Mirror
The last thing that Ryou remembered was the dark unknown: a single question.
That inquiry took him to a place he had never thought I'd been. He had grown used to floating about his own subconscious when Bakura decided to take over his body. It was a peaceful emptiness that enveloped him, a place that was not taxing like the world outside; a world where he could sleep for all eternity if he wanted. He could walk—steps echoing in a black that could not have possibly been solid—through his childhood memories and reclaim the ones he'd lost, to remind himself of when things had been better. He was always asked why he allowed Bakura to take him over, why he succumbed to something that was so obvious strange and evil and otherworldly. Honestly, Ryou believed it to be fate. Who wouldn't take a chance to get away from their fears and doubts, to take revenge on those who threatened to chip away at his soul? Life was going to take it from him anyway—at least he'd had the chance to choose who it belonged to.
His connection to Bakura was something that he couldn't analyze. Bakura was always so guarded, and whenever he was in control Ryou was still aware of the spirit watching him, maintaining the darkness that had become his subconscious home. It was he that suppressed the surroundings of his mind to the point where everything was black, he who imposed the solace that Ryou had actually grown quite fond of. He could feel Bakura but not see him; he could sense, in a way, what was happening in the outside—knew that there was revenge and plotting going on, that only a handful of people knew that Bakura was him-but-not-him, that others actually thought he was the asshole that was plotting to take over the world. But he didn't mind. For all of the malice that Bakura held, for all of his plans and scheming, Ryou wasn't worried. Yuugi, and the Pharaoh, were there to stop him and they would always be. It was destiny, something that he felt deep down in his heart when the beat sounded like a soft bass from outside the walls of his prison. Even the Ring—which Bakura used but Ryou knew truly belonged to him and would answer if needed—was calm. It did not resist its current wielder because it knew just as Ryou did that at the end it would be returned to its resting place. Ryou believed that Bakura knew this as well, but he was trying as hard as possible to undo his own fate. He felt strongly about the issue of his world ending the way that it did, about the Pharaoh being the light that defeated the darkness formed of those who did not deserve to die. From the hum that their spirits made during the split second they met when control was exchanged, it was obvious that Bakura felt that he had been done a great injustice by Yami, but Ryou did not know what that was. His own yami would not tell him, nor had he expected him. There were times where, weak and weary from defeat, despite being captive he held Bakura in his arms and consoled him. He didn't want Bakura to succeed by any means but it was difficult for him to completely ignore the dull ache that pulsed against his own soul.
He could sense the passage of time. He knew generally how much time had gone by since he was last given control of his body—which was more often than he had been expecting at first. When Bakura first took him, Ryou was not given control for a long, long time, especially after helping Yuugi and friends reach their goals even while lacking a corporeal form. Ryou made it clear time and time again where his allegiances lie, and Bakura did not beat him for it or abuse him—they were opposite sides of a mirror, after all—and in the beginning they both appeared to be a reflection of the other. This was not true, of course, as they were linked by the soul and therefore more similar than they both wanted to admit, but it was a pensive thought, a deep thought that in his early days with Bakura made him think about himself, where he was and where he wanted to be. And he made his decision: he wanted to stay inside where it was safe. Outside of being used as a pawn for luring Yuugi, which only happened thrice, Bakura made sure to keep him safe.
Bakura knew everything about him, and Ryou knew nothing. It was this thought, one day while Bakura was spying on Yuugi and friends by posing as a traveling pedestrian, which had gotten him thinking about the possibility of asking Bakura a question. He hadn't spoken directly to Bakura unless spoken to for such a very long time—his thoughts were his words and his words were his thoughts in the world of black and therefore everything that happened was to himself. Bakura liked to play mind games sometimes, to entice and entertain conversations with him that went nowhere, that led to him taunting Ryou about how he would one day rule the world and he would be trapped there inside his mind forever. Bakura didn't seem to understand that even if that reality happened, he wouldn't have been upset in the least. Inside was safe. Amane was inside. His mother was inside, and so was his father, smiling and happy and not always swamped with work. His thoughts and memories were all of the company he needed.
But Bakura wasn't going to succeed. What would happen to Bakura when he was defeated once and for all? What would happen to Bakura when he was all alone, like Ryou, and he realized that he was not nearly as prepared to spend the next eternity by himself? What would Bakura have to comfort him, without his revenge on the Pharaoh. How would he live his life? Would he be locked away when he was defeated? What would Ryou do then? He'd have back an existence that he didn't want.
He knew nothing.
"…I wonder," he said, his lips visibly moving for the first time in months despite knowing that no one would see it. "…I wonder where Bakura goes when he is lost…?"
The light was blinding. His eyes didn't need to adjust but the reflex was there all the same, and he squinted until he realized that there was no need. His feet were on solid ground—stone, yellow as though it had been dyed. He could feel his yami's aura all over this space—breathing through the stones, although he could tell that the spirit was not present. He took a shaky step forward after looking around, and saw that he was alone in a hallway. He took another look around, knowing that if Bakura didn't show himself, it was a trap. He took another step. Why was he here? Was Bakura doing this on purpose? No. The whisper of Bakura's power didn't feel the same—for once, he wasn't being directly subjected to it. "…so what is this place?" He walked further, wondering where the hallway would leave. Ryou proceeded with caution, and anyone ought to do when they were dealing with Bakura. There was a noise behind him—a creak—and he turned. "Bakura?" Ryou asked desperately, hoping to be able to explain away that he'd had no control over being put here.
But there wasn't a spirit to greet him; only a door. It was large and wooden and old—somehow, he knew that it was as old as Bakura, or older. To his surprise, the Millennium Ring was the lock, shining and large, on the door. The Eye of Horus, had a hole in the center, shaped like a keyhole and Ryou knew that whatever the key was, he didn't have it. He padded himself down, momentarily forgetting that he couldn't have possibly had anything on his person—he was in his mind, in his own head and not in control of his body. He could imagine he had the key, but it wouldn't truly be what he was looking for. This was Bakura's world, the King of the realm of shadows and if anyone would have the key it would be him. Ryou stepped forward, the same feeling urging him forward as what had convinced him he would be safe with the scheming, conniving spirit that he was now bonded to. Perhaps he could see something through the keyhole. There was something important behind this door. It was as old as Bakura, so it had to be connected to him.
He reached out to touch it, and the Ring glowed. It felt warm and welcoming, like something he'd come up with; like the memories that he imitated. It was a comfort, just as it was the few times he'd been in control—the Ring would protect him. It always had. It was not truly Bakura's. He hugged the door, fingers tracing the lock, no longer concerned with what the door hid but with the fact that it was being locked by a familiar friend. He felt the door begin to move, the warmth spreading through his incorporeal form and somehow Ryou felt his skin becoming hot—
"Hmm…" he heard from behind him. Ryou started, and he whipped around just as quickly as he had the first time. He whimpered. Again, it was not Bakura who stood before him, but a card—a monster—spirit. The door seemed completely solid again as he leaned against it, the comforting glow and feel gone against his back.
"I—" he began, unsure of what excuse to make now that he was not dealing with Bakura. What was she doing here? He hadn't imagined her, had he? He closed his eyes for a moment, wishing her away; this was his mind—he could do what he pleased within his space. When he opened his eyes again, she was still there. She stared at him, her lips smiling in a cold expression of delight, as though she was hunting him. The scary things were her eyes—they were unyielding, and burned like fire in her sockets. Bakura didn't know what to do; he didn't even own this card, though he had seen it once or twice. "…Dark…Necrofear…?" he guessed, keeping eye contact, hoping that he would be able to see when she made a move for him. Unlike the image on the card, he noticed, she was not carrying her doll. Her hands were empty, and somehow that made things more intimidating. Was this Bakura's doing? He hadn't asked to be taken to this place—he hadn't done this on purpose. His breathing became faster and faster, and her eyes screamed at him: You don't belong here.
"Don't kill him." The words were as familiar and comforting as they were negligent and disconcerting, and Ryou knew at once that it was Bakura. The mirrored version of himself approached the two figures from within the darkness on the walls of the hallways, and Ryou knew that indeed he was in the thief's territory. The card backed down, Ryou's gazed focusing on her hairless head in an attempt to avoid looking at her eyes and to avoid looking at Bakura. He swallowed, knowing that although this wasn't real, his psyche was even more fragile than his body, and if Dark Necrofear had done anything to him he would have never been given control again. "What are you doing here, Ryou?" Bakura asked, standing near the woman whose face would haunt Ryou for days.
"I—I don't know. I don't know how I got here."
"Really?" Bakura appeared to be bemused, and he examined his nails nonchalantly. "There are not even a handful of ways to find yourself here, boy; how did you get here?"
"I'm not lying, Bakura, I don't—"
Bakura's smile vanished. "Thought you would try and pry into some of my secrets, eh? Thought you'd try to use them against me?"
What secrets? "What secrets?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
Ryou still wouldn't meet Bakura's eyes. "…I don't know how I got here. I—I was playing with Amane, and then…and then I was thinking and now I'm here. I don't know how I got here…" His voice was shaking.
Bakura tutted, looking up to the card next to him, running a hand over Dark Necrofear's chin as she stood vigilant. Those fiery eyes still stared at Ryou, looking as though she was waiting for him to try to escape so that she could devour him. "Do you like my guard? She's very efficient. I assure you that your body would be without a permanent soul had she'd gotten her claws on you. Would you like to try her?"
Ryou wished that he could be more confident, wanted to be more confident—this wasn't his fault. "You—you don't scare me!" Ryou said. "You won't kill me."
Bakura laughed. "I wouldn't?"
"No, you wouldn't. You need me." Ryou said, feeling as though his wishing paid off.
The ancient spirit moved so that he was standing in front of the card-woman, and her claws—blue on one hand, violet on the other—wrapped themselves around him. "The only one I need is her. You are but a pawn. You sit here and you cry for your sister, your mother; you pretend that they walk among the living to ignore the fact that you are closer to the dead than anything else in your mental prison, and you dare declare your worth to me? You are not the only person in history to be dealt unfair cards in a duel. You pitiful swine." Each word was like a blow, and Ryou looked down in time enough to avoid watching Bakura lean back to embrace the monster behind him. "I am not the Pharaoh," Bakura continued. "I don't need you to help me tell me where I am and who I was and where I need to go. I know who I am. You want to know what's behind that door? Me. I am of Kul Elna, you little shit, and don't you forget it. I am the Thief King." Ryou didn't understand what his mirrored self was trying to get at, and he said nothing. But when Bakura kissed Dark Necrofear again, he didn't look away—couldn't. "You are irritating. But I'll tolerate you. Your connections are somewhat valuable to me, as annoying as your whining is."
Ryou breathing was winding down now that he knew that his existence was no longer in danger—the card was under Bakura's power, and this reflection of himself was saying that he was weak. Things were slipping down into the usual pattern that Ryou was used to, even with this variable thrown in, and he would weather Bakura's harsh words because he knew that things would go back to normal after. He never wanted to come back to this place; never wanted to see the woman-monster again.
"Leave," Bakura ordered. "And don't come back. Like I said, you aren't the only one who's lost something. Your sister is gone—so is my village, and it's all the Pharaoh's fault. Do I complain? No. I get revenge. I have the power to do it—the will to do it. It's a wonder you've hung onto your sanity for this long, playing with the dead and loving those who don't feel the same for you. You can't count on anyone to do anything for you other than yourself, and when you count on others they always let you down. You make what you want." Ryou saw Bakura's hands clasp the claws holding his chest. "You make it your own and you claim it because you worked hard to make it. I will kill the Pharaoh by beating him at his own game, and then the world will be mine—you'll see. And then you will be no more."
Ryou's eyes flitted back and forth between creature and man—if Bakura could be called a man—and he wasn't sure how, but something clicked. There was something about this place—the wooden door with the Millennium Ring, the yellow stone blocks—that seemed to pulse and live on its own, seemed to wrap itself around the connection that Ryou had to Bakura and make it stronger. Ryou said, unsure if he felt as strongly as his words suggested, "I feel sorry for you, Bakura. I'm sorry you lost her."
Then—silence.
Ryou didn't know what Bakura was going to do or say, and before he could listen for a response, eyes looking elsewhere, his feet began to drag him across the floor, past Bakura and the woman-not-woman who held onto his mirrored half tightly. He continued down the hallway—he knew that Bakura wasn't facing him—and wanted to be back where he'd begun. He wished for it harder than anything he'd ever conjured in his mind since he'd been locked there for the very first time. He didn't open the door, but he now knew more about Yami Bakura than he'd ever wanted to know, something that seemed to work to justify his hatred against Yuugi, against Yami—against the Pharaoh—and he didn't want to feel sorry for him. Bakura didn't deserve to be pitied. He was going to lose his game. He was going to lose the pride that he'd had for whatever word it was that he'd said that Ryou couldn't repeat. He was going to lose Dark Necrofear. And he was going to lose that girl, whoever she was.
The scream that Ryou felt reverberate through his mind seemed to know that she would be lost, too.
Alrighty. This challenge was for the pairing of Yami Bakura x Dark Necrofear (dollshipping), and it incorporates the theme of Dollshipping in here at least a couple of ways that aren't explicitly explained.
STORY DYNAMICS DISCUSSION: This story was done with the help of a theory contemplated by a friend of mine, xanderpeacecraft, who has an account here at that I can't remember the URL of. I'll add it later. Anyway, the idea was: Well, if Yami can hide was little past he remembered from Yuugi, and make it so that Shaadi needed the key to enter, doesn't Bakura have the same thing? What is his chamber like? Notice that it's guarded by a monster just as Yami's memories were.
I expanded this idea a bit, especially since I am aware that Ryou is being mentally kept prisoner from the outside world by Bakura. There are a few other things at work here: the idea that in all respects, Bakura did steal the Millennium Ring from Ryou. To be honest, considering that we've got the whole "parallel spirit/reincarnation" thing going on between yami and hikari, it would make sense that in all respects the Ring would naturally go to Ryou. This corresponds a bit more to the anime rather than the manga, where Bakura takes control of Ryou via the Ring as opposed to tempting him to use the Ring for power and THEN take him over. I think that the difference is very significant.
Another issue is Ryou's own little pocket of power within the Millennium Ring-the idea that the Ring is what keeps Bakura from offing his spirit despite Bakura's threats that he'd do it anyway. It's a strange concept, that the spirits can only use the powers of the Items in this world because they are doing it through the bodies of their current possessors. This makes sense, though, and it explains not only why the yamis don't get rid of their counterparts and simply take over their bodies (in Marik's case, I guess it would be his evil alter-ego, lol.), but also why they can use the items freely in the AE game (in their own time, when they were indeed the rightful possessors of the items). It also makes up for the fact that even though Bakura steals the Millennium Eye from Pegasus he doesn't use it, and also that Bakura doesn't actually use the Ring in AE. I could be picky and question why Seto doesn't have the ring in this case, but I thin it's obvious that even if he did have it he'd probably donate it to a Museum.
In any case, enough with the canon-mongering. Bakura's got emotional problems in this story, too, although his are unstated and implied whereas Ryou's are made fairly obvious. They honestly are mirrored versions of each other, and Ryou uses that phrasing rather than "other half" or "other me" like Yuugi does, because I feel that he wouldn't want to claim that any part of him is like Bakura despite the similarities. Dark Necrofear is a stark manifestation of one of those issues. He taunts Ryou for imagining that he's alive and with his whole, completed family but does much the same thing on a more perverted scale and with much more fervor, using power as his justification for doing so. The card is not who Bakura wants it to be, but he controls it, and who doesn't enjoy a doll that they can make obey their every whim? Necrofear is another reflection between the two of them: two women, two lives, two tragedies, although they clearly have two beliefs about who is at fault and why.
STORY STRUCTURE DISSCUSION: I felt that I had to do this from Ryou's perspective, because it would have been obvious in an OOC way to have Bakura go through the thoughts explaining why things are the way that they are. He's just not that type. He thinks what he thinks and he's not very redundant. However, he has a connection with Ryou that allows him to understand more than he should, considering that they mentally share space, and I wanted to show that through the perspective. This is kind of depressing in terms of speech, but I didn't feel comfortable writing Bakura OOC for this story. I wanted to stick to what everyone knows him to be and work with that to make a realistic setting. Dark Necrofear is indeed in a relationship with Bakura, but with Ryou's commentary I wanted to drive to audience to think and wonder and figure out how and why, and who she could represent.
I hope that you enjoyed the story, and that it didn't make you think too hard... ^^;