A/N: So I have this theory that neither Yami Malik or Yami Bakura can love anyone because one is just obsessed with killing people, and the other is the embodiment of pure evil. So who's this pairing about? Yami Bakura. Yami Bakura very heavily reincarnated as the thief and not at all as Zorc.

Keket! ...are your hands blue?

I dyed them. Brown is boring.

You're weird, Keket.

So are you, Bakura.

The thief grumbled from within his gold prison.

You're not my host.

Bakura finally accepted that the merchant was not his host. He was a decent thief, not nearly as good as the king, but still better than average. He sort of vaugely resembled Bakura... maybe... if you squinted. The thief king would prefer to have a host that was a true reincarnation, but if Ra chose this man, Bakura wouldn't be picky over his hair color. Not after 3000 years. Most importantly, the merchant man held the Ring and was still alive. All the previous finders died within a few weeks, usually when they were robbed of the Ring.

This man was alive and well, but that was all. Bakura now spent most of his time hibernating in the Ring, as he had always done. It was the cards that showed Bakura just how unsuitable the merchant was to be his host. He spent all his time with worthless paper cards, cheap imitations of their kas of long ago. Bakura grew restless, trying to sleep, as it were, while being so close to the other items, with a host able to actually retrieve them.

The thief king first discovered how to control his host the day he saw that ka. Cards ususally were of little interest to him. On one rare occasion, the white-haired peasant girl's soul filtered through their hub of the black market, whispering unintelligibly to Bakura of their shared time on the Earth. But it was gone just as quickly, leaving a bloody trail in its wake. The card of Bakura's interest was similar, in that respect. The merchant pulled it from a card dealer's corpse.

As soon as he saw the card, Bakura knew who it was. Before he knew how or why, the man's hand picked it up, pocketed it, and fled, remembering nothing of the act afterwards. The realization that he could control his "host" could only be eclipsed by this girl's soul. The girl of Kul Elna, Keket, the odd daughter of the seer. Bakura stole the man's body again at night, when he wouldn't notice the missing memories, and whispered to the card.

"Keket."

The card said nothing to him. Bakura knew that the card had a soul within it. The Ring told him so. He tried again.

"Keket, are you there?"

This was her soul. No ka could ever be confused with her armored, blue-skinned creature and its doll. Bonds of the ka and its wielder did not break from little things like time and location. He'd heard the white-haired girl, albiet without understanding a word, from within her modern stone slab. Why could he not hear this girl he shared half of his life with?

The sun creeped over the horizon. Bakura returned the card to its hiding place and retreated to the Ring.

Bakura talked the card every night he could for many weeks after that. It never responded. He never felt the power from it as he had from other cards. His "host" started dealing in the cards more and more. Bakura's accomplices, Isis, and Mahad's apprentice all passed through his hands. Each called to the thief king. Only Keket would not speak. Only her soul was dead, sacrificed to the gold of the Ring.

"Keket," Bakura sighed. "Won't you answer me?"

The card stared back at him, silent.

"It's Bakura. From Kul Elna. We grew up together."

Weeks of the card just staring drew out more conversation than Bakura had dared in three thousand years.

"You can't have forgotten me. I'm the only one who would even speak to you! You were such an odd girl, always muttering to yourself and trying to call spirits."

Bakura could see her, bright as the gold around his neck. He saw her wild eyes, dirty face, disheveled clothes, and that look that told him she didn't care. She sat by the river, staring into the blue water for hours. She turned when he approached even though she wouldn't look anyone else in the face. Even though he always tried to sneak up on her, and no one else in the village could hear the prince of thieves coming.

"You said we would spend our lives together! You promised!"

He saw her, calm as soldiers killed people around them. She took his hands, shaking in anger. The soldiers could kill them, but they could not stop their rebirth. Their souls would come back to the world, and they would find each other. She wasn't trying to reassure him or comfort him-she explained it like an adult explains some principle of the world to a child. It was true.

"I believed you! The priests killed you, turned you into this thing-" he tugged at the Ring. "-and I still thought you'd come back to me!" "But you- you tricked me! You never came back!"

He saw a ka for the first time when the priest attacked her. Her parents and sister lay dead around her, and Keket summoned the blue woman. The priest's and Keket's kas fought, and the blue woman fell. Bakura jumped out and tried to throw himself at the priest, but the priest's ka stopped him. Bakura waited for the ka to kill him, when it turned on its master.

The soul of Zorc mixed into the Ring only intensified his memories of the slaughter. "Keket...!"

The Blue Lady controlled the creature, and now it had the power to save them all. Bakura turned to Keket, but she had fallen and did not move. The priest fled, and Bakura carried Keket from the room. Soldiers found him in seconds, capturing him easily while he tried to protect Keket's body. The soldiers tore her from Bakura, carried her, and dragged him to the room. On his own, Bakura slipped out as they burned her body. The chorus of the dying covered his escape.

The sun filtered into the host's window. Bakura looked into the light from his stolen body, the screams of his village echoing in his mind. He left the card where it was, and promptly left the man's body.

The host finally realized there was something odd about the Ring. The king of thieves found himself in the bazaar, on a table with Duel Monsters cards, including Keket's ka.

"How much for that card?"

The blue-haired man pointed at Keket. Bakura woke from his doze.

No! That's mine!

"That is a very valuable card, indeed, sir," The man was eager to haggle in his own language. It was rare for a foreigner to speak Farsi. "No less than 3000 pounds."

"Three thousand! Over a thousand American dollars for this? I'll give you three hundred pounds."

"Two thousand."

Keket, do something. You promised me!

"Five hundred pounds, and no more."

The stranger's eye caught the Ring. The "host" grinned.

"A thousand, and I'll throw in that pendant."

What! You impudent peasant, who do you think you are, to try to sell a millennium item-?

"...deal."

WHAT?

The stranger fished his wallet out of his pocket while Bakura fumed on the table. He handed over the money and retrieved his prizes. Bakura caught a glimpse of a photo in the wallet and saw his old body. His string of mental curses stopped. Had he found his actual host? The stranger put the Ring and Keket into his bag and left the bazaar before anyone could rob him.

Keket, did you see that?

The Ring and card brushed against each other and resonated. The card echoed only softly, but still it made a sound.

A/N: The last line took on meanings I didn't intend. I think people interpreted it as Keket resonating with Bakura, but I originally meant that Dark Necrofear-Keket's ka and soul-resonated with Keket's body in the Ring. Now it means both!

Egyptian currency is the Egyptian pound, which from 1995-1998 was worth roughly a third of an American dollar.

"Keket" is the name of an obscure Egyptian goddess of darkness and the night.