Toki wo Koeru Omoi

Toki Wo Koeru moi

Chapter 3

Bakura's P.O.V

Sleep is good. Sleep is very good. Especially when you want to avoid the world around you. It's the ultimate way of achieving world avoiding-ness. And I certainly wanted to do exactly that.

Poke Poke

I groan as I feel something poke me and bury myself deeper into the warmth of my blankets, my mind is still only on the border line of consciousness, and I'm not ready to wake up yet, so whatever that was can go to the deepest pits of hell.

Poke Poke

I growl in response as I feel something poke me again, though this time a lot harder then last time, "Get out..." I mumble, though I'm not sure if the person heard me or not because I'm underneath the blankets.

"Get up Tomb Robber." My eyes snap open at the sound of Yami's voice. What the hell is he doing in my house?...Wait, not Yami, I realize, but Atemu. With that realization, I remember all the events of the previous day. Great, now I seriously want to return to my unconscious state! Fucking pharaoh. Hey wait one fucking minute, I thought I told him not to leave the room! I also specifically told him not to go NEAR mine or Ryou's room! So what the hell does he think he's doing?

I don't make any attempt to move, since I'm damned comfortable right here, "I thought I told you not to come near my room!" I yell through the thick comforter, "I also said not to even leave your room so go back in there and leave me the hell alone!" I close my eyes again and sigh.

"You told me not to leave the room until morning. And Ra rose quite a while ago, but you did not get up, so I decided to wake you." He explains, not that I really give a damn because I wasn't looking for an explanation; I just wanted him to leave!

"Not everyone rises with the fucking sun, Pharaoh. Now get."

I snarl as I feel the blankets being ripped away from me. The pharaoh has a lot of fucking nerve. Ra, not even Yami is that fucking suicidal! I open my eyes and glare at him, when a sudden shiver courses through my body from the colder air. Damn it's cold! Who the hell turned the heater off? I wrap my arms around myself and bury my face in the soft pillow. I hear a growl of annoyance from Atemu and smirk to myself. I love pissing him off, it's so damn easy!

"You will get up now, Tomb Robber. If you don't do it yourself then I will force you out of the bed myself." Ooh, he's sounds serious. Tch, like I'm really going to listen to him. I turn my head so that I'm no longer suffocating myself in the pillow and narrow my eyes at him.

"I'd like to see you try." Well, those words sealed my fate.

A uncharacteristically sadistic smirk graces his lips, and I raise an eyebrow at him. He reaches forward and grips the sheet underneath me with both hands. Before I have time to do anything to stop him, he yanks them. Hard. He even takes a step back and uses his weight to successfully pull the sheets, and me, off the bed and onto the floor.

I yelp in surprise and pain as I land on my ass when I hit the floor none to gracefully. I glare at him while standing up; I notice his smug expression and feel the sudden urge to slap it right off of him. And I would have to if his expression hadn't change from smug to confused. What? He doesn't know why I'm pissed? Or is he just playing stupid? He's staring at me now, well, actually he's staring somewhere lower then my face. It's then that I remember I'm only in my boxers and that's when I get really pissed.

"What are you looking at?" I yell. He takes a step towards me, not at all phased by my outburst.

"What is this?" He asks, poking a certain area on my shoulder, causing me to wince. I glance down at said shoulder and my eyes widen when I see a small, round bluish-colored scar there. Actually it couldn't be considered a scar because there's dried blood around it and the wound itself doesn't even seem to be healed all the way.

"What the hell?" I yell, pulling away from Atemu and placing a hand over the wound, "Where the hell did THIS come from?" Atemu gives me a quizzical look.

"You have a wound and you don't even know where it came from?" I shake my head. Seriously, I would remember getting a wound, especially one like this! My entire arm is hurting right now! It looks like a bullet wound, but I haven't been shot with one of those things since I came across this one dude who freaked out and shot me in an alley last year. And damn did those things hurt!

"It wasn't there before." I mumble, still examining the mysterious injury.

"Didn't you say that your past self was here also?" Atemu asks, sounding disgusted by the thought of it.

"Yeah. So?"

"Well, is it possible that something happened to him? If he got injured then perhaps you now bear the scars of that injury. Since you two are the same person, are you not?" Ah, damn, he's probably right. Well that sucks. Both him being right and this scar. Fucking idiot, What the hell did he do to get himself shot? And how come Yami didn't say anything? It couldn't have happened at the game shop, Yami would have sent him...err..me to the shadow realm, not shoot him/me!

I brush past Atemu and stalk down the stairs towards the phone. Damn, is it just me or is it even colder down here? I glanced at the clock on the wall, it was dark down here but I could see perfectly fine, it read 12:26. Hmm didn't think it was that late. Guess I shouldn't be too mad at Atemu, he did wait a long time. I snatch the phone up and dial the number before holding it up to my ear, only to find out that the phones completely dead. Bloody freaking hell!

Slamming the phone back down, I make my way to the living room and rip the curtains open. White, I see white. Oh shit. I knew the bloody snow storm was going to be bad, but this fucking bad? The snow is higher then the fucking window! Wait. The phones dead...so does that mean the electricity is out as well?

I walk over to far wall, passing Atemu who is standing at the bottom of the steps, and flick the switch. Nothing. Bloody great! So not only am I going to starve, I'm going to freeze as well, because without electricity the fucking heater won't work!

“Well...” I sigh and turn to face Atemu, “We’re going to die.” I tell him simply, then walk over to the couch and plop down on it.

“What makes you say that?” He asks and sits in the armchair across the room from me, and I notice that he's once again wearing his pharaoh attire. Ra, if it isn't leather then it's his sacred freaking pharaoh outfit and gold. Hmm... Gold. I don't think he'll be leaving with that. Anyways, back to the matter at hand.

“Well for one thing I can’t cook for shit. So we’ll if I don’t end up blowing the house up then we’ll starve. And if explosions or starvation don’t kill us, we’ll freeze to death because the heater doesn’t work.” I explain. Heh, and if none of those things kill me then being stuck with Atemu through this will lead me to become suicidal. I wonder how well Atemu would handle being trapped with a rotting corpse.

“The great Thief King can survive alone out in the desert his whole life, but can’t survive through a storm of white stuff even when in the shelter of his home?” Atemu says smugly. My fingers are just itching to wrap around his neck and strangle him to death.

“This is nothing like Egypt Atemu. Snow is much more lethal then sand, believe it or not.” Ok I wouldn't say more lethal. I'd say equally lethal. I stand up and walk back into the kitchen. We have a gas stove so I can still attempt to cook something. Damn my fucking arm hurts though. I wonder if I’ll feel it if I slap my past self. Hopefully only wounds that will scar affect me.

Let’s see. Oh, canned food! It’s damn easy to fix and it’s not half bad. Not really a breakfast food but I’m not giving a damn right now. Sigh, its times like this when I really miss having my girly hikari around.

Ah, shit! I’m sneezing all over the fucking place! This is just great. Can this possibly get ANY worse? Obviously it can, because Atemu just walked in. Just who I wanted to see! Oh great, more sneezing. The pharaoh’s staring at me; I should gouge his eyes out for that. Ok, good, sneezing is now under control. I stand up strait and glare at him, “What the hell are you staring at?” I snap at him. He just shakes his head and sits down at the table. That pisses me off. When I ask a question I expect a fucking answer! But, because I feel like shit right now, I’ll let it slide. And what's with him waltzing around like he owns the damn place? He hasn't even been here for 24 bloody hours! He ends up 3000 years in the future and he still has that 'I am holier then thou' attitude! Should have left him out there.

You know, I didn't even know it was possible to screw up cooking canned food! But I guess you learn something new every freaking day! Though I wouldn't really say burnt. More like...chunky. Ew. That can't be good for our health. But fuck it we'll eat it anyways.

After downing that sorry excuse for an edible meal, and adding some more dishes to the lovely pile of filth that's forming, I head upstairs to put some clothes on. Walking around the house in boxers when it's below freaking zero outside, and with the heater unusable, wasn't my brightest idea. So yeah, right now I'm freezing my ass off. For some reason it's a hell of a lot colder up here. Shit, I hope I don't get stuck downstairs with the all mighty one.

After I get dressed, I grab the comforter off the ground, where it had been left thanks to Atemu, and drag it back downstairs with me, all the while trying to think of some way to keep myself occupied. I'm not going to sit downstairs for Ra knows how long, staring at the pharaoh, or the wall. No electricity, so I can't watch TV, hell without electricity I can't really do anything other then talk to the Pharaoh. I shudder at the thought. Someone up there must really hate me. Ok, I know they all hate me but are they really stupid enough to lock their beloved pharaoh in a house with me through a snow storm?

As I throw the comforter onto the couch, and am about to sit back down, I notice Atemu shivering. I would be banging my head against a wall right now if it wasn't already throbbing. So, stomping back up the stairs, I grab the blanket off the bed in the guest room, go back downstairs, throw it at him, then sit back down and burry myself in the now cold, but soon to be warm, comforter.

I glance over at him to see him staring at the blanket in bewilderment. Heh, probably expected me to let him freeze. Which I would have done, but then I would have to hear him complaining, and that would wonders for my headache.

But, headache or no headache, the silence is bugging the shit out of me, oddly enough. And since it's bugging me, I will break the silence, even if it means communicating with the pharaoh without absolutely having to. Besides, if I ignore it long enough it will go away, "So, what part of your life were you actually going through when you ended up here?" I ask him. His head snaps up at the sound of my voice, and he's eyeing me suspiciously, but answers none the less.

"Well, we were currently at war with Nubia. They were trying to take control of Egypt...again." He explains.

I smirk at that, "Yeah, I remember that. I killed a bunch of Nubia's best warriors. Bunch of cocky bitches they were."

He looks surprised, "That was you?"

"But of course, do you really think one of your pea-brained guards could slaughter Nubia's best warriors?" I raise a questioning eyebrow at him, but the smirk never leaves my face. It seems that comment pissed him off, because his fists are clenching the blanket so hard his knuckles are turning white. Maybe when the snow clears I'll drop him off at one of those places Ryou wanted to take me, something about Anger Management.

"You know it's true. Guards in general have the brain power of donkey. An abnormally stupid donkey at that." I point out. He seems to have calmed down since I said ‘guards in general’ instead of pointedly insulting his guards. Ra forbid. Damn he's touchy.

"I suppose that it true." He admits, "It was getting pretty bad." He suddenly adopts this look of horror, "Wait! Without me there what will happen? I just disappear in the middle of a war!" He yells. I roll my eyes, he's worrying over nothing.

"Don't shit yourself over it pharaoh. When you disappeared I'm sure that time just stopped, either that or when you return, you will return to the exact moment when you disappeared, it will be like nothing happened." I reassure him. Though I'm not sure why, it would have been fun to watch him sweat.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Easily." I tell him, "The future is the same. If anything different were to happen, then the future would have been altered." Damn, I really hate time. It's too fucking confusing!

"That does make sense..." He mumbles, then looks back up at me, "So you must know how it ends, right?"

"But of course."

He looks at me hopefully, I raise an eyebrow at him again, "Could you tell me how it ends?" He asks.

I shake my head, "No. I can't do that. You being here could already screw things up, but to tell you things like that could change the entire outcome." Good, he seems to accept that answer.

"So, how many of Nubia's warriors did you kill exactly?"

Hmm, how many did I kill? "I remember killing off a lot of the weaker ones who tried to take me as a prisoner. That was a pretty large number. Then when their leaders found out about someone killing off a bunch of their men single handedly, they sent their top warriors to kill me. They probably thought I was going to get in their way. While I didn't like the thought of Nubia taking over Egypt, I wasn't going to interfere; I didn't give about you or your people. But when they got in my way, it was a whole other story. Now that I think about it, I can't remember how many."

He smirks at me, "You do realize that by killing off their best men you were helping me, right?" He points out. Oh bloody hell, I never thought of it like that! But I refuse to let him know that that irks me.

I shrug, "It's kill or be killed." I then give him a smirk of my own, "But really, if that's the case then you owe me." His smirk disappeared pretty damn fast, "Think about it. Nubia has a whole army of well trained men. Not just a bunch of brainless zombie warriors. All you have is yourself and 6 priests whom wield Millennium Items. But the Millennium Items can't protect you from everything. Oh wait, make that yourself and 5 priests, since I killed off that guy and took the Millennium Ring." Ooh...he looks angry.

He holds out his hand, "If that's the case then return it to me." He says, looking down at the Millennium Ring that lay upon my chest.

"Now you see, I can't do that. I'm a thief; I don't return what I steal. And besides, my soul was sealed in this ring, and even though I have my own body my soul is still connected to it." I explain. He sighs and sits back, obviously tired of arguing.

"So... what are we suppose to do now?" He asks.

"Hell if I know, "I reply, "Not a damn thing to do until the fucking snow melts. Or someone digs us out." Then an idea hits me, and I reach over into the drawer next to the couch and pull out my dueling deck. And no, I'm not going to summon my man eater bug and watch it chase Atemu around the house. As tempting as it sounds.

"What is that?" He asks suspiciously, getting up from the chair and sitting next to me on the couch. Now I have the urge to get up and sit down in the chair, what would he do then? Climb in my lap?...I think I'll stay here now.

"This is my dueling deck." I tell him, glancing down at the top card; the Change of Heart. I swear that card mocks me.

"Dueling deck?"

"That is what I said. It's based off the shadow games we played back in Ancient Egypt. because you see, in this day and age, people don't just walk around with Shadow Powers and go off betting their souls. They've turned it into a card game. Quite stupid really, I only play when there are souls at stake, because otherwise it's damn boring." He rolls his eyes at my last comment. Really, what else was he expecting?

He swipes the deck out of my hands, and I have to resist the urge to take it right back. But I let him be. He studies the first card, then looks at me, then at the card, then me again, before he speaks, "What language is this written in?" he asks.

"Japanese."

"And you understand it?"

"Of course, my other half has lives here in Japan most of his life, and since he is the other half of my soul, I know what he knows."

"So what is this cards name?"

"Change Of Heart."

He studies it again, then looks back at me, "Why would you have such a card in you deck?" He smirks, "Isn't it a bit girly looking for you?"

"For your information that is a very powerful card. And besides, it's my hikari's favorite card. He says it reminds him of me..." I stare at the card. In a way I suppose it really does represent me. Because I certainly had a "change of heart", might not have been willingly, but it happened.

"And how is that? I don't see a connection." He comments. I'm still staring at the card, and I answer him without really thinking about it, since I'm still lost in my own little world.

"When Ryou first got the ring, I was never nice to him. Sure, I never beat him or anything like most of his friends think, but I took over his body against his will and tried to kill all of his friends, I had hurt him so many times...but after I realized what I hade done, I changed, for my hikari." I whispered. He turns to the next card and I snap out of it, just now realizing what I had said, and I cursed myself for speaking like that in front of the Pharaoh.

"Well I do know you’re nothing like your past self. If it were him I would have been left out there to freeze or he would have stabbed me to death by now. You’re actually not so bad." I blink in surprise at that, I had expected him to laugh and mock me.

"Yeah well, don't think that because I saved your ass means I like you, I just don't want the future fucked up."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Is his simple reply. Soon he's gone through the entire deck, and after asking me the names of the monsters he doesn't recognize, he hands it back to me, were I put it back in the drawer. My original idea was to duel, but then I realized that:

A.) He didn't have a deck

B.) He has no clue how to play

C.) I am no mood to, and don't have the patience to teach him

"So tell me, what is the world like today? I mean, I haven't seen very much of it since it was dark out and all, and now we're trapped in here. Who rules this country? How strict are there laws? How-" I cut him off by clamping my hand over his mouth.

"One question at a time pharaoh." I say before removing my hand, "I've been here for about 2 years. Ok, well actually over 7, but I stayed in my soul room and only came out when I found it absolutely necessary. But it's been 2 years since Ryou and myself, along with Yami and his midget hikari have come to somewhat peaceful terms. Note the somewhat part. I still can't stand the arrogant prick. And don't look at me like that you know exactly why I hate your guts. Anyways, from what I've learned in the time I've been here, nowadays the country isn't ruled by only one person."

"You mean there is no Pharaoh?" He questions, looking surprised.

"No, no pharaoh. I highly doubt this county ever had a Pharaoh, but I'm sure they had something like a pharaoh way back then. Anyways, now countries are ruled by more then one person, I believe Ryou called it 'The Government'." I explained to the best of my knowledge. Hey, I'm not completely uneducated when it comes to this time. I was stuck going to school for Ryou the few times he got sick, and after being promised this kick ass dagger set in exchange for me paying attention so that he could tap into my memory and get the info he needed, I gladly listened to every word that came out of that stuck up snob of a teacher's mouth. Well, thinking back on it, I wouldn't say gladly.

"And as for how strict there rules are, compared to Egypt, it wouldn't seem like they HAVE any laws. Accepts for no killing and no stealing. Found that one out the hard way."

"I'm sure."

"So am I. Of course, there prisons aren't nearly as bad as your filthy dungeons. Of course, it was a hell of a lot harder to break out of. They got fucking video camera's everywhere!"

"Video cameras?"

"Not about to explain that. Ryou can when he gets home." He nods and we both fall into silence once again. Now that I think about it, the Pharaoh's not all that bad. And he certainly isn't as cocky and arrogant as Yami. I suppose since Yami has no memories, he acts the way he thinks a pharaoh is supposed to act. That his title gives him the right to act the way he does. But Atemu isn't as bad as I thought he was.

After a few minutes, I glance over at him, "Ever play Go-fish?"

Maybe this won't turn out as bad as I thought...

Or maybe that's just my wishful thinking...