Hi everyone.
Good God…I'm back!
I hope you all like this new story :D
Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing.
Warning: Will eventually contain shonen-ai. Don't like, don't read, don't complain.
A Cat Completes A Home
Chapter 1
"Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this." - Anonymous
If there is one common characteristic that all Gods throughout history have shared, it is a very nasty vengeful streak. Whether they are smiting the wicked, shooting their foes down with lightning bolts or sending a pestilence to wipe out an entire nation – these divine beings have never been inclined to just forgive and forget mankind's misdemeanours.
Bakura Touzoku had insulted, slighted or otherwise peed-off every Ancient Egyptian God and Goddess at least once. Be it through accidental error, crimes of necessity or just blatant blaspheming, he'd done something that had rubbed all his homeland's deities the wrong way.
And, being Gods, they weren't planning to let the matter lie.
Following the Thief King's resurrection in the twenty-first century, all these largely forgotten (and surprisingly petty and grudging) beings were spending a lot of their time arguing over who would rain punishment upon his accursed soul first. If it had gone to bids, even Bakura would have been surprised at how high a value his damnation was placed.
"Who decided to give him another life, anyway?" Set growled, "I can't think of anyone less deserving of a second chance."
"After seeing his village slaughtered and then spending five millennia trapped inside a pendant, I think he deserves something," Re, the only one not wholly enraged by one of Bakura's acts, sighed.
"All he deserves is a punishment!" Set (who had felt slighted by Bakura's failure to pray to him for success before battle and laughing at the very idea of doing so) snarled, "And I'd like to do it."
"We should do it," Osiris interjected, indicating to himself and Anubis, "As the Gods of mummification and death, he angered us unforgivably by desecrating the tombs of the deceased."
"What about me?" Ptah put in, "I laid blessings and good fortune upon the craftsmen of Egypt, and he robbed them of their wares! I should discipline him!"
The usual rabble broke out. Re sighed again. He himself had decided to grant Bakura his second life, but he also agreed that he should pay some penance for his past misdeeds. Sadly, it didn't seem as if his companions were going to decide on anything any time soon.
"Enough!"
…
Or not.
They all went silent at that shrill, heated voice. Slowly, every head – jackal, falcon, human and whatever else – turned towards its source: Bastet, cat deity and Goddess of the home. She had never really become involved in this debate before, mellow-natured as her docile side was, so when she spoke out in anger, they listened.
"I will punish the Thief King," she hissed at all of them.
"What claim do you have to the task?" Horus demanded, "What has he done to offend you?"
"Perhaps not much," she said, "But he has affronted all of you, in his own way, and that displeases me. And you will never decide among yourselves who will act, and as a result he will go unscathed. Let me, an outsider, do it. Besides…" she paused, slit-pupilled eyes narrowing, "He hates cats. That's reason enough for me."
A buzz of debate ran through the crowd.
"I agree with Bastet," Re said loudly, "At the very least this will get this tiresome deed over with. If she carries out the punishment, will you all agree for it to be the end of the matter?"
There was a murmur of agreement.
"Good," he said grimly, turning to Bastet, "Don't kill him. I'd prefer for the punishment not to be permanent, and for him to live past it."
"Fear not," she said with a smile of wicked delight, "I know just what to do."
And so, that night, she stole down to the mortal plane (omitting the beam of heavenly light for once – she didn't want to attract too much attention). She drifted through a wall like a ghost into what she knew to be the Thief King's new home. A pleasant enough house, she supposed. But no home was complete without a cat. Hmph.
She entered the first room she came to, and found it to be a bedroom. A figure inhabited the bed, and she saw a head of rumpfled white hair resting on the pillow. Giggling to herself in glee, she stood before the bed and cast her incantation – a mild, non-lethal but thoroughly unnerving curse. And just so little Touzoku knew exactly who was responsible for it – who knows, perhaps he might have thought himself to be suffering from some modern disease – she placed a small carved stone cat on the bedside table. Its eyes were green, and they seemed to glint in a life-like fashion in the moonlight.
Congratulating herself on a job well and swiftly done, she left again, greatly anticipating the reaction of her fellow deities – and, indeed, the Bandit himself – when they found out what she'd done.
…
Another characteristic most Gods seem to share is thinking themselves infallible.
Bastet left the house without having the slightest thought that she'd just made a mistake.
…She had.
The boy in the bed moaned quietly and opened his sleepy green eyes. The sound of outlandish chanting had woken him.
"Yami-san?" he called softly into the darkness, sitting up, "Is that you?"
He was answered only by the silence. Shrugging to himself and explaining the sound away as part of a strange dream, he lay down and drifted back to sleep, unaware that anything had changed.
…
But it had.
The first thing that made Bakura remotely suspect something was amiss was Ryou's frightened squeak from the bathroom that morning.
He raised an eyebrow and looked up from his morning coffee at the sound, but when nothing else of consequence followed besides the shower being switched on as usual, he quickly brushed it aside.
A quarter of an hour later his hikari came into the kitchen, looking well-groomed and neat in his school uniform (as opposed to Bakura who, though he wore the exact same uniform, just somehow had a way of always looking distinctly haphazard, from the unbuttoned blazer to the wilder-than-yours hair). He looked rather shaken, but Bakura was never one to show concern or ask questions so he merely waited to see if he would explain his disquiet without prompt.
Sure enough, after a moment of awkward hovering, he cleared his throat quietly.
"Um…yami-san…" he said timidly once he had his attention, "This might seem an…odd…question, but…do my eyes look…different to you today?"
Bakura gave him one of those looks of 'By the Gods, you're stupid'.
"No?" Ryou suggested meekly.
"I'm not in the habit of staring at your eyes, yadonushi," he said bluntly, causing Ryou to flush and start protesting that he hadn't been suggesting such a thing, "But I think it's impossible for eyes to 'change' overnight."
"Really? I was sure…" Ryou murmured before shaking his head, "No, you're right…I must have been half-asleep…"
Appearing slightly bewildered, he switched the kettle on to boil again and set about making breakfast for the two of them. Nothing was burnt today (clearly he was getting better at this cooking thing) and soon two plates of fried eggs and toast landed on the table. Whilst Bakura attacked his with his fork (at least he was using a fork now – it was an improvement), Ryou made himself a mug of tea. After the little bag of leaves had satisfactorily diffused into the water, he removed it and took the carton of milk from the fridge and poured some of the creamy liquid into the mug. Bakura frowned.
"Since when do you take milk in tea?" he asked. As has already been established, he didn't normally ask questions. But it had always been one of Ryou's weird little quirks that he took his tea black – always. When small changes like this messed up the usual routine, it aggravated Bakura beyond belief.
"Oh…I don't know. I just felt like it today," he replied vaguely, sitting down and starting to eat his own food with his impeccable table manners. Bakura looked at him suspiciously. It was then that he noticed, to his considerable astonishment, that Ryou hadn't been talking garbage – his eyes did look different. They were…greener? Was that possible?
His eyes had always been such a bright green…
But something was definitely different. Today they looked a sharper, glassier green. Elf-eye green.
And even the shape of his eyes seemed subtly altered. As if they now had a slight slant to them…?
He shook his head as Ryou had done before. Nah, surely not.
"Come on, its time to go," he said shortly just as Ryou finished eating.
"Coming…!" he said in his usual flustered morning-manner. He hurriedly stacked the breakfast dishes in the sink to be washed later and grabbed his schoolbag. Just as they were about to walk out the door, and Bakura was thinking they might actually get to school on time today without sprinting half the way, Ryou went wide-eyed (something's up with those eyes, Bakura thought again) and dropped his bag back to the floor.
"Wait, I forgot to feed Rupert-!" he said, dashing back into the living room. Bakura groaned and thumped his head against the doorframe.
"You and that damn rat!" he yelled after him, "I'm not getting landed in detention because your stupid rodent can't survive six hours without food! Hurry up or I leave without you!"
But, of course, both of them knew, deep down, that he wouldn't.
Rupert was not, in reality, a rat, but a very tame and sickeningly cute white mouse. Ryou had really wanted a cat, but Bakura had made it clear that any feline that entered this house would very swiftly be leaving it again (in a shoebox coffin), and so he had opted – perhaps somewhat perversely – for a mouse instead.
Bakura huffed impatiently, listening to the rattle of Ryou shaking food into the little pest's plastic bowl and the soft murmur as he actually spoke to the creature, strange boy that he was.
Then he almost jumped out of his skin as the boy-to-mouse baby-talk suddenly gave way to a startled shriek.
"What happened?" he demanded, hurrying into the living room but doing his utmost to appear unconcerned and merely annoyed. Ryou was sitting on the floor, pale-faced and cradling one hand in the other.
"He…he bit me," he stuttered out, expression stunned.
Bakura felt an inexplicable rush of anger directed at the little fuzz-ball – his thoughts running somewhere along the lines of 'how dare you, damn rat!' -, but stubbornly shoved it away.
"Is that any reason to scream?" he snapped at his hikari, "It's a mouse, for Chrissakes. One bite's not going to kill you."
"It…it didn't hurt so much…" Ryou mumbled, inspecting the mildly bleeding marks on his hand, "It's just…not like him…"
Bakura gave a 'you are a moron' sigh.
"It. Is. A. Mouse," he snarled, "All it knows is that you feed it. It doesn't like you. Obviously it'll bite if it's in a pissy mood."
Ryou sniffled slightly and shifted onto his knees, closing the cage door gently and starting to scoop up the food mix that he must have spilled in his fright.
"I'll do it," Bakura said harshly, pushing him out of the way, "You go and put a Band-Aid on your bloody war-wound."
Ryou, knowing that his yami was hating the delay this was causing, shuffled out of the room obediently, head down.
Bakura started raking the spilt food together irritably and throwing it back in its tub. Rupert poked his twitching pink nose through the bars of the cage at him.
"What's your problem today, huh?" he muttered, glaring at the diminutive rodent, "I suppose you want me to get detention?"
It was…strange, though. He could rant all he liked, but he knew Rupert never bit anyone. Even when Ryou had just got him at first, and he'd spent most of his time cowering and shivering in the back corner of his cage, if someone had stuck their hand in, he'd never tried biting.
He growled quietly to himself. This had better not turn out to be 'one of those days'.
At length the mess was cleared up, Ryou's finger stopped bleeding and was bandaged up, and they could finally leave.
"Gods, don't look so depressed," Bakura ordered as he locked the front door and noticed Ryou's forlorn expression, "Forget what I said, ok? Stupid mouse probably just woke up on the wrong side of the hamster-wheel."
Ryou blinked and looked up at him curiously, evidently surprised at this almost-comforting remarked. Then he smiled.
"Thanks," he said softly, looking shyly at his feet. Bakura rolled his eyes.
"Whatever," he replied, giving him a slight shove towards the sidewalk, "Go. Walk. Fast."
Ryou nodded and they commenced their usual mad dash to get to Domino High School on time. This generally involved cutting corners, dodging speeding traffic and occasionally – if the situation was really desperate – jumping fences, all the while alternating between power-walking and flat-out, dignity-thrown-to-the-winds running. And every day, without fail, all would go smoothly and they would beat the bell with relative ease.
However, today hadn't exactly gone according to plan so far, and it seemed to be plotting to continue in the same way.
They had barely even reached the end of their street when something shot out from beneath a nearby hedge and ran smack into Ryou's feet. Since he was in such a hurry, it caught him somewhat by surprised, and he stumbled and fell painfully to the sidewalk. Flat on his face.
"Wha-? Hikari, what is wrong with you this morning?" Bakura groaned, palming his face.
"Aah…sorry, yami-san," he whimpered, wincing and struggling up on grazed hands and knees. Before he could stand, though, the same thing that had tripped him in the first place pounced on his back and sent him right back down.
"What is that thing?" Bakura asked incredulously as it zipped around the fallen boy like a black-and-white bolt of lightning. At length it stopped in front of his face.
"Ow…oh, hello Mr. Cat," Ryou said dazedly as his assassin almost rubbed noses with him, meowing happily, "Why are you knocking me down…?"
"Ryou, we don't have time for you to talk to cats," Bakura growled, sending the rogue feline a dark scowl and grabbing his hikari's wrists to haul him to his feet, "Come on!"
He took off again, dragging Ryou behind him. Things went as normal for a few minutes…but, sadly, only for those few minutes.
"Um…yami-san…?" Ryou said breathlessly.
"What?" he snarled, not slowing down.
"We seem to have a slight…problem…"
He opened his mouth to ask him what the hell he was on about, but then he felt something bump against his foot and, looking down, found the answer himself.
"Holy shit-!"
No less than five cats were prancing and milling around their feet, mewing loudly, and more seemed to be appearing all the time.
"What is going on with the world today?" he bellowed to no one in particular. He picked up the pace and Ryou 'eeped' as he was tugged forward and almost stood on a large grey tabby.
It was only then that he noticed that the fur-balls were all crowding around Ryou's ankles – then one that had brushed against him had been a fluke. For whatever reason, it was Ryou the deranged animals were after.
"Can they smell that damn mouse off you or something?" he shouted back to him.
"B-but I feed him every morning, and this has never happened before-!" Ryou squeaked in reply, jumping over a particularly persistent ginger tom.
Just then, the school came into sight. By some miracle, they were just in time as usual, and they dashed for it and threw themselves in the first door they came to. They slammed it shut behind them, and Ryou winced as he heard several 'whumps' as several cats ran into it at full pelt.
"What the hell is going on?" Bakura demanded, slightly out of breath, listening to the indignant meows and hisses coming from the other side of the door.
"I…don't know…" Ryou replied, gasping for air, "But…I don't think it's…normal…"
Bakura had already reached that conclusion.
He'd also reached the conclusion that this was indeed going to be 'one of those days'.
…Hm.
Somehow, I feel like this was a really weird story for me to choose to be my first Yu-Gi-Oh fic (laugh)
Sorry if it was a strange or not-up-to-standard comeback :P
This is going to be a five-chapter story, and hopefully it'll be finished around Christmas. (But I have a lot of school work so...it probably won't. Maybe next Christmas:P) It's just a little bit of funny fluff XD The 'proper' Yu-Gi-Oh fic I'm working on is going to be around twenty-five chapters long (a bit of a far shot from 'I Found Your Diary o.o) and I want it mostly finished before I start uploading, so God knows when that will appear. So I hope everyone likes this for now.
Please review!
Fiver