Note: Set perhaps a bit before Battle City, perhaps a little after.
Even when they were out with all their friends, Yuugi would sometimes go quiet and distant. He was doing it again now, stirring his vanilla milkshake with the straw without remembering to take a single sip from it. He leaned on the restaurant table with his chin in his hand and looked fondly at something that wasn't there.
"What are you looking at?" Bakura asked.
Yuugi started, blinked at him, then laughed, embarrassed. "Sorry, I guess I wasn't paying attention. What were you saying?"
"Nothing. Just thought you saw something interesting."
Yuugi, Bakura was sure, had a spirit that appeared to him. He'd often seen the way Yuugi followed something no one else could see with his eyes, usually with a smile.
Bakura had nothing to see, but he had a voice: half delirious, in love with itself, and more vocal these days than ever been before.
The Voice spoke of the past, in details of mud and blood - plagues seen from the point of view of one who'd died from them, screaming lords and ladies that were remembered from the handle-end of a knife.
"History - me and my dead self have seen so much of it. Don't you think your father would love to hear me, Host?
"It was his stupid mistake to send the Ring away. My luck. My goal wouldn't be as easy to accomplish with him, I'm sure."
The Voice spoke of magic, in stones, in cards, in willpower, everywhere. When it spoke of that and Bakura listened attentively, he sometimes managed to make sparks trail from his fingertips. It made him laugh out loud with joy. He'd always believed in magic, and now he knew it was real.
"Blood would help you do more than that. Blood - would you make it your sacrifice or someone else's? Do you think I could make you choose?"
There were ghosts that the Voice spoke to at times. It made Bakura wish it was time for the Obon festival, because there were ghosts that he would dearly love to speak to, and now that the Voice was with him he might be able to.
"You need to think of them less. Little Amane would be scared of you, with your mind so wrapped up in one thing."
Sometimes he was tired when he woke up. He thought that the Voice probably whispered into his ears at night.
"Are you crazy yet, Host? Are you mine to use?"
"Hey, Bakura!" said Jounouchi, waving a hand in front of his face. "What are you spacing out about?"
Bakura laughed, embarrassed, and pointed up at the speakers set in the wall above their heads, quietly playing the radio. "Just trying to figure out what that song is they're playing. Sorry."