Yami Malik x Priestess Isis; and child!Bakura running around.

Don't own YGO.

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... he moves with stealth perfected in thousands of raids like this one, only not like this one, because tonight he has a tag-along (his disciple, his unwillingly adopted fledging), and he may die for a mistake not his own, and he's just not used to that. To mistakes.

To not being on his own.

The kid by his side is stiff and silent, and pale but because he's excited, and nervous, and he needs to please and do things right and, it's his first time after all. Malik can't remember what his first time desecrating a sacred place was like, because back then everything was a game and an eternal struggle to best Nam, his younger brother, who was just as bold and reckless as he was, but he had more of a... conscience. In a way.

Malik tests the edge of his blade before hiding it again in the sheath in his clothing, and in the seconds he handles it he sees his apprentice's reflection on the fine steel: foamy hair, livid scar, and as much determination as a twelve-year-old can handle.

"Ready to taunt the gods?" he asks, whispers, gets just a small nod in response that shakes a small head of uneaven white tresses. He's a good boy. A brave boy.

They run silently like foxes along the outer wall of the temple adjacent to the palace, and the guards will never see them, mixing in the night with the shadows of the ceremonial obelisks. Becoming the darkness, just how Malik likes to do everything; and his little fledging learns that every breath is calculated, every projection of light or shade the result of a very studied action. Just how Malik, the Tomb Keeper, as his sarcastically earned title among the lowlives goes, does things.

Control the darkness, and you will have the power to create chaos.

Cloaked in shadows and silence and skill, they slip unnoticed into the stone walls of the temple, an unexpected realm of torchlight and incense and hieroglyphs as the young one has never seen before, and Malik has seen so many times.

"And wait until it's a tomb we're plundering, boy" he comments in fleeting secrecy, and takes delight in the glimmer of the boy's slate eyes- he also likes that. The spirit of defiance. He can relate to it, and he wouldn't have taken a ward without half the spark of this one. They press their backs against a relief of sacred words and sacred images, listen, he gestures to the boy.

Nothing.

The corridors are still and the priests, dormant. He slips on a pair of cloth slippers, signals the boy to do that too. Silence is life- he's taught him that. Although it needs no teaching at all, for someone who is a thief at heart.

They run like synchronized, they pause to feel the air around, to smell a change in the incense, they pick their pace again, running past beautifully vacant chambers of granite that glistens in the starlight, and it feels like routine although it is the first time they have done this together, although the boy is so young and Malik is so enthusiastically recidivist.

A large door suddenly comes to stand between them and the treasure- Malik can smell treasure, stacked gold and precious elements of worship, he knows it is a scent that comes with the smell of the old papyrus making of the ritual scriptures, a different kind of incense, the flowery perfumes of the virgin priestesses.

"Now show me some magic, boy" he commands, and the boy nods and obliges, twists inside the intricate lock the flimsy flake of metal master Malik chipped himself off the sword of some unfortunate guard in a previous raid. And, as if by art of enchantment, the door opens with the faintest sigh.

The boy smirks and looks up at his master in eager expectation, tilts his head, shall we go in? Malik smacks him in perfect silence.

Wait, his pale, strange eyes seem to tell him, Unsheathe. Listen. He breathes in, delighted- feel the adrenaline.The boy shrugs and bares his weapon, although it is merely a dagger, it looks larger because his hands aren't that big yet.

Malik nods towards the door. Now. He pushes the wooden entrance with the gentlest touch of his fingerpads, brings his curved sword so close to him that it touches his lips making him smirk in the thrill of the forbidden.

The hinges are of good quality metal, and the door swings open in a delightfully slight manner. In a blink, they are inside, and the boy gapes, because before him stand all the treasures his master has spoken of- perhaps not in evident display as his imagination had conjured, but they certainly are there, and they certainly are great and precious.

Malik watches his little scar-faced fledging gorge on the sight of such lavishness, but watches him not for long, because through the veils of incensed smoke that shroud the statue of a great goddess, and the seeping darkness kept at bay by fires that burn in copper jars, his keen senses detect a presence.

We've company, he leans to whisper into the boy's ear, and the boy looks at him not scared and not brash, only awaiting orders. And Malik remember it's his first time.

He smirks. Never worry, boy: if I had a crown, I'd be the king of thieves. The boy swallows that with less uneasiness, thinking that, in the future, with or without a crown, he wants that title for himself. But not now. Now, he nods when his master tells him to loot and pillage to his heart's content. I've someone to put to sleep, it seems, Malik comments under his breath.

Step after dangerous step, he crosses a nebula of sugary incense to find himself at the feet of the goddess. He can't tell, for the love of him, who that enormous stone statue represents, but he doesn't give a care either because the gods are all a lie.

"I saw you come."

The voice takes him by surprise (that never happens) and he spins around, wildly, eyes like a bird of pray, searching.

She soon sways into view, step after regal step, the milky mist swirling around her as if she were the goddess incarnate, and Malik must give it to the woman, that he can't say he's seen someone this beautiful ever before.

"That's hardly possible," he says with a cocky smirk, crossing his arms over his chest, sword hanging from his belt once more. It's not that he doesn't harm women- whatever gets in his way, he kills without much predicament- it's just... he's not that sure. But he doesn't care either.

Her lips are full and sinful to his eyes, her hair drapes elegantly over her shoulders, framing her neckline in the most delicious way. "I saw you, and the boy," she tells him, coming to stand two or three feet away from him. Her hand slightly grazes a necklace of rough design and sturdy making, hardly something he would expect such an exquisite creature to wear. But for all he has seen in this life, he can feel its power irradiate in the form of cool waves that hit his skin erratically and make it crawl.

"A sorceress?" he ventures, his voice deep and collected and impish. He has his eyes on her, on her fair face and maddening body- suddenly much more enticing than the treasure. Let the boy take what he shall, he'll be taking what he is suddenly craving.

"You, thrice his age, you should be ashamed." She holds his mocking, unfazed gaze, "Lead a boy to such wicked fate."

"A choice he made himself alone," Malik says under his breath, his skin feeling like on fire from the incense, from the rush, from her; and he comes closer to her, "And if you saw us, why not run away?" he teases, "Why not warn the guards?"

She shakes her head. "They'd take the young one. This way, they'll take only you. My magic is enough."

"You are brave, precious thing," he comments, he reaches forward, lifts her chin to meet her steely eyes.

Her eyes narrow. "Don't touch me."

"I could kill you"

"You won't kill me"

"Then, I'll just touch you," he coyly tells her in this elliptic fashion she finds exasperating, and runs his thumb across the smooth skin on her now barely flustered cheek. Brings his sword hand to her provocative hip.

Brings his lips too close for comfort.

"What about a deal?"

She wriggles her chin out of his grasp and spits on the floor by his feet, and he can clearly see it is not something that this exotic woman he is somehow holding does ordinarily. So he's flattered.

"I don't deal with outlaws and rapists," she seethes, and he loves that he unsettles her, because she looked so collected and deadly when he saw her sway towards him through the mist.

"The kid leaves, and I stay. We stay, what say you?"

Her anger is a beautiful thing, unaffected by his deep, enticing tone, by his features he knows to be handsome. "I can kill you here and now," she warns, dangerous, alluring.

"You can," he grants with this controlled smirk that hides his mad enthusiasm, "and I may like it, Ra, priestess, you're beautiful."

"You're deranged," she counters, all venom and loathe; but as his lips crush down onto hers, she stumbles backwards until her back is pressed against the statue of the goddess, incense rising from the ground upwards.

"To hell with the deal," Malik breathes against her neck and she shivers in sinful mimic of what she has heard love feels like; and she begins to hate herself when this damnable stranger accomodates her to kiss her better, all raw passion and madness and disregard, and she is backing on her threat.

She is trembling, although she does not know if it is because she rages, or because she is letting this blond thief seduce her. "Make the boy leave," she commands, and her voice comes out airy and strangled and hurried.

Malik chuckles against her clavicle.

"Yeah," the voice of the boy rings suddenly, close and clear and sarcastic, "I'll leave all right."

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A/N: I looooooooooove this pairing, and this fic. Sphinxshipping FTW!

I've been having this idea for a while: Yami Malik training young Bakura, before he became the Thief King.

"Malik" is, of course, YAMI Malik. "Nam", mentioned somewhere there, would be the regular Malik- but, you know how the name issue goes. I'm a bit disappointed in that I wrote a lot of playful!skilled!Yami Malik, but didn't have much room here to expand on insane. Well, it'll be another chapter or another story- man kann inte göra allt!

I wanted to explore sexy, because I don't write sexy, and it's good to change and try out new things. Though, seriously, this short fic took me much more to write than a whole chapter of Coroner's Court. Well... hum... nothing.

Hope you enjoyed!

Reviews are appreciated more than you imagine!