Summary: "The only thing inevitable about life is constant change. People change, the world changes; a solitary action can define a lifetime. Without warning everything you know, or thought you knew, can be altered so completely, so irreversibly in one single, breathtaking moment. It is simply the reactions to change that those of us mere mortals can do anything about."

Three years after Memory World, the Spirits have been returned to the modern world with no idea how or why they are there. After a year of unsuccessful attempts at redemption, Bakura is greeted with a chance to be forgiven in the eyes of his former host in the most unexpected of ways. A young girl who Ryou had long thought was dead returns, and as a result, forces interaction between the two opposites. Can Amane's influence lead her brother to forgive his opposite? Or will Bakura be destined for a life of modern loneliness, cut off from his only tie to the world he's been returned to? Minor hints at tendershipping (but only if you look for them). Rated for language and mentions of violence.

Disclaimer: Nothing here is in any way written for profit on the part of the author. Simply enjoyment. I claim no ownership of Yu-Gi-Oh, its characters, or its plot line. I only own my idea.

Chapter Playlist (for those interested):

1. Please be Patient with Me - Wilco
2. Long Division - Death Cab for Cutie
3. Hourglass - The Hush Sound
4. Poor Places - Wilco
5. Either Way - Wilco

Chapter One

It was raining. No, not just raining. Rain did not adequately capture the pure evil of the freezing water droplets plummeting from the sky to crash painfully onto the head of one Bakura Touzukuo. It needed a newer, more offensive name... but he wasn't feeling particularly creative anyways. Bakura felt himself scowling as he thought over this idiotic rain. It happened too much here in Domino City for his taste. When he was a child rain was a blessing. It came so rarely in the desert that everyone had the opportunity to thoroughly enjoy an unexpected downpour. But here? Bakura had become far too familiar with this horrid phenomenon that was rain.

Bakura's life was so drastically different now, and rain seemed to be the unfortunate symbol of these changes. He had his own body, for starters. It had happened about a year ago, though the details were fuzzy at best. Last thing that Bakura could recall was that bastard Pharaoh (Atemu was it now?) destroying him along with Zorc (he had sort of been Zorc at the time, in truth)... and then nothing until the day he awoke to find himself face down in the grass of a children's play park, wearing the last modern outfit he'd donned with a screaming headache. Head swimming, Bakura had attempted to make sense of things, but only succeeded in watching the hazy image of a young man with honestly absurd tri-colored hair sprint out of the park (it had taken his aching head a full minute to comprehend that the strange teen was probably the returned Pharaoh). Bakura had not felt like sprinting after him, he recalled; in fact, he had been fairly certain that the headache he'd been suffering was his eternal punishment for his crimes. Eventually recovering from the horrors of his aching head, he'd succeeded in acquiring the date -exactly three years since his trip to Egypt in his former host's body. He had no explanation for how he'd gotten there.

That had been a year ago. Bakura still had no idea as to how or why he was back on Earth, but he had been subjected to all sorts of earthly annoyances in the present day. Gone were the days of Bakura's dulled senses due to Zorc's influence. Instead, he'd been slowly but surely rediscovering the pieces of humanity he'd missed out on while controlling the body of his former host. Such as navigating the strange foods that modern people subjected themselves to, and the cursed rain. But worst of all, without a demonic spirit inhabiting the better portion of his soul, Bakura had been unfortunately reintroduced to the broad spectrum of human emotion. This he found exceptionally irritating, as now he would find himself constantly bombarded with all of these meddlesome feelings...
In the past year, Bakura had changed, though you'd never get him to admit it. It wasn't drastic by any means, but it was there. Under the guidance of Malik, Bakura had grown bit by bit into what could be considered conventionally human. He was no longer so cold and callous... not that many people dared to get close enough to debate this statement. Hell, he'd even tried to make up for some of his past wrong-doings. He'd apologized - actually apologized- to his hikari for his behavior as an inhabitant of both the Millennium Ring and the boy's mind. However, Mutou and his disciples were not nearly as forgiving as the rest of the world made them out to be, and he was avoided by the group like a plague. Ryou had followed their example without question. So, he was generally avoided by the only people he knew of in the modern world. Well, by all except Malik, who would contact him from time to time due to their history during Battle City and was never unfriendly to Bakura. Something about him deserving a second chance or some other bullshit of that nature.

Fuck, where was he? Being easily distracted was another consequence of his new found humanity.
Oh yes... Bakura had tried his best to right his wrongs, but when all was said and done, the boy had asked him to -well, more like demanded- that Bakura leave him alone. So, he had. Or at the very least Bakura had tried to avoid his hikari... running into him from time to time was unfortunately unavoidable. Bakura scowled. Ra, he needed to quit calling him that. Hikari. The boy wasn't his light anymore; he wasn't his anything anymore for that matter. Just a figure from his past that refused to be anyway involved in his future. Yet Bakura could not seem to break himself of the habit of calling Ryou (ha! There, he'd said it!) 'his hikari.'
At any rate, despite the history of the past year, Bakura was walking through the slick, rain soaked streets of Domino City. It was an unseasonably cold day, and the rain was coming down in torrents, freezing water soaking him despite his precautionary outerwear -his characteristic black trench coat. Bakura scowled deeper. He really hated the rain. Especially on days like these, where it made the outdoors entirely unbearable. And when the outdoors were a hostile place where you could find yourself struck down by a bolt of lightning, it forced Bakura to retire to the indoors. Which, to be frank, he was beginning to hate even more than the rain. Because for Bakura, indoors in modern Domino meant his one bedroom closet of an apartment, which other than the ancient spirit who haunted through it, was barren of all human influence. He frowned now. The rain was not letting up anytime soon, which had sealed his fate. Off to the the apartment that he could not bring himself to call home it was.

So, there Bakura was, trudging back to his far from homey apartment from his pathetic job -he laughed as he pictured the reaction of the Pharaoh and Pals finding out he actually had a job- at a call center for a company he didn't care about, making intentionally irritating phone calls to people he really didn't care about. And his night would likely prove uneventful as he paced his cramped living space, refusing to admit to himself that he was actually praying to every deity he'd ever heard of for his phone to ring in the form of a distraction, no matter how mundane.
Now, that was pathetic. Bakura stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket, bowing his head as the wind picked up and threw more freezing water droplets at his unprotected head painfully. The rain seemed hell bent on invading the few parts of his body that remained dry, robbing him of what little warmth he had.
Heh. Robbing the former King of Thieves... laughable. But Bakura's smile faded as the word "former" rang through his mind. Ra, he was so disgustingly pathetic these days. Since he'd returned to the mortal world last year, petty acts of thievery had lost their appeal to him. His faced morphed into a frown when he recalled Malik's insistence that Bakura had only given up stealing in the hope to somehow prove to Ryou that he'd changed. But the former -he flinched, Ra he was pathetic- thief had denied this completely, refusing to admit that there was any truth in that because damn it he was not that pathetic.

It had not occurred to Bakura that he was not paying attention to where he was walking, until a white-haired someone crashed headlong into him and knocked him out of his musings. His arms instinctively -he was unaware that he even had that instinct anymore- steadied this person. Looking down at them, Bakura felt his mouth drop open in surprise. But before he could confirm that it even was his hikar- Damn it, no- that it was Ryou, they had torn off in the opposite direction. Feeling exceptionally frustrated, and somewhat annoyed that whoever they were, Ryou or not, hadn't bothered to acknowledge that they'd slammed into him, Bakura made a split second decision and ran off after this person. He heard himself shout, "Hey!" but did not allow any other words to pass his lips, as he didn't want to chase this person off if it really was his hikar- Fuck- if it was Ryou.

Potentially-Ryou had sprinted into an alleyway just off of the main pedestrian path. Skidding to a stop as he rounded the corner, Bakura halted as he took in the sight of the alley. It was devoid of all life, unless the unseen vermin milling about counted. Bewildered, the former spirit of the Millennium Ring whipped his head around, searching the alley for any signs of movement. Where the hell was he? As if to provide an answer to his question, Bakura's attention was drawn to the soft whoosh of rushing air as someone jumped from a height above him. But before he even had a chance to turn his head, Bakura felt a pair of surprisingly strong hands on him, one grabbing onto a chunk on his hair and forcing his face up, the other firmly pressing the cold steel of the edge of a knife into the flesh of his exposed neck. Not enough to break the skin, but enough to keep him still enough to prevent that. He inhaled sharply.

There was silence for a moment, broken suddenly by a single name piercing the air, a question to linger with the mist lingering around the pair in the alley: "Ryou?"
And an instant later, twin answers: "No."
His captor, whoever they were, made no move to release Bakura. "Who the hell are you?" growled the voice of his unnamed attacker. While undeniably a threatening voice, Bakura was far more interested in the fact that it was unquestionably female. And not only that, but it was also laced with an achingly familiar accent. This registered someplace in his memory, but he had no real time to linger over it because the girl yanked on his hair harder. "Who the hell are you, and why did you chase after me?"

Feeling bold, or perhaps suicidal (he didn't allow himself to actually give that thought much validity; now that would be pathetic), Bakura countered with a question of his own: "Why the hell did you run?"

The girl snarled, and Bakura forced down the urge to laugh. Whoever she was, that kind of feral noise did not suit her in the least. Another yank of the hair, knife pressing harder into his neck (Bakura noted that the blade had now officially sunk into his skin ever so slightly; he could smell the irony tang of his blood hitting the air), "Who the fuck are you?"

"Touzukuo..." He managed, finding it surprisingly more difficult than he would have initially thought to speak when somebody was constricting your airflow with a sharp metal object. He breathed through his nose, before amending his statement. "Bakura Touzukuo."

As if his name was the key to releasing him from her vice grip, the knife and hand were immediately removed. He stepped away her, giving himself a moment to compose himself and inspect the damage to his throat. Confirming that it was nothing more than a shallow cut, Bakura turned around to face the girl. For a second time he felt his mouth drop open. He could understand how from a distance he'd confused the girl for his hikari-no, damn it, no- for Ryou. She had the same pure white hair, worn long just like his. Her eyes were just as wide as Ryou's; doe-like, all full of innocence and compassion and other Ryou-like emotions and characteristics. But upon closer inspection, she was obviously not Ryou. Firstly, she was female. And as much shit as Bakura had given his-no! not hikari- had given Ryou about his feminine looks, this girl made it apparent that her male counterpart was certainly...male. Not to mention that she had a stud in her nose, which was something he suspected Ryou would have paled at the thought of doing. She wore tight fitting jeans, with a hole in one of the knees. Basic black sneakers. A black t-shirt, low-cut enough to confirm her gender. She wore a fitted leather jacket over her ensemble, and from her deceivingly delicate-looking fingers dangled what appeared to be a switchblade.

"And you would be?" Bakura found himself asking, though he felt that he somehow already knew the answer. There was something tugging at the back of his memory, indistinct but definitely there.
The girl's eyes flashed, and she answered so quietly that if Bakura hadn't already suspected the answer he might not have thought he heard her correctly. "Amane. Amane Bakura."

"Fuck," Bakura breathed.