A/N: Nope, this isn't a romance. It's angst and chaos, and revenge and hate. Well, there is some interaction between Malik and Bakura, actually. (If you like Yami/Malik, then try out 'Solace'. It will eventually have them together, in a sense.) Also, I'm never using MicrosoftWord again! Stupid program*grumbles* deletes paragraphs *grumbles some more*

Bonded

Daylight finds Malik and Yugi dueling.

Yugi's voice is listless and resigned when he calls out his moves, and his eyes never even meet the holographic monsters he and Malik are summoning.

"This is almost insulting, Yugi," Malik snarls, when my other half's life points are at 100 and my enemy's are still 4000. It is Ishtar's turn now. "I expected something at least resembling a fight from you, but now I see that it was Yami who truly had the courage all along."

Yugi's hand, the one holding his drawn cards, shakes. "I won't force the Spirit to come back to me. He wants to be with you."

It is too much for me now. My mind cries out, bent on Yugi somehow knowing that I still love him. One word is formed. /No!/

Malik turns to me, while at the same time Yugi's head lifts and stares at me from across the room. Realization dawns...my thought got through to him.

"Attack, Beast of Talwar, Mr. Volcano!" The first strike takes out Yugi's facedown Stone Soldier. The second erases his life points.

~***~

The duel now seems at least a lifetime ago. The feeling of being ages ahead of where I ought to be is due to the fact that Malik has been showing me centuries of history that I've missed. We sit across from one another in his soul room; a strange room, not quite what I expected to find...but not all that surprising, either.

I thought I would find tortured screams and bleeding walls, cages of decaying people...but maybe such expectations were just my own sick mind at work. Malik's soul room is without walls or anything structured, but it is so tight and close in here I feel as if I've been buried alive. The sky is a swirl of blue and green and yellow stars, smeared against a black canvas; just as if a child had been finger painting on the ceiling.

The trees around us are far out of reach, though I have no reason to go to them. The starlight is bright enough to see by, but cool enough that I would never need shade. Their heavy black leaves bend the tree trunks almost to the ground.

We sit on pitch-black grass that tickles my skin, even through my clothes. Far below us in a valley lies Egypt. Not the desert kingdom I knew; it is changed...it is Malik's.

My young 'Master' ignores the view entirely. His eyes are closed as he sends years and years of history floating through the room. My mind absorbs it all. There is so much to see that I'm in shock at my own ability to just accept this as fact.

Malik opens his eyes and stares at me. "Now we are going to look back to your time, Pharaoh."

My stomach clenches. The vague memories I've managed to recover are very confusing, and so frustrating...and here is my most hated adversary, offering to make sense of my past life.

'Offering' is the wrong word. Malik hasn't given me a choice. He forces my mind open, allowing thousands of memories to erupt in my mind. The first is further back than when I was placed in the Puzzle. There are more details of my children, of my wife and concubines. Of the slaves...of war...the priests, and sleepless nights worrying over my people. Of criminals I had killed; tortures that I helped to invent... And abruptly, it goes away. The memories fade, like dying embers that I am afraid to touch, even to revive.

"That is all I can show you," Malik says. "To get your memories back would require a tool I don't yet have. And quite frankly, there's only *one* memory I even *want* you to have."

I feel myself forced back into my own chamber, and I am grateful for that. Mine is a dangerous place, even for me, but I feel free in here. It is still a dusty Egyptian tomb, but now some of the hieroglyphs on the walls shine in the scattered torchlight; they've been filled with polished alabaster and gold. My bed is no longer old-looking. The leather bands have magically become stronger, now pulled taught between the black walnut-wood bed posts. I collapse into it, my mind reeling over the things I have discovered of my past.

I should have known all along that Bakura and Malik were working together. I wonder now what could possibly have sapped up my time and attention to the point that I would have overlooked such an obvious problem.

I won't blame Yugi for this…I won't. It's not Yugi's fault that Ryou's yami is a traitorous, psychotic former Tomb Robber who happens to be the lover of my new…hikari? Master? Host? I don't know if any of those apply to Malik.

Bakura suddenly shoves Malik away and looks at me. Malik is gasping after their session of 'tonsil hockey' and glares in annoyance at Bakura.

"What's wrong with you?" Malik growls slightly when he isn't answered and moves forward so he is standing possessively beside his lover. "The Pharaoh hasn't exactly stopped you before. Ignore him."

I look away. I'm used to being talked about as if I'm a piece of furniture, or an ugly painting.

Bakura doesn't respond to the playful nips at his neck, or the roaming hands, or… I look away again, determined that this time I won't look back. But that proves impossible when the white-haired spirit says, "No…why doesn't he join us?"

Malik stops, looking utterly horrified. "The Pharaoh? Him?"

"Yes," Bakura hisses, moving in on me. I glare up at him as warningly as I can. Which isn't saying much, considering I can't move my legs.

Malik's expression is one of complete disgust. He stares at me as if I've crawled out of a sewer; or, perhaps a better analogy, like I am a fly in his soup.

Meanwhile, Bakura straddles my waist. My hands are still free, perhaps because Malik hasn't recovered from his shock yet. Not that I know what to do. I can't decide if I care enough to push the spirit of the Ring off, or if I should just let him have his way. I suppose whatever I choose, Malik will make me do the opposite. My shoulders drop slightly as I relax, resigned to the fact that nothing I do matters.

Bakura plays with me for a while before turning away sharply. "Release him."

"No." Malik is polishing the Rod. He notices the tomb robber standing up, but outwardly ignores him.

"I said release him!" Bakura hisses. Still, he is ignored. He closes his hands around my Puzzle (which hangs around Malik's neck) and wrenches it close to him. Malik stabs the knife-end of the Rod into Bakura's shoulder.

At first I'm shocked, but that quickly disappears when I see how much the thief enjoys it.