They call me a thief. A petty commoner who steals for a living. I see it another way. I am doing what I must to survive. I am the last living being from the village, Kuru Elna. I am not supposed to be alive. Oprhaned because of murdered parents before my teen years, I learned how to survive quickly. There is no grey area--only black and white. You live or you die. There is no in-between. Just as you are either status or non. You can't be both.  So if that is what it means to be a thief, then call me a king for I am the best of all thieves in this land! In that, I obtain status.

I barely remember my parents' faces. It is my only fear--losing their image in my own mind. I remember the night the soldiers and priests came. My parents were going over a new strike plan on the tombs of pharaohs in our humble abode. I was going to be the decoy--distracting the guards. Me, an innocent little boy, crying for having strayed too far from my family's caravan and gotten lost. BAH! I'm no innocent! I never was! But, I can play one if it is necessary. I can be anything I like. I can have anything I want. My mother once told me if I studied the arts well, I could have the world in my lap. For a commoner, I am well educated. I can read, write, and have even been taught the dark magics usually reserved for nobility and royals by birth.

Was I chosen for some higher destiny? I'd like to think so. Must have ambition to get anywhere in life. Egypt owes me. More specifically, its rulers owe me. They took my world away from me without a justified reason for their own petty desires of power. What right do they have to choose who lives and who dies?! Their rank means nothing. For most, especially those who are not educated, a piece of papyrus bearing lineage is nothing more than markings on dried out leaves. We all bleed the same color blood and see through the same kind of eyes. What's the difference? Guess those high status beings just don't see it from a level looking up. They are always looking down. That is the problem. But, what if their lives were threatened in the very ways ours below are? What if their very way of living was destroyed? Their loved ones slaughtered? The innocence stripped away from their children like a skin off a dead animal? It is this I feel I am destined to 'educate' them with. And I have all the knowledge and skills necessary to do so. My greatest strength will be their underestimation of me as a mere thieving criminal. They will be clueless to the powers that lie beneath! I will NOT let Kuru Elna die completely! It's name and legacy and demise survives within me. I KNOW those priests, at least one priest anyway, knows the name still as well. He has stuffed it deep within his soul, thinking it will never resurface. That all traces of his massacre were wiped away with the blood of our village. But it exists not only in his own mind, but in mine, and in those shiny objects they bear in the name of the kingdom. Those golden objects are MY people--having been born from their very blood and lives. So, those objects are in essence, my objects--and I want them back!

I hear the king I was initially seeking my revenge upon, has died. He should be so lucky! No matter though, his teenage son has taken the throne. He's young and untested...innocent in his own right. I'll strip him of that. That will be my first task in the name of Kuru Elna. He'll lose his innocence in the same way I lost mine--with the blood of those he cares about and then I'll drink of cup of his own. I will make a mockery of him and show the people of 'his kingdom' that he is a weak, unfit king. This kingdom will learn about hatred born from love and its power above all else. I am not evil...at least not from my side of the river. I do not kill in cold blood like they do and hide it under a mask of 'good' for all. If I kill, I am honest in why I killed. I cannot predict the future, but I feel my destiny will take me to kiss the hand of some ultimate, dark power. I can feel it in the depths of my bones. But in whose eyes is it to say it's evil or good? It's all a matter of perspective. But hey, I like the sound of the word so perhaps I should call myself, Avenger of Kuru Elna and harbinger of Evil! Has a darker demonic sound to it than "King of Thieves" doesn't it?

And with that, I will conclude this little 'historical record'. May it survive for eternity so that others may learn of the wrong-doings of high status people upon those who are not born into that and how one person can indeed change the destiny of not only oneself, but the entire world.

Bakura, King of Thieves and Avenger of Kuru Elna

Author's Note: Well there you have a little 'test' chapter of Bakura: Avenger of Kuru Elna. Feel free to respond with comments,etc. about it in my message board. Simply hit your back button and in the same section you found this journal, go slightly below it to find the link to my message board. There is a topic for this story in my Fanfic topic area.