Yami Bakura

Name: Bakura, but will answer to Thief King or Yami

Age: 3,000+ (but looks 21, the age he was when he died)

Nationality: Egyptian

Special Skills: Thievery, using magical items, gaming

Likes: Meat, sarcasm, Ryou Bakura, Oreo, Halloween, horror, grotesque and macabre things

Best Friend: Ryou Bakura

Image Songs: In the End by Linkin Park

Shadow Games by Trixie Reiss

Nemo by Nightwish

My Funny Friend and Me by Sting

Background: Thief King Bakura spent his earliest years in the doomed village of Kul Elna. Despite being raised by thieves, he was a sweet child and looked after his younger sister Amunet. When he was 6, he witnessed the massacre of the entire village for the creation of the Millennium Items. That snapped his sanity and left him traumatized. He grew up with a burning hatred for the Pharaoh and his court and vowed to take his revenge by bringing down their rule, never knowing that the Pharaoh himself was unaware of the abominable act responsible for the Millennium Items.

He suffered assorted heartaches growing up, from falling in with a false friend who eventually tried to kill him to marrying a young woman who only wanted a child to continue her family's bloodline and left him, taking the child with her, shortly afterwards. After that sorrow, he decided he was meant to be alone. But he still had the spirits of Kul Elna as well as Diabound, for which he was grateful. He wasn't alone.

He used the skills he had been taught as a young child and worked his way up to becoming the King of Thieves. In some circles, he was referred to as the Mad Tomb-Robber. He was a strange sort, but his followers respected him as their leader and he treated them fairly. By the time he was ready for his revenge plot and went after the Pharaoh's son, he was a vigilante believing he was doing the right thing by rebelling against a great evil, never once realizing that he was going after people who mostly knew nothing of the massacre and wouldn't have agreed with it. He committed terrible acts on his quest and eventually acquired the Millennium Ring when Mahad lost a battle against him at the sorcerers' training grounds. The Ring, infused with more dark energy than any other Item because of Zorc Necrophades' presence within it, destroyed what was left of his sanity and left him bent on not just taking revenge on the Pharaoh, but destroying the world by calling forth Zorc. Zorc himself was heavily influencing him to that end, wanting to be free to rain his madness on the world. Atem and his priests defeated Thief King Bakura and Atem sealed his soul within the Ring, hoping to keep him from causing more trouble. He had no idea that a part of Zorc's spirit was also in the Ring and he had just condemned the thief to three thousand years of being fused with the personification of the darkness itself.

In the modern era, James Bakura found the Millennium Ring and brought it home for his son Ryou Bakura, not knowing of the fused being within it. While Zorc could never feel kindness or compassion for anyone, Thief King Bakura found a spark of light after millennia of darkness and began to gradually come to care about his modern descendant. He was protective on occasion, such as when Bakura was bullied, and it was he who put Bakura to sleep whenever he and Zorc were taking over, not wanting him to see what they were doing and be horrified, his innocence tainted.

As the final arc of Zorc's plot was put into motion, Thief King Bakura had become so deeply poisoned by the portion of Zorc's spirit in the Ring that at times he believed he really was Zorc. This caused Atem to believe that Yami Bakura was only Zorc and he destroyed Zorc without hesitation because of that.

Upon Zorc's destruction, Thief King Bakura was pulled free of him at last and sent to wait at one of the gates of the afterlife for judgment. Atem encountered him there and felt prompted to send him back, although he couldn't imagine why and neither could the thief. He found himself in Ryou Bakura's room, torn and tattered from being pulled from Zorc, and undergoing an identity crisis. Who was he? Not Zorc, but was he the Thief King any longer? His spirit was seriously damaged and fading into the darkness, but Ryou Bakura awoke, horrified, and wanted to help him. A desperate prayer brought Shadi and a mysterious angel, who delivered the Infinity Ring and told him that the thief would be granted physical form by the Ring and the chance to earn a second chance if he trained to take part in an upcoming conflict and fight for the side of good. Thief King Bakura scoffed at the very idea that he could ever be good, but he wasn't about to turn down the chance to live.

He and Bakura had problems getting along, understandably, but over the course of their adventures they found and accepted that they care deeply about each other. They have bonded as few others have, and their bond is stronger for all the heartache and pain on the road to it. Since they both answer to the name Bakura, Ryou Bakura still opts to call him Yami Bakura, a name given to him by Joey, and he's fine with that.

Yugi and the others struggled with trusting him for quite some time, but they have finally found reason to extend trust and have been coming to care about him. By now, they all feel that he is one of them and their friend.

Bizarrely, cats seem attracted to him, something he can't for the life of him understand. No matter how he might scream and yell and insist that he's a dangerous person, the cats pay no attention. It was on an occasion when six cats were mobbing him that the family cat Oreo was discovered and adopted, as she was the only one without an owner.

Personality: Yami Bakura is highly sarcastic, grumpy, and self-weary. He recognizes that he did countless horrible things and is insistent that he is not a good person. But he truly loves Bakura and is highly protective of him. He will never stand for the boy's innocence being corrupted. He still likes power, but he no longer wants to conquer the world. And although he is still outraged about the massacre of Kul Elna, he is grateful that the spirits finally did find peace and he no longer plots to take revenge. Bakura cooled his feelings of hatred and his insanity with his genuine love and kindness.

He is fiercely devoted to justice. If Bakura is harmed, Yami Bakura won't rest until he brings down whoever did it and teaches them a lesson they won't forget. In turn, he believes that anyone he hurt in the past has a right to strike back at him if they wish, as long as they don't try to hurt him by hurting Bakura. He also will help any of the others in trouble and has risked his life for them on more than one occasion. He realizes that he is coming to care about them as well.

When he's in a good mood, he can have a mischievous, teasing streak. He can enjoy harmlessly vocally teasing Bakura or scaring people they meet up with by doing something unexpected, such as a threat not followed through on or switching between his forms.

No longer sure which form is really him, he is prone to switching between his form from mortality and the form generally thought of as Yami Bakura, which is one of the Infinity Ring's powers. Bakura is used to this, but it can startle others. At first he preferred his Thief King form and only switched to the "Bakura's older brother" form on occasion, but of late he has come to prefer the latter form. His form from mortality makes him feel old and tired at times since it reminds him of how long he's been around. Switching to the other form can make him feel younger. That, and he likes feeling like Bakura's contemporary.

Having fended for himself since age 6, he grew up often starving and devoured food any time he encountered it, complete with terrible table manners. He hasn't been able to break that habit in the present-day. Bakura is often mortified by his inability to eat like a person instead of a wild animal.

He will grunt and growl and be frustrated with the cat Oreo's quirks, especially if she wants to share his food or climb all over him, but he loves her in spite of himself and will be thoroughly protective if anyone tries to harm her.

In the past he learned to accept and even celebrate pain as proof of being alive, and he developed a high tolerance for pain because of that. Zorc only made it worse, and some people have mistaken it for a masochistic streak. Zorc also caused other strange changes, such as developing a liking for the taste of blood, something he didn't have before. Without Zorc, and without any need to grasp pain as a proof of life, these traits have mostly faded. He still, however, has a high tolerance for pain.

Differences between the timelines: The old Yami Bakura was not afflicted by the Zorc mess, since that messy problem was not known by fans at the time. As per common fanon fun, he could generate a physical body for himself separate from Ryou Bakura's for some unknown reason (mainly just to make certain scenarios in stories easier to work with). He still wanted to conquer the world, but he was also highly protective of Bakura and their cat Oreo. He didn't like to admit to his caring, however, and he was often very insulting to Bakura, usually unable to go more than a couple of sentences without being nasty. He also could not hold his liquor, a problem the current timeline Yami Bakura does not have. The current Yami Bakura also isn't anywhere as insulting, to Bakura, at least. They have a much closer and deeper relationship in the current timeline because it follows canon and takes place afterwards, enabling them to get past all of their demons.

The old timeline Yami Bakura had a much different backstory, since Kul Elna wasn't known at that time. He was from a curious union between a Jew and an Egyptian and had two siblings. His father was a cruel and twisted man and Yami Bakura finally ran away to fend for himself. He said his family didn't care about him. The new timeline Yami Bakura had a good relationship with his family and a younger sister named Amunet. That idea came from my friend Kaze when we saw two fanarts that depicted what seemed to be a younger sister for him. I am still intrigued by the idea of his parents being Egyptian and Hebrew, but I don't know if I'll bring that concept into the current timeline or not.

Also, since Kul Elna was not known, the old timeline Yami Bakura was a more good-natured thief and didn't have anything against Atem until later in life. He also was once tortured by a traitor to the Pharaoh (an OC of mine called Khu), and Bakura, badly ill with a fever, somehow time-traveled to the past and saved him. That was interesting. In the new timeline, Yami Bakura and Khu were friends as pre-teens, but Khu was only faking it to steal from him. When this was learned, they got into a terrible fight and Yami Bakura was more seriously wounded. Khu left him for dead, as in the old timeline, and also as in the old timeline, Bakura time-traveled during a fever and saved his life.