soul_campaign | Seventh Roll: February 7th, Evening. [Text]

So it's like Russian Roulette now... [[says softly]] Only after the first shot, you can't put the gun down.

Yep. You're quick on the uptake. [He smiles, looking more amused by their grisly topic than bitter about what had happened to him.] Most people here just don't get it or don't want to.

[He stops and takes the cigarette out from his lips.]

Sure, it's fucked up and I won't say that I'm looking forward to it, but it's my death and my decisions that have led to it. They had no right taking that from me.

You wouldn't want to change it...? Even though a death like that doesn't... [[he hesitates a moment]] It doesn't save anyone... and it's something you were tricked into.

Not tricked. Nobody told me to take the drug or forced me to do it. I decided to put my life on the risk for a cheap kick and I'm standing up to that. [He waves his hand.] I think I told ya before, but us Halfs don't get exactly much rights to be deciding anything about what's goin' to happen with our lives.

[He returns the cigarette to his lips and sucks on it.]

This firework is my private way of telling them to go fuck themselves.

[It isn't really and he knows it; nobody would care how he died, they'd just see some material and a troublemaker gone. But it feels better to present it that way than to admit that it'd just be one more senseless death.]

[[He's quiet a long moment, clearly unhappy]]

I wish there were another way... [[says very softly]]

[He remains silent for a moment, only regarding Bakura with an unreadable look.]

[Then he laughs softly under his breath and reaches out to ruffle the other boy's hair.]

Same here, though that's already a lot of spilled milk that we're talking about here. They removed the poison from my blood here, remember? And I'm not planning on going back to drugs. They just ain't never held the things they promised to be to me.

[[ducks his head slightly at the ruffle, smiling warmly.]] So it can be different here, ne?

[He smiles indulgently. No, not really, but Bakura doesn't have to hear that since he probably knows.]

... You humans are really soft, you know that? No wonder people keep mistaking you for a kid if you say stuff like this.

[[a very soft laugh]] As a kid, you still have a chance of your dreams coming true, right?

I don't think ya should stop havin' a chance for that just because you've managed to survive up to a certain age. That'd be fuckin' sad. [He leans once again back.]

Sometimes I wonder about that.

..Why?

[[hesitates a moment]] It just seems like you have to give up your dreams when you grow up is all. And that to really be able to change things... [[he hesitates a moment more]]

Back home... Yuugi-kun could make miracles by just believing in them hard enough.... the strength of his feelings would change the world around him. And Yuugi-kun's the most like a child of anyone I've ever met. [[a fond smile there]]

[He frowns, shakes his head and tsks.]

Your world has to be plenty weird when it has rules like that.

Where I come from becoming older only means that your body grows bigger and stronger. It gives you more chances to take what you want and makes you less likely to be attacked. [A scoff.] Of course you first have to make it that far. Whether you sell your dreams for that or do some other nasty thing's all up to you.

It is pretty different, yeah. There's not any worries about being attacked or anything like that... not like that, anyway.

[He frowns.]

But.. ? [The way Bakura is phrasing things make it seem as if tere are other ways of being attacked.]

A lot of things happen, sometimes. [[vague answer is vague.]]

Bakura, look at me. Do you know who you're trying to bullshit right now? I'm like the king of fucked up excuses, don't try 'em with me.

[[a soft sigh]] Just... things happen sometimes, like Yuugi-kun's grandfather having his soul stolen and things like that. [[and his arm being stabbed during the tournament when he was spacing out]]

He had his soul stolen? Did he die? [Blink, blink, straight back to being confused we go.]

No, he was fine once Yuugi-kun got it back. Or really, got him put back in it, since he was in the video tape the whole time... Bodies can live a long time without a soul. They're just comatose.

... so you put the soul back in like a video tape into a broken recorder. [Boy, this sounds weirder and weirder.] And you're worried about me becoming an evil ghost only after I die??

[Logic. It's somewhere down there in this conversation, he's sure of it. He just has to unearth it since it's apparently buried deeply.

...very deeply.]

Aaa-- he wasn't a ghost or anything like that... I don't think the Items can make a soul utterly disembodied, they just put them other places....

And Pegasus was the one who put it back again, after Yuugi-kun defeated him....

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