Chapter 13
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"C'mon, Bakura, wake up," Toturi demanded. He shook his white-haired roommate a little harder as he stood balanced on the frame of his bed below.
Bakura finally managed to open his eyes and keep them open, much to his surprise; he blinked and squinted his eyes in an effort to keep them open and to make out the face looming above him; he mumbled sleepily, "Toturi?"
"Bakura, c'mon, wake up. We gotta get goin'." Toturi pulled insistently at Bakura's unmoving, stone-like arms.
"I'm coming," Bakura managed to mumble, his mind still fogged over. Or maybe he only dreamed he'd said it?
Toturi made no reply, he just pulled Bakura into a sitting position, then quickly got off the bunk.
Bakura rubbed his eyes, pressing his knuckles deep into his sockets in an effort to awaken his mind. In some far-off corner in the recesses of his brain, he vaguely wondered what time it was and what time it had been when the Spirit had finally let him sleep. He ignored the silent question as he decided it did not matter. Bakura inched toward the ladder, discovering his legs were still asleep when they did not respond to his will to move them. Briefly wondering how he would manage to climb down the ladder without falling if his legs refused to move, his foggy brain disregarded the thought as he dropped his legs over the side, deciding he would figure it out once he had to.
Putting tentative weight on his legs, he started down the ladder, his legs wobbly as they began to wake up and his blood started moving and his arms holding tight to the rungs as he descended. With Toturi's steadying, supporting hands on his shoulders the entire way, Bakura managed to arrive safely on the floor without meeting it face-first.
"Think you can make it to the dinin' hall without fallin' flat on your face?"
Bakura nodded, swallowing a yawn as he replied, "Yes, I'll make it just fine."
"Good. I don't wanna carry you," Toturi replied, moving out into the hallway.
Bakura didn't reply; he was too busy concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other and keeping his eyes open. Ronin followed them both, watching Bakura carefully.
Toturi called down the hall, "Hey, Kagehisa, wait up! We gotta talk to you!"
The tall figure from further down the hall turned around, wearing a smile, and answered, "All right, lad." Kagehisa stopped moving forward and started back toward Bakura and Toturi. Kanegan followed at a reluctant, shuffling pace, not wanting to go anywhere near Bakura, but unwilling to be abandoned by his roommate.
Only feet from Toturi now, Kagehisa said merrily, "Haven't seen ya in awhile, lad, boyo. How've ya been?"
"We've been all right, Kagehisa," Toturi answered. "How about you?"
Bakura felt his eyelids falling, despite his best efforts to stop them. Concentrating on his losing battle, he missed hearing Kagehisa's reply to Toturi and the conversation they began.
"Maybe a short nap would help you to stay aware, host," the Spirit suggested. Taking on a colder tone, he commanded, "Sleep, Ryou." Bakura didn't even have time to protest before his consciousness faded.
Dark Bakura took two long strides to catch up to the other inmates, listened to their pointless pleasantries for a little while, and allowed Bakura to be in control once more.
Bakura's eyes opened wide and he studied the faces of his companions quickly. Toturi caught his glance and looked at him curiously. Bakura looked away swiftly, trying to slow his breathing and his heart and calm his frantic mind.
The precious waters of trust began leaking steadily out of the fragile, half-full, and rapidly cracking jar; Bakura demanded of the Spirit, "What. Did. You. Do?"
"Heh. Calm down, Ryou; I've done nothing," the Spirit replied, still sounding amused, despite knowing the rifts it had created in their fragile-as-glass trusting relationship.
"Then why did you do it?"
"H-ha ha ha…it woke you up, didn't it?" The Spirit continued on before Bakura could reply, his voice scolding, "It doesn't matter how little sleep you get, host, you must always be aware of everything! Let your guard down for a second and you're likely to end up dead!"
"Dead, hmm? Since when is sleeping a lethal illness? And what's that matter to you anyway? You're already dead!"
"Ryou, we've already been over this," the Spirit grumbled in exasperation, its voice taking on a crueler edge. Its host was far too much his teenage years lately, always talking back and challenging what it said. It preferred its hosts to be more docile and timid—it made them easier to control or cow into obeying. The Spirit, far back in its scheming mind, wished the old Ryou would return and wondered how it could cause the retransformation to happen. The way he was now, Ryou was beginning to remind the Spirit of the way it had been in its younger years, roughly three thousand years ago. Sure, the Bakura then had lavender eyes, a scar on his face, and more muscles, plus was far more openly rebellious, even in the face of terrible odds, not to mention had a reason to rebel… ...no matter how long a list of differences the Spirit hastily conjured up to reassure itself, the resemblance remained, unnerving and undeniable, slipping in and out of its thoughts the way it had slipped in and out of tombs: silent, stealthy, unexpected, and disappearing like a dream just as fast.
"Maybe this little white-haired whelp really is my reincarnation..." the Spirit mused to itself. "But if he is, how am I still here? Reincarnation requires the spirit of the original to pass into a new form, yet I remain here while Ryou is his own person…Then again, that spiky-haired runt is the reincarnation of the Pharaoh, yet the Pharaoh is still trapped within the Puzzle…No, Bakura Ryou cannot be me, for he's nothing like me…if he were me, he'd be after the Millenium Items as well…" The Spirit chuckled to himself, "He's already proven himself a lousy thief. There's no way he could possibly be me."
Out of patience waiting for the Spirit to answer him, Bakura interrupted the Spirit's musing, saying, "Obviously, although we've already been over this, it wasn't all that important since you can't even remember the argument you handed me last time!"
The Spirit glared at him and his voice became dangerous, "Do not take that tone with me, host. Such…ungratefulness…is unappreciated."
"You're not appreciated either, but here you are!"
"I try to save your life, and you treat me as if I'm nothing!"
"That's because you are!" Bakura responded angrily. The years of bottled frustration of putting up with the Spirit constantly mistreating and controlling him hit their peak. Bakura was finally mad enough to fight his tenant, his new boldness bolstering him further. "You're just an annoying, meddling Spirit who ruins my life! You pretend concern for me, but you really only care about yourself and you only act as if you care in order to make sure I don't spoil any of your schemes!"
The Spirit's voice was cold, his words the sharp edge of a knife, filled with lethal intent as he asked, "Do I need to give you a lesson in respect, host?"
"You're the one with no respect," Bakura answered immediately. "You control me and ruin my life without regard to how I feel about it. But not anymore." Bakura's hand went up to his neck, where the string holding the Ring was hidden.
"No? What do you think you can do about it, Ryou?" the Spirit asked scornfully.
"I'll take off the Ring," Bakura answered simply. "I'll finally take control of my own life."
The Spirit chuckled, "Your life? What life? Without me, you have no life! All you do in your crummy apartment is plan out Monster World games, do your homework, and write to your dead sister, deluding yourself into thinking she'll ever write back—what kind of life is that? At least when I'm in control you get out and do something interesting."
"Interesting? What could possibly be interesting about a spirit dead three thousand years still clinging to its hatred and thirst for vengeance?"
"Watch your tone, mortal's child. Without me, you would've been killed by Genji that day in the yard, or if you survived by some miracle, you would have died in ignorance, killed by the guards because of a plan you never saw coming." There was a slight pause as the Spirit allowed Bakura a few seconds for thinking. "If you take off the Millenium Ring now, Ryou, I won't help you. You're right, why should I care? Not like I'll die…And you'll get in trouble for having an object that was confiscated by the guards, since you have nowhere to put it, besides around your neck."
"How about the garbage?" Bakura challenged.
The Spirit's eyes narrowed further, and gleamed with a cold, heartless challenge of its own; voice dangerously low, each word a shard aimed to cut, the Spirit hissed back in challenge, "Go ahead and try it, Ryou."
"Bakura?" Toturi asked, cutting into Bakura's mind.
"Boyo? Are ya there?" Kagehisa inquired, looking into Bakura's face.
Bakura blinked and looked at them both, "What?"
"You weren't even listenin' to what we were sayin' were you?" Toturi asked.
"Uh…no. I'm sorry. What did you say?"
"The lad just got done fillin' in th'details o' th'conspiracy ya learned 'bout, boyo. We were tryin' t'decide what we should do," Kagehisa informed him.
Bakura blinked in surprise and asked, "Why would you ask me? I don't—"
"First off," Dark Bakura said, smoothly stepping into his host's part and voice with much-practiced ease, "we should tell Genji that we'll support him in that scheme of his."
"Why?" asked Toturi immediately, looking at Dark Bakura suspiciously.
"So that we'll know when he's executing his plan, so we'll have a chance to ready ourselves ahead of time," Dark Bakura responded, his eyes narrowing to a near glare at Toturi's challenge. He smirked and added, "Besides, if we're going to survive the guards' massacre, we'll need all the inmates working collaboratively, toward one goal, because if they're all in their own little groups, they'll all be killed off."
"Makes sense, boyo," Kagehisa said, nodding. "But how is it ya plan on us bein' able t'beat th'guards, even if we all worked together? They're armed; we're not."
"Why don't you ask Genji that? He must have some plan if he thought just he and his groupies could win," Dark Bakura said smugly. "If we get all the inmates, we would outnumber the guards, that could count for something, if we use it to our advantage..." Dark Bakura paused, then added with a smirk, "But even one, better prepared and better armed man can stand up to ten thugs." Can put up a very decent fight, indeed, Dark Bakura thought to himself, still smirking as he remembered his life in Egypt.
"All right, it looks like any further plannin' has t'wait 'til we talk with Genji," Kagehisa said.
"How do we know this is even going to happen?" Kanegan asked, finally speaking up. "This could just be a plot to get us involved in this Genji person's plan and get us all killed!" He glared at Dark Bakura as he ended with, "After all, we only have his word that what he says is true, and we know he isn't trustworthy."
Dark Bakura glared back at him, but it was Toturi who responded to the shorter man's challenge, "Bakura is far more trustworthy than you, baldy. You're the one who's in here for lyin', cheatin', an' stealin'."
"I am an honest businessman who cut a few corners in order to keep afloat!" Kanegan responded angrily. Pointing a finger at Dark Bakura he said, "He's the one who tried to murder someone!"
"Heh. 'Tried?' Shall we make it 'did', little man?" Dark Bakura said, taking a threatening step toward Kanegan, an evil leer on his face.
Kanegan's formerly red face paled considerably and he backed away from the white-haired inmate quickly.
Kagehisa put a hand up, saying, "Now, now. C'mon, calm down, everyone."
At the same time, Toturi out a hand on Bakura's shoulder and said, "Calm down, Bakura. He's not worth the effort."
"You're right, he's not," Dark Bakura said with a sneer, his eyes glaring into Kanegan's. He crossed his arms as he continued, "Which is why I wasn't trying to kill him the last time, either. He was merely in my way."
Forgotten behind them, Ronin watched the scene play out with big, green eyes. Standing and stretching, Ronin yawned and showed all his teeth. Looking back to the towering humans before him, Ronin walked around the group to stand behind the one with white hair, who still glared at the bald man, who was almost cowering behind the big man.
"Bakura," Toturi said, touching his shoulder. Dark Bakura ignored him.
That's right, little fool, cower. Cower and hide like the rat you are, Dark Bakura thought as he glared at Kanegan. I would've been doing the planet a favor killing you, but for my host's sake, I restrained myself…can't have him getting killed on me, after all…but I swear, if you threaten Ryou--and therefore me—again, you'll find yourself in a world of hurt.
Kanegan's eyes widened, almost as if he heard Dark Bakura's thought; or maybe it was he could feel the threat through the weight of the gaze of those dark, pitiless, hatred-filled brown eyes.
Ronin hissed from behind Dark Bakura. Dark Bakura began to turn.
"Ow! My foot!" Bakura said. He looked down at Ronin, then at the back of his leg, where Ronin's claws had ripped his pants, a line of red showing against the pale flesh of his leg, a few red drops of blood beading up, glistening in the light.
"You all right, boyo?" Kagehisa asked.
Bakura looked over at him, slightly wide-eyed as he surveyed the scene, trying to figure out what had just happened. Everyone was standing there, looking at him, confused and concerned, and all he could do was look back at them blankly, unable to discover what he'd missed. Besides the stares, the only other thing he was aware of was that Ronin was pressing against his legs, purring now.