Nether Lands (Variations #1 & #2)

Title: Final Move
(NetherLands Variations #1 of 3)
Author: Tsutsuji
Fandom: Yu-gi-oh!
Written: September 2004
Pairing: suggested Bakura/Ryou
Rating: R (barely). Kinda dark and angsty. Shonen-ai.
SPOILERS! - major spoiler for the end of the Ancient Egypt arc in the manga. (As
if you couldn't guess who won, d'uh!)
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-gi-oh! or these characters. But if Takahashi is really
done with Bakura, I'll gladly take charge of him.... Takahashi writes for love and money, I only write for love....

(Author's Notes: I have only read a few bits and pieces of the AE arc in
scanlations, so this is my interpretation based on very incomplete knowledge of
what's going on. I wrote it because I'm annoyed about something. From what I've seen of the end of the saga, after being a major
character and ultimately THE major villain of the entire saga, Yami Bakura just
goes pft~ and disappears. And Ryou Bakura starts out strong and complex, and then fades into an NPC. The Bakurae get shafted, IMO. This is my first attempt to fix that problem. This is
not a sequel to my story "Nether Lands" but an alternate version of Life After The
Manga Ends.)

---

Off in the nether lands I've heard the sound
Like the beating of heavenly wings
And deep in my brain I can hear a refrain
Of my soul as she rises and sings
Anthems to glory and anthems to love
And hymns filled with earthly delight
Like the songs that the darkness
Composes to worship the light.

--Dan Fogleberg, "Netherlands"

***


Yami Bakura lifted his head from the table with an effort. Yugi, the Pharaoh, and
the others were gone... the Game was over. There was a taste of dust and sand in
his mouth, and a dead silence in the tomb-like room. Silence settled like dust
over the pieces of the Memory World game, tiny lifeless pieces scattered on the
table before him.

He wondered why he was still here, still aware of this place. It was over. He was
severed from the Ring, cut off from all power, and his link to his host was ended.
The rage and hatred that had been his strength for so long had grown dim, faded as
his memories, their fires burnt out in the game. The power in his soul had been
wrenched from his control, leaving him with nothing. He was only vaguely aware of
himself and his surroundings, and even that awareness was fading. He was going
blind and deaf in the dark, dusty silence....

But he felt something, a stirring of air against his skin. Strange that he could
sense anything, but he found himself looking around with eyes that should have
been dead and sightless to see what had disturbed the dust of the tomb.

There was a strange brightness there beside him, and it focused his vision,
bringing his other senses back as well. Someone had appeared standing beside his
chair. He looked up and realized it was his host who stood there beside him,
looking across the table at the scattered, broken pieces of the game. Before he
could say anything Ryou turned away from the game and knelt by his chair, looking
up at him expectantly.

"What do you want?" he growled, surprised to find that he had a voice.

Ryou blinked at him in surprise, seeming puzzled by the question. Bakura noticed
without surprise that he no longer had the Ring.

"The Ring is now in the hands of the Pharaoh," he said, knowing this with
certainty, though Ryou hadn't said so. "Or rather, in Yugi's hands, I suppose. At
any rate, I can no longer use its power. Our link is severed. You have no reason
to be here."

"No." Ryou shook his head. "It's true, I gave the Ring to Yugi. But you are still
here, in me."

Bakura stared at him. "You're free of me. Go away. I have no use for you anymore."

Again Ryou shook his head. "You're wrong," he insisted in his soft voice. "It's
you who are free now. Free of those whose power you wanted to use, but they used
you instead."

"What are you talking about?" Bakura snapped. Actually he knew exactly what Ryou
was talking about, his arrangement with Zorc, made in his lust for vengeance that
had consumed him for so long... but he was surprised to hear Ryou speak of it.
"What can you possibly know of it?"

"I know everything, now."

Bakura stared into those guileless brown eyes a moment longer, wondering. He'd
always only let Ryou know what he wanted him to know of his plans and motivations,
guarding himself even when his own memories and understanding were not clear to
him. How could this innocent fool know it all? And if he did, how could the
innocence still be there in his eyes?

But it was there still, unsettling in its purity, and yet there was something
else, something Bakura did not want to see. He gave a harsh laugh.

"If you understand it all, then you would know what it means to have lost this
game. I've lost *everything*. My soul has no place in the world now. I said once
that I *am* the Darkness, and now that is *all* that I am. There is nothing else
left."

"No," said Ryou, again softly insistent. "Your soul still has a home inside of
me."

Bakura looked hard into the face of his host, his other self. The idiot would let
him back in, even knowing all that he knew? Why? It made no sense. The boy was an
even greater fool than he'd always thought.

Then he suddenly remembered the lonely boy he'd found when his spirit awakened
within the Ring to find he had a new host, a boy who looked so much like the child
he'd once been - yet not so alike, because Ryou's eyes had never seen the things
he'd seen as a child.

But now he had. As Bakura had looked through Ryou's eyes in the modern world, now
Ryou had seen through his eyes, seeing Bakura's memories played out in the game.

That wasn't supposed to happen.

"You - you weren't supposed to be a part of this. You weren't allowed in. How did
you get here?"

Ryou blinked, his eyes gleaming. "I don't know, really."

Bakura thought about it. Ryou had been sent away by the Guardian of the Millennium
Items, not being judged pure enough to enter with Yugi and the others. It didn't
matter to him at the time, but now he realized how strange it was. No doubt the
guardian had detected his own presence in Ryou's soul. But perhaps now that the
link was broken, that soul was shining brightly enough to be allowed into this
magically protected space. But there was no longer a guardian. There was nothing
left here to protect. It still made no sense.

Ryou spoke softly, eyes lowered. "I wanted to help Yugi, really, and I hated being
sent away from my friends. But the real reason I wanted to follow them into the
memory world was because of you." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I didn't want
to lose you again. I think that's why I wasn't allowed in."

Bakura realized at once that, however unlikely this sounded, it was true. It was
also how Ryou had found him now, in the shambled remains of the game. How else
could he be here?

"You are a fool, Bakura Ryou," he said in a low voice. Ryou looked up, eyes gone
wide at the spirit's use of his name. "There is nothing here for you. Go back to
your world of friends and daylight. I go to the Shadows, where I belong. My spirit
is destined to fade to nothing, and be forgotten."

He spoke without the bitterness and weariness he felt, his voice a low chant, but
it was as if he said an incantation that had no power. Ryou only shook his head
slightly.

"My soul will not forget you, Bakura," he said. "Come back with me."

The tomb robber shivered, wondering at the effect Ryou's words had on him, words
said innocently, words of a lonely, foolish boy said to empty shadows. He wanted
to laugh, in defiance of the dark as he had always done, but all the power he had
sought to use in the dark, against the dark, had been lost.

He gazed down at the game table, then at the walls of the tomb which seemed as
substantial as smoke. He was starting to fade, his senses going blind again. There
was nothing left for his spirit to hold onto.

"I can't go back. I lost."

His voice was just an echo in the shadows. He wanted to chide the boy, speak
harshly to him one last time for his useless sweet foolishness, for his lonely
pain, his innocence, his lightness of spirit... but he couldn't. He didn't have
the strength left. He looked down at Ryou who was still kneeling by his chair, now
just a dim vision. The dark eyes looked up at him, and there was a strange gleam
in them that cut through the haze of his fading spirit.

"Then I'll go with you into the darkness," Ryou said fiercely.

"Fool!" he said, finding the strength to laugh at his other self after all. This
was absurd beyond belief. Stranger still, he seemed to see tears in Ryou's eyes.
Tears... for him?

No one had ever cried for him, not even he himself had cried over his fate since
the day when horror seared his eyes.

"Ryou?" he said in wonder, still wanting to laugh at the boy's foolishness, but
suddenly he was afraid. He didn't know why. What was left for him to fear? Ryou's
tears....

He reached down, and as his finger touched the wet skin of Ryou's face, at the
same moment Ryou's hand took hold of his wrist. They had never *touched* before.
How could they, being two spirits in one body? How could this be?

The look on Ryou's face and the firmness of his grip on Bakura's wrist... Bakura
had only seen that fierce determination on his other's face once before, when Ryou
had defied him to save his friends. He'd been startled then by the strength of
Ryou's will, but it had never come to the fore since then, and he'd forgotten what
he should have remembered all along - that the will of Bakura Ryou to save those
he cared for was stronger than any magic.

Bakura touched Ryou's face, then looked at his own finger, gleaming wet with
Ryou's tears. Feeling this and seeing it, his senses sharpened, and he felt some
strength return.

He stood up, pulling Ryou up with him. They stood face to face, his hand still on
Ryou's cheek. He could feel the warmth of Ryou's flushed skin beneath his fingers.
Ryou reached up with his other hand to touch Bakura's cheek as well, studying him
intently.

"Thief King Bakura," he said softly, fingertips tracing the scarred lines.

Bakura realized that he'd changed, his spirit taking on the form of his living
body long ago. It was strange... he'd been in Ryou's body so long that even when
he'd remembered and seen his past, it was as if he didn't know what he once looked
like. It had been as if it was someone else who had lived in the harsh desert
world, drawing strength from that harshness. As much as he had at first despised
its weaknesses, Ryou's body had become home to him. But as his old self, he was
taller and stronger than Ryou, although while he used Ryou's body he'd had all the
power of the Ring at his disposal.

Now, he realized, all strength and power was in Ryou. It was Ryou holding him
here, although the terrible formless darkness called to him. It pulled at his soul
like a gusting wind, and only the touch of Ryou's hand and the light in his eyes
kept him here in this semblance of a body.

But was that enough? If he took Ryou's hand now and used the power in their
connection, power that Ryou had in abundance and was offering so freely, would it
be enough to pull his spirit free of the shadows? The game he'd lost was one of
ancient magic, and he was bound by the rules of it. He'd offered everything, his
soul and spirit and heart, in his quest to avenge his family and his village, and
he'd lost it all. Nothing could change that. If he took Ryou's hand, would Ryou be
sucked into the darkness along with him, a fitting reward for the willing
sacrifice of his innocence? But Ryou would not let go.

Bakura looked into the melting brown eyes, and into the warm light of Ryou's soul,
and suddenly, it didn't matter. Didn't matter that it didn't make sense, didn't
matter that he was powerless and had nothing, because none of that mattered to
Ryou.

"Bakura Ryou," he said, in his own old voice that sounded like and unlike Ryou's
own, "It is your soul's choice. Let the winds of darkness or of light take us
where they may."

He knew he had no real power here, no control over this magic. It was indeed
Ryou's own choice that would decide both their fates.

Ryou smiled. He took both Bakura's hands in his own, squeezing them, warm and
pulsing with life, and pulled...


~the end~