So Wraith was Bakura Ryou? Who would have ever thought the shy, reserving boy from his classes would be the one person in the city brave enough to liberate others from Zork itself?

Maybe it was true, after all: the multitudes of talk that had circulated about the Others. He had marginally come to accept that there was a second Yuugi. Much of that was because it was either believe in two Yuugis or believe that Yuugi suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder. Somehow the theory that there were two versions of Yuugi made a lot more sense.

If he could accept that there were two versions of Yuugi, then he should be able to accept that there had somehow been a second Bakura. That would be the one he had caught glimpses of on the Duel Ship, that he had heard about after Duel Kingdom. Of course, that Bakura had sounded like a psychopath. That made it doubly amazing to even begin to think that the loser's sister was right and Bakura Ryou was Wraith.

If she was right, there was a strong possibility that some of the people who were standing at ground zero were still around. So many of them that he knew were yet alive had disappeared without a trace: Yuugi, the loser, the dancer girl, to name just a few. Chances were good that they were in hiding, since it would be the intelligent thing to do. He found it a little odd to think that he had heard nothing from any of them in all this time.

But then, he had assumed that Bakura Ryou had died in the fiery explosion of Zork awaking in the modern world. Yet now he was hearing that, not only was he still alive, he was half of Wraith.

That, of course, begged the question of who the other half of Wraith could be. He didn't know of anyone who looked like Bakura, since the other teen looked rather... distinctive.

There was one possibility of who the other half of Wraith could be, but that was a option he wasn't sure he wanted to think of too strongly yet. Believing in the so-called Others was one thing. The prospect of one of them operating in the streets of Domino, where few other people dared to be seen for fear of losing their lives, was a bit beyond what he was certain he could handle right now.

Nonetheless, there was every chance that he might have to become ameliorated to the concept. After all, lately, the most fantastic option of all possibilities was the one that tended to come true.

That settled it. Somehow, he had to find Wraith and find out.

28 September 2008

Sorry for the long delay. It's terrible that something so short took me so long. It has been one thing after the other, from my laptop dying to moving to several rounds of edits on the novel. On the upshot, though, I have finished all but one round of edits to Amaranth and I have finished the second book, Verdant, so for a little bit, I can concentrate on having fun... which means fanficcing.

Seriously, I wonder if people know how much work goes into getting published. Aside from the nerve-wracking time where you are trying to get a publisher, there's several rounds of edits, first with an editor then several copy editors. There's applying for your copyright, which is a hassle to say the least. But it's all going to be worth it to see it in print.

Next on my fanficcing list is either finishing up Automatic Paranoia or working on another Bakura/Kaiba story I started nearly a year ago. Unfortunately, my time is just limited enough to keep me from doing all that I want to do.

Hopefully, it won't be as long for the next chapter as it was for this one.

~Apollymi