Dust swirled in the air, tousling the spikes of shining hair that framed Bakura's face. Barefoot and in a scratchy off-white tunic, he was collapsed and trembling in the middle of one of Kul-Elna's dusky streets. Despite the dipping sun's crimson heat, his shuttered eyes and whispering lips seemed pallid and cold as he drained all of his strength into a pool of concentration.

Crouched down over him and grasping his shoulder was a teen girl a little over twice his age, her chopped-off hair and electric expression giving her a frayed appearance. In a husky voice, she urged, "Bakura, I told you not to worry about it—you know we don't care—I don't know what's gonna happen if you keep this up!"

Shaking her off stubbornly, Bakura propped himself up on his elbows in disregard of his lagging health. In a dry voice, he said, "Diabound…come on!"

His ka had gotten loose against his wishes again, and was now flying rampant, skimming the tops of the village's mud brick abodes. It had already escaped so far that, in his dizzied vision, it was a mere blurred spot disrupting the sky. With increasing frustration, the boy yanked on the link between him and his spirit as he would a leash, feeling the staggering swipe of his energy dissipating. His arms crumpled beneath him.

"Bakura, stop! You can't force it!"

"But Salama…," he watched as Diabound soared farther and farther away, "Why? Why can't I control it…?" Darkness began to prickle at the edges of his eyes as the alarmed voice of his father and the strong hands that wrapped around his body sent him off to sleep.

When he next opened his eyes, he was laying in his bed at home, his father sitting wearily by his feet.

"…So. How long was I out?"

Mshai regarded his son sternly, shaking a graying head at his casual nature. "You are a reckless, reckless child. What were you thinking, endangering your own safety like that?"

Sitting upright, Bakura insisted, "Dad, I would've been fine. I lost consciousness because I was tired, not because I was going to die."

"I don't care. We've gone over this before; Diabound is a defense mechanism, not a weapon, and it's harmless by itself. It will be dangerous if you keep trying to keep it trapped under your skin—what's wrong with letting it fly free?"

Glowering down at his resting knuckles, the boy muttered, "I just wanted to be strong enough…"

"And look at how weak you've made yourself in the process."

At that, Bakura exhaled hotly through his nose and hopped off the bed, both so he could make a show of how not weak he was feeling, and so he could walk up to his window to check the skies.

Night had poured in while he slept, and so had the rowdier villagers who now occupied the streets. He recognized all of their names and faces, of course, and had he been in a better mood he would have greeted them like he would extended family.

"Dad…why do we have to keep Kul-Elna a secret?" Bakura questioned in a change of subject, placing his forearms on the windowsill while his pupils kept searching the distance. His ka was nowhere in sight. "Wouldn't everyone be much happier if they could leave the village whenever they wanted to?"

Over the years, Kul-Elna had been scraping by; it mainly sustained itself through thievery of other surrounding settlements, and thus as a general rule only thieves were allowed to see the world outside the village borders—and even then, they had to take the utmost care to make sure that they weren't followed on their way back. But Bakura imagined if people felt free to come and go as they pleased, visiting friends and family, trading and buying—everyone's lives would be so much better.

From behind him, his father spoke gravely. "These people have little reason to leave, Bakura. They've been chased into this humble home by unshakable demons—it is here that they have a future, not outside where the world remembers their sins. And that's exactly why we must continue living in this manner, hidden away; Kul-Elna gives second chances to everyone, undiscriminatingly…but whether or not everyone here deserves a second chance is something the rest of the world wouldn't agree with. If we are discovered, then we won't be allowed to continue existing as happy and free as we are. In the ways of justice, it wouldn't be considered fair."

"Well, I don't think it's fair that most of these people were probably poor or alone, and had to do the things that they did to survive—and then have to run away from it! If things had been different—"

"It does no good to think of what could have been," Mshai interjected, no doubt speaking from experience. "Bakura, lately you've always seemed dissatisfied about something, and it worries me. You must learn to accept what is and what is not—what matters is that you and I are alive, and together." Bakura felt his father's hand on his shoulder, and after a sigh he tilted his head back to look up at him. The man's unsure eyes misted down at him as he added softly, "You know that, don't you?"

"Dad…" Expression cracking, the boy gripped his father's fingers, unaware of how much smaller his hand was in comparison. Turning around, he latched himself around his father's waist like a bandage around a cut, burying his cheek adamantly into the folds of the man's tunic. "I keep telling you, I don't care that mom's not here. You're all I need, dummy."

Mshai closed his eyes and rested his hands in his son's brilliant hair. "…You really must learn to be more respectful," he commented tiredly, though in a lighter tone.

"Dork," Bakura replied in cheeky defiance as he grinned upwards, and detached himself from his father in time to dodge a sweep of his arm. Smiling reproachfully, Mshai advanced upon the snickering boy as he continued, "Dweeb. Doofus. Dunce. Dipshi—ack!"

The gentle man had grasped his son not-so-gently by the ankles, lifting him clear off the floor and causing Bakura to release a shriek of laughter.

"No bad language in the house, remember?" Mshai admonished mildly, dangling him back and forth like a pendulum, to the boy's delight.

"Mmf! Leggo of me!" Bakura grunted as his giggles subsided, flailing his arms in half-hearted struggle. To his disappointment his father actually complied, half-draping, half-tossing his son onto the bed. "Hey, wait—is that it?" He sat up expectantly, dismayed to see his father turning to leave.

"It's getting a little late, Bakura, and I'd really prefer for you to recover as soon as possible. We can always play more tomorrow," Mshai answered with a yawn that Bakura suspected was fake.

"It is not late! And I'm not tired!" he protested, but the man simply waved him off with patience and affection as he exited the room, taking the only oil lamp with him. That was the thing with his father; he never argued, but he always got his way.

Now in the dark, Bakura flopped back with a huff. How could he sleep when he felt so restless? Somewhere out there, he felt the rush of his ka's wing beats against his brain. And what's worse, his senses were now opened to every scratching stimuli like raw, skinned flesh.

He didn't quite understand it yet, but whenever he felt attuned with Diabound, he grew more…animalistic. His stamina lengthened, his eyes remained sharpened in darkness, he thought more in pictures and impulse than in words, his nose could read the different textures of scents as readily as one could read an expression, and his ears—right now, his ears buzzed constantly.

Closing his eyes, Bakura tried to shake off his besieged senses, so that he might rest his mind and fall asleep.

"…—ura…"

Feeling a draft enter through his window, he shivered, the dry sandy air abruptly seeming chilled and abrasive as it curled around him.

As much as he wanted to rest his mind, he just couldn't—not when he had so much to think about. Like the reason he and his father had had to come live in Kul-Elna in the first place.

…Why was he so different, anyways?

There had to be others out there that were like him, and maybe they had the answers to all of his questions. But right now, he hated not knowing how dangerous he was, or how powerful, or why people like his mother seemed to want people like himself to die.

"Bakura…"

He rolled over onto his side, brow clenching as he tried to ignore the sounds and voices that jumbled in his ears. Even the rhythmic thrumming of his own blood as it washed through him filled his senses, like the whoosh and beating of wings on his eardrum.

With a floating sensation, Bakura saw a pale speck in the inky blackness of his mind, and rushed up to meet it. Diabound flapped its broad, fanned wings through the air as if with purpose, though it had no clear destination; whenever it seemed to get close to crossing over the boundaries of Kul-Elna, it dipped to the side and allowed its flight to curve back, watching over the villagers with mystifying, impassive eyes. Unlike the tanned, vibrant, turbulent little boy that possessed it, the ka's expression never changed, its pure white bird's body swishing skyward with grace.

Soaring right alongside his spirit, Bakura marveled at the view. All of Kul-Elna—all of his home, and of everything he ever knew—could be seen in one glance…and how much smaller it seemed for it! The shadowy parts of the world beyond stretched endlessly all around, and there was no doubt in the boy's mind that all of the answers he sought were hidden somewhere in their depths.

"Why…not…run…away?"

He was tempted.

In the clinging darkness, Bakura almost swore that he felt something grip his ankle—a clawed hand, talons maybe—and it dragged him down from his flight, plummeting faster and faster until he hit his floor and awoke, having fallen off the bed during his vivid vision. His heart had tripped and crashed into his lungs, his breathing stopped, his leg jerked away from the memory of the icy touch, and his eyes snapped to his ankle to see that, of course, there was nothing there.

As the adrenaline-rushed blood raced to his head, he took a steadying breath and rolled his eyes at himself. He actually let himself get spooked over some dream!

But as he righted himself and once more approached the window to see his ka finally float into view, he rubbed at his forehead and wondered if what he had seen could have been real—if his experience had to do with the connection between Diabound and himself. What, what if, maybe—he was driving himself crazy with all of the things he didn't know.

It couldn't really hurt to get out of Kul-Elna just for a little bit, could it? He could just get a good look around—and if he was lucky, meet an outsider and ask some questions—and come right back. Really, no one would know he'd been missing, he convinced himself.

Impulsively, he grabbed nothing but a flask of beer, the enticement of exploration drawing him towards his window. He gripped the edge and leaned outward, rocking back and forth slightly on his legs in deliberation.

It couldn't hurt.

At the crescendo of Diabound's wing beats, he poked his head out of the window completely and looked up to see its descending figure, delighted that it had returned to him at last. Maybe it was a sign! Maybe he was finally growing stronger—strong enough to do this on his own.

Closing his eyes, he allowed the charged currents of his ka to flow into him as his body accepted the solemn-faced creature. Then, with a quick glance over his shoulder and a lingering thought about his father, he clambered through the window and fell into a crouch outside with a crunch of dirt.

"Ha ha ha ha…"

And he was gone into the night.

The setting sun stained the lands with a seeping, bleeding red, as everyone's stretched shadows danced in a flurry of contortions on the uneven ground.

The Thief King stifled a yawn, unusually drained from having to stay up through the afternoon and also from riding on horseback for such a long duration; at the slow, dragging pace the animals went, it took twice the time to travel than it would have had they been at their full strength. By this point, the weapons he carried on his person made his shoulders ache, myriad leather straps circled tautly about his otherwise unclothed torso, and the fatigue was starting to trickle down the rest of his body.

As it was, he was as irascible as ever, mulling over how abysmally the day had gone despite his inability to do anything about it—though, really, that was probably the worst part. Plus, the incessant up-down jerking motion of his horse's labored strides wasn't any help, he reflected as he chewed on the inside of his cheek.

Though he led the entire procession, he soon found his mind wandering and he glanced back to check on how Namu was coping.

The kid rode with impressive stamina and dexterity, especially considering the ordeal he must have gone through. There wasn't anything really conspicuous about his posture, but all of his motions were severe and controlling, keeping his borrowed steed in line.

More noticeably, his eyes were alert and fidgety—flicking to the fading light on the horizon, to the right where Odji was fussing over the sand clumping in his horse's mane, a little further back to where Wati was staring disinterestedly at the passing landscape, straight ahead to see the Thief King looking back at him. He tilted his head to the side with an unsure smile, an ineffable gleam in his eyes that was almost entrancing.

"Are we almost there?" he called out, breaking the silence; for the majority of the trip, the Thief King's brooding presence had kept everyone subdued.

"You're not already tired, are you?" the silver-haired teen replied, plastering a smirk to his face despite the fact that his own body felt leaden from his lack of sleep. "You had better get used to the feeling, because as soon as you're shown the ropes I'll be working you like a dog." With that, he faced forward once more, turning his back to everyone.

To Namu's left, Nebi lowered his head and whispered helpfully, "That's just his way of saying 'Welcome to the club.'"

Blinking a little, Namu nodded thoughtfully. "He seems…hospitable?"

Nebi chuckled in his low, placid voice, leaning closer to the newcomer as if in conspiracy. "Don't worry, once you gain his trust he'll treat you just fine…usually." The way he said it, it was likely something he had to go through himself. "The King has the worst temper, but he's not a bad guy if you stay on his good side."

A sincere look of curiosity came over the blonde as he pondered aloud, "He really has you call him 'King,' then? What's his real name?"

"That," Wati raised his voice across the distance between him and the others, clearly having been eavesdropping, "no one knows." He regarded Namu almost haughtily, as if the teen's inexperience made him superior. Namu just smiled back sweetly.

"Oh? And how come?"

With a shrug, Wati stared pointedly at the Thief King's back as he drawled loud enough for him to hear, "I say it's just his superiority complex in action."

The Thief King didn't even bother to turn around. "I'm flattered that you talk about me so often Wati," he said with both impatience and amusement, "but shut up. Your whining is giving me a headache."

As the procession kept going, the muffling desert sands that pillowed their horses' hooves gradually gave way to firmer ground, and what were once vague outlines of mountains in the distance slowly came up to meet them. Night had finally spilled across the land without restraint, shadowing the ridges that began to form a wall to their left, erratic crags shrugged towards the sky.

The faint luminescence left in the surroundings reflected off of Bakura's eyes in a cat-like manner, and he acutely scanned the way ahead with a frown. As they neared where the camp was, he wondered just how destructive Marik's raid had been, his ears straining to pick up some sound of life and only being met by the forlorn crunching of hooves on hard-packed earth.

The whole procession halted, and Namu appeared puzzled as he cast about his gaze every which way; they seemed to have arrived at their destination, but there was no encampment that he could see, not even a hair to indicate that people had dwelled here. The others were clearly preoccupied over different matters.

"King…you don't think they're…," Nebi murmured apprehensively from behind him, but the Thief King shook his head.

"The bastards wouldn't have the nerve to die on us," he seemed to reassure himself, knuckles clenching where he gripped his reins.

Where Namu sat, he could see that everyone was nervous as even Wati concernedly called out into the night, sending wary glances side to side. "Alim? Menetnashté? Anyone? It's us, so you can come out now."

A beat passed, and Wati opened his mouth to call out once more when another's voice responded.

"Prove it."

The entire party seemed to exhale at once, visibly relaxing.

With slight surprise in his violet-splashed eyes, Namu regarded the twinge of relief in the Thief King's face. Taking no notice, and severely annoyed that he had been made to worry, Bakura growled, "If you don't come out right now, I'm going to shove my foot up your cowardly asses."

"…Okay, it really is you."

Scuffling noises emanated from an area in the ground, a few feet to the side of where Bakura's horse stood, and as much as Namu squinted at the source of the noise he couldn't tell where it was coming from in the darkness.

Soon a head emerged from the obscured area, followed by cramped shoulders and scrabbling hands as a man seemed to rise straight out of the ground, shaking debris vigorously from his shaggy black hair. Namu observed with keen interest all the while.

One by one, a large handful of other thieves appeared with a similar amount of grace, all sporting a dumbfounded expression to see their horses retrieved, the beasts pawing at the ground while the Thief King glared down at their masters witheringly. He crossed his arms, though out of impatience more than out of menace.

The first one to emerge raised his lanky arms as if to placate his leader. "King! You've, uh, found our horses! That's great!"

"Cut the crap, Shushu. Don't pretend like we didn't just save them from being stolen, you careless jackasses."

Shushu glanced back at the other thieves who merely shrugged, before addressing the Thief King again. "Our horses were stolen?"

Bakura slapped a palm to his forehead. "How could you dolts not even know that—I don't—okay, let's start over from the beginning. When I had left you all, I had entrusted the horses to your constant watch and supervision, which we had established as your duty numerous times in the past for whenever I was gone. Now, was this duty actually carried out?" He spoke with deliberate, condescending slowness, and like a berated child Shushu lowered his head sheepishly.

"Er…uh, we were going on another raid since we were running low on supplies, and since we all really wanted to help out with the looting—" he grimaced as someone stomped on his foot, hissing at him to tell the truth, "—that is, no one really felt like staying behind with the horses we weren't using, so we just brought all of 'em with us to the nearest town…"

"And no one was left guarding them?"

"W-we had spread word that we were with the King of Thieves, and of course everyone'd took off running, and they were too scared to even think of messing with us—it was a real ghost town after that, really! We were so sure that all the people had run away, so it shouldn'tve been a problem if we left the horses on their own, just for a short while. If they were taken, they were taken right under our noses."

Bakura gave a lengthy exhale which ruffled his bangs, eyes listing to the side. It was no damn wonder that the Ghouls had gotten a hold of their stallions, being practically announced as belonging to the Thief King and then left in the open like that. Just his luck that they happened to be in the right place at the right time to take advantage of his men's thoughtlessness—or maybe their reach was far more widespread than he could have imagined. When it came right down to it, he knew almost nothing about these new adversaries, outside of how much they pissed him off.

"We returned to see the horses'd all wandered off—well, that's what we had thought at the time anyways—and we would've told you if you'dve given us some means of contact. But we were confident that they'd come back to us on their own—a-and it's amazing how you trained 'em to be so smart and loyal, you know, we haven't lost a single horse yet," Shushu concluded with an attempt at flattery, in the hopes of lessening the severity of the Thief King's wrath.

"…I should have you all beaten to a pulp for your imbecility," came his unmoved reply, prompting a flinch from the few who took his threat completely seriously. But underneath, his thoughts were unsettled, like a stack of tiles after one piece wriggles loose—if what Shushu said was true, then the horses were clearly stolen while they were away from the Thieves' Den—so the Ghouls couldn't possibly have found where they had been staying, as Bakura had previously thought. For the sake of being sure, he interrogated curtly, "So you didn't run into Marik at all?"

"I'm pretty sure we didn't, whoever that is. We hijacked a boat down the river on our way back, and aside from the saps that we chucked overboard we didn't meet or see anyone at all."

Perhaps he should've just been thankful that the fools hadn't run into the Ghouls without him there, though he had been hoping that someone might have gotten a better glimpse of Marik than he had. He at least wanted to have some idea of what his opponent looked like.

"Are you sure you weren't followed here?"

Doubtless, Shushu's posture straightened, and he assured, "Of course we weren't. Whattaya take us for?"

"Arrogant, undisciplined, thoughtless bastards," Bakura rattled off breezily, much to the indignation of some. Despite this, he really did believe him; if there was one thing that his men took care not to do, it was jeopardizing the safety of their companions.

So Marik really had no idea where their base of operations was? Then maybe they didn't have to relocate as soon as he'd thought. Something uncoiled in the Thief King's diaphragm and he leaned back with greater ease, all while Namu's eyes traced the mountains and terrain around them, their layout captured lastingly in his pupils like ink being sucked into papyrus.

"I suppose things could have turned out a lot worse," Bakura sighed, rubbing a palm by his temple, "but damn you all for what you did. Had it ever occurred to you that you might want to withhold our identities every now and then when you rob someone?"

One of the more elderly of the men, sporting a beard as twisted as a chain of roots, stepped forward. He stood taller than the other belittled brigands as he said, "As much as this incident was a product of our carelessness, I don't doubt that it would have been avoided had you been with us. We've been without a leader for a long time—is it any wonder that we've fallen into disorder?"

Bakura scanned the line of men behind Alim, catching on each of their astray gazes like a hand running over a chipped edge. His arrogance deflated, replaced by something cornered and defensive. "I'm sorry…but I'm not going to waste my time babysitting you guys. I have my own things I need to do."

Hidden thoughts flickered beneath his exterior, while beneath the moonlight his skin looked sculpted and smooth, for a moment giving him an inhuman appearance—he looked like a hollow shell, a polished statue with insides that echoed. He gave a lengthy exhale.

"I'm leaving now," he said, slipping off his stallion's back and landing lightly with knees bent. "And before any of you ask, I won't be long this time."

Some of the men appeared as if they wanted to protest, though in this case they managed to withhold themselves. Raising an eyebrow at the estranged stares they pointed at him, he grasped clumsily for a grin and threw it on, saying, "Would you boys relax? It's not like I'm abandoning you." Even as he spoke, he turned away from them.

With a collective grunt, everyone winced against the blinding flash that his body released as his ka emerged. It rocketed into the sky with pummeling wings, taking its vessel along with it—Bakura's body had vanished from the sands.

Blinking away the vestiges of light that clung to his vision, Nebi saw a rather silent Namu, watching Diabound's form flying towards the stars, shrinking from sight until it looked no different from the many pale specks in the sky.

"How often does he leave like this?"

Grasping his own shoulder to wind the arm back in a stretch, Nebi said, "Unfortunately, his disappearances are becoming more and more frequent, and usually he doesn't even inform us of them beforehand. But then from the very start, the King has always come and gone as he pleased."

As they dismounted their horses, taking the time to massage their stiff muscles, Namu frowned and turned away from the sky.

"But where does he go?"

Intruding on their conversation as before, Wati grumbled, "Like he'd ever tell us."

Namu glanced at the other thieves and saw that they looked almost a little lost. It was bizarre, to say the least, to see full-grown and barbarous men act with such reliance.

To prevent the conversation from losing momentum, he made a show of yawning and asked, "So, where do you all sleep? Not on the ground, surely."

Taking almost gratefully to the diversion of showing the newcomer around, Nebi smiled and shook his head. "Well, no. Not on the ground…but underground."

"…Oh." Namu returned the smile with an expression of interest, but his voice seemed to fall flat a little, as if in distaste.

Not taking notice, Nebi gave curt orders to the rest of the thieves—Namu carefully noted that he seemed to take charge in the Thief King's absence—to tie down the horses and assign the first watch, and afterwards beckoned for Namu to follow him.

He led the teen to the area that Shushu and the others had emerged from, to show him what merely appeared to be an animal burrow. It was this opening that, legs-first, he began wriggling into.

"You…you all live in a hole," Namu observed aloud, watching as the man's heavy-set shoulders and dark mop of a head squeezed past the dirt and plunged into blackness.

"And now, so do you," his voice replied amiably. "Welcome to the Thieves' Den."

Those that had tended the horses were now returning, brushing off their hands, and pushing past Namu with little mind descended into the hole in a similarly casual fashion.

Slightly more out of breath than the younger men, the aged man called Alim took his time clambering into the opening. Pausing with his arms supporting his weight as his midsection was dipped under, he regarded the stilled, indecipherable-faced Namu.

"…It's not too cramped in there, is it?" the teen asked as he stared unblinkingly into the darkness of the opening, as if it were the gaping maw of a crocodile.

"Claustrophobic, are we?" remarked Alim with a twist of the mouth, not waiting for the boy to answer as he assured, "It gets bigger as you go down."

The docile smile flushed back immediately to Namu's lips. "Oh, I don't mind. I was just curious."

Once Alim, too, disappeared beneath the ground, for a moment Namu was left alone on the surface. In this quick privacy, his hand habitually wandered up to the amulet that hung around his neck. The brownish worn thing was rather plain and had little worth, but his fingers wrapped around it with the urgency of a child's embrace.

Steadied, he was able to plunge himself into the hole calmly, ignoring the scratched sides of earth that pressed in on him.

Getting past the initial cramped space, he found that immediately afterwards the sides parted, followed by a vertical drop of only about a foot before solid ground met his feet once more.

Groping blindly in the pitch-blackness, it felt like he was in a narrow tunnel—and taking a few tentative steps forward, it could also be deduced that it led further down.

Walking now with less and less hesitance, Namu did not have to go too far before the welcome glow of orange light gradually returned to his eyes, accompanied by the reverberating booms of men's voices. The descending entryway soon leveled out and opened into a stunning hollow; the ceiling surged upwards, leaving a large excess of vertical space, and the breadth was enough to accommodate the bodies of over a hundred men. As it were, the few dozen thieves were sprawled about the floor space comfortably, along with an impressively large population of beer jugs, shadowed beneath periodic bulks of crude stone columns that were clearly the only things preventing a complete cave-in.

There were various heaps of objects thrown about, which were hardly organized at all. Food rations, weapons, clothes, and gilded plunders intermingled on the floor, overflowing their boundaries like liquid.

A variety of oil lamps, mismatched in design and quality—and no doubt all stolen—were strategically placed along the walls to effuse the cavern with a lively tint, though they were all curiously isolated, encased by a border of rocks with caution as if they posed a fire hazard.

Currently, most of the thieves were clustered in multiple closed groups, distributing beer and chatting sociably.

"Well, look who finally made it!" exclaimed one man upon noticing Namu's entry, attracting the attentions of the rest of the congregation.

Another thief, already quite inebriated, roared jocularly, "You were taking so long in there, we were afraid you got lost!"

Paying little mind to the others as they guffawed loudly, Namu took in his surroundings with lingering eyes.

"This…is this man-made?"

"Pretty damned sweet, right? While some've heard rumors about the Thieves's Den, they probably didn't figure that that was, word-for-word, where we lived. No one has ever found us down here," boasted the one named Shushu. Just like the rest of the band of rogues, it seemed that after a brief alcohol break he was in better spirits. "All tunneled by the King of Thieves, if you can believe it."

"Well, more like his ka," Wati interjected correctively, "That monster of a thing must do the work of at least ten men."

Namu's eyebrows rose, though he otherwise gave no other signs as to how impressed he was.

Shushu laughed at his reaction. "Yeah, I know. The King's fucking crazy. What's even crazier is that every few months, he makes us move out so he can demolish the place, move somewhere else, and wait around while he digs out a new place to live. The kid burrows like a freaking fox."

Slightly more sober—both literally and figuratively—than the others, Nebi ruminated aloud, "He goes to all that trouble, just so that he can keep all of us on the move. Sometimes I wonder if it's not just our enemies that he's running from…"

Not one to let his spirits be dampened, Alim joined in the conversation amiably, "Hey, everyone's got their own problems, and their own ways of dealing with them. I think almost everyone here's a hopeless drunkard, for one thing."

Illustrating his point, he grabbed a goblet from amongst the scattered goods, and let another man fill it to the brim.

Namu was offered some wine, but with a kind shake of his head he turned down the offer. He was interested to see that while his reaction earned some questioning glances, no one actually voiced their perplexity aloud. In fact, he hadn't been asked to reveal a thing about himself to the others—they seemed to greatly value each others' privacy, which was all the more advantageous for him. Really, the Thief King's men operated so much differently from the Ghouls as a whole, and in such an impractical way, too.

Although the men all liked to act with bawdy irreverence, they may as well have been wrapped around the Thief King like a jeweled collar on his neck; for whatever reason, their dependence upon him was a strong one, with old and far-reaching roots.

Cut away their leader, and they wouldn't be able to recover. Threaten their leader, and they wouldn't be able to act...

Namu smiled, starting to genuinely enjoy the drunken festivities around him.

An hour later, Bakura stumbled into the underground hideaway with the blood drained from his face, his heart worn out from how hard it had been throwing itself against his ribs. Legs emptied of their usual strength, he found it necessary to unstrap the heavy weapons that bolstered his appearance, tossing them to the ground and regretting how bared and diminished he felt as a result. He was given a lively greeting as his men leapt to their feet.

"King, you're back!"

"You missed the best drinking contest—I can't even remember who won!"

"Are you okay? You look terrible."

Ignoring them, he swiped the bangs from his clammy forehead and panted gruffly, "I need a drink."

By now, his men knew better than to interrogate him as to what happened, and simply complied with his demands. Hand clenching around the flask that was pressed into his shaking palm, he drank deeply.

When he surfaced from his drink with a small gasp, he saw that from afar, Namu had affixed him with a sharpened, searching gaze, which quickly dissipated in lieu of a smile as the boy looked demurely away.

"King," came Nebi's low voice as the man sidled up next to him, "what you do on your outings is none of my business, but I can't say any of us like the effect it's having on you."

"It's fine. I can handle it," was all that came out of him on the matter. Almost aversively, he raised his voice to address the entire congregation. "Attention, everyone! While I was out, I got wind of some vital news: the pharaoh has fallen ill for a while now, and his condition has deteriorated so much that he is completely bedridden. His weakened state gives us the perfect opening for an attack—the time to strike has finally arrived!"

The more he spoke, the more his voice solidified until he sounded like his old self, and he beat a bloodthirsty fist into the air. His men burst into mug-sloshing, drink-guzzling cheers, their spirits enlivened at the thought of completing this final objective; maybe once this was over, their leader's attentions would recede from this strange shadowy mission and they could return to the simpler ways of the past, where all that was important was their survival together.

"Our window of time is small, however, and I'm not taking any chances of him dying or recovering before we launch our attack. So for once, you all had better retire before the sun rises and get decent rest, because I expect everyone awake by this afternoon—we'll want to leave by then to ensure we arrive at Thebes after nightfall, when we have the darkness to our advantage."

As he concluded, his men energetically voiced their assent, with a serious edge that had not been there before. They were focused and collected under his instruction—they were well aware of how important this was to him.

But was he ready for this, himself? His lungs were twisting into knots at the thought of reaching the end of his life—and it surely would be the end of his life, whether he succeeded in defeating the pharaoh or not, because he had been determined to die ever since he was a child…

"I said, give it back now." Namu's voice penetrated the warmed air, as subtle yet hard as a raindrop pelted at the face, and with blinking awareness heads turned to see him closing a forceful hand around Alim's wrist.

The weathered man held up a hapless hand. "Calm down, boy! I was just picking it off the ground before someone stepped on it—I wasn't going to steal it. Look," his captive hand uncurled about Namu's strange-shaped pendant so that the teen could get a better glimpse of it, "its twine is frayed, not cut. It must have just snapped and fallen on its own after being worn so much."

Namu leaned in, examining the state of the trinket to see that what the man had said was true, and his terse expression flattened. "I don't want you touching it," was all he had to say as he snatched it from Alim's palm. As his own voice echoed in his ears, he caught himself with gripped awareness. He glanced up and was faced with the bemused silence of the rest of the thieves, his heel barely sliding back in a self-interrupted retreat as he was stuck beneath their collective gaze. Head ducking down as if he were dodging a flaming arrow, he muttered with a bow, "Please excuse me—I think I need some space right now," and without further explanation he left their midst. He withdrew to the farthest corner of the den in solitude, slipping behind one heavyset pillar and disappearing from view.

Predatory eyes tracking the boy's path over his sipped drink, Bakura watched him leave with mild intrigue and a stirred appetite.

"Well, that was…awkward?" Wati ventured with his critical frown, and rubbing his wrist Alim shook his head with a sigh.

"Leave it be. If he has a problem that he doesn't wish to talk about, then that would make him no different from the rest of us."

Hesitatingly, with varying levels of unconcern, the thieves turned to each other once more and picked up their old conversations, and the casks of liquor resumed their hand-to-hand circulation.

Bakura, too, was handed a hefty pot of wine, but for once he couldn't bring himself to join in everyone's lukewarm revelry. Instead he leaned against a wall, staring into his reflected face in the dark liquid. He hated how young he still looked—he had grown stronger, hadn't he?

Nerves snapped in his insides at the thought of tomorrow. Top lip dipping into the wine, he made sure to drink his fill.

He stood a while in this brooding manner, counting the seconds it took for the fluid to trickle down into his stomach. Then, looking down at his feet, he began to see the earth waver beneath them with something close to contentment, and before his slowed mind knew it they had started to move of their own accord. Beer flask in hand, the King of Thieves tread forward with the impression that he was moving as if through water, pulsing with the urge to steal something as he rounded a certain pillar.

A flash of gold—Namu's hair was the first thing that Bakura ever saw, calculating eyes naturally drawn to the color out of habit, as if he could evaluate the boy's worth. The thief's pupils then skimmed over the rest of him; sitting cross-legged on the ground, a sturdier length of twine held towards the quick-pulsed light of an oil lamp, fingers knotting the string through the pendant's hole vigorously.

"What do you want?" Namu asked, tone of voice so subdued it was difficult to discern if he were being rude or genuinely concerned.

Want—Bakura fucking wanted everything. Light touches of frustration brushed languidly against his body fibers as if the alcohol had sensitized him to the feeling that always gnawed at his insides, an undying desire for whatever he could get his fingers on and more. Really, Bakura always felt wanting of something, though he usually had to settle for the hoarding of gold as the only means of channeling his thirst for acquisition in and of itself; he didn't need the things he wanted, but he needed to want them. Perhaps it was foolish to think that hiding in greed could save him—surely as foolish as slopping handfuls of water into a jug with a cracked hole in it, in an attempt to fill it—but he had to bolster his weight with gold, and he had to disappear in heaps of coins and jewels, or else the emptiness might seize him.

Pausing, Bakura took another swig of beer, tilting his head back so that the curative liquid streamed unhindered down his throat.

Bakura leaned a shoulder on the stone column with crossed arms, ironic smirk only just softened by the copious amounts of liquor. "If you could spare a moment of your time…"

Namu hesitated a beat, and despite all of the consideration that his face seemed to show, it didn't seem like he wanted Bakura there at all.

"Of course, Thief."

"It's 'King.'"

"As you say, Thief."

The Thief King rolled his eyes, but decided to leave it for now. Stepping forward, he approached the other teen in a curve, giving a wide berth between the burning oil lamp and his body.

"You look like you could use some of this." He extended his beer flask towards Namu, who didn't look up.

"I don't drink alcohol."

Bakura honestly didn't think that such sobriety was possible—at least, it was the first time he'd ever heard of such a thing. "Then what do you drink?"

"Water." A twitch of the lips, a lowering of the eyelids—the only things to hint at mockery.

The thief made a face, brow raised incredulously. "Only from the Nile? And you haven't caught anything yet?"

"I don't get sick, either," was Namu's matter-of-fact reply, as he kept his eyes dutifully trained on his handiwork.

Resisting the urge to squint, Bakura scanned his face for some sign of outright humor or insincerity, and found none. "Well, aren't you perfect." He finished off the beer and discarded the emptied vessel carelessly.

The amulet now secure on its string, Namu lifted the ends of the twine behind his neck and began tying them together.

"So are you gonna tell me what the deal is with that tacky little necklace of yours?" Bakura asked casually enough and plopped himself down next to him. "You sure freaked out back there, you know."

He propped an elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand as if he were interested. His steely eyes ran a full circuit, falling to the amulet appraisingly to affirm that its worth was dismissible, then sweeping brazenly across Namu's attractively-built frame with much greater intrigue.

Not taking notice, the blonde gazed, engrossed, into the tiny flame spouting from the tip of the oil lamp and took a breath. He gave a light tug on the pendant, and seeing that it steadfastly held onto his neck, let his hands fall into his lap.

"I just like it. That's all."

Finally glancing up, Namu saw that Bakura's eyebrows had fallen in a deadpan expression.

After a pause, he gave in and broke eye contact. "Okay, okay. I had it since I was a kid…" He seemed to almost stop there, before deciding that there'd be no way the other teen would be content with that explanation, and reluctantly added, "It was a gift."

Bakura flashed a serrated grin. "Oi, you're not getting off that easy. Where'd you get it from?"

Briefly, something flickered through Namu, as if for a second the entirety of his being—face, eyes, muscles, voice—grew harder, colder.

"My brother."

"Alright," the Thief King said without a hitch in his laidback demeanor. He nodded his head in indication of the amulet. "And what is it, exactly?"

"A figurine of the goddess Selket," Namu responded, returning to his sweetly mild voice, "to give protection from poisonous stings or snake bites."

With a snort, Bakura remarked, "Huh! How cute—so I take it you actually believe a god's blessing lies within that little trinket."

Namu knitted his brows together. "Yes? And I take it that you do not?"

Mouth still quirked up, the King of Thieves gazed levelly with eyes untempered and flashing dangerously, like arcing twin blades. "There is no reason for me to believe in any sort of god."

"…I see." They fell into a bout of silence, Namu's hand floating up to grasp the amulet and running his thumb against it, as he appeared to mull something over.

The Thief King fidgeted slightly, swiftly falling into boredom. Yes, the other teen was severely good-looking, but he sure did space out a lot, like he needed to think about everything before he acted. It was getting on the thief's nerves—not to mention that he seemed as bland as water.

Interrupting the quiet, Namu tilted his head to the side and inquired abruptly, "That beast that you summoned earlier…was that a ka?"

Frowning at the question, Bakura shrugged and replied, "Yeah, it's mine. It's called Diabound."

"Yours—so then it's your soul. How can you summon it without a Millennium Item? I thought the ability to control spirits was only in the grasp of the Pharaoh's priests…," Namu mused aloud, breaking off when Bakura gave a sharp bark of laughter.

"Believe it or not, kid," he said with an acerbic grin, "before the accursed creation of those golden pieces of shit, discernible kas were a naturally-occurring phenomenon. Where do you think all of the kas the Priests use came from in the first place? They were ripped from the bodies of other humans."

Namu raised his eyebrows at this information, but rather than reacting with surprise, he questioned further, almost as if in a rush, "And how common are these naturally-occurring kas?"

Expression darkening, the King of Thieves muttered, "I don't know. I've never really met another host of a ka with a physical presence, but my guess is that most of them are probably in hiding, dead, or have already been captured and been subjected to the Millennium Items—in which case, they are most likely dead, as well." He almost reached towards his waist as if to grasp the flask that was no longer at his side, and to drink the liquor that was no longer there. Fuck, he wanted more beer.

"So…you all are being hunted."

"Hmph. You make it sound like we're just a bunch of animals," Bakura remarked a little bitterly, "So yes, that'd probably be an accurate way of putting it."

Namu creased his brow in an apologetic way. "I am very sorry to hear that."

"Whatever. Give your sympathy to someone who needs it." The thief resisted the urge to squirm. Through the filmy haze of beer that covered his senses, he began noticing that his hair had been standing on end, as if his body had been bothered by something long before his mind could catch up—but what was it?

The blonde tapped a finger thoughtfully to his cheek. "So if I were to, say, use a Millennium Item on myself, would I be able to release my own ka without dying? Though I suppose it wouldn't be as strong as yours, anyways. It's a curious thing...I wonder," he leaned forward, "how did your ka become so powerful in the first place?"

At once the darkness lurking in Bakura's mind burst forth. Bakura, it interjected warningly, nearly making him wince.

Impatient and edged with a fear that he himself was not aware of, he thought back sharply, Yeah, I hear you. What is it?

This mortal asks too many questions, and you are being much too reckless, as always. It is folly for you to allow yourself to be inebriated, especially now, expressed the voice in distaste, its oppressive presence closing in for a moment like a crushing hand upon Bakura's mind.

On cue, he felt Diabound stirring uneasily within his breast—though he could not tell if it truly was in misgivings towards Namu, or just in recoil from the darkness. Alright, I got the message. Now piss off.

"Is something the matter, Thief?"

Pulse returning to normal, Bakura vigorously attempted to shake off the heaviness of his beer-dampened thoughts. Maybe Namu was just nosy—goodness knows, the kid was annoying. But there was definitely something off about him…something disingenuous. From the very start, Bakura's keen perception had been detecting bits and pieces of his strange nature, but he wasn't getting a complete picture. Nor could he guess as to how deeply the other hid himself, or his intentions in doing so.

"Thief?"

As he waited for the silver-haired teen to respond, Namu's playfully curious expression transitioned to one of perplexity.

Pupils contracting in an almost cat-like manner, Bakura was brought out of his speculations, an idea in his eyes and a fiendish hunger in his lips.

Acting on impulse and grinning ear-to-ear, he turned and planted his hands to the ground with Namu caged in-between his arms, and leaned forward until the blonde's polished, masked eyes filled his vision. He barely contained his amusement when he saw how guardedly the other boy fell back from his advances, how his jaw just clenched in that otherwise-unaffected expression, how he held his breath so he wouldn't have to share the warmed air of Bakura's exhalations on his face.

"Is something funny?" Namu asked, unable to keep the slight edge from his voice.

"You're so calm—you don't seem to get angry or upset by anything at all. Very good self-control."

"And you find that humorous?"

"Hilarious." Whether he acted at this point because he was being reckless, or being cautious of Namu, or being nervous of the darkness in his head, or just being drunk, it didn't matter to him; he kept pressing forward, repelling Namu further down until the boy's back hit the ground. The intention was to push him to lie down so that Bakura could straddle him evenly on all fours, but because of the stiff and uncooperative movements of the blonde their legs were clashed uncomfortably across each other, their torsos oddly bent in crooked parallels.

With the Thief King quite literally on top of him, Namu shoved his elbow against the other teen's chest to keep him from coming any closer. "Okay, what…what are you doing?" He faltered with the exertion of holding off Bakura's weight.

Rather than giving explanation, the thief said aloud, "You know, your hair has a very nice color." Clearly enjoying himself, he seemed to indulge in watching the sparse sputter of reactions that managed to break through Namu's stolid visage. Bakura lifted a hand to finger at his golden tresses.

"This doesn't bother you, does it?" the Thief King simpered. "Then I suppose I should warn you that whenever I see something golden, I end up taking it."

From having to sustain their awkward positioning, both of their arms were beginning to shake. Namu grit his teeth a little.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Fingers drifting downward to graze his chest now, Bakura cheerfully hummed, "Use your imagination."

Namu's pupils warily flicked down to where the other teen's abdomen was hovering an inch from his own, then back up hurriedly. "I…didn't think you'd be attracted to men," was all he could think of to say.

Laughter erupted from the Thief King's mouth, which then lowered to whisper huskily by Namu's ear, "If you catch my drift, I don't like to discriminate over gender."

Indignation creeping into his voice, Namu asked, "And what makes you think you can have me?" He pressed his elbow harder, making sure to jab pointedly into Bakura's ribs. The silver-haired teen remained unfazed.

"I'm the fucking King of Thieves. I can get whatever the hell I want," he murmured arrogantly, wondering how much harassment Namu would tolerate as his teeth closed in on the hinge of his jaw.

Almost immediately, he felt Namu's free hand grip his shoulder, and with one deft motion he was flipped over to the side and dumped roughly on his back. In a reversal of their positions, the blonde was now shoving the thief's back against the dirt, eyes narrowed and a growl in his chest that Bakura would have found enjoyably seductive had the situation been different.

"Don't make the mistake of thinking I can be used." The last word came out scorchingly like metal pulled out of a forge, and Bakura suspected very candidly. More candidly than Namu would have liked, surely, as he clamped his teeth shut, seemingly with the realization that he had just made a mistake.

"Well, well, well. I didn't think you had this side to you." Satisfied that he'd flushed something out of Namu's impenetrable pleasantness, the Thief King lifted his eyebrows, though a biting edge glared out from under them to accompany the traces of accusation in his tone. "And I have a warning for you, as well: don't make the mistake of thinking I can be lied to."

Bakura spoke strongly, like a chiseling strike, in the hope that the words would finally manage to pry him open. The other teen just glowered at him evenly; it appeared that his defenses had already recovered. He released the silver-haired thief from his grasp and stood, the elevated position offering him added distance and gravity to his words.

"Are you saying that I've been dishonest?"

"That's what it means to be a liar, isn't it?" Bakura returned curtly, also rising to his feet so that they were the same height. "My instincts can pick up on your true nature well enough. You exude complacency, yet I see your attentive gaze; you act without ambition, yet I catch a scent of raw hunger that wraps around you as tightly as your skin over your body; you pretend to be content, yet I've heard how naturally your voice fills with anger. It's enough to make me think there's something two-faced about you…in which case, you've been dishonest about the nature of your own character, in the very least."

He was starting to back Namu into a corner—now that he'd seen through the blonde's hooded geniality, it would do the other teen no good to revert back to his mask. Indeed, his face had furrowed into a comfortable scowl, having no doubt come to the same conclusion and discarded his mask altogether.

"'Two-faced?' I should think that, when faced with such advances as yours, any normal person would be justified in being upset. Just consider yourself lucky that I didn't react more strongly and cut off your overactive dick, since for all I knew you could've raped me or something."

Under different circumstances, Bakura might have laughed—this side of Namu did seem a lot more fun—but he was through playing games. While the unforthcoming young man wasn't pretending to be nice anymore, the calculations hadn't stopped ticking in his inky pupils; somehow, he still wasn't being truthful. Bakura had to change that. "Say what you want, but it won't change anything. When it comes to respecting peoples' secrets, I don't abide by the same principles that my men do—especially if it might mean jeopardizing our own welfare. Unless you cut out the fake crap, I have no reason to trust you."

Crossing his arms, Namu opened his mouth to retort, but hearing the danger in the other's voice he seemed to backtrack before he overstepped his boundaries even further. He sourly sucked in his pride, muttering, "Listen, I don't want to be kicked out or anything. Just…" Taking a long, collecting breath, he stared down the King of Thieves resolutely and spoke with greater force. "Give me a chance to work with you guys—one chance is all I need to prove myself."

Before the silver-haired boy could voice his response, a memory flashed back to him—there, standing by his father, watching the people of his village walk past—the only place they were afforded another chance—the sadness in his father's eyes, remembering the home he was forced to leave. Reluctant as he was, something inside him quieted.

"…Alright," he relented.

Namu gave him a look of surprise, but he had already started to stalk away before he could change his mind.

"If you mess anything up tomorrow, then I'll make you rue the day you were born," Bakura added loudly for good measure, already irritated with himself for giving in. He was supposed to have grown beyond mercy, damn it.

"I won't. I promise you won't regret this," he heard Namu assert, albeit grudgingly. And yet there was a shade of gratitude in the boy's voice that filled him with a charged, uncertain feeling he wasn't sure he wanted to delve into. Flushing irascibly, he didn't see the poison eyes the young man pressed against his retreating back.

Priestess Isis stepped quietly through the palace halls, not wanting to disturb those who were still asleep. Her pure white robes swished about her ankles, the garment feeling almost stifling from time to time. The radiance of Ra had yet to light the sky, and a somber, perpetual hush had smothered the surrounding air.

Sighing, she took her hand off of the Millennium Necklace that clung to her collarbone in defeat, before glancing up to see a brown-haired priest standing by the wall, just outside of the threshold of the pharaoh's room.

"Mahad? What are you doing here at this hour?"

Tiredly, he turned and offered a grave smile. He looked in bad shape, tan skin stretched thin and milky, straight and strong posture now looking stiff and brittle. "Isis. If I didn't know you better, I would have asked you the same thing. So I take it that your search was fruitless this night as well?"

She closed her eyes, determination and hopelessness battling in her expression. "Still nothing. It seems that the Necklace simply refuses to show me anything concerning my brother."

"I'm sorry."

"Mm." Lips pursing, she gave him a look of gratitude, visage unusually open. "And what of you, to be out this late?"

Wordlessly, Mahad gestured towards the blackened doorway, and Isis immediately knew.

"Ah, of course—Prince Atem."

For as long as she had known the Priest, he had always stood by the prince's side—and if the prince were to spend sleepless nights at his father's deathbed, then Mahaad would dutifully do the same.

The shadows beneath his violet eyes deepened cavernously, right above the sharp, permanent lines tattooed on his cheekbones—a visual reminder of his undying loyalty. He opened his mouth to speak with what seemed to be agonizing exertion, the pain of having to speak the truth showing in his face as surely as if he were being slowly crushed to death.

"Pharaoh Atem…he is no longer a prince."

Worn mind struggling to grasp what Mahad was saying, Isis's brows pinched together. "But… Did you just call him Pharaoh? But he can't be Pharaoh, not unless his father—" She gasped then and clapped a palm to her mouth, jerking as though struck in the stomach. "Do you mean—?"

Mahad nodded. The silence that followed was almost unbearable for Isis as she was made to imagine the pained silence of the Pharaoh, of how his final, departing breath was made almost alone and mostly unheard.

"Oh gods…" If not for the steadying hand Mahad grasped on her arm, she would have sunk down to her knees. "For…for how long?"

"About two hours," he said softly. "I know I should have notified everyone right away so we could prepare for the funerary ritual, but…well, take a look."

Still in shock, Isis approached the doorway and peered inside. There was the silhouette of the old pharaoh and of his son lying in bed next to him, his father's open eyes unseeing, just like the eyes that stared out of the sarcophagus mask that was waiting for him. Atem's back was to the doorway, and though his eyes were not visible, there was something stirred and tightened in his figure that told Isis that he was awake. She felt her throat tighten.

"I just wanted to give him some time to say goodbye," Mahad murmured next to her. She gazed up at him in sorrow, placing a hand on his shoulder. With alarm she saw how easily he yielded under her touch, his body swaying as fragile as a reed.

"Mahad, you have to rest. I know how grave the situation is, but please—take care of yourself. I'll take care of things from here, alright?"

Shaking his head determinedly, he said, "I cannot—Pharaoh Atem needs me. And soon, when he will have to take up the throne, he'll need me more than ever."

"Mahad, there are other priests, too—the responsibility is something we are all willing to share."

He just smiled, and wrapping gentle fingers around her wrist, politely removed her hand. "Isis, you of all people should understand; we did not become Priests for ourselves, but for someone else." To make his point, he glanced at the Millennium Necklace that she wore and scoured restlessly for answers, night after night. "For their sakes, neither of us will be able to rest—not for a long time."

"I…" She couldn't deny what he was saying. They were burdened, yes, but they welcomed that burden over the alternative—over giving up on the people they swore to protect. At a loss for words, she sent him one last silent appeal. Glancing in the room at Atem once more, it struck her how small he was compared to the man he lay next to; Atem was maturing, yes, but was still so young—stuck in a place between growing and grown. Just like how Marik must have been. "…I'll leave this to you, then."

Continuing the way she had been headed, she began to walk past Mahad, when he spoke up from behind her. Isis halted in her tracks.

"As a child," he both explained and confided, "Pharaoh Atem had nightmares sometimes—nightmares where Pharaoh Akhnamkhanon disappeared completely. I know, because his frightened cries always woke me up. Afterwards, he'd run to his father's bed and lie by his side, to reassure himself that it was only a dream."

Closing her eyes, Isis refrained from looking back into the room.

"I see."

The rosy sun began to light up the palace as she went her way, the harbinger of the new dawn stinging her eyes, glaring rays swallowing up her field of vision like a gluttonous snake. As everyone else awoke, it would just be a matter of time before they discovered the old pharaoh's body and the changing times.

Fear and doubt for the future arose in her stomach—a feeling she hadn't felt in a very long time. She touched a finger to the Millennium Necklace, but as with the faded night and the countless nights before, there was no response to the question she needed answered most. Her vision blurred, and she let the hand fall.

She was so tired.

Author's Note: Buttcracks! Why is this so much longer than the chapter before? Grrr. And this was after I tried editing for wordiness. Shows how much I know.

To be honest I don't even really like the events of this chapter so much; I feel like it's necessary to the plot, but it wasn't as fun as the next one's gonna be for me to write. And that's not because it's gonna have juicy bits in it. Unless Marik and Thief King Bakura are literally going to make juice together. …Gah, not that kind of juice! Geez, I'd get my mind out of the gutter except that it sort of lives there. My mind is a gutter hobo. What a beautifully-written metaphor.

Fyi I'm basing this story primarily on the canon of the manga, not the anime—though I might angle towards the anime continuity at times if it's fitting—which means that there aren't any diadhankhs. Yep. Not that I mind if a fanfic includes diadhankhs in it, but I do loathe the fact that they exist at all in the anime—but that's a tangent I won't go into here.

Last but certainly not least, a thousand thank-yous to those who've favorited, followed, reviewed, or even just read this! I lost track of things pretty quickly so I'm sorry if I didn't reply to your review, but I did read them all and they made me very happy. I love you all. There, I said it. I don't care if our love is forbidden!