[ Yu-Gi-Oh ]
Story By changeofheartsbdk

[ Chapter 1: ]

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh. Besides a couple events that I based upon the manga/anime, the rest (of the plot) are purely from my imagination with no intended reference to anything realistic whatsoever.
This story is written for Bakura-kun.

Furious fire licked the sky and swallowed the houses. Wild, chilling cries gashed through the air.
Guards smashed the doors and windows, dragging people towards the center of the village where a large pot stood in the midst of the smoke. Children wailed for their parents before the guards snatched them away from their houses and brought them to the blood-tainted ground as more bodies dissolved in the pot of boiling gold.
Along the shadows of the blazing houses, a young, white-haired boy - Bakura - scampered through the chaos, hurdling over fallen stones and escaping from hungry flames. Every now and then, he halted to make sure that his mother, who grasped an infant girl tightly in her arms, still followed him. And each time Bakura looked back, his mother flicked her hand to urge her son to hurry on with the run.
The coolness of night deep in the desert waved to him at the border of the village. Soon, he reached it. Ignoring the screams in the village, he dived into the darkness and waited for his mother. Horror expanded in his eyes when he peeked out from the wall and saw the guards battling his mother before they dragged her towards the pot. A sphere of silence materialized around him as he watched his mother's mouth scream without sound.
He smacked himself against the wall and slumped onto the ground, quaking violently from fear. Suddenly, sounds of footsteps pierced through the sphere of silence and thrust into his heart. As he flattened abruptly against the wall, some bricks crumbled, and he tumbled into the house of flames, watching the tall guard walking past the hole in search of escaped villagers.
After a while, his heart stabilized a little, and he crept out of the hole where fire started to close in. Chants of numbers outside tempted him to look out from the shadows again. Paralyzed when he finally caught sight of his mother among the frightened crowd, he witnessed a guard, who overlooked the child hidden in the mother's arms, jabbed a sword into the mother and hurled her into the pot.
The guards counted ninety-nine and ceased tossing bodies into the pot but continued the slaughter. In the midst of the massacre, the boiling gold shot into the sky and produced a blinding light. When Bakura regained his vision, he found a large stone standing in front of a priest.
" Behold, the Millennium Items!" the priest exclaimed and reached for an object on the stone, "Finally, I hold the power in my hand. . . . The power. . . the power!"
Blood spurted into the air whilst the priest absorbed the item and laughed maniacally as if the leader of hell just won over another innocent soul. Pain, intertwined with excitement, caused the priest to stumble backwards. As soon as the appointed two guards collected the other items imbedded in the stone, the priest led the troops away from the pillaged village as dawn walked the earth. Ra protected the slaughterers - the stone lost its balance and crashed onto the pile of dead bodies, rising up clouds of dust that curtained the withdrawing troops.
The atmosphere calmed down, and the fire slowly died away under the rising sun. Nothing remained, except ruined houses and strayed souls. Bakura shivered as he heard the souls cried restlessly, and even though he yearned for his mother to sit up among the bodies along with his father and sister, he did not dare to search for them since death seemed to own claws of pain and terror. The souls begged for peace and burdened the responsibility on the lonely child. Yet no door of hope swung open for Bakura if he desired to bring peace to his village, unless he left his home.
The coolness of night evaporated away as he set foot upon the desert and listened for a faint cry to wake him from the nightmare. But when he did hear an indistinct cry, he laughed at himself, pounded his head and continued his journey.
Whenever he fell down, he gazed back at the village to see how far he had traveled, but the ruins remained prominent no matter how far. At dusk, he collapsed near the Nile River bank; his village still did not vanish away.
Gathering the last strength, he crawled to the river and plunged his head into the water for a drink. He wiped away the bitter water on his face mixed with tears and peered into the river. The blazing sky reflected the lurid scene of the carnage into the water, and he pleaded desperately for it to go away. Kuruelna. . . . He pushed up his sleeve and looked down at the token of Kuruelna - a fusion of K and A engraved in his upper right arm - and realized that mourning could not help him. To seek vengeance, he must tuck away the memories of his village. As the sun returned home, he distinguished sparks of light from a distant village along the river and decided to go there, away from Kuruelna where nothing but sorrow sprouted in his heart.
" Kuruelna," Bakura said as he staggered to his feet and glanced at the remains one last time, "I will kill the Pharaoh and return you peace through the power of the. . . the Mi-llennium Items. I promise."
When the next night descended, he reached the town. Shops were closed and streets were emptied, but he came across a store that had not blown out its lights yet. Just as he grabbed two loaves of bread from the counter, a gorilla-looking shopkeeper appeared in front of him, staring at him like an enraged mother-bear. Bakura dashed off, tripping every other step, but the corpulent man did not do any better. The shadows of night saved him during the massacre, and they would again when he leaped into the dark alley where the fuming shopkeeper could not even pass through. Exhausted and hungry, he gobbled up the bread in the dark corner and slept through the night.

[ To be continued...]

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