QUICK BUT IMPORTANT NOTE: COULD SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO INCLUDE BREAKS ON ? I KEEP ADDING SHORT STRINGS OF ASTERISKS OR LONG STRINGS OF THE DASHES AND UNDERSCORES IN MY WRITING TO SHOW WHERE THINGS BREAK, BUT KEEPS ERASING THEM. IT'S FRUSTRATING BECAUSE FIRST IT CONFUSES YOU GUYS, AND SECOND IT MAKES ME LOOK LIKE AN AMATEUR WRITER. IF SOMEONE COULD PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THIS DAMN SITE WILL ACTUALLY ALLOW, I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IT. I HATE TO ASK LIKE THIS, BUT I'M SICK AND TIRED OF THIS SITE MAKING IT LOOK LIKE I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING

Lots of good news! First, here's HOSTage.0 Chapter 6, sorry it's late! Second, with this we are officially past ALL REVAMPS, meaning everything from here on out is completely new! Hot damn! And with this new material, it means that I've also officially retired the original HOSTage—not that it was still live or anything. I'm leaving it up here on because I'm sentimental, but please, PLEASE don't read it. It's horrible. You've already read this slightly-less-awful version, right? OTL|||

And in my last piece of news, I actually have a Yu-Gi-Oh! Tumblr—and YGO! Exclusive. The URL is Yugiouji—I'll be posting all my fan-fiction chapters up there (and still here, don't worry) along with reblogging cool posts and making other… comments…. I don't know, what do you do with your Tumblr?

IF YOU LIKE THIS STORY AT ALL, PLEASE DO REVIEW! It's discouraging to spend time and effort working on something and thinking no one really cares, you know?

Alright, I hope you like the chapter! Thank you for reading! (Next chapter, VIOLENCE *_*)

~Atakiri

Chapter 6 -_-_- Breaking In New Quarters

Yugi sat in his Room of Mind, surrounded by toys and games. And an oppressive feeling of loneliness. He'd been in the Room of his Mind before, just sitting there, thinking, or trying to avoid having to feel or think about anything. But he'd always been able to come out whenever he wanted, and he could always trust his body to Yami and trust in what Yami was doing. He'd never realized, before how… small it was. How the air became so stale so quickly.

Somewhere deep down he knew the room was as large as it always was, that it was of an average size and not really that small at all. But being trapped in one spot… with nothing to do, no way to help himself…

He brought his knees up and rested his chin on them. He was feeling more alone than he ever had before. He couldn't talk to his friends, couldn't even see how they were doing, and to not even have Yami… He felt his throat close and huddled down even further.

He had always known Yami was his closest friend—after all Yami lived inside him, and you can't get much closer than that—but he had never really realized just how much Yami actually meant to him. He'd been his best friend, the person he could always rely on and talk to. Yami would always be there for him. He'd believed that so much. Sure… sometimes it would make him feel sad and useless always having to rely on Yami; …at night, when he couldn't sleep, and when Yami was buried deep in his mind, and everything was so quiet and he couldn't help but listen to his worst thoughts, when he'd think over the things he couldn't stand to think during the day, couldn't stand to think around his friends… How he was so weak… and scared… and he would never be able to stand on his own without Yami beside him.

He shook his head violently. This was exactly what he was talking about. With nothing to do, the worst thoughts in his mind came to the surface. He needed to find something else to think about.

He looked around the room again, but it hadn't changed since five seconds ago.

This was crazy. He was going to go insane in here. He could feel time moving, that he had hidden here in this Room about twenty minutes ago. But that didn't help him much—he had no idea what time twenty minutes ago had been. Maybe he would have been able to come up with some sort of plan if he knew that he had woken up at 3:15 p.m. on Sunday—which he was pretty sure he hadn't—or something like that, but he didn't know anything at all.

For a moment the whirling gears in his mind came to a halt.

He was going to make a plan? He realized that he'd already decided that. Sure, if he stayed in his room his memories, and the God Card, would be safe from Yami Bakura. But he couldn't stay here forever. He didn't know—couldn't even imagine—what Yami Bakura wanted the God Card for, but Yugi was as resolute as ever that he couldn't have it. But he couldn't stay here forever. It was possible that he'd go so crazy in that little room that he might lose control of himself and open the door out of necessity, letting the memories out and Yami Bakura in. No… he'd have to leave his room, but he'd have to make it count.

The only other person who knew where the God Card was was the Pharaoh, who had helped him find the hiding place. Maybe Yami could grab the God Card before Yami Bakura. But how would Yami know that that was what he needed to do? Neither of them could have possibly imagined that Yami Bakura was still around, let alone that he would show any desire for the Egyptian God Cards. Hadn't he been obsessed with the Millennium Items? No… Yami wouldn't think the card was in any danger, so he wouldn't come to get it.

Speaking of which, where was Yami? Yami Bakura had said that the two Egyptian spirits had traded items; did that mean he was with Bakura? The thought gave him more comfort than he would have expected—that meant Bakura had a friend, that Yami could really help Bakura. Bakura was always so lonely, Yugi knew that, and even though he tried to help, he knew there wasn't really anything he could do if Bakura wouldn't let him in. Yugi understood now that Yami Bakura had been the root of all of his friend's problems, but it was a realization in passing.

Somehow he had to use Yami being in Bakura's body to his advantage. Could he get a message to him? Could he somehow tell Yami to go and save the God Card?

No, that wouldn't work. He'd have to leave the Room for that, and gain control of his body. And he had no idea how strong Yami Bakura was—if he was anywhere as strong as Yami, which Yugi suspected he was, if he didn't want Yugi in control, then Yugi would never move his own body again. But what if that power, if that control, faltered for a second? Could he surprise Yami Bakura and usurp control of his body for a moment to get the message out?

He was suddenly filled with excitement. Yes! That was perfect! That's what he would do—he would rush out of the door, rush into control, and shout his warning to Yami. It would work! But then reality hit.

The moment he opened the door Yami Bakura would have access to the memories. Yugi couldn't check their—his—body to make sure that he was in the same room as Yami. He couldn't even be sure Yami was the predominant soul in Bakura's body at the time; if it was Bakura in charge, he would understand the message too late. If Yugi hesitated at the door for even a second, Yami Bakura could swoop down and grab him, taking in the memories and then tossing Yugi back in his room.

And suddenly he realized the plan was incredibly dangerous, incredibly risky. He'd have to gamble all or nothing on good luck. And he also knew that he had made up his mind. He was going to do it. All that mattered now was to get the timing right, and pray to the Egyptian Gods or the Heart of the Cards or whoever else was might have the power to help him that he'd get it right.

Marik walked into his room, which was situated in the bottom of an abandoned building. It was dusty in here, but he was trying not to attract attention. Yet. The glitzy hotels could come later.

He was already removing the deep purple robes of the Rare Hunters, letting it fall to the ground. The stale, dusty air swirled around him, kicking up dust. Dammit—he'd lived his entire life in one tomb, he felt no desire to be in one of a different kind.

Odion would probably, very gently, scold him for abandoning his cloak like that and getting it dirty. He gave it a petulant kick, jettisoning it into a corner with enough force to take even himself by surprise.

"Well well," a voice from the middle of the darkened room said. "I think someone has some repressed anger, don't they, Marik?"

Marik jumped and banged his hand on the light switch, filling the room with light. He was brandishing his Millennium Rod like a knife, but he lowered his arm as his eyes lit on a small body sitting in a chair—which he noticed had been moved—in the middle of the room.

"Yugi?" he asked, confused. He was sure the voice he had heard hadn't been Yugi's—similar, he realized now, but different. Deeper, angrier, dripping with contempt. But the boy sitting in the chair was most certainly Yugi—he was small, dressed in a strange mix of school uniform and leather, and that hair wasn't mistakable.

"Yugi" rolled his eyes at him and shook his head.

"I think the tanning beds have started to melt your mind, Marik," he said, laughing darkly. The hair on the back of Marik's neck stood on end. This didn't sound like Yugi—it sounded like Bakura! "Of course, that would require that one was there in the first place…"

"Who are you?!" Marik shouted, furious. "Why do you sound like Bakura?!" What the hell was going on here?! Why was Yugi speaking with Bakura's voice?! Yugi laughed, and it was a perverted version of Bakura's laugh—Yugi was too small to pull it off entirely correctly.

"Maybe those tanning booths aren't as carcinogenic as people think," the boy chided, and in that moment Marik knew he was Bakura—but how that could possibly be was another question entirely. Wigs were one thing, masks another, but one couldn't use a disguise to make themselves smaller. He would have had to pull some real GATTACA shit to pull that off. The impossible Bakura laughed again and Marik felt himself grow angrier.

"What the hell is going on here?!" he demanded. Yugi smirked and pushed himself out of the chair. His hair looked somewhat unkempt—although it was hard to tell with that ridiculous hair style—and his school uniform was rumpled. His voice, his mannerisms, the way he carried himself weren't at all what Marik was familiar with. This was certainly not Yugi. What. The. Hell. Was. Going. On. "Why do you look like Yugi?!"

"How do you know Yugi doesn't just look like me?" Marik scowled furiously and his hand tightened painfully around the Millennium Rod. Yugi smirked, all arrogance and victory. "Well, you are correct—it is me in here."

"How," Marik demanded flatly. Yugi—no, Bakura—shrugged nonchalantly.

"Hmm." Bakura glanced at his nails. "How do I put this so that your sun-baked brain doesn't collapse in on itself?" Before Marik could say anything, Bakura continued speaking. His voice had changed, though so subtly Bakura probably hadn't noticed it himself. His tone was flatter—graver. "Five thousand years ago I, like your Pharaoh dearest, had my soul dragged into a Millennium Item. I'm sure that through process of elimination you would have eventually figured it out, but I'll just cut to the chase and save us both your processing time by spoiling the ending for you: for millennia I've dwelt in the Millennium Ring, and rather more recently in the body of the white-haired boy you've seen before. But the Pharaoh and I had a nasty… incident… and it would seem we've traded hosts." Bakura cruelly and lifted his arms to either side. "Quite the gain, wouldn't you say?"

It took Marik a second to understand this—the spirit of the Pharaoh no longer lived in the body of Yugi?

"Where is the Pharaoh now?" he demanded. Bakura arched an eyebrow at him, just a touch disappointed that Marik wasn't more surprised by so abrupt a reveal.

"Does the rebel boy miss his master already?" He smile was thin and cruel and Marik had to choke down a growl. And a lot of curse words. Bakura waved his hand airily before Marik could respond. "He's residing in my prior host. Unless he was lost to the Shadows. Wouldn't that make things easier?"

It would not make things easier, it would ruin everything. But Bakura was simply saying things to watch Marik squirm. Marik could see it, and it was the only reason he'd kept the obnoxious man—spirit, apparently—around as long as he had; Bakura personally hated the Pharaoh as much as he did. And that made him worth keeping around.

Bakura was giving him a half-lidded frown of irritation, one eyebrow arched high as he waited for Marik to respond. These arrogant expressions looked so ridiculously out of place on Yugi's face.

"Where is the God Card? I assume you brought it?" Bakura shook his head and waved a finger at him. Marik had to swallow another curse.

"Tsk, tsk, Marik. We're not talking about you right now. I need to make some… adjustments… to our deal." A hint of his old host's accent slipped into his speech—Yugi didn't have the same muscle memory that forced the accent on him, but it had become ingrained in his soul to a degree during the time he'd spent with this new Bakura. He could scour that away soon enough, though.

He glanced again at his fingernails, waiting for Marik's reply.

"What you mean is that you don't have it," Marik shot back, his voice venom. Bakura glanced at Marik through Yugi's golden bangs. Yugi's eyes had never been so cold, and they were glaring at Marik in warning. He wasn't playing right now. "Like what?" Marik continued, his voice harsh but its bite lost for the fact that he was giving in.

Bakura averted his eyes, freeing Marik from the glare and acting as if it had never happened. It was just a blip in the radar, a quick but meaningless shift in reality.

"Like getting me my Ring. Instead of providing me with the Millennium Puzzle and Rod when I complete my end of the deal, and leaving it at that, I want you to get me the Millennium Ring from my host before you kill him." Marik's brows furrowed. There was something inherently wrong with the words "kill him" coming from the mouth of Yugi Mutou.

"You want me to kill the boy?" he repeated. Bakura rolled his eyes and leaned back in the chair, slinging one leg over the armrest; on the other he rested his elbow, and put his head in his hand.

"You kill people, don't you?" he asked, his dismissive tone cruel. Marik's teeth clenched. He remembered quite a few faces, some locked in expressions of surprise, others relaxed or smiling—the faces he knew as more than faces. Did he kill people?

Yes.

"Yes, kill him," Bakura continued with a melodramatic sigh. "Slit his throat, shoot him, break him in half. I don't care what you do—he's of no further use to me." He looked at the back of his hand again, considering the skin there. He actually still felt a little odd about the idea of offing his host. He'd dealt a lot with death in his life, and he still wasn't sure what he thought of the unnecessary ones. But a lot of unnecessary death had happened in his life, hadn't it, and keeping the boy, his boy, in a way, around would only cause problems. … Still. "I think Yugi will be much more useful to me and my goals. And besides—when you kill the boy, you'll as good as have killed the Pharaoh, and then no one can stop your nefarious little half-baked plots." He rolled his eyes and shook his head, showing how ridiculous he thought Marik and everything he did.

Marik considered that. He hadn't actually had to be the cause of anyone's death in a long time. Not since the Rare Hunters had become powerful enough that that kind of thing was unnecessary.

"And in return?"

Bakura, exasperated, threw his hands into the air.

"And in return you get your damn precious God Card and to kill the Pharaoh as slowly as you want! What else do you need, you greedy little bastard?!" He forced himself away from anger. Anger wasn't good for business deals. Anger wasn't good for anything but working up the nerve to stab a man in the gut and finding the courage it took to live without living for five thousand years. Humor was safer. Humor made people like you, even if making people not hate him wasn't particularly high on his priorities.

He grinned, wide and toothy, calm, cool, collected, and cruel.

"You want me to toss in a motorcycle, too? The gods know you collect those things like a girl and her Barbie dolls." He noticed three motorcycles resting against a far wall nearly completely lost in shadow. How had he even gotten those down here? "What's this? Malibu Bicycle and her friends Baby Doctor and Cheerleader?"

"The Vet Motorcycle's coming out soon, only in a Toys R Us near you," Marik replied with equal disdain. "Why don't you go jump on a plane to America and go get one for me? I'll even consider not shooting you down over the Pacific Ocean."

Bakura chuckled and rose to his feet, reaching into his pocket. He was a bit impressed Marik had understood the jibe—modern trends weren't exactly something either of them had much cause to understand.

Marik lowered his Millennium Rod, moving it surreptitiously near his other hand. The better to pull the end off and reveal it for the dagger it was.

But Bakura didn't pull out a knife—it was a cellphone. He flipped it open, idly pushed a couple buttons with his thumb, then held it up like it was a bomb.

"I lost all my contacts when I switched phones," he said, a mocking half-laugh marring his words. "This is my new number. If you want to get ahold of me—and I imagine you will, as I'm your best bet for finishing any of your plans—call me."

Marik barely had time to memorize the numbers before Bakura snapped the phone closed and shoved it in his pocket. Dammit, Marik hated being treated like an incompetent, or worse, a child, but he did need Bakura, and if that meant putting up with abuse when he lost his upperhand, so be it.

He committed the numbers to memory, his eyes losing focus as he concentrated, and when he came back, Bakura was walking towards the door.

Marik stiffened as he approached.

"I'll give you that God Card when you bring me the Puzzle and the boy's head," Bakura said as he shoved past Marik and out of the only door. Marik glared at him as he left, still not entirely sure what to think. The fact that Bakura was a spirit like the Pharaoh disturbed him greatly. There was nothing about that in his scriptures at all. But he knew there was nothing he could do with this fact now, and he'd have to ignore it.

Scowling, he stepped further into the room and slammed the door shut.

Great, now he was going to have to move.

It felt strange having a non-malevolent presence inside of him. Bakura had grown so used to Yami Bakura—his arrogance, his contempt. Yugi's Spirit was nothing like that. He was confident and sure of himself, but not in a way that made Bakura feel smaller; in fact, it made him feel stronger himself, having someone so strong within him. And this spirit was kind and seemed to respect him. It wasn't an admiring respect, but the kind that said, You're a human being, too, and I'll treat you as one.

Bakura was making his bed. It wasn't a very heroic thing to be doing when his only friend was in danger, but it was something he could do. After all, he did have to get used to the feel of his own body again. The Spirit of the Millennium Ring had been in control for so long that he felt stiff and clumsy.

Though he couldn't really call him the Spirit of the Millennium Ring anymore, could he? Now Yugi's spirit inhabited the Millennium Ring and Bakura's spirit was in the Millennium Puzzle.

That thought made him sick.

His spirit was with Yugi.

That terrible, cruel, all-controlling spirit was with Yugi. It was too much to even think about. He wasn't sure what he was going to do, but he knew he had to do something. He'd been with the Ring long enough to know that he wouldn't wish it on anyone else, even his worst enemy. Not that being with the Ring would have much effect on Yami Bakura anyway.

But he was so weak, what could he do? What had he ever been able to do? Sit idly by while his friends fell into comas, be shunted to the side while the Spirit tried to turn Yugi and his friends into cards, pretend that he wasn't in constant pain when the Spirit wasn't possessing him. How terribly heroic.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Bakura already knew he had to take the Spirit of the Ring back, even though he didn't want to. But, like making the bed, it was something Bakura could do. Sacrifice himself. Destroy his own future and happiness in order to make sure it didn't happen to anyone else. He was weak, but he could do that.

If he'd been aware he was thinking these things he would have been so proud of himself.

He tried to lift a pitcher of water Tea had put on his bedside table, but barely got it an inch or so up before it was too heavy for him and he had to put it down. He could feel Yugi's Spirit's disapproval.

Bakura, why have you been so tired? he asked him. It was strange hearing the Spirit talk to him from within his mind—usually his own Spirit would be using Bakura's mouth to speak to him aloud. Your body and soul are both exhausted. Is this the fault of the Spirit of the Millennium Ring? Bakura sighed and slumped to the ground, relaxing his tired body. He'd been up for fifteen minutes and wanted to go to sleep again.

"Yes…" he admitted, staring at the ground. "He's been pushing my body to its limits. I don't know why… or even what for. I'm okay though." He could feel the spirit's disapproval just like the spirit could feel that he was lying.

Bakura shuffled out of his room and through the central room of the apartment to the kitchen. If he couldn't lift the pitcher, maybe he could at least support a cup under the faucet. It felt strange not to have another active presence inside of him—what was he supposed to do? He hadn't had this much control in months. It felt strange. And almost… empty, in a way. The world was too big, now, too full of potentialities. How unnerving.

What has he been doing to you? the spirit asked, clearly unsettled by Bakura's thoughts. Bakura shook his head, but instead of consoling the spirit, he made himself dizzy. He managed to orient himself before he lurched, but the spirit had certainly felt it, and his disapproval was like a seething wall of water. This is unacceptable. I had no idea your situation was so poor. I had no idea it could be this bad.

"I'm alright, really," Bakura insisted. He glanced around the kitchen and started reaching for a glass—it was up on one of the highest shelves, a poor decision he had made when he'd moved in and never bothered to rectify. He had to stand on his tiptoes to get his fingertips on one, and from there it was a simple matter of well-applied force to get the glass to tumble into his fingers.

Where are your parents? The spirit was clearly still unhappy about Bakura's situation, but he would let it be—for now. He didn't want to push Bakura too hard, and Bakura appreciated it. I know that you used to have to move quite a bit, because of what would happen when you played Monster World with your friends. Bakura appreciated how delicately he worded that. But nothing has happened in over a year. You're too young to be living on your own. You're Yugi's age, correct? That would make you only sixteen.

"My father's an archaeologist," Bakura explained, leaning over to the tap and letting it run for a couple of moments to get to the cooler water. "He spends most of his time wandering around the world, looking for ancient artifacts. It was while he was on a dig that he found the Millennium Ring, years ago." He paused, and neither of them said anything. Neither of them missed the tension, either. "My mother and little sister died in a car crash when I was small." He swirled the water in his glass a couple times before he took a sip. Just the water made his stomach turn. Bakura didn't understand it—the Spirit of the Millennium Ring was usually more careful than this. Even if he had more strength than Bakura when he was in charge of the body, he still needed to keep it in working condition or all the strength of his soul wouldn't do them anything. "I'm alright on my own," he added quickly. He didn't want the spirit dwelling on his lack of family, which he could feel him doing. The spirit took the hint.

It doesn't seem right for your father to just leave you here like this, the spirit insisted. Bakura shrugged and sipped again from his glass. His stomach had settled now, but he hadn't realized how sore his throat was until he'd had something to soothe it.

"It's alright," he insisted quietly. The spirit could feel Bakura wanted to say more, but Bakura himself didn't know what to add to that. "It works out okay. He sends me money, so I can buy food and pay the rent without getting a job. He even sends me extra sometimes so I can buy my Monster World figures." The spirit shifted restlessly in the back of Bakura's mind. But what could he do? The disapproval of a five-thousand-years-dead Pharaoh could only affect the life of a sixteen year-old boy living in Japan so much.

"Do you have a name?" Bakura asked, his desire to change the subject evident even without their connection. The spirit didn't answer for a moment, shifting restlessly.

… Once, perhaps, he replied. Bakura didn't understand, and he let that confusion go through their connection. He'd used this connection with his own spirit quite a lot—words the Yami Bakura could shake off, but emotions were harder. It was the only thing Bakura could sometimes do against him, transmitting his anger and pain and misery. He quickly hid those thoughts away, but his new spirit hadn't seemed to notice them, preoccupied as he was with his own. Many of my memories of my past have been lost. I only know that I was a Pharaoh, and some call me that. As well, sometimes I have been referred to as the Yami Yugi, just like the spirit of your Millennium Ring referred to himself as the Yami Bakura. … Although it was never my name, he admitted slowly, sometimes… Yugi would call me "Yami". The admission came with a bit of embarrassment, and fondness, and a dull ache Bakura recognized immediately as what you felt when you missed someone.

"May I call you Yami, then?" he asked. It seemed a bit bold, but Bakura knew what it was like to miss someone, and miss the name they had for you. He still jumped if he heard a little girl shout "Onii-san!" near him. The spirit tried to answer, but seemed to trip over his words. Instead, just a feeling of approval came through the connection.

The conversation lulled, but Bakura didn't mind. Actually, it was rather comfortable. The spirit was still working out his feelings, and Bakura didn't know what, if anything, to ask him. Besides, he still had to get used to his body again—and he was realizing that he was hungry.

He scoured the kitchen as best he could for food. He couldn't reach the highest cabinets—he'd managed to get the glass alright, but it made him feel ill to raise his arms above his head for too long, and if he couldn't do that, he certainly didn't have the energy to climb on top of the counters. There wasn't much at all—Yami Bakura really had been more careless than usual. He managed to scrounge up a dry packet of miso soup powder with dehydrated tofu pieces, though, so that was something. He set his kettle to boil and leaned against the counter.

The spirit—Yami—was brooding to himself, thinking over Yugi. He was even more worried about Yugi than Bakura was. It made sense, though—maybe Yami didn't understand the Spirit of the Millennium Ring as well as Bakura did, but neither did Bakura understand Yugi as well as Yami did. He thought Yugi would be okay, though. The Spirit of the Millennium Ring was powerful, and it was cruel, but Yugi was strong—much stronger than Bakura. He would be able to handle the spirit of the Ring better than he had.

He thought about when he had received the Ring from his father, only a few years after they had moved to Japan, and only a year after he had lost his mother and sister. It had seemed like a blessing, at first. He missed his mother, he missed Amane, he missed England, he missed his father, and this was at least some way to be with his family. He had been a bit more right about that than he'd thought, though—if one's "former self" was considered family.

Yami Bakura had let that slip, once, without entirely realizing it during their very rare conversations. They were always short, and ended with the Spirit of the Millennium Ring snapping at Bakura for something or other. Bakura had seen the dark spirit keep his cool in the face of overwhelming danger and stinging insults, but for whatever reason Bakura could say just about anything and set him off. He never got violent, though. But his words could cut deeper than his nails, and he didn't seem to have entirely realized it.

The water had boiled, and he poured over the powder and stirred it, letting his thoughts wander away like the steam coming up from his bowl. Somehow or other his thoughts wandered to England—they often did when he did something especially Japanese, though it had lessened over the years. He wondered what his old elementary school friends would have thought if they saw him drinking soup for breakfast.

The spirit stirred in the back of his mind. He could only take so much of his own brooding, after all. Bakura understood that feeling. Yami seemed aware of his last thoughts, as well, which Bakura wasn't surprised about—he hadn't been trying to hide them, and a lot was communicated unconsciously when you had a connection like a spirit and its host did. He'd given up completely on shielding his thoughts long ago—Yami Bakura usually didn't care what Bakura thought about, and if he did, he could rip through Bakura's feeble shields with ease.

Why are you in Japan? the spirit asked, his voice politely curious. Bakura took a sip of his miso soup, careful not to burn himself. He was somewhat surprised at all the questions. The Spirit of the Millennium Ring had never been all that curious about him, except for the first couple of times they came into contact with each other, and not very many other people spoke to him. But he didn't mind. Yugi explained to me that you come from a small island far to the West of here, a place called England. Is that correct?

"It is," he agreed. He was quietly amused that the Pharaoh seemed so confused over the idea of "England", and Yami was equally confused at his reaction—but he also seemed pleased that it could bring Bakura some kind of happiness. Sharing a mind with this Yami Yugi was very different from Bakura's own spirit, indeed. "I moved from England with my parents when I was quite young. My mother had moved to England for business, where she met my father. After my sister and I were born she wanted to move back to Japan, and my father was happy to oblige." He took another drink of his miso. As it was from a packet, he had to drink it while it was still quite hot and he couldn't taste the cheapness.

Do you like Japan? Bakura could feel that it was a question posed by one outsider to another—or not "outsider", per se, but one person who wasn't a native to another. Normally Bakura would have answered with a, "Of course, very much!", but he took a moment to think about it for Yami.

"I do," he admitted. He was thinking of his class, of Joey and Tristan and Tea—and Yugi. "I've made good friends here. And the people are nice. For the most part. I don't much like the trains." He grimaced, and he could feel Yami's amusement. He smiled a little himself. It felt strange on his face. How sad.

What was England like? Bakura tried to conjure up images and memories—the Eye spinning on the horizon, his old class and classmates, the black taxis moving through the streets between double decker buses. And the space on the subway trains. They were still crowded, but they weren't like the Japanese trains. He tried mostly to capture the feel of that place, because it was that feeling that made it so different from Domino City and the other places in Japan he had been.

There was a very slight vibration through his connection with the spirit, almost like a faint humming. It was pleasure—or approval, Bakura wasn't entirely sure. But it was just a sense of positivity.

It sounds very interesting, Yami noted. Bakura grinned again, even though it made his face hurt a little. Usually "interesting" was a throw-away term people used when they were trying not to admit how much they disliked or didn't care about something. But Yami sounded actually "interested". Bakura wondered if he'd be able to visit England again one day, and if he'd be able to bring Yugi and Yami with him. It sounded like fun. Although when he realized that he had envisioned it with Yugi and Yami together, back in their own body, it made his mood falter a bit. The only way to get the two of them back together was to reunite with his own spirit.

He realized that his fingers had been clenching around the Millennium Ring, and he made himself let go. A little too quickly—Yami noticed the movement, and Bakura could feel his confusion and concern.

"There's school tomorrow," Bakura muttered, desperate to keep the subject away from the Ring and his own feelings. He swirled what was left in his bowl in contemplation. He was trying to ignore the spirit at the moment. It had been nice, having someone be worried about him, at first. But it was starting to feel strange. He didn't like being an inconvenience, a burden. He was weak, he knew that, but he wasn't so weak that he had to force his problems on others.

You should go to sleep, the spirit said, not unkindly. He could tell Bakura was getting uncomfortable, and he didn't blame the boy. It was overwhelming for Yami, and he was of a rather remarkable composure. He was used to being a parasite, of sorts, dwelling in a borrowed body. But to suddenly have a stranger invade your personal space… Yami was certainly sympathetic. And if you are feeling too weak, you should consider not going. You need to rest.

Bakura shook his head, and this time he didn't make himself instantly dizzy. Progress.

"I've missed too much class recently," he said. He put his bowl in the sink—he'd deal with it later—and shuffled towards his bedroom. Sleeping sounded great. "And I'll be alright. I'll never get my strength back if I stay cooped up in my room." Besides, he didn't want to fail his classes—he wanted to graduate with the rest of his year. He thought about the classmates in his year and felt his stomach give a sickening turn. "Besides…" he said quietly; Yami listened intently, "… Yugi might be in class tomorrow."

He had no blood to run from his face, but the spirit still paled.

Yugi very well might be in class tomorrow. But he probably wouldn't be Yugi. Not if the Millennium Puzzle hung around his neck.