Yu-Gi-Oh! Ancient Egypt: General. #80 Why? [Akunadin, Bakura]
Title: Sketches in a ruined mind
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Characters: Thief King Bakura, Akunadin
Prompt: #80, Why?
Word Count: 442
Rating: PG
Summary: The soldiers found a child left alive in Kuru Eruna.
Author's Notes: To be continued, hopefully.
The decision was in many ways unwise - but Akunadin could not find himself to regret it. Perhaps he had known that he would come home to find that his son ran away him, and had tried to shield himself from the pain by saving the boy the soldiers had found alive in Kuru Eruna.
There was an unexpected benefit to taking the boy in. Akunamukanon was distracted by the presence of the boy, and asked fewer questions about the making of the Millennium Items than he otherwise might have.
Akunadin was almost glad to hear his brother whisper: "Why would you favour this boy over your own son? How can you do it?"
"This boy is not afraid." He touched the Millennium Eye briefly.
Akunamukanon looked as if the pain of it was his, too, and Akunadin turned away.
The boy said, in the smallest of voices, that his name was Bakura. The boy was not bitter or afraid, and Akunadin could not say why. What he could see, when the Millennium Eye shimmered, was that the boy's mind was a near blank with nothing more than a few flimsy facts on top of the knowledge of a ruined world. Bakura was only about seven years old, and on the verge of madness - and Akunadin could stop it.
The boy's discovery in some dark corner of Kuru Eruna had given Akunadin two chances at redemption: he wore the proof and bore the pain of his sin in the form of the Millennium Eye, and he raised the detritus of that sin like the son he was no longer allowed to love. Two chances were two more than he deserved or expected.
So Akunadin swore:
"Bakura ... I will take you in as my own."
The boy lifted his gaze from his hands in his lap. "My master?" he asked at last. He sounded weary. "Mama said I'd be sent to be an apprentice in another year or two."
Akunadin pressed his lips together. He could not say 'son', and Bakura did not seemed to want to accept that meaning from his words. "Yes, you'll be my apprentice. I will raise you to take my position."
Bakura nodded. The response might have been disheartening, but the Millennium Eye showed another fact was slowly entering the boy's mind, like a line being drawn on a messy papyrus that gave the scribbles there more meaning. Bakura had accepted the proposition as one thing more to hold on to.
Akunadin made himself be grateful. He would have to eke out gladness from such small victories as this for the rest of their time together.