Title: Loaded Bones
Rating: SFW (abuse, the weird consent issues you get with body hijacking)
Wordcount: 7,855
Summary: After Battle City, Bakura reclaims the Millennium Ring and finds himself unexpectedly in control of the evil spirit inside it. What follows is a long, strange week of Monster World, mind games, memory gaps, and terrible mistakes.
Fool
[Friday]
When Bakura woke, he found the spirit manifested on the foot of his bed like a cat waiting for breakfast. "Good morning, host," it said with unnerving cheer.
He squinted at his alarm clock, which was still dark, then at the spirit. Outside, something squawked eerily. "What's particularly good about it?"
"It's your birthday, isn't it? Obviously I'm in no position to give you a present―" it said this with less resentment than he expected― "but perhaps I can offer you something to take the edge off your boredom."
He yanked his blanket defensively up to his chin. "Don't you dare tell me what I dreamt about."
"Wasn't planning to do. It's your birthday. What do you want?"
Bakura tried to convince himself that it was fortunate his father hadn't visited, after all, and found that he couldn't begin to process his feelings before tea. "I really don't want anything."
"You always want things. You're a miserable little fount of yearning."
"From you, I meant." Ignoring the spirit's miffed noise, he rolled out of bed and set himself on a course for the kitchen.
As he took stock of his breakfast options, Injection Fairy Lily flew floated past the window and waved, her syringe sparkling in the morning sun. Bakura waved uncertainly back and put the kettle on.
"I see your manners are selective today," the spirit remarked. He ignored it in favor of grilling bread in the oven.
The spirit followed him through the process of arranging his toast on a plate, brewing his tea, and settling in at the kitchen table with a soft stick of butter and a jar of Marmite. It sat opposite him on a non-existent chair, elbows intersecting the table.
Bakura got through buttering the toast before feeling compelled to ask, "What do you think I want from you?"
"My companionship on your terms, of course. Don't try to deny it; I know you've got at least a shred of self-awareness." The spirit smiled crookedly. "That's why I thought we might work on a new campaign together."
He stilled with his knife above the jar. "What are you scheming?"
"I'm bored, host. I've been shut up in your head for a week without so much as a chance to stretch my legs. An impartial observer might call that cruel."
"Only if you leave out the bit where you lied to me and tried to take over my body." Scraping the Marmite over his toast, he added, "And you're evil."
The spirit rolled its eyes and returned to watching him in intent silence. Bakura decided his breakfast was best enjoyed while gazing out the window, where a flock of Happy Lovers was cheerfully terrorizing a sparrow.
"Do you know," the spirit said, apropos of nothing, "the first interesting thing you ever did?"
Bakura swallowed a mouthful of toast. "I'm not inclined to trust your judgment."
"You were so new that I was still getting used to the fit of you," it continued as if he hadn't said anything. "Your father rang to ask how you liked your present, and you didn't breathe a word of how troubled you were by lost time. You weren't so dense that you hadn't noticed; I was poised to seal your lips. Yet you considered it your secret to keep." With a low chuckle, the spirit added, "And then you wrote it all down and addressed it to your dead sister."
Holding his mug steady at his lips, Bakura tried not to think about the drawer filled with unsendable letters. "That's it?"
"I thought, 'Delightfully morbid little tosser, isn't he?'" The spirit paused. "Actually, I thought, 'Golly, he's queer.' Your vocabulary was lacking."
"You make me sound like something out of an Enid Blyton book."
"You do a fine job of that on your own." The spirit got in the way of the glass. "My point is that you proved yourself the vessel I was due."
He choked on a sip of a tea. "Is that your idea of a compliment?"
"Nothing so frivolous. If you want flattery for your birthday, you'll have to ask for it."
With a huff, Bakura tucked back into his toast. He finished it and his tea before saying, "You know what I do want? Cake."
The spirit drifted behind him as he set about washing up. "Go on dreaming big, host," it drawled. "Reach for the bloody sugarplum stars."
"Hush up."
Nothing perishable in the fridge could be relied upon, but if mayonnaise could substitute for eggs in a pinch, Bakura reasoned that salad cream could do just as well. He had used up most of the flour during his baking spree, but there was enough left for half a batch of fairy cakes. Hot chocolate mix stood in roughly for cocoa powder. With minimal creativity, he had batter. To his pleasant surprise, he also had a few paper cases left.
He had put the pan in the oven and set the timer before it occurred to him that the spirit had been quiet for rather a long while. When he crossed the living room to his bookshelves, it manifested on the sofa and watched him idly. He kept it in the corner of his eye as he retrieved his box of Duel Monsters cards. The deck he'd built before Duelist Kingdom remained where he'd left it, untouched, when he'd decided to build a new deck untainted by the memory of the spirit.
Of course, the spirit hadn't wasted any time tainting that one, too. Bakura sat on the end of the sofa opposite the spirit and began setting out the cards on the coffee table in order of Arcana. White Magic Hat was conveniently near the top; he had to go hunting for the Lady of Faith.
When the spirit shifted closer to watch, he said, "I based this deck on the tarot."
"I know. The Morphing Jar was a clever choice for Death." As Bakura braced himself for a comment about feeding people to it, the spirit added, "The Arcana dress up the trauma of change in death's clothing, to create the illusion that conquering the fear of the unknown is the same as taming the darkness. Amusing, isn't it, how mortals grasp at mastery through metaphors?"
This was too philosophical for so early in the morning, particularly considering the source, so Bakura ignored it. When one of the deck's Morphing Jars came up, he set it in what would become the second row. Chain Energy as Temperance went after it, followed by the Seven-Armed Fiend.
Tutting, the spirit tapped a finger through it. "Your Devil's too on the nose."
That the card had come packaged with the Ring initially meant nothing sinister to Bakura; later, it became one more reason to shut the entire deck up in a box. Deciding he didn't actually want to know if the card and the spirit shared any deeper connection, he replied, "It's a fair cop," replaced the card with Pot of Greed, and returned to searching the deck for the rest of the Arcana.
Happy Lover and Yomi Ship slotted next to each other into the first row of cards. Leaving a space for Justice, he set Electric Lizard as the Hermit, followed by Change of Heart.
Wheel of Fortune had seemed a perfect fit for it, once upon a time; now he was half-tempted to make it the Hanged Man and see if the spirit made a crack about the illustration traditionally being styled after a traitor's portrait. After confirming that he had a Graceful Dice card to substitute, he slid Change of Heart to the left of the Morphing Jar.
The spirit watched and slanted its eyebrows. "You sell yourself short, host. Budge it over to Strength."
Bakura stared at it. When it only stared back inscrutably, he pinched Change of Heart between his fingers and set it down to the left of White Magic Hat, at the edge of the table.
There were no barbs in the spirit's laugh. "Mind the cliff, then, since there's no little Rider-Waite dog in the artwork to look after you."
He collapsed the cards fanned out in his hand. "You're very nearly behaving yourself," he remarked, unable to keep the suspicion out of his tone.
The spirit shrugged expansively. "My companionship on your terms. It is your birthday."
A "thank you" rolled uncertainly around Bakura's mouth until he swallowed it. The timer showed less than a minute until it beeped, so he took the excuse to retreat to the kitchen and remove the fairy cakes from the oven. They looked and smelled reassuringly edible.
When he returned to finish sorting the Arcana, the spirit said, "Why don't I do a reading for you?"
Frowning, Bakura set Just Desserts in place as Justice. Several whys sprang to mind, beginning with the spirit's inability to touch the cards, though he supposed it was polite to let the querent do most of the handling. And it had, so far, behaved.
He waited until he'd set the last of the Arcana before replying, "If you promise not to be creepy about it."
"No creepier than the fates demand. Shuffle and cut."
The cards felt small and strange for tarot; Bakura felt as if he were about to play Duel Monsters at an eighteen-card disadvantage.
"Now deal three," the spirit said, floating to the opposite side of the coffee table. "Past, present, and future."
"Right, I know how this works." He set them like trap cards. "Starting from my left?" At the spirit's nod, he turned over a Man-Eater Bug.
"Ah, the Tower! The world has cracked apart beneath you and shown its teeth." The spirit showed its own teeth in a slanted grin. "My sympathies, host. I do know how it feels to have a plan go disastrously awry."
"And you do realize it's usually your fault."
It waved a hand dismissively. "You know, there are those who hold that the Tower always refers to imminent disaster, no matter where it appears in the timeline. You might consider this a warning that the seeds of ruin have been sown." It held Bakura's gaze a moment before adding, "Would you let a dragon eat you to spite me?"
"Don't be daft. That's quite enough of the past, I think." He flipped the center card, which revealed itself to be an upside-down Mask of Darkness.
The spirit chuckled. "And now the Moon's reversed itself to tell you that your inner voice is bollocks."
"And deceptive, as well," Bakura replied. "Maybe my shadow's having one over on me."
"Be a good querent and leave the reading to me." The spirit leaned in over the cards. "From the look of it, you're too tangled up in past traumas to see clearly now. You cling to the rubble over a fault line and ignore the ominous shifting of the earth. Now, shall we expect any improvement?"
Warily, he flipped the final card. Doma the Angel of Silence smirked up at him.
The spirit nodded approvingly. "Judgment speaks to a decision you've yet to make, or perhaps one already sewn up for you." One of its fingers tapped through the Man-Eater Bug. "But I'm an optimist when it comes to you, host. No doubt you'll be able to tell the difference when the inexorable moment arrives."
Bakura watched it for a moment to see if it had anything else to add. "Well," he said at length, "that was... I don't know what I expected that to be."
"Enlightening?" the spirit suggested.
The fairy cakes had surely cooled enough. He excused himself to the kitchen to mix what was left of the icing sugar with water and the last few drops of vanilla extract. The result was unimpressive but sweet enough. As he drizzled a festive sheen, the spirit watched and said, "Those don't look half-bad."
"Thank you?"
"That was meant as a compliment." The spirit stuck a spectral finger into the thin stream of icing, lending it a band of iridescence. "Even an apocalypse hasn't stopped you baking. You're highly resourceful when it comes to pudding."
That had sounded less like a compliment the longer it went on, but there was no abject mockery in the spirit's tone. If anything, it struck him as wistful. Flustered, Bakura replied, "Well, I've had to learn to be adaptable."
The spirit smiled crookedly. "Like flu?"
Feeling increasingly as if he'd lost control of the conversation, he peeled back the paper case from one of the cakes and took a bite. It really wasn't half-bad. Another victory for salad cream, which he made a mental note to order in bulk. After disposing of the empty case, he reached for a second fairy cake and briefly, confusingly locked eyes with the spirit. It still looked wistful.
He hesitated, hand hovering over the cakes, then closed his eyes and drifted into his soul room. The walls remained reassuringly normal. Through his window on the outside world, he watched his fingers flex and curl.
"Go on," he said. "Try one."
The spirit rubbed the pad of his thumb against each fingertip before picking up a fairy cake, which filled Bakura's vision for rather a long time. He was on the verge of offering a reminder not to eat the paper when the spirit raised his other hand, peeled the case back almost delicately, and bit off half the cake. A muted impression of chocolate reached him.
Popping the rest of the cake into his mouth, the spirit sauntered to the window, no doubt leaving a trail of crumbs. Before Bakura had decided whether to scold it, it began to scrape the paper against his teeth.
He chose to feel flattered. "You can have another if you like."
With a short laugh, the spirit opened the window and let the wet paper flutter away on the breeze. Ignoring Bakura's complaint about littering, it raised his arm and bristled the fine hairs with his breath. It shivered contentedly. "It really does feel good in here."
That hadn't ever been flattering. "Mind my hands," he said, "or you're going right back inside."
"I'm only stretching," it replied, bending to tap Bakura's fingers against his toes. As the spirit straightened up, it twined his arms behind his back. "Nervy little thing, aren't you?"
"With good reason."
The spirit laughed again, bringing his hands up to brush his hair out of his face. "You could come out to keep an eye on me."
Whilst Bakura had always found the view a bit nauseating when the spirit controlled his gaze, which was at present flitting with undue interest over the spice rack, being plucked out and pressed into a playing card had soured him on out-of-body experiences. He still had nightmares in which he slipped slowly from his skin, and no one could hear him crying for help.
"I'll stay where I am, thank you," he said crisply. "Just behave yourself."
"I haven't got much choice in the matter. You won't let me do anything fun."
The spirit's tone was too light to be bitter, but Bakura's reply still came out defensively: "I just don't want you hurting people or doing unspeakable things with my body, is all. You must have some hobbies that don't involve one or the other."
"I considered macramé, but supplies were a bit hard to come by inside the Ring."
If it really was as ancient as it claimed to be, Bakura wondered how much time it had spent without a body to commandeer. He had no intention of asking; he didn't want to hear how the spirit ranked him against anyone else who had been unfortunate enough to play host to it, and he certainly didn't want to hear anything that might make him feel sorry for it. He was unsettled enough by its unmalicious frolicking.
As the spirit tossed a tin of beans from hand to hand, Bakura said, "I've got some more sweets you can try."
The tin hit the floor, and the spirit made no move to pick it up. "Bloody bottomless sugar pit, aren't we. What sort of sweets?"
"Liquorice allsorts. I've got half a bag left over from before you completely put me off them. Look in the cupboard behind―don't you dare play with the cooker!"
It rolled his eyes away from the knobs.
Once it had retrieved the bag of allsorts, knocking over everything else in the cupboard in the process, the spirit returned to the living room and sprawled along the length of the sofa. It propped up a leg on the backrest. Picking out one of the orange sandwiches, it asked, "What is the point of these, host?"
"The point is liquorice, mostly. Some of them have got coconut in."
The spirit popped the sandwich into his mouth and did not seem terribly impressed, though it did go back in for another. "The brown ones are the least offensive," it decided, having thirds.
Bakura chose to interpret this as high praise. "Try one of the pink circles with the black centers."
It did so and hummed ambiguously. Without prompting, the spirit tried one of the blue buttons next. "What the hell is this?"
"Sugar balls on aniseed jelly."
At the lower edge of his vision, Bakura watched the spirit stick out his tongue in exaggerated disgust. It reached into the bag again and fished out one of the five-layer sandwiches, which it pinched speculatively between his thumb and forefinger.
"That's my favorite," he said. "You've got to peel it apart and eat the layers one at a time."
"Have I, now?"
"It's more fun that way."
The spirit did not sound moved. "So it's exactly like the other sandwiches."
"More or less," Bakura conceded, "but there are five."
After a pause, the spirit snorted and began to dismantle the sweet. When it popped the first layer of coconut paste into his mouth, the spirit arched his back and breathed heavily, writhing against the sofa. It lowered his eyelids with a moan.
"You had better not be doing what I think you're doing."
The spirit cackled. "What, taking the piss? Where's your sense of humor?"
"Right," Bakura said, marching back out into his body, "that's it, then."
When it manifested, the spirit looked as if it had just tumbled out of a clothes dryer. It rubbed its elbow and, with an aggrieved sigh, blew its fringe out of its eyes. "Would it kill you to be a bit gentler?"
"What, just like all the times you gently shoved me into my soul room?"
"I was gentle," it snapped. "Set you nice and easy on the carpet."
"And then you very gently stabbed me in the arm and got me killed."
"Are you still on about that?"
"Yes!"
"Then next time I'll involve you in the plan and ask if you've got any clever alternatives."
This took Bakura sufficiently off-guard that it took him several seconds to work his way round to, "No, you won't, because there won't be a next time."
Contriving to look long-suffering, the spirit perched on the general idea of the coffee table with its chin on its fist. "Why must you assume you'd find any plan of mine objectionable? Some of them involve Monster World campaigns." The last of which had been highly objectionable, though it had adapted well enough to harmless fun. Bakura was still puzzling through whether to point this out when the spirit added, "Anyway, the taste of physicality was appreciated. I've been craving it."
"You're, er, welcome." Against all odds, the conversation had got weirder. Bakura worried his lower lip between his teeth before saying, "I think I need a lozenge. Doesn't it hurt, doing that voice with my throat?"
No response was forthcoming. Bakura spared a sad glance for the empty bottle of St. John's Wort as he located a bag of lozenges in the cupboard. With a mouthful of medicinal cherry flavoring, he headed for the bathroom, pausing only to say, with more hint of a challenge than he intended, "I'm going to have a shower now."
He was not followed, nor did the spirit pop up midway through shampooing to unsettle him. Strange how performing his ablutions without an audience felt novel now. He took his time toweling off and staring at himself in the mirror, uncertain what he was looking for in his reflection, then put on clean pajamas. It wasn't as if he expected to go outside for the foreseeable future.
Back in the living room, he found the spirit vaguely on the windowsill, feet disappearing into the wall, staring outside. Bakura peered along its line of sight but couldn't see anything more interesting than drawn curtains and an empty nest that appeared to have been built of Kuriboh fluff. The spirit glanced at him and shrugged lightly.
It was, more or less, behaving.
After a moment's consideration, Bakura ventured into his spare room, where the light from the living room windows scarcely reached. He fumbled through boxes in the near-dark until he found the one full of crafting supplies. Once he'd lugged it out to the coffee table, he asked, "What sort of campaign?"
The spirit hummed its approval and manifested beside him. "Something intricate and elaborate. Just the thing to take your mind off being holed up in your flat and missing all the fun outside."
"You do realize I'm not put out about not being in the thick of mortal danger?"
"So I've heard from you." It gave him a smugly dubious look, which he elected to ignore. "Regardless, the situation is inspirational, wouldn't you say? A world steeped in magic, on the brink of catastrophe, where a chosen few summon monsters to do battle and the rest are scurrying prey."
Bakura's interest waned. "So far it sounds just like the Reign of the Dark Lord expansion."
The spirit scoffed. "There's far more to it than that."
After several seconds of waiting politely, he prompted, "And the rest of it is...?"
"I'm not going to spoil it for you."
"I can't see how this is going to work if you don't."
"Create the components I require, and I'll run you through it." The spirit gave him a smile that might almost have been stolen from his reflection, with no more than trace amounts of malice. "I can be a fair game master. Obviously it will go more smoothly if you're willing to cede control of the body—"
"My body," Bakura interrupted, "and there must be a less creepy way for you to ask for that." He paused. "And we'll see."
The spirit's smile persisted. "That we shall. You enjoy sculpting great billowy robes, don't you? How are you at great billowy capes?"
A surprising quantity of Kneadatite went into transforming a basic magician figurine into a character so swathed in fabric that even the head demanded its own tiny cape. The spirit insisted on impractical amounts of gold jewelry, as well. This was meant to be a fancy wizard, Bakura supposed, or perhaps the high priest of a state religion. He elected not to point out that both roles were well-represented in Reign of the Dark Lord scenarios.
The spirit looked his work over critically before nodding. "Now, the robes are all white, and the jewelry—"
"It has to cure before I can paint it," Bakura interrupted, setting aside the figurine, "but I can do palettes now for reference."
"Jewelry's all gold," the spirit continued as he got his paints out. "Mix up a browner skin tone than you use for Monster England."
That was different, at least; Monster World settings seldom got more exotic than vaguely Spanish. "Where's this set, then? Monster Sicily?"
"I told you I'm not going to spoil it for you. Browner."
Bakura hesitated. "It's not Monster India, is it? Only there was an official expansion along those lines, and it was a tad racist."
"Host."
Once he'd got the shade to an approved duskiness, he asked, "What's next?"
More robes, mostly. By the time the sun sank out of usefulness, he'd crafted four, including one female variant and one that condensed the top half of the robe into a sash. Detailing exaggerated pectoral muscles was at least a change of pace, though Bakura had to endure multiple complaints from the spirit about his reluctance to sculpt nipples.
"Tell me that's the last of the robes," he said as he tidied up by twilight.
"The white ones, anyway." The spirit remained near the drying figurines, studying them with an almost flattering intensity. It turned its face long enough to flash him a curl of a smile. "Tomorrow we'll get to the interesting bits."
[Saturday]
The alarm clock blinked perpetual midnight. Bakura blinked back at it, then broke into a grin as he turned on the bedside lamp. He had no idea what time it was—before dawn, clearly—but all that mattered was that it was time to flood his flat with electricity.
With decreasingly quiet giddy noises, he set about flipping every light switch, taking particular delight in dispelling the gloom of the loo. It had just occurred to him that he might be loud enough to disturb his neighbors when the spirit asked from inside his head, "Afraid of the dark, are we?"
"Tired of the dark." He paused to drink in the sight of his gleaming kitchen. "I'm going to microwave something and watch telly."
"Mind your lofty goals don't dizzy you in the achieving."
"Hush up, it's too early for you."
After a quick check that the previous day's figurine work held up under incandescent light, Bakura set about methodically testing his appliances. The video lit up; the television encouraged him to ring a woman with enormous hair to place an order for a blender.
In the kitchen, the fridge hummed reassuringly. Opening it confirmed that the little light had returned but also released a whiff of spoilage.
After some thought, he fetched his deck and summoned a Morphing Jar, which settled in at his feet like a dog hoping for table scraps. The spirit manifested to watch with audible amusement; Bakura ignored it as he sent the milk to its doom. The Morphing Jar gobbled and grinned its appreciation.
"Right," he said, adding the carton of eggs. "I reckon a landfill can't make it any worse inside."
The spirit chuckled. "Most of what I've fed it is biodegradable."
"Yes, thank you, I'd worry if you went an hour without saying something horrible."
Two packages of dodgy luncheon meat, a slimy chunk of cheese, and the soggy contents of the freezer rounded out the Morphing Jar's meal. "That's all," he told it, brushing his empty palms together. "Thank you."
The Morphing Jar spun in place and vanished. Next had to come a thorough cleaning, so Bakura tucked the Ring inside his pajama shirt and gathered supplies. As he wet a sponge, the spirit said from behind him, "Just soap up a Kuriboh and set it loose in there."
He frowned. "That seems a bit, I don't know, taking advantage?"
The spirit drifted in front of him with a withering look. "You realize you hold mastery over your own cards, don't you? You're meant to take advantage."
"I really don't think that follows." Ignoring its contemptuous noise, Bakura opened the fridge door, wrinkled his nose at the lingering odor, and went to consult his collection of cards. At the spirit's snigger, he said, "Don't misunderstand. I'm looking for an option that isn't demeaning."
Eventually he happened upon Water Omotics, the flavor text of which suggested that the vaguely elfin creature depicted in the artwork could bend water to her will. "Like this, see?" he said to the spirit. Without giving it time to respond, he summoned the monster into the kitchen.
"Now if you don't mind," Bakura began, "my fridge..." He trailed off, a blush blooming in his cheeks as his gaze retreated from the manifested Water Omotics to the artwork on her card. "Sorry, I didn't expect you to be quite so, er, undressed. May I offer you a robe?"
Water Omotics burbled a laugh that was nearly drowned out by the spirit's snort. She raised her jar overhead and tipped it, releasing a stream of water that obeyed gravity only briefly before curving upwards into the sinuous shape of a dragon. It shimmered around her like a ribbon before flowing into the fridge with a watery little roar. When it emerged, discoloring grot floated inside it. Water Omotics pointed to the sink, and the dragon obligingly flowed down the drain.
"Thank you," Bakura said. "I'll just let you get back to, er, whatever it is you were doing."
With a jiggly curtsy, Water Omotics disappeared. Bakura let the fridge cool his face for a moment before shutting the door, then busied himself putting the kettle on and microwaving a bag of popcorn. The first hint of dawn appeared outside the window as he carried his breakfast into the living room, where the television was blaring a debate about whether the Fiend Krakens taking up residence around Liberty Island constituted a terrorist attack. A ticker along the bottom of the screen indicated that every school in Domino had canceled classes indefinitely.
As he passed the windowsill where he'd left the figurines, the spirit asked inside his head, "Are those ready to be painted?"
"It's best to let green stuff cure for twenty-four hours."
"So you'll do more sculpting first?"
Bakura set his bowl of popcorn on the coffee table. "In a bit. I can't very well work on anything while I'm eating."
When he fed The Horror of Fang Rock into the video, he was subjected to no opinions about it. He took his time settling in on the sofa, balancing the popcorn bowl in his lap. The spirit manifested on the end opposite him and watched the television with expressions that, whenever he glanced at it, ranged from neutral to amused. The only sounds came from the television and Bakura's own munching.
At the end of the first episode, he paused the tape to return his empty bowl to the kitchen. The spirit remained on the sofa. When he returned, bearing sculpting supplies and a second cup of tea, its gaze followed him back to his seat, mildly expectant.
"We can get started after I finish my tea," he offered.
"Fair enough."
There hadn't been any detectable hint of sarcasm. He frowned slightly over his mug. "It's not my birthday anymore."
The spirit shrugged. "What of it?"
With a shrug of his own, Bakura turned his attention back to watching the serial's doomed characters establish themselves. In the lull before the murders began, he swallowed the last of his tea and said, "Let's get any more white robes out of the way first."
The spirit shifted nearer. "Chin up, host. This robe's half-blue."
He worked slowly, attention split variably between his customizations and the television. The spirit restricted its commentary to the figurine's design, although each on-screen death elicited a small pleased noise. Over the third episode's credits, after the Doctor's horrified declaration that he had trapped everyone inside the lighthouse with a monster, the spirit asked, "Has this one got a high body count?"
"This is one where only the Doctor and his companion come out alive, yes."
"Splendid." After a pause, it added, "Is that Leela woman ever going to stab anyone with that knife?"
Bakura considered. "Not in this particular serial."
"Pity."
"I wish I knew what happened to my tapes of The Talons of Weng-Chiang."
The spirit appeared to genuinely enjoy the escalating character deaths, offering occasional advice and encouragement to the Rutan Scout interspersed with mockery of its true form as a glowing jellyfish. When Bakura, preemptively regretting his curiosity, asked what the spirit looked like when it wasn't looking like him, it laughed and replied, "Incalculably more impressive."
Bakura's imagination offered up a buff, fanged jellyfish squatting in his brain. "That isn't much of an answer."
"Recall that 'impressive' is a synonym for 'well-endowed.'"
"No, it's—never mind, forget I asked."
When the end credits rolled, the spirit drifted lower to the coffee table and peered critically at the figurine in progress. "Not bad so far. The hair's still too short in the back. Fringe should be thicker, too." As Bakura pinched off more putty, it said, "Never mind, just put a poncy hat on him and give him that face Kaiba pulls when you stop him playing with his dragon."
He halted mid-knead. "This is Kaiba."
"Four-fifths of him, give or take."
Pinching his lip between his teeth, Bakura set down the putty. "You," he began, voice thick with venom, and had to stop to steady his breathing. His self-control quivered like a rubber band pulled taut.
"What's got your knickers in a twist this time?"
"You're not just bored!" Bakura swept his hand over the table and scattered his supplies, to the noisy displeasure of the spirit. "You―you're trying to―" Realizing that he didn't want to know the specifics, he leapt to his feet and ran for the telephone. "I'm going to warn Yugi about you, and you're going back in the box, and I don't care how much it hurts!"
From within his mind, the spirit gave an impression of mild irritation that did not, in Bakura's opinion, reflect an understanding of the situation. He chewed his lip as he dialed the number for the game shop.
Yugi's grandfather answered with a cheerful assurance that the shop was observing normal business in a minimally dangerous neighborhood, and politeness dictated that Bakura not interrupt until he had been asked how he could be helped.
"Er, yes," he said, keeping his anger and worry on reserve, "may I speak to Yugi Moto, please?"
He was apologetically informed that Yugi had gone away on a trip. The little pauses might have been imperceptible to anyone not listening for them.
Of course he hadn't been invited. It wasn't right for him to expect to be invited. "No," Bakura replied dully to an offer to take a message, "that won't be necessary, thank you."
As he replaced the receiver, the spirit chuckled. "They aren't your friends."
Rejoinders fought for space on Bakura's tongue, most of them variations on "Only because of you," but none sounded entirely convincing. With a long sigh, he lay down on the sofa and fingered the outline of the Ring beneath his shirt. "You aren't, either," was truer but even less productive; in the end he replied, "I know."
"Then you're somewhat more perceptive than I've given you credit for." When Bakura didn't respond, the spirit's scowling face appeared before him. "Cease this pathetic moping. You will return to your work and show me more of the droll man with the scarf."
"I haven't got any more serials with the Fourth Doctor," Bakura said before the sense of surrealism wore off. His fists clenched. "And that doesn't matter, because I won't help you hurt them."
"Your cooperation doesn't matter. You can't roll high enough this time to pass your saving throw." A dark purr of amusement ran beneath the spirit's voice: "Haven't you noticed your modifier diminishing?"
He shot it an annoyed look. "Go and be mad somewhere else. I'm very cross with you."
"Oh, but you misunderstand, host." The spirit loomed. "Poor, daft, blinkered host. Did you stop wondering why? Have you already taken it for granted?" Bakura's efforts to shoo it away accomplished nothing. "Tell me, host. Besides drugging you cheerful, what does St. John's Wort do?"
"I told you to go away."
"I asked you a question." Its lips peeled back too far from its teeth. "Think, think! What else is it good for?"
"I don't know, bees?"
The spirit let out a chuckle so low that it was almost a growl. "You know this, host. Think."
The image flashed like a warning beacon in his brain: a splash page in the Monster World Magical Medicines supplement, showcasing an impossibly buxom white wizard pinning yellow sprigs to a tent. Bakura's mouth went dry.
"As a ward," he said wretchedly. The Ring grew hot against his chest. "Against―"
"Evil spirits." The laughter in his head resonated like a gong.
Desperation shot his hands towards the Ring, but he hadn't even caught the cord before pain bloomed in his chest and toppled him out of consciousness.
When his eyes opened, he immediately closed them again and tried to take deep, calming breaths, or at least not frantic gulps of air. It was probably weeks, if not months, later, and his clothes would be bloodstained, his rent unpaid, his friends' souls trapped in dolls and their heads stashed in the freezer...
Imagination having equaled any possible waking horrors, Bakura gingerly parted his eyelids. A tiny dragon peered back at him. After a dazed moment, he realized that was lying on his side on a blue carpet, and he shivered into a sitting position amidst a confusion of RPG paraphernalia. His heart continued to hammer at his sternum.
It occurred to him that he had sat on something uncomfortable. A moment's digging unearthed a four-sided die, which he rolled between his fingers. "Right," he said at last. "My soul room."
"And an untidy soul room it is," the spirit said from somewhere behind him. He pricked his palm on another stray die as he turned to find it solid and leaning, arms crossed and mouth curled, against the door jamb. It nudged a pile of books with its foot. "You must have a great deal on your mind."
Sarcasm volunteered for duty, but Bakura couldn't see any good in deploying it against someone who had expressed an interest in evicting him from his own body and who had probably come to gloat before doing so. He dug his fingers into the carpet to stop their trembling. "What have you done?"
"Why so worried, host?" The spirit grinned like a shark. "Aren't we partners?"
Definitely gloating. Bakura's mind splintered into possibilities: he might be stoned with the contents of his own soul room, or fed to something in the spirit's soul room, or sealed into a card and torn to pieces―
Something thumped into his temple. Wincing, he pressed his hand to the sore spot and dislodged a red percentile die from his hair.
"Creative," the spirit said, rattling a handful of what Bakura assumed were more projectiles, "but we have more important matters to attend to. Come here."
His imagination flashed up images of his white mage figurine blackening in the oven.
The handful of dice clattered together on their way to the floor. "For fuck's sake," the spirit muttered, and Bakura had scarcely begun to scurry away when its hand seized the front of his shirt. He flinched as he was hauled upright.
The spirit narrowed its eyes, inducing further flinching, and made an exasperated noise. "You're my host. I'm not going to kill you."
It abruptly let go. Bakura's feet scrambled for balance; once he had their support, he tried to assemble a coherent question from his thoughts, most of which had shifted from envisioning his demise to wondering how many other shoes were about to drop.
With a smile that was not entirely malevolent, the spirit said, "We'll consider your wild oats sown. Now come."
Maybe his friends' heads really were in the freezer. Shoulders hunched, he followed the spirit into the darkened hall, where he hesitated at the exit. The spirit grunted and shoved him out.
Bakura stumbled; none of his conceptions of the future had involved his ever being in control of his body again. Catching himself against the wall, he discovered that he was back in his spare room. His heartbeat stuttered when he saw the figurine cases arranged on the table.
The spirit's voice filled his head: "Look inside."
When he moved tentatively to do so, sharp pain in his chest made him wince. Five crimson splotches soaked through his shirt.
"Just re-establishing things," the spirit said without a hint of apology. "Now look in the cases."
Warily, he reached into the nearest and picked up the figurine of a girl whose name he couldn't remember. He stared at it, battling the urge to ask what the point of this was, then realized that her eyes were blank and her form was cold in his hand. He peered into each case, one by one, and his breath caught in his throat when he found every gaze empty.
"You―" Bakura collected himself, moistened his lips― "put them back?"
He felt a sharp mental smirk. "I released them. Whether they've still got bodies to return to isn't my concern."
You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here, rang in Bakura's head, though he had been in that sort of venue only once, briefly and illegally, with a friend who became a half-elf. He wondered what happened to homeless souls: were they still drifting over the ocean, blissfully unaware that they might find nowhere to rest? Would they fade away, or linger as ghosts?
"Ghosts, indeed," the spirit said with a strange, cold gravity. Its phantom form appeared cross-legged atop the table. "In the end, there will no longer be a veil between the living and the dead. There will be nothing hot, nothing solid, nothing made of or shaped by flesh. Only ghosts." A distortion rippled over its face as a growl flecked its voice. "Only shadows."
In the next instant Bakura wasn't certain that anything had been out of the relative ordinary. Palms sweating, he returned the empty figurine to the case and asked, "Why?"
"I grant wishes," the spirit replied with a terrible brightness, and Bakura felt something seep through it into his mind, a red-gold acid that seared with the insatiable hunger of fire. The paranoia he'd felt after visiting the spirit's soul room pulsed through him. It all evaporated in a blink, leaving raw holes behind.
"You want something from me." Exhaustion washed cold over him, deadening his efforts at intonation. With a hiss at the exacerbated pain in his chest, Bakura sank to the floor and huddled against the wall. "What is it?"
The spirit knelt in front of him, smiling. "Only your companionship on my terms."
His stomach knotted. He should have died―should have been swallowed by shadows, should have been immolated by an angry god, should have bled to death in an alley, should have been sliced apart by the Card Reaper's sickle, should have fallen from the deck to drown, should have been in the car―
"I might believe that," the spirit said dryly, "had you not passed the last week without even trying to off yourself."
Bakura didn't argue; it was one thing to say that he would rather die than be enslaved by an evil spirit, but quite another to follow through. During his flash of consciousness atop the blimp, he had not cried out for martyrdom. Perhaps he just hadn't felt responsible enough.
What he wanted didn't matter, anyway. The spirit would never let him die.
"Which you ought to appreciate." The spirit crooked an insubstantial finger through his chin, prompting Bakura's mind to fill the gap in sensation. The touch was probably cold. "You are bound to me in ways you have never imagined. If the gods ever judge your heart, they will condemn it without trial, for fear that my weight would crack their scales." It leaned so near that its nose intersected his. "You hurt without me."
Without the Ring, but that distinction probably didn't matter as much as Bakura wanted it to. He shivered as the spirit, moving back far enough let his eyes stop crossing, splayed its hand over and through his bloodied shirt. "Now cease this foolishness," it said without rancor. "We have a partnership to maintain."
Where its fingers touched the Ring, Bakura could almost feel pressure. The five pointers throbbed beneath his skin. "Please don't hurt them."
"My enmity is for the pharaoh, not his gibbering cheerleaders. I don't even want figurines of them."
"Then promise you won't hurt them."
"I promise nothing if they interfere."
And they would interfere, Bakura knew, because they interfered in everything except what he wished they would. His breaths came shallow and arrhythmic, and he wondered if he could suffocate like that, by breathing but breathing wrong.
With a flicker of vertigo, the sensation passed. His physical awareness dimmed, as if he were experiencing the world through a layer of cling film, and he gave a mental slump of resignation as his body rose without his consent and stalked over to the bathroom mirror.
"Watch," the spirit said through his mouth, and Bakura hated that he couldn't close his eyes or look away from the glass. Nausea twisted through him as the spirit's hard features melted into his own, though he did not regain control of his body. He didn't trust himself to speak.
The spirit mimicked his diffident smile. "I don't need you," it said, with his intonations. "None of your purported friends can tell the difference between your personality and my acting. I could bury your consciousness in oblivion, and the only practical drawbacks would be learning how to operate your appliances and settling for stock game pieces. Now, why do you suppose I don't?"
Bakura shivered as his sense of touch returned, beginning with the chill of the sink beneath his palms. The spirit appeared at his side, grinning and casting no reflection. He focused on his own image in the mirror to avoid it.
Translucent hair curtained the side of his face as the spirit whispered, "Because I'm the only person in the world who enjoys your company."
He shivered again and squeezed his eyes shut. "You're not a person."
"What do you suppose that makes you?" The spirit's ghost-touch registered again through the Ring. When Bakura didn't answer, its voice became almost soft. "If you'd rather be consigned to the dark, say so, and I'll grant your wish. It's going to end the same way with or without you." Softer still: "Your companionship on my terms. Isn't that only fair?"
He didn't have to answer; he could feel the spirit dipping into his mind like a cat into a fishbowl, scooping up whatever thoughts floated to the surface. Bakura sank forwards until his forehead rested against the mirror. In flashes he recalled the white fangs of the dragon, the glint of thirty coins that hadn't been in his pocket a moment before, the vacant eyes of the figurines.
The spirit had lied, of course. It did need him, or it wouldn't have gone to any trouble on his account. At least this lie was the inverse of the one he usually heard, that he was so wanted and needed that everyone got on perfectly well without him.
With a shudder, Bakura felt the embedded metal slip out of his flesh. Blood trickled down his torso.
"There, now," said the spirit. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"
