Left was a note on Bakura's door where he couldn't have missed it.

I don't even fucking /know/ why I bothered being who I was before. That's a joke. A fucking child, who was never taken seriously. Someone who took all that shit from you. I love you, so why the fuck should I deal with that nonsense. You are someone who needs to be strong but respective of /me/.

Though now you seem to be even less respective than ever. Did you really prefer to be around that /brat/ that was me? Bakura, you're not that soft, and now it's up to me to keep you in check. I wasn't anyone good before. My life was a /lie/. Do you really want to be in love with someone who lies about who they are? Bull crap. You like realism right? I changed for the /better/.

When you look at me that way, it such /real/ distaste, it /hurts/ you know. It hurts that you don't' love who I am now. Maybe your love for me, /and/ Kuri as a whole isn't real. I should have known nobody would love me for who I was. Bastard.

When I lost my purpose? You didn't give a shit, did you? No. You only cared that I wasn't going to die. Not the reason. You're pathetic. I would have thought you'd be able to separate your love and hate. But you mesh it into something indistinguishable, and you can only love the 'fake', 'pathetic', 'girly' version of me. That's bull crap.

For a while I'm leaving. I hope when I get back you'll have come to your senses or /die/ so I don't have to feel like this, Bakura.

-The better Marik

Bakura grabbed the note off the door with shaking hands, reading it once, twice. Nothing really registering.

Yes.. he loved Marik. He loved him so much. HE hated the.. new one because of who he was, and who he took... but he didn't really want him to leave. He still /needed/ him, if only for the memories he brought, the body he still shared. He was still Marik. His Marik. Regardless of who he was now.. and he loved him. He needed him. And now he was leaving him.

These thoughts circled his mind, just repeating and.. sinking in.

It /hurt/. It hurt so much. This is what he had been trying to avoid. This is the pain he was so afraid of, why he prevented himself from growing close to people. Because it hurt to lose them. Because heartbreak is the worst pain one can experience. He knew this would happen.

Marik was gone, and he had no more reason to keep on living.

The emotional pain was unbelievable.

Bakura stood with the letter in his hands, staring at it. Not really reading the words; not registering what it said for a while, hands shaking slightly. Marik had left. Twice... and both were his fault. His /stupid/ fault. He'd created this Yami.. it was his fault he'd changed. His fault that he'd taken over, turned into someone else. And now, the shell of who he'd been had left, too.

All his fault. Everything bad that happened to Marik was /his/ fault. Of course. He was Bakura. What good had ever come out of him? He was never good with emotions. Hell, he'd /avoided/ them, for the longest time. He was /afraid/ of them, of the hurt they always caused. Of the hurt they were causing now. He'd become horribly attached to Marik.. he couldn't live without him. He was his center. And now he had nothing else to live for.

Hewould have ended his life right then. Jumped off a building, shot himself in the head. But he couldn't. He cared about Ryou now. He couldn't kill himself, because that would kill him.

.. he had to end ths pain somehow, however. What could he do? Anything he did would hurt. Nothing he did would end this.

He wanted Marik back so badly. He would even take back the Yami. Anything. But he knew it wouldn't happen. He wasn't naive enough to think that /his/ Marik would ever come back. He'd changed him into something else.

He would never see him again. He wouldn't hear his annoying laugh, his irritating demands for him to take off his shirt. He would never bicker or insult him again. He was gone. Gone forever. As this sunk in, Bakura just wanted to.. scream. He wanted to hurt himself, to get rid of this feeling, like his heart was being ripped out of his chest. He wanted to freak out. He hated it. He hated this.. lack of control.

Bakura let out a dark chuckle, crumpling the letter and tossing it behind him, as if he didn't care. He kept his face carefully blank, even though there was no one around to see him. He knew what he was going to do. It was the only solution.

The Ring. He had to go back into it. Although it didn't provide a blcok to his emotions, it certainly dulled them. And he wouldn't have to tolerate any more reasons to feel pain. He could stay in the Ring for however long it took. He could forget. Time could erase all wounds, and he could go back to being cold and unfeeling. He could forget about everyone he cared about. He had done it once... he could do it again. He could rebuild his ice walls and go back to being how he once was.

It would be better. He had learned the hard way why he shouldn't care about people. Again. And he would never do it again.

He headed up to his room, headed to where the Ring sat on the shelf. He carressed it's cool surface, running his finger over the familiar shape. As much as he hated it in the thing, it was his home. His real home. The only place where people could leave him alone. He hung it around his neck, still holding it as if it was a small child, a delicate flower. The most precious thing he had, now. His saviour. His escape.

He left the dark room, grabbing the balled up peice of paper that the note had been on and a pen. He wrote this on the opposite side.

'Ryou.

I've sealed myself in the Ring. Marik is gone and I have nothing else. I no longer have the will to exist. Don't try and contact me. Throw the Ring away.

Forgive me.

-Bakura.'

With that done, scrawled in his messy handwriting, Bakura left the note on the coffee table, where Ryou would see it when he woke up. He placed both hands on the Ring, letting it take him..

The familiar nothingness was as comforting as it was horrifying.

And in this nothingness, Bakura cried for the first time in thousands of years.

But he had to. For Ryou.