if he was angry with them.

“Are you… all right, Bakura-sensei?” he asked cautiously, placing his books on the desk and touching Bakura's back softly in a gesture meant to comfort to an unexpected wince and a small escaped hiss. Atemu felt something warm and sticky on his fingers and pulled his hand from Bakura's back. He looked at his hand, and saw red tainting his fingers where they'd rested on the other male's back.

It would seem that the angel had blood leaking through his shirt! With a feeling of dread, Atemu realised exactly what those red designs on Bakura's shirt had been last week.

Bakura had had enough of this. That was the last straw. Not only did Atemu show complete lack of regard for the hell he'd gone through, now he was purposely applying pressure to the obviously badly injured wing that the `paper ball' had hit. There was glamour on his wings, but he knew the boy could see through his glamour. And he still did it. Pain was coursing through the winged man, and it wasn't just from the injuries on his back and wings.

Bakura turned and grabbed his wrist, pain clearly written on his features. “Don't. Don't you dare touch my wings again.”

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“Show me your wings Bakura.” demanded Atemu, ignoring the angel's ire. “Show me why there's blood on my fingers.”

“No. Why would you care about an oath-breaker you `never want to come near you again.' anyway?” snapped Bakura, hurt and pain heavily laced through his tone. It was Atemu's turn to look stricken. “I'm only still here so I can watch for demons.” Bakura continued. “Or believe me, I'd be nowhere near you. After your performance after those seven years…” He shook his head contemptively, tightening his grip on Atemu's slender wrist. “Let's just say that only the demons could keep me here after that.”

“Demons?” Atemu asked, bravely ignoring the pain originating from his wrist.

“Thank you, here is your sign.” (2.)

“What?”

“Go ask Kaiba. And for another thing, you will show me proper respect. I am your teacher, and I will be treated like it. I also ask that you stay away from me as much as possible. I can't stand to see you any more- unless I have to.” the angel replied coldly.

Atemu widened his eyes. “…fine.” he said reluctantly. “At least tell me why you're bleeding though. And get your back bandaged too.”

Bakura laughed derisively. “It is bandaged.” and with that parting comment, the hurt and angry angel swept from the room.

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Bakura just made it out into the always before his already hazy vision swam, before plunging into complete darkness.

Atemu hadn't seen the `child' put a small stone into the middle of the paper ball before he had hurled it point blank at Bakura's injured wing.

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“It is as you informed us, tenshi. Our agent confirms that his wounds are not yet healed- and he returned straight back to the boy.”

“Good… just watch them for now. Do not cause harm to the child yet- before we capture our enemy's king, we must first destroy the knights guarding him.” ordered a voice, picking up a white chess piece- a winged horse rearing. “Study Marik. The fallen one has aided Bakura in the past. Let us find what he treasures most- and then destroy it.” they whispered, turning the exquisitely crafted white stone piece in their hand before crushing it to dust.

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“Bakura?! Kura! Please, wake up! Are you ok?” A hand gently brushed his feverish brow and he smelt vanilla as he woke. He was lucid enough to remember that this person shouldn't know he was hurting- shouldn't know he wasn't as strong as he'd pretended to be.

“No… I'm… fine…” he said, reaching blindly for the wall as he sat up.

“You fucking well are not!” the voice belonging to the hand exclaimed, looping Bakura's arm around his shoulders. “Let's get you to the nurse.”

That would be bad, he thought foggily. But why again? Bakura felt a jolt of pain and looked around to see he had wings. They appeared to be badly injured- and… was that one festering?

`Oh yes, that's why. I don't want them to know I'm…' he thought, before losing track of his train of thought. There was someone who would help… someone… and he remembered a black-winged man. What was his name again? His thoughts kept coming just within reach, before dancing away, just out of reach… It was really annoying him too…

Marik! He seized onto that thought before it could float away.

“No… my wings… call Marik.”

“Who's Marik and how do I contact him?”

Bakura was so tired… so sleepy… And the body of the person supporting him was soft, yet firm and warm- and sending delicious currents of warm crackling into him every place their body touched his. His eyelids fluttered.

“No, no, Bakura, stay awake!” the voice told him, shifting their grip enough to tap Bakura gently on the cheek. He wanted to do as the voice told him; they seemed to care about him… But no, they didn't, there was a reason, but he just couldn't remember what…

“Awake… but… so tired… hurts…” he said, trying to tell the voice that he was trying, but that he was having trouble doing what it asked.

“Marik, where do I find Marik, Bakura?”

He thought a minute. He vaguely remembered someone who had that name. But why were they asking him where he was?

“Marik?...”

“Yes, Marik. Where is his phone number, Bakura?”

Ah, a number. There was a piece of paper with numbers on it… Lots of them too, but where did he put it? He thought. Surely it would be in one of his pockets… let the voice try and find it. He was too tired to remember- and his back and wings hurt. There was a reason for that too, but it was too much to try and remember at that moment…

“Pocket… number… Sleep… need to… sleep.” he said, closing his tired eyes.

“Don't sleep Bakura!” He grumbled slightly, but complied. He felt the wall against his back, and the voice released him to lean on it, to which he protested- the pressure on his back and wings sent waves of pain through him. And he missed the comforting presence of the voice's arms around him and supporting him, even if there was a reason he shouldn't miss it…

He felt hands slipping into the pocket of his shirt and the pockets on his jacket before the voice groaned. “Of course, it would have to be in his trouser pockets.” before he felt hands slip into the pockets at his waist. At that he squirmed, the voice's hands shouldn't be that close to his hips… it wasn't allowed…

The voice apparently found the paper with all those numbers on it, because it said;

“Stay quiet for a minute while I call this Marik person.” Bakura nodded sleepily in assent.

Maybe while the voice was busy he could get some sleep…

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Atemu retrieved his mobile phone from the depths of his carry bag and quickly dialled the mobile number on the scrap of paper he'd found in Bakura's left hip pocket, still flushed pink at how close he'd had to put his hand to… well…

“Hello? What is it, Bakura?” asked a gravelly voice gruffly.

“This isn't Bakura, I'm Yami Atemu. Something's wrong with Bakura and he told me to get someone called Marik. This is the number he gave me.”

The other male swore. “I'll be right there. Where are you?”

“Still at Domino High, in the History classroom.”

There was the signature sound of someone hanging up the phone before Atemu closed his phone and shoved it into his pocket with the scrap of paper.

With no small difficulty, the smaller male hefted Bakura's non-assisting body up and tried to get the semi-lucid angel to stay awake and cooperate with him long enough to move into the classroom; (Which he managed- just.) with barely enough time to lock the door before the next class.

Atemu didn't know what to do- Bakura was clearly in pain and drifting in and out of well, sanity, and he had no clue how to help. He thought that perhaps it wouldn't be a good idea for him to let Bakura go to sleep- he might not wake up.

He saw the angel had taken advantage of his deep thought to close his eyes in sleep, and he jumped.

“Bakura, don't go to sleep!” he exclaimed, jostling the angel's shoulder carefully, mindful of his painful back and wings.

“Atemu?... hurts… want to sleep.” the angel replied sleepily, sounding very confused.

“You mustn't sleep Bakura.”

“… Why?”

Atemu thought about it for a minute. He may have been angry, but the fact remained that he was afraid that the angel would die.

“Because I don't want you not to wake up.” he said quietly. He looked back to the angel's fine-boned face, beaded with sweat and caught russet-brown eyes, bright with fever but there was an awareness of what was going on now that had not been there before.

“Come here… Atemu.” Bakura said, lifting a limp arm and beckoning to Atemu to join him on the floor.

The dark-skinned teen went back to Bakura and knelt beside him. A lock of hair was in the other male's eyes and Atemu automatically reached to brush it behind his ear.

“On… my desk… paper ball…” Ah, Bakura was having a clear-thinking moment. That explained the newfound awareness in his fevered eyes.

He tilted his head to the side before retrieving said ball of paper, noting as he brought it back to Bakura that it was rather heavier than paper should have been.

He sat down and handed the thing to the white-haired angel who closed his eyes for a minute (to Atemu's alarm), before re-opening them and saying; “Open it.”

Atemu raised an eyebrow before deciding to humour the request. In the centre was a round black stone. “He knew you were hurt…” he whispered, stunned.

“He didn't… was just…testing…”

Atemu cursed. He lifted Bakura so his left cheek was resting on Atemu's lap, face towards the door so as to relieve the pressure on his apparently sore back and wings.

“Why can't I…” Atemu started hesitantly, absently running his hand through the angel's hair as though to sooth him, much the way a mother would a sick child.

“What… Atemu?...”

He shook his head. “Nevermind.” There was a companiable silence, one that the two had not shared since Atemu had been a child, and sheltered by Bakura. Atemu almost forgot that Bakura had left and broken promises, and Bakura just was grateful for the hand anchoring him to reality, even if he knew distantly through the haze of pain and fever that it would disappear when he was well.

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Then, the door shook, before somehow managing to silently burst open and it broke the spell-like quality of the moment. In the doorway stood a fairly tall man, just about the same height as Bakura with brownish skin, spiky sand-coloured hair and dark lilac eyes- and whom also bore two large, black, feathered wings.

“I told you they weren't healed but nooo, let's ignore the one person who actually knows what they're talking about!” he grumbled, striding toward the two on the floor.

Atemu narrowed his eyes, shifting the injured angel closer to him. “Are you Marik?”

“No, I'm the tooth fairy! Can't you see my wings?” the other said, rolling his eyes. “Give him to me; I'll need to take him home to tend those cuts on his wings.”

“What cuts on his wings?” Atemu said sharply.

“Are you blind or something, child? How could you miss them? Fair enough, he's got a glamour covering them, but you could see through his glamour before, so why…” he trailed off, looking at the teen in horror. “You can't see through it anymore can you?”

“Obviously not.” Atemu bristled.

Marik gave him a disgusted look. “You really are a little brat aren't you? Do you know what those seven years were like for him?”

“No. And I really don't care. And it was thirteen years ago he left, just to inform you- I'm only helping him now because I'm not so angry that I want him dead. But if he's fainting like this, it can't be long.”

CRACK!

Atemu was left holding his cheek in surprise. Marik had backhanded him across the face, opening a small cut on his lip as he'd done so.

“If it were not for you he wouldn't be in this situation!” hissed Marik angrily. “You ungrateful little son of a bitch. Now shut up and help me get him on my back.” he ordered.

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Silently the dark-skinned teen did as he was asked, turning the black-winged man's angry words over in his head, analysing them. What had he meant it was his fault? Had Bakura had a reason for not returning sooner? And why was everyone focusing on the last seven years he'd been away?

Still- even if there had been a reason- he could have helped, or at least come and tried to help his aunt and uncle. And he hadn't. He shook his head. `Right now I need to just get him onto Marik's back so he can be tended. I can wonder about all that stuff later.' he thought to himself.

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Carefully, so as not to cause further injury to Bakura the two tried to lift the semi-lucid male onto Marik's back, but for some reason he didn't seem to want to leave Atemu.

“Atemu… next… don't let… them…get him…” he said frantically. “Demons… he'll be… hurt…”

“I'll be just fine, Bakura. Let Marik take you home and tend those nasty cuts.”

“No… demons! Can't let… hurt… guardian… Show… Marik… black… stone…” insisted the injured angel.

“Black stone? What black stone?” asked Marik sharply, giving Atemu a Look.

Silently Atemu handed him the stone that had been in the centre of the paper ball.

“They threw this at his injured wing- I think they knew or at least suspected he was injured. He only started being like this a few minutes after they managed to hit him with it.” Atemu told the dark-winged angel.

Marik looked at the stone in grim realisation. “Oh they would've had their suspicions all right to risk throwing something like that away.” he said.

“What is it?”

“Part of the crystallized Tears of Blood.”

“What?”

“Tear-shaped droplets of blood from the crucifixion. The demons stole some of them, and Lucifer himself used dark magic to make them into artefacts of great evil, tainting them from holy and pure objects of healing and salvation into objects of disease and madness. To risk throwing this at him to incapacitate him indicates that there are games afoot- and these guys don't plan on losing. But what they'd want with you is beyond me…” he mused to himself as he trailed off.

“Me?!” Atemu exclaimed in shock. Marik seemed to realise he'd said more than he probably should've and shook his head.

“Nevermind. If it'll keep him quiet, I guess I'll just have to bring you along with me.”

“What?!”

“Come on then, haven't got all day you know.”