Inevitable Reunion : Chapter 6

Bakura calmly sprinkled more pepper into his tea as he sat on the counter with his legs crossed. Malik normally would've made some snide comment about the spirit's height, but was distracted by his weird choice of drink seasoning.

"You drink your tea weird," Malik commented, keeping his voice light and joking despite the tension that still heavily hung in the air.

The spirit scowled at him, getting annoyed anyways. "You don't drink tea at all, so frig off! I'll drink it however I want!"

Yugi cleared his throat loudly. "So what's this all about? To be perfectly blunt... what do you want?!" He glared at the spirit, looking as fierce as his baby panda-like features could manage.

"Something is going wrong with the Shadow Realm," Bakura put his cup down gingerly with an expression that expressed his distaste for having to stop drinking. He uncrossed his legs, lounging as he leaned forward. "Despite what you mortals seem to think, its existance is a neccessity for your world to stay as it is. Light and darkness being different sides to the same coin, and all that bullshit."

He took another long sip of his drink before staring hard at Yugi. "I know what's causing the issue, and I know how to solve it. However... I unfortunately lack the ability to take it out on my own." He looked revolted by the thought.

"Why us?" Anzu frowned. "Surely you could find people more willing-"

Bakura glared at her. "You think I would be here if I had any other choice?!" He took a deep breath to compose himself. "You people are some of the greatest sources of light I've come across in my travels. You've managed miraculous things. And as annoying as it may be, in this case it's useful. There's not much that I'm capable of doing about it, given that darkness merely creates more darkness instead of vanquishing it. Did you forget that I created the Shadow Realm in the first place? I'm connected to it's existance, whether I like it or not."

The last statements startled Malik. The spirit had created the Shadow Realm? Just how strong of a darkness was he? But more importantly, hadn't the scriptures always said that-

"The Pharaoh can help," Bakura resumed drinking his tea, ignoring Malik's lost expression. "I presume finding his name would have given him back all his memories. That will help us to take out the threat and return things back to how they should be."

Yugi shifted uncomfortably. "The Pharaoh... isn't around anymore. He's been gone for years now."

Bakura spat out his tea. "WHAT?!" His pupils slitted as he glared incredulously at the group.

"What do you care?" Honda scowled at him, crossing his arms defensively.

"I don't," Bakura snapped. "It just figures that when I actually need him around, he's gone and disappeared. Without him, this will be nearly impossible to pull off! How the frig did he get himself destroyed, anyway?!"

"Destroyed is a rather harsh way of putting it," Ryou pointed out. "He just passed on to the afterlife. His soul technically does exist, it's just in another plane of existance now."

Bakura stared at his host for a moment, then smirked. "If that's all that's happened to him... We can just bring him back. And here I thought this was going to be difficult. I bring the dead back to life in my sleep!"

"Why should we disturb his rest though?" Anzu protested. She shifted uncomfortably, glancing around at her solemn faced friends before speaking up again. "I'd like to... I mean, we'd all like to see the Pharaoh again, more than anything." She stared at Yugi worridly for a minute before continuing. "As of right now we don't even know for sure that there's any real danger! How do we know you're not just trying to trick us?"

Bakura glanced sharply toward the window at the sound of something they couldn't hear. He turned and tackled Ryou to the ground away from the window as it exploded in a flash of light.

Malik threw himself down as well, quickly crawling behind the couch for shelter at the spray of shrapnel rained down on the group. There was a rush of motion, and loud cursing from unknown voices as the scent of blood hit the air. Smoke filled the room as the egyptian frantically tried to see what was happening.

All at once the smoke unexpectedly cleared, and Malik quickly spotted Bakura with shadows running down his arms. The spirit was breathing heavily with an almost pained look on his face, which he quickly smothered.

Ryou was too busy yanking his knife out of a hooded man's face to notice. "What the bloody hell was that?!" the Brit demanded, smiling despite the rage in his eyes.

"Never mind that," Yugi coughed. "Is everyone alright?"

"Yug! Your arm!" Jonouchi gasped.

Yugi glanced down at the shards of glass that were jammed into his exposed arm. "I'll be fine," he replied dismissively. "Is everyone else okay?"

"Everyone's fine," Bakura brushed himself off. The shadows that had been racing down his arms joined with the shadows of the room and disappeared from sight. The man stumbled a bit, struggling to stand. "They weren't trying to kill us, the twats."

"What makes you so sure?" Malik frowned at him, starting over to see if he was alright

"If they were, you'd all be dead," Bakura answered. "And I would lose this form." Then he collapsed without another word.