When I was a vengeful spirit, I made Ryou deal with all the daily being alive crap. Who cares about laundry detergent when there's a Pharaoh to defeat and a dark god to try and summon into the world?

Thinking back, It's a good thing no one asked me what my logic was during all that because they'd only get ums and erms out of me. There were goals I wanted accomplished, and goals Zorc wanted accomplished, and it was all complicated by Ryou's strong desire to keep all his friends alive – it was an epic, psychological cluster fuck, and I can't untangle it myself let alone explain it to someone else. Remembering any of it hurt my head, but it was hard not to remember as long as I was in Domino City. I needed the fuck out of Domino.

I smirked as I gather the last items on my list. The store begged to be robbed, only a few cameras hid within casings disguised to looked like ceiling fixtures. None of the plain-clothed customers were security, there wasn't even a manager walking the floor. I watch three teenage girls giggling over in the cosmetics section and the first two don't even notice when the third drops a tube of bright red lip-gloss in her school bag. Well, like I said, the store was begging to be robbed. I wouldn't bother, stealing was only fun when it was from great kings or multimillion dollar corporations. Let peasants steal bread, the Thief King steals gold.

I stood in line at the register. Toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, silicon lube, and socks. It's surreal. I'm an ancient tomb-raider who almost succeeded bringing about the end-times, and I'm at the store . . . buying toothpaste.

What the unholy fuck?

Honestly, there was a giddy novelty to the act. Buying socks felt so absurd, so inappropriate, that it was like I broke some great, unspoken taboo, committed the worst of sins against my own nature, but never had to fear punishment for it.

Also, it pleased me to know that common people had access to things like deodorant and shampoo. In Egypt, scented oils for bathing were reserved for the Pharaohs and wealthiest of society. And silicon lubricants?

I. Fucking. Love. The. Future.

Seriously, flax seed oil didn't work half so well.

The apartment was quiet. I expected them to be passed out after staying up all night, but I didn't expect the trail of clothes leading to the back bedroom. They must have had quite the time, Ryou's boxers hung over a lamp shade and Kek's tank top was tangled in a potted plant. I noticed a bouquet of roses laying on the sofa, and that was enough explanation for me. I took the flowers to the kitchen and placed them in a tumbler of water. Being considerate and buying socks. It's a good thing Marik never came back for me. He'd laugh his ass off if he saw how pathetic and human I was now.

I frowned at my own thoughts as I walked to the bathroom and put away my toiletries. We were all smirks and hate and sardonic comments back in those days. I think that's how I fell in love. I was a bronze singing bowl and he was the ringing stick and together we resonated with the exact same sound, a song of pain and anger and hate that no one else knew quite like we did.

But now I was too tired to really hate anything. I . . . just wanted to rest.

Would Marik even recognize me?

I looked in the mirror. Shorter, darker, my hair barely brushed past my shoulders, shaggy instead of daggered, and gray eyes looked at me instead of brown. In an odd way, I looked more like Ryou now than when I wore his body. The expression in the eyes, mostly. It's because I'm just a person now. I look human. No more Zorc. No more demon. Just another useless person. Person was the only word that came close to fitting, except maybe vulnerable and I refused to even think that word in reference to myself. I was no longer the dark spirit that flirted and argued with Marik on a blimp over three years ago, nor was I completely the same tomb-thief on a quest for justice. I lived too long and seen too much to be that thief; the gods ruined my last hopes for justice when they sent Atem back into the world when, by their own laws, he should have gone to Ammit.

Why would Marik waste his time with me now? Mellowed and changed, not nearly as dark as before, hardly even angry at this point . . . weak, I was weak.

Marik had also claimed to be redeemed, so who did that make him? He was an asshole before his darker half took over. I couldn't imagine him being all that good even redeemed.

Then again, Kek was as changed as I was, so who knew?

Regardless, Marik wasn't coming back.

It didn't matter how much I wanted to see him; he wasn't coming back.

I needed to relocate, try to salvage some sort of a life for myself. In Domino, all I could do was wait. Wait for Marik (who apparently never felt about me how I felt about him, and even if he once had – he wouldn't if he saw me now.) Why stay? I kept asking myself why I stayed.

But I knew why. It was because I had two reasons to stay even when I had one hundred to leave.

I trudged to the bedroom, chuckling when I saw the state of it. The lamp that sat on the nightstand was shattered on the ground. The mattress showed, all the sheets ripped away from the corners.

"You missed out on all the fun," Kek muttered as he woke up enough to notice I stood in the doorway and stared at him and Ryou.

"Perhaps for the best – uh, is that blood on your shoulder?" I walked closer to inspect the rust-colored specks.

"What?" Kek sat up and hissed at the movement.

I looked at his back, four lines cut through the left wing and another set interrupted the lettering, Ryou apparently tore through Kek's scars during his ecstasy. I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Is something wrong?" Ryou rubbed an eye, more asleep than awake.

"No." Kek kissed Ryou's cheek and pushed white ribbons of hair away from his face. "Go back to sleep."

Ryou smiled, eyes still closed.

Kek slipped from the bed and I followed him into the bathroom. He turned and stared at the cuts in the mirror, grinning. "They're nice trophies."

"You kinky fuck." I couldn't help rolling my eyes into my head. "You know, Ryou will feel horrible when he wakes up."

"I like it. It's like he erased some of the Pharaoh's memories and replaced them with our own."

I grabbed disinfectant and started doctoring the cuts on his shoulder. I notice a plethora of other scratches, criss-crossed all over, but those were small and would all heal and fade before evening, only the four top ones were deep. "Gods fucking in the Nile, he tore your back up."

Kek chuckled. "And I enjoyed every minute of it." He gestured out of the bathroom. "I bought you some beer."

I smirked. "I bought us more lube."

"Sounds like a night. Let's wake-up Ryou."

"You wake him up. He's cranky when he's asleep."

I need to get the fuck out of Domino, but I can't seem to manage it.

I have one hundred reasons to get the fuck out of this town.

But I have two reasons to stay.