The Assassin and The Thief

Chapter 16

I'm sorry I just started thinking of Titus in Kimmy Schmidt when he went to the library and... just this.

(Marik's POV)

After bribing the uninterested teenager working the afternoon shift at this town's library I sit at one of the logged-on computers. I type in the numbers Bakura sent me, thinking it might be a reference code or something - maybe Kaiba sent me it as a cipher, or maybe it was just a buttdial. Either way I hope it means something cause if not I have no leads to figure out what the Hell is going on or where Bakura is. I wait on this slow-ass computer loading the results and my eyes wander around the small town library, noting a few bare shelves on which a few random books are scattered and a sign in front of me which reads 'Please Masturbate Quietly'. Only now do I realise the old guy next to me is watching porn and now I think about it, this mouse feels kinda sticky...

This library is gross.

Finally the results load and I peer at them without my working glasses and everything blurred seems to make sense - not literally, cause this screen is dirty as shit. Google reveals the number Bakura sent me is the code of a limo belonging to Event Classics, a company based in this town from which Kaiba must have hired the limos. I go to their website and see there's a staff login page.

I hack into it because of course I can, I'm an assassin. I've worked with Kaiba in Egypt before and even for a fake job money-laundering at his front company KaibaCorp, I was required to learn rudimentary hacking and coding skills, including a crash course in data encryption. After breaking through a couple of firewalls I reach the tracker page, accessing the staff accounts. Tying in the limo number I find the location; it's heading up the highway to a large private estate near Crystal Lake. I can be there in less than an hour if I drive!

"Yesss," I hiss to myself in triumph.

"Ssh!" I look up and see a very angry old woman pointing to the 'Please Masturbate Quietly' and giving me a finger wag. When the sour-faced bitch turns away I give her the finger and hop up to leave, making sure to squeeze past her and pickpocket her car keys - I gotta get to the estate somehow and I can't take my car.

When I arrive I park the car in the forest and sneak through to undergrowth to reach the perimeter. I haven't done a B&E since my petty criminal days as a young child, but I still remember to cling to the corners of the wall to avoid electric wire, how to hug any vertical surface to avoid motion detectors. How bushes and hedges and other stupid shit rich people pay for in their gardens make great camouflage. Eventually I reach the building itself - knowing the front entrance is blocked off by guards, I target the side window which leads into the drawing room. I these windows are easy to lock-pick and I slide through easily, my agility landing me in on the hardwood floors.

I step cautiously, avoiding any floorboards which look suspiciously creaky.

(Bakura's POV)

Deafening crunches penetrate my eardrums. Over and over again the heavy boots slams into my face causing my cheek to rip open in the form of a jagged scar under my eye. Blue Eyes watches from his leather chair on the other side of this ornate music hall, legs crossed and smirking down at my mockingly. Eventually the kicking stops and his brutal guard steps back.

I crawl into my knees, refusing to give this bastard the satisfaction of my submission. I spit blood into his nice, clean carpet and he just keeps staring. "I'll ask you again," he states firmly. "Where is Marik? Tell me and I might spare your pathetic life,"

"I don't know..." I tell him honestly. Because I don't, and I don't know what more he wants from me. I guess he thinks I'm lying but even if I knew where Marik was, no amount of pain would make me tell him. I am stronger than that. I've survived Akefia, I've survived the Egyptian police, I've survived Blue Eyes once before. I know I can survive this. I hear him whisper something to one of his henchmen but then a terrible ringing assaults my ears. All I can do is see, my ears in so much pain. And everything seems so much sharper, I know I'm not hallucinating when I see,

"Melvin?"

(Melvin's POV)

One of Kaiba's guards stands in my way, blocking entry to the corridor with the drawing room from which horrible screams sound. I wasn't planning on killing anyone, not to mention blatantly attacking an armed guard. But it's my Bakura. I sneak as quietly as I can, getting as close to him as possible before I leap when his back turns just slightly at an angle. He shoots at me, missing narrowly but thankfully his gun has a silencer. I go for his vulnerable spot, his stomach, crashing my first into his intestines and watching him drop to the ground. I wrestle with his quietly for his gun, prying his large fingers off the trigger and forcing him to turn it towards himself before I shoot a low-calibration bullet right between his eyes.

Damn I wish Bakura saw that. That was sexy af.

I creep towards the drawing room, intending to maybe choke out a guard, even Kaiba himself, using them as a host page for leverage. But when I see my Bakura on the floor, battered and bloody I lose any relational thoughts, growing enraged at the man before me. So I burst in, one gun against 3 and begin to shoot, fighting to the death - and that's exactly what it may come to.

Rishid shoots at me, but his gun doesn't have a silencer, one bullet grazing my arm. He's good, but I'm better. I hit him on his cheek where that ducking tattoo is, sending his tall body crashing to the ground, head cracking on the marble. The others are child's play.

I look up, staring around wildly, but all I see is Bakura staring up at my lifelessly, head pulling back and eyes rolling, broken nose hanging off his face caked in strokes of blood. Calmly the curtains flutter in the breeze from the open patio doors which overlook the gardens. Kaiba escaped. "Bakura!" I call. Kaiba doesn't matter anymore, he has his ducking ring. He won't come after us. "Bakura!"

I kneel at my lover, shaking him violently, praying to the Gods for a response. A cry of pain, a cough, a scream, anything to show me Bakura is still alive. Through my own calling of his name I hear the tiniest gurgle. I stop, freezing and silent. A cough and then.

"Bugger me,"

I burst out laughing in jubilant relief, hugging his small body close to my own. "Bakura! Kura, Oh fuck, fuck fuck..." I cry, really cry tears. "I thought I'd lost you,"

"I-I'm offended," He scoffs through his hoarse voice. "It takes more than Blue Eyes to kill me,"

I laugh, but Bakura's faint smirk drops to a questioning frown. "M-Melvin?"

I wipe away my tears, sniffling. "Y-Yeah...?"

"Is it over?" He whispers, terrified of my answer.

"Yeah, baby," I hold him so gently to my face. "It's all over,"