A/N: an intro of sorts

This story actually requires a bit of an explanation. It started from a brainstorming session regarding apocalypse-based stories and what might happen if the Pharaoh were to lose in his final battle against Dark Bakura and how that could affect him and his friends. It also serves as a contrast between Atem's experience on Millennium World (which was focused primarily on the past and him personally) and the main squad. The story builds off of that and potential hosts for the other Millennium Items, using my own character analyses. Unlike a good number of my other ideas, this one uses implicitly only manga canon context.

Beside the focus on the five friends, there will be some pairings (colored from my personal preferences naturally), all of which be pretty slow burn to account for characterization.

Without further ado...

4:00 AM-

...

Ryou Bakura was out of the loop when he woke up. He remembered the sensation of that second soul-the malicious Spirit that had been the cause of so many blackouts-edging in on his consciousness, and there had been a struggle, a fight over possession of what rightfully belonged to him. But that other Bakura was relentless, and used the bottomless well of coldness in the Ring to seal him in darkness, from which he was only aware of what the Spirit wanted. He was playing a game, and like any game that played by hands Ryou lost control of, the lives of people he cared for rested in the balance.

Pushing against the walls of his subconscious prison afforded him impressions, snippets of knowledge that painted a vague picture of what was happening on the outside. A diorama of an ancient city sprawled before him, familiar to him, but Ryou only remembered the barest snatches of his hands putting the pieces together. Yugi–the Pharaoh, he amended–was sitting across from him, teeth grit in anger and determination. Muffled words slipped across the mental barrier, but they made little sense, and he was still trying to find out where the rest of his friends were.

Fading in and out of blackness as the Spirit kept angrily smothering him again and again, Ryou still managed to catch a sight that made his stomach turn in knots of confusion and shock. Sharp, violet eyes widened in despair, and the demon's vicious laugh spilled from Ryou's lips as the spiky-haired figure choked and hunched over in his chair, the Millennium Puzzle strung above releasing a dull glow. He caught a blurry sight of pounding feet and heard a shout of alarm, before the form of the indomitable gamer twisted and vanished into nothingness.

The blackness returned for a some time, and then there was a wave of pain greater than anything he'd felt before, almost like someone was shearing him in half. Between that there were dreams, and distorted howls of pain that belonged to someone other than himself, but he couldn't decide whether they were real screams or just imagined by his wandering mind. But when the sensation passed, the next time when Ryou woke up for real, he felt like a drowning man who'd been pulled to the surface. Coughing and sputtering as he waiting for the spinning in his head to fade, he still felt the euphoric realization that he was truly alone in his own mind. Nothing exerted its influence on him, and Ryou momentarily celebrated before the implications hit him.
The Spirit simply wasn't there.

So where was he?

Sitting up onto his knees, the young man found himself in a dark, concrete room furnished with nothing but a cot and toilet, musty and closed in by metal bars. It was mirrored by an identical cell across the hall, markedly similar to a row of cells from what he'd think to find in a jail. 'Maybe that's where I am,' Ryou considered, but he couldn't think of a reason why he'd be there, unless the "other Bakura" thought it would be amusing to frame him for murder.
Speaking of…

Ryou hand traveled down, tracing the golden Ring still hanging freely around his neck, shiny, metal…and empty. He could still feel power from it, but the awareness that never faded since the first day he'd heard the Spirit after meeting Yugi so long ago was gone. He shook it experimentally, the prongs clattering against each other with a warm chime.

…Still nothing.

But if Ryou's unwanted tenant wasn't in the Ring, and what he'd seen before slipping into unconsciousness was true, then he must be out somewhere causing more horrors. Something had to be done…no, he had to do something. And Ryou suspected the key to doing so was the Ring around his neck.

He laid the Item flat in his palm and tried to concentrate on the sense of power he'd felt before. Yugi told him once he could control the Puzzle when he needed it, tapping into its abilities to shift control of his body or enter the Puzzle itself. Ryou didn't care if it was just instinct or not, but he pressed his fingers into the Millennium Ring and asked it to help him. 'I want to leave.' He wasn't sure if a few seconds or a few minutes had passed before one of the prongs trembled and rose from its prone position to point resolutely at the lock sealing the door before him.

Unsure, but curious as to its purpose, Ryou rose to his feet carefully, pausing to loosen out the kinks in his numb legs. Stepping over to the door, he passed the hand holding the Ring through the bars and pressed the tip of the pointing prong into the keyhole, willing it to do something to help.

Slowly, the golden tip wiggled back and forth, prodding into the walls of the lock with the light clinking noises of metal on metal. Ryou wasn't sure if the protrusion was the right size or shape to pick the lock correctly, and it wasn't as though he made of habit of any kind of lock-picking in the first place. But before he could doubt any more, an audible crack sounded from the lock and he pulled the Ring away reflexively. He let go of the Item to pull at one of the bars, and found the door sliding open under his touch. The Ring might have broken the lock completely for that kind of reaction.

Regardless the door was open now, and the Ring came to life again, pointing leftward down the hall of cells. Clutching it close, Ryou stepped through the bars and slid them shut quietly behind him, following the steady guidance of his Millennium Item, which wavered and dipped every now and then but otherwise did not alter its course.

But as he walked, Ryou began to see other people in some of the cells. Some were asleep and others didn't seem to notice him pass, while a few looked right through him as though the boy wasn't there at all. It was a disquieting feeling and he wondered whether they'd even react at all if he called out. Not only that, but all the lights were either dimmed or smashed out completely; here and there he spotted rubble and what looked to be scorch marks discoloring the walls. The air was stale and uncomfortably chilly, making him somewhat thankful for the black coat that flapped around his knees. Something was very wrong with this place.

Plus, he hadn't yet heard or seen a single guard.
Shouldn't they be patrolling the cells?

When the young man came to a crossroads–an ID checkpoint of some sort–the Ring continued pointing onward, but the moment he took another step, it glowed and shifted directions to the right instead, stiff and unwavering. Ryou shifted, staring at the Ring in confusion; that definitely wasn't the way out, and he could tell by the checkpoint alone. He'd assumed it was leading him out, and that was what Ryou had asked it to do, but the Item apparently had other ideas. The smarter thing to do would be to leave, but there was something the Ring wanted him to find here and he was too curious not to pursue it.

It was good that he made up his mind when he did, for he could hear a growling noise from the direction he'd come from, too coarse and monstrous to be human.

Ryou didn't waste any time, picking up his pace until he came to another set of barred doors and a sign hanging above reading 'Solitary Confinement.' Something about this section made him uncomfortable, whether it was just the atmosphere, the unpleasant smell lingering in the air, or something else entirely.
Whatever it was, he raised the Ring to the lock just as before, and the searching prong seemed to move faster now. Either Ryou was beginning to get the hang of this, or the Item was becoming more insistent as it drew closer to its goal. Another similar crack and Ryou moved on.

Another line of cells faced him then, over a dozen, spaced further apart and sealed with simple metal doors instead of bars. One of them was ajar, and Ryou pushed it further open to reveal a room no better off than the one he'd woken up in. But it was...smaller, colder, and windowless. Ryou shuddered without realizing it and stepped away.

But he allowed himself to be lead further down the hall to the door that the Ring was so fixated on. It didn't look any different from the others, but Ryou's need to find out what the Item was drawn to overrode his lingering sense of concern.
The final cell was, naturally, locked shut. But Ryou pulled up the Ring again and willed it to 'open,' hoping that this was the last time he'd have to do this. When the familiar crack sounded from the lock, he thought he heard movement from the other side of the barrier, but ignored his misgivings and opened the door anyway.

As dim as the hallway was, light flooded into the cell, and Ryou recognized the figure inside almost instantly in spite of everything. "Honda-kun!" Hiroto Honda had his head down and arms crossed, slumped against the wall messily, but when Ryou stepped into the cell, recognition flooded across his face.
Ryou, for his part, was shocked to take in his condition. The other boy's clothes were more worn than he remembered and the uniform jacket was missing entirely, and he stank of soot; had he been in a fire? But most notable was the mass of bandages covering about half of his face, the oddly-angled wrapping and clump of unused leftovers left at his feet implying Honda had done so by himself.

"Bakura? You were able to get out? No, forget that, you finally woke up?" His voice was hoarse and quiet, lines of exhaustion etched across his face. What happened to him?

"Yes…how did you know I was asleep?" Ryou subtly traced his hand across the surface of the Ring, noting that the center prong was pointing directly at his friend.
Why…

Honda clenched his fists tightly, "It was 'him,' that demon. The one that used to be in that Ring," and also the one who locked them both up in this jail. Honda didn't actually say it out loud, but the implication was obvious, but it didn't explain what had happened to everyone else. Or why Honda was locked up deep in solitary while Ryou was dumped on the other side of the building in a relatively ordinary cell.
Somehow that seemed significant, but Ryou couldn't think of why. At least, not enough to want to bring it up quite yet.

"Where's Yugi-kun and the others? I remember playing–seeing him play–some kind of game with the Pharaoh, but I didn't see anyone else. Are they also somewhere in this place? And…" His voice trailed off, thinking of the stale air, the empty-eyed inmates and the tiredness that was so present in the gaze of his friend. "And…how long has it been since then?"

Honda's face tightened into a pained grimace and looked away. "No, they're not here. And hopefully, they're miles away, where 'he' can't find them." He sighed and leaned back against the wall, "I played decoy so Yugi could escape with the Puzzle, but it…didn't really go the way I planned. Things got…complicated after that game. I can give you the short version of the story now, but I'd rather get out of this place first, before that he comes back. As for time, I'm…not sure how long its been since then, its hard to measure time in this place. But, if I had to guess from when I get brought food down here…probably about two weeks, maybe more."

Ryou grew still as the shock set in. Two weeks?!

That's how long he'd been asleep? Now he knew they had to get out, as soon as possible. But something was still bothering him. And he had to confirm it before they went anywhere.
"I hadn't realized so much time had passed. But I'm getting out of here, and you're coming with me." Honda nodded and pressed his hands against his knees to rise to his feet, but didn't get far before Ryou was prodding at the bandages on his face. The taller boy backed away, but it wasn't as though he had much room to move in the small cell. "Please hold still, I need to take a look at your wound–"

"Its not necessary! Besides, its gross anyway, you wouldn't want to see it," Honda said it sharply, and Ryou suspected he was grasping at straws, because it felt too much like a lie. And Honda was a terrible liar. The bandages were loose, dry, and not even slightly discolored, which meant nothing was bleeding. Honda probably could have pushed him off easily, but he didn't make much of a move beyond freezing in place with another insistence that he shouldn't see it.

"Honda-kun, you should know that's not going to stop me, don't you…" He trailed off as the bandages fell off in his hands, catching a brief glance at the uncovered eye before Honda quickly brought up his hand to shield it. Or rather, where his other eye should have been.

He laughed weakly, looking resolutely in the other direction, "I told you it was gross, didn't I?"

Ryou didn't immediately reply, now very much aware of why his Ring had so determinedly led him here. Where a brown iris should have been was a much colder Eye, made of shiny gold.

The Millennium Eye.