Please believe you'll save me



I reach for him. My hand trembles. I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. He's lying on the ground, his eyes closed, his arms extended, his shenti torn and smudged,his cape ripped and mangled. My fingers touch the fabric, bloodied and ravaged, and I grab the folds until I have a handful, enough to tug and pull, lifting him up. I bring his face close to mine.

"Not yet, Pharaoh," I grin and I use my other hand to tap his cheek lightly. His eyes flutter open; cloudy, dark eyes, slightly disorientated. "It's not sleepy time yet. Stay with me."

"Bakura," he says, but his voice lacks any vehemence. After all he's been through, it's a miracle he's still able to open his eyes. I should take pity on him, and perhaps I would, if he was any other man. But he's not. He's the Pharaoh. And now he's the fallen Pharaoh.

"All your Priests are dead," I say. "Dead," I repeat even louder, as it visibly upsets him. "Your Item is useless without your friends. You expect your partner to be here any moment now, don't you? Well, I've got news for you."

I pull him roughly closer and he gasps in surprise as I move my other arm around him, as if taking him into a tender embrace. I whisper in his ear. "He's dead," I say and revel in the violent shiver traveling down his spine. "I took care of him when he was looking for your precious name, oh Exalted One. He went down without a fight, your weak, helpless little vessel. He cried out for you, the fool."

"You are lying," he says, but he knows I'm right. I've never told a lie in my entire life. I'm proud to be a thief, that's who and what I am; a thief, but never a liar. I grin and pat him on the back.

"His friends aren't coming to help you either," I continue, whispering oh so softly in his ear. He's missing his earring, he probably lost it during the fight. The Pharaoh lost his pristine appearance a long time ago. "The girl... I took mercy on her. As far as you can call it 'mercy', of course. Truth to be told, I hate it when people scream and wail, and her high-pitched voice was just too much to take. It saved her from a lot of suffering, though."

"You are lying!" Excellent, there's some life left in him. He tries to knee me in the stomach and to punch me in the shoulder. Weak blows, nothing painful.

"Your male friends... I have to commend, they were feisty. Street fighters, giving me a hard time to dispose of them. But they fell in the end... broken, battered, beaten."

This time I watch the light vanish from his eyes. The light of hope, that false light of hope and faith. Fresh blood trickles from the right corner of his mouth. I have to refrain myself from licking it off.

"Bakura..."

I show him my sweetest smile. "Yes?"

"Tell me this is not the end..."

I laugh. I throw my head back into my neck and laugh. Delicious victory! Wonderful joy! I'm happy, and I laugh out loud. I laugh so hard that I almost choke on it and I have to gasp for air, as I'm regaining myself-control again. I look at him, dangling in my grasp, his feet above the ground. He hasn't given up though, I'd be sorely disappointed if he had. His body might be spend, but his mind is strong and defiant. That look in his eyes... I lick my lips. Even bruised and injured, there's a beauty to him that's undeniable. If this was any other kind of circumstances, I might even like him; I admire anyone with such willpower and inner strength.

But these are my circumstances. This time, I've won the game. This time, Zorc is free. The entire world will be destroyed, and recreated according to his will. The Darkness has won. There's no more light, it has been shattered and snuffed out. I'm holding the last of the light right here in front of me, in the form of a broken Pharaoh, who refuses to give up, if only by glaring at me. If looks could kill... I lower my other hand, my fingers hooking in the waistband of my shenti. I pull out the dagger, a plain small one, nothing too fancy. Perhaps the Pharaoh would've appreciated the irony of being killed with one of his own ceremonial daggers, but well, I was a little short on time to rob his entire Palace.

"This is the end," I say out loud. The RPG is over. The game is over. Game over. I win. Finally! Jubilant, victorious, I plunge the dagger into his body. He doesn't scream. He doesn't shout. He doesn't beg. His eyes... he has known it since the last blow. That victory wasn't his. That once more, he had lost; a rare loss, but a loss with so much more than just the world at stake. Everlasting eternal darkness, and I'm he one who brought about it; my win, my victory, my rules!

In a last ditch effort, he folds his hands around mine, perhaps in an attempt to pull out the dagger or to persuade me to remove it. It's not going to happen; more so, I twist the knife and thrust it even deeper. A gurgling sound, a hitch in his breathing and some unidentifiable noises. "You're nothing but garbage to me," I hiss at him. "Consider this a merciful death, compared to what you did to my people!"

Do I really care for the family I lost at Kuru Eruna? Does it really matter anymore? It's been so long, I can't even recall their faces anymore. I know it wasn't him who gave the orders, but his father had the audacity to die before I could take my revenge; and now the son has paid. I open my hand and he falls to the ground with a thud. The dagger protrudes from his body, his hands clenched around it. A toddler could've pulled it out, but it's too late. It's simply too late. No one could survive all he has gone through and with his friends gone, there's no risk of a sudden rescue, that someone will stand up to save him... there's just no one left to save him. His body is broken and even though I won't taste the bittersweet victory of breaking his mind, this is an image that I'll never forget. I take it all in, savoring it, cherishing it; how he slowly closes his eyes, how his breathing evens out, how life agonizingly, tragically and gradually leaves him, how light fades from his existence...

"It's done," I say out loud. "It's done! He's dead!" I laugh out loud again. That wonderful taste of victory, this epiphany, this... overwhelming sensation of... dare I say it again, happiness? Yes, I feel happy, excited, delighted at the view of my enemy dead at my feet. Gone are the days of the Pharaoh, away with the light, no more room for heroes. I turn around and step away from him. It's done. I'm done. The skies have darkened, Zorc has caused a solar eclipse. Not even the Three Gods were able to stop him; here they lay, on the ground, petrified, as dead as their beloved Pharaoh. Powerless. Puny. Pathetic.

"Zorc! It's done! Victory is ours!" I don't need to raise my voice. He's not that far away, but he's a Dark God, and our heights don't exactly match. He turns around, demonic eyes searching me out. I meet his gaze head on. "Victory is ours!" I repeat.

"You've done well, Bakura," he says, voice gruff and gravely. If a Dark God were able to smile, he's showing me one: fangs bare, corners of his mouth turned upright, jaws tightening. "He's gone. The Darkness will rule; only I will rule!"

I don't think much of it, until a strange... tingle travels through my body. Alarm bells go off in my head. Something's wrong, but I can't figure out what. This weird feeling... I try to ignore it.

"What's our next step?" I ask. Subjugating the world is going to be a lot of work. Even the Darkness needs its minions. Zorc tilts his head, as if amused, and snorts. A puff of smoke curls up in the darkened sky and drifts away.

"There is no next step," he answers, sounding like a petulant child. "Victory has been achieved. Now all that remains is to decorate the world to my liking." He scorches the ground wherever he sets his feet. Darkness follows him, surrounds him, emits from him like a festering plague. His claw-like hands crush everything in his path. In the far distance, I can hear faint screams of the survivors, who are about to wish they would've died right away, instead of living to face the horror that's about to come.

I'm not sure why I'm not celebrating anymore. Triumph ebbs away from me, like a fleeting thought that I've never been able to catch. My earlier feelings of happiness are gone. What's going on? I should be dancing on the Pharaoh's corpse. I should be gloating, I should be gushing with glee... but I find myself in pain, my body protesting, hurting. Zorc looks down upon me, towering over me. I hate to have to look up. Something... itches. My body is itching. I bring up my hands and stare at them. My skin looks unusually... grainy, bumpy.

"Zorc..!" I growl. It has to be him. There's no one else, there's no one but him left to do this to me. He laughs. The Darkness laughs, a rumble tearing the heavens apart. He laughs at me, and panic settles in. "What are you doing to me?"

"I'm taking care of you," he says. "There's no army for you to join, Bakura. There's no battle for you to fight. Like you said, victory is ours. Shadows have overpowered the light. What need do I have for you now?"

"You can't do this to me!" I holler and the last word comes out in a scream. Right in front of my eyes, my hands discolor and start to disintegrate. Sand. That bastard is turning me into sand! I scream.

"You should be honored," Zorc continues calmly. "Return to the sands where you came from, King of Thieves. I return you to the very earth you were born from. You've always been a piece of me, but just a piece. Now I'm whole again, resurrected and free!"

The unspoken I don't need you anymore is loud and clear, but my thoughts aren't coherent enough to register it. I cry for help as my body gives out on me. Oddly enough, I don't feel any physical pain, yet my mind is screaming at me as I realize I'm going to die within minutes, as the sand seeps through my fingers, my hands dissolving, my arms fallen apart, my entire body sagging. I don't know why, but I turn my head into the Pharaoh's direction. I still cry for help, as hard as I can. My red cloak weighs a ton and it slides off of my shoulders, sliding on top of the pile of sand. It won't take more than just a few seconds and I take a deep breath, my last one, to cry out for help once more.

He can't help me. He wouldn't help me, would he? He believes in justice, so he'd probably think that what's happening to me now, is a way of divine justice. He has always believed in his Gods; this would be proper punishment, right? My thoughts are too jumbled and I'm too scared. No justice, but great irony that I'm turning to my vanquished enemy for help. That last flicker of hope that I reveled to kill, that I took great pleasure to crush, comes back to haunt me. It can't end this way. It shouldn't end this way. I didn't deserve to end this way.

"Tell me this is not the end..." I can hear his voice. I strain myself to hear it, latching on to his words. His body on the ground is the last thing I see. Blind, wild panic. Choking. Dying. Suffocating. His head's turned towards me, the blood on his face has dried up. In my last moments I realize that he's looking at me. His eyes are barely open, and maybe he doesn't see me after all - but I see the rise and fall of his chest, hardly noticeable. He's breathing. My last breath comes and goes.

"Tell me this is not the end..."

I don't have a voice anymore. I don't have strength anymore.

No, it's not. It's my last thought.

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