Written for a request on the livejournal community fic on demand; the requester is the one who came up with the setting.
Post-series, minor BakuBaku, references to the manga (most importantly, the fact Yami Bakura would imprison friends of Ryou in Monster World figurines, until Yami and the others beat him in that game).
Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh.
Afterthought
His mother had loved graveyards.
It was his first thought when he set foot on the small cemetery for the first time in two years: it was deserted, for which he was grateful. His mother would have liked it: pretty and peaceful and full of history. It was one of these strange false memories he had of her, something he had been told of her and then thought about so often that it felt as if he could remember her telling him herself, even though he knew he had only learnt of it after her death.
Amane was different. He had no false memories of Amane, there were too many true ones, too many things only he had known and understood of her, because they'd been children together, and some things adults simply didn't understand.
He'd never shared his mother's love for graveyards: he had never been able to find them peaceful, because he had always found them mysterious, close to the edge between life and death, had always imaged that when you closed your eyes and listened carefully enough, you could hear the spirits of those buried here... He hadn't been afraid of them, though, at least not much, not beyond the initial shiver thoughts of death always brought: these were just human spirits. There was nothing particularly frightening about that.
Now, of course, this was gone as well: he knew about spirits now: they were as real as he'd always imagined, and if there were any here, he would see and hear them.
It was still early in the morning, and still cold, pleasantly so, and the air was filled with the sweet scents of all the flowers. Despite of this new knowledge, he couldn't shake of the impression of feeling Amane's presence here. But it wasn't because of the closeness of her grave, he knew that now: it was this place, this town where they had lived together that made her feel so close, so alive... If he closed his eyes, only for a moment, he could hear her voice.
Having moved so often had done strange things to his way of remembering: his life was cut into small, distinct slices, years so clearly tied to places that it was unimaginable that he could not go back to the time as easily as to the place. As if it was frozen there. As if Amane was still here, and forever six years old.
He hadn't paid attention to where he was going, but his feet had found her grave on their own, and only when he was standing in front of it did he look up, and there was the spirit.
He should have been shocked, surprised at least, but right then, it seemed so natural: he was sitting on her gravestone, on knee bent and drawn to his transparent body, the other leg dangling down, and looked at him calmly, like he had been expecting him.
"It's you," he murmured; there was a silence, during which the spirit did not move at all, but his eyes were alive, studying him. "I thought you were gone."
The spirit smiled at this, that harsh, dangerous smile he knew so well, but there was something reassuringly familiar to it, and right then, it appeared less ghostlike than this whole town so full of memory.
"I'm tied to you," the ghost said softly, and Ryou found he wasn't surprised to hear a voice that had, until now, only silently whispered in his mind. "Disappointed?"
"I... don't know," he said slowly. Maybe he had never quite believed it, maybe that was why he felt so little surprise. The spirit had always come back. "The ring is gone though," he added.
"Yes," the spirit said, and glared at him from under those bushy white bangs, as if that was his fault. "I don't have any power left, if that's what you want to know."
Ryou glanced up: the ghost looked way to confident for someone admitting to being powerless.
"And I can't read you thoughts anymore," the spirit went on, smirking at the look Ryou gave him. "I don't need to..."
"So stop it," Ryou snapped, annoyed. Anger, he should be angry. This was the one who had dragged his friends into a mortal game to kill them.
"Stop what? Knowing you? I can't, host. It's difficult to lose your memory when you don't even have a brain."
Ryou took a step back. The nasty tone brought back some of the old apprehensions, but that felt almost comfortingly familiar as well.
"What do you want?" he asked.
The ghost shrugged.
"Nothing." He sounded bitter; it was not a tone Ryou was used to from him. "He's escaped."
"The other..." He interrupted himself. "Atemu, you mean?"
The name was still strange to him, foreign, and the one who wore it almost as much. He hadn't been with his friends when they had found the name and defeated Zorc, except as the person who had created the battlefield for them.
"Of course." The spirit stretched and stood up; Ryou stared at him: he'd taken on his form, but he looked taller, straighter, more angular. Ryou had never been able to figure out if it was something he too could learn, if he could make his body appear like that, or if there was some kind of magic involved.
"He's... gone," he said slowly: he was dead. He supposed you could call it "escaping"; Yuugi and the others had seemed very convinced he had found a peaceful and fulfilling afterlife, reunited with all the friends he had finally remembered. He found it hard to be as confident: experiencing the supernatural only through unconsciousness could drain you of your faith in it. But the spirit seemed to believe it, too, or he wouldn't be so angry, and he had to know about these things. That made him think of something; he looked up. "And you can't..."
The spirit glared at him; at first, Ryou thought he had misunderstood his remark as mockery of his inability to move on, but instead he said:
"I don't exist for your comfort, host."
Ryou made another sudden step back, startled and guilty. Because he knew why, despite of telling himself he should be angry or scared, he only felt relief: he'd become so used to the spirit's presence, constant through all the changes and the losses, and hearing that he was and would remain tied to him, even against his will, was comfort – and what did thinking like that make him?
"You've wanted me to think of you that way," he accused.
The spirit shrugged.
"Yes. So? I didn't choose to need you. It worked in your favour, didn't it?"
"It was your fault I was isolated in the first place!"
"Was it?"
The spirit turned round to look at the grave before them. Ryou pressed his lips together: suddenly, retroactively, he felt it was horrible and disrespectful that the spirit had been sitting on the tombstone and walking over the grave.
"You know what I mean."
The spirit turned back to him.
"Everyone who was caught in a monster world game was freed and woke up after my defeat against the pharaoh, but you never went back to them. You never stopped living alone. You kept the ring instead."
Ryou bit his lips. There was nothing to say to that. He wasn't the one most at fault: the ring spirit was the one who started their relationship on that foot. But he'd gone along with it readily enough.
He wondered how close Yuugi and Atemu had been, and how Yuugi was dealing with it. Knowing someone who was always with you, could read your every thought and desire, and possessed such power and willingness to use it for you could ruin you for relationships, he was sure, even without the twisted one-sidedness and purposeful manipulation.
"That doesn't absolve you of what you did," he said.
The ring spirit snorted.
"I wasn't looking for absolution. Are you finished here?"
Ryou shook his head.
"I have a letter..." he murmured.
He half expected a nasty remark, but the ghost silently stepped aside, and patiently watched as Ryou approached the grave, took a piece of paper from a school-notebook out of a pocket, and after quickly having read it over, took out matches and burned the letter.
"She can't read them, you know," the spirit said only when the fire had died down.
"I know," Ryou murmured. "It helps to write them anyway."
The spirit pursed his lips, but it was hard to tell if he was laughing at him or not; then he stood straighter, said: "well, we can leave now," and walked past him and toward the exit; the further away he was, the less you noticed his transparency.
Ryou looked after him, glanced back at Amane's grave, and finally followed. It was going to be difficult not to fall back into old patterns, and there was no telling if the spirit was not still looking for ways to take revenge at least upon Yuugi, but still: with Atemu and the ring gone, maybe this could be a little better.
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