Hello and welcome to my very first fanfic posted on hooray for me! puts on party hat

but anyhoo, here is the first chapter. this fic takes place after the first series, about a month after the items were sealed. Yugi and Ryou slipped back one after the others left and retrieved their items, but they are simply shells without spirits now- or are they?

Hehe...lots of angst this chapter. oh, and this story is Ryou and Bakura-centric. the other characters are mentioned, but he is the only one present... for now anyways. I promise I won't make any sue OCs or whatever. jut good, clean illegal fun concerning 'underage drinking' the MCAS, spirits and impossibly spicy food. Not all in this chapter, though

Disclaimer( dark magician!attack evil lawyers!): Hmn... let's see here, do poor middle school kids own Yugioh? yes? no? even the Dueling Monkey could figure that one out! In other words, I don't own Yugioh. But I do own the plot, the OCs and everything else that doesn't exist in the Yugioh World or Real Life, including made up cards (in my continuum, after the items were sealed, Pegasus released a bunch of new cards, thus making my life easier)

so me no own, you no sue.

other stuff (speech keys and junk):

"blah" is duh, normal speech

"Blah" is Hikari thinking to yami

"Blah" is Yami thinking to Hikari

and one last thing, a horizontal rule can either mean scene switch or POV switch. it should be pretty obvious who is speaking or whatever in this chapter anyway, but in later chpaters is something is unclear, I'll say whose POV it is. get it? got it? good.

Now on with the show!

Return Of Darkness

The museum. Hn, It used to be the meeting place. Where Yugi-tachi met once in a while. Now I just sit there, in the Egypt exhibit, with my Ring out, fondling it in sadness. I used to hate it. Not IT exactly, but the something that came with it. The golden surface shines so deceptively. It gives the aura of wealth, of happiness and of strength, just by the precious metal it is made out of. Liar.

I just had to go back to those ruins, where the tablet of the pharaoh's memories stood. And I found my ring again. But it's empty. Not whole. Just like me now, I guess. I know Yugi found his puzzle again. I saw a glimpse of his hair among the rocks as I was leaving.

I feel so empty now. Something-someone isn't there. It's funny, you know. When he was, I used to wish every night that he would fade away. Disappear. Be gone.

Forever.

No matter how much pain he caused me, no matter how much I suffered, I'll always think of him fondly. Imagine it as being handcuffed to someone else for seven years. You either love them or hate them, and even though he did horrible things to me, I still love him. He was the one person who didn't abandon me when things got rough. Yugi-tachi are alright, but they did so much saving the world and everything that I was kind of a sidenote. A friend that was there only half the time.

I expect Yugi's in his room, contemplating this whole thing just like me. He is going through the same experience, having half your soul ripped out, but I can't bring myself to talk to him. Our other halves were so different. Yugi and the pharaoh respected one another. The tomb robber only tortured me and haunted my dreams.

But they're both gone.

Forever.

It might have been the chance to live a normal life. No shadow games, no megalomaniacs, no nothing. But the pain is too great. Is this what It's like to be by yourself? Is this how everyone feels? Is this normal? I doubt it.

Without Darkness, there can be no Light. Without Light, there can be no Darkness. Light is derived from Dark and Dark is derived from Light. For us to be apart is pain. A horrible, rending, tearing, destroying pain. All because he's not here.

So far away.

Where is he?

Gah, I'm so weak.

I can't stop thinking of that little snot, my landlord.

But I'm in the afterlife now. I have control of my own body. What's to miss? He was just an item of torture.

Right?

No, It's not. He was my vessel. He carried me around, even though he knew I was a danger to everyone he saw. He always let me come back. The damn pharaoh always ditched me, and I always came back. But Ryou had to let me in. Why did he? He hated me, right?

Maybe.

Whenever I tortured him, even with my toys in my soul room, he never pleaded. He never begged, sniveled, or whined.

He just said 'please'

Not please spare me. Not please don't hurt me. Not please, stop. Just 'please'.

And nothing else.

Bah! Why am I thinking this way? I admit he was… interesting, but I'm home now. I'm back where I belong.

Where do I belong?

The Ring was my home for five thousand years. The afterlife is my home now.

No.

I'm here now, but this is not my home. Neither was the Ring. Being imprisoned somewhere hardly qualifies as a 'home'.

Ryou was my home.

I want to go home.

The day was just as cheery as ever. Ra rose high in the sky, smiling at all beneath. Distant bells, chiming out the hour clanged cheerfully. Children enjoying the Sunday evening laughed and played in the park next to the apartment. The Domino birds were cheeping out songs like no tomorrow.

As far as one white-haired teen was concerned, there was no tomorrow.

A Ryou Bakura sat on his bed, fondling the label of his suitcase and the points of The Millennium Ring at the same time.

"I leave tomorrow." He mumbled sadly. Even though his other spirit was no longer there, he still had taken to talking to his ring, in the vain hope that someone, somewhere might hear.

He needed to get away from it all for a while. Domino. Yugi. The saga of the millennium items. They contained too many memories.

That was why he had decided to take advantage of the exchange program and the fact that he spoke English.

He was going to America for a year. Not only would he be getting credits for college while doing so, it was sure to be an adventure. The kind that he wouldn't be the villain in.

"Bakura, I wish you could see the USA. It's the land of the free. And you could get a steak so fresh it would still smell like grass." He sighed wistfully as he turned the Ring over in his hands. With a sniffle, the boy started to weep softly. He knew his counterpart wouldn't like to see him this way, but he couldn't help himself. He removed the suitcase from his bed, got in and turned off the light, crying himself to sleep.

"I wish you were here…"

Ryou hated planes.

The food that tasted like Styrofoam, the pillows that were as limp as noodles and the cheesy airplane movies didn't help, either. That was why Ryou often slept on the planes. Boredom, and it kept the people from offering him packs of those nauseating peanuts.

But when he went to sleep, he usually went to his soul room.

Ryou looked at the bookcases and the trinkets all around the place, with comfy armchairs and fluffy pillows.

And a door.

What was in his hallway, now that his partner was gone?

Only one way to find out.

Bakura lounged around on the large bed in his soul room, bored out of his mind.

"Damn, If only the child were here, I would be preoccupied." He hissed in boredom, looking around the familiar setting of his soul room.

Torture instruments. Check.

Stained glass windows. Check.

Candles. Check.

Gargoyles. Check.

Door. Check.

"Door?" He said skeptically. If he truly was alone now, he wouldn't have another room to go into, much less the door to the familiar hallway. Why was it here?

Only one way to find out

"What?" Ryou mumbled as he looked into the other room from the hallway. There was no door, and inside the walls were plain white where his counterpart's room had once been. It looked like the inside of a house when someone had just finished moving out. Except for one thing.

Ryou stepped inside the cavernous room, his footsteps echoing in the interior. He took a deep breath and blinked, not believing his eyes.

A mirror.

A Gothic-style mirror that was just THERE, hanging on the wall. As if his Yami had simply left it there when he disappeared. Raising his eyebrow in confusion a bit he walked over and looked into his reflection.

"No way…" he gasped at what he saw.

"This is impossible." The Thief King breathed in surprise as he looked in the room from the hallway. There was only an empty doorframe. The white walls were empty. Bakura remarked solemnly to himself that it looked like a room after he was finished stealing everything in it. Save one minor detail.

Bakura carefully paced into the hollow space, the trod of his feet making no sound whatsoever. His eyes narrowed in puzzlement, in fact he did not truly believe what he was witnessing.

A mirror.

The kind that hangs on the wall, from head to foot, a very plain mirror. Like the kind you would see in a hotel. It was reminiscent of the fact that he had accidentally brought something of Ryou's when he left. He walked over it and almost drew back when he saw what was in his reflection.

"It cannot be…" The bandit lord whispered as he made a double take.

"Ryou!"

"Bakura!"

Both of them yelled at the same time and suddenly stopped, realizing that neither could hear the other's voice. Ryou's forehead screwed up as he thought of another way. He breathed on the glass, creating a cloud of fog. Carefully, he wrote four words in it.

"What…is…going…on…?"

Bakura raised an eyebrow and wrote another four words, unfortunately in hieroglyphs. Ryou sighed and wrote

"in… Japanese…Bakura…"

Bakura scowled back, changed languages and hastily scribbled six words.

"Shut…up…how…should…I…know…?"

Ryou erased his last message and wrote "Dunno."

Bakura replied with 'Idiot." And tapped his foot impatiently. Unfortunately, he had failed to notice a small pad underneath his foot. There was a creaking beneath him. Bakura raised his head in surprise as the floor collapsed beneath him.

With an 'ohmygosh!" Ryou did the first thing that occurred to him. He reached forward into the mirror and grabbed the wrist of his counterpart. It took a second to register with both of them that Ryou had just reached through a solid object, but Ryou just shrugged, and Bakura started to yell at him.

"What was that? Since when is YOUR soul room booby trapped!" Bakura hissed indignantly as he tried to reach the mirror with his other hand, but he found it solid.

"I have no idea. Please hold still. You're heavy."

"What are you going to do?"

"No idea!" Ryou blurted out and pulled Bakura up with all his might. The result of this was Bakura being pulled through the mirror little by little, like a stubborn object refusing budge. The thief king saw and felt himself change little by little as he was yanked through. His short-ish white hair lengthened into long spikes. His build became more lithe to Bakura's annoyance. His skin paled drastically, and his scar faded from view. His red robe was exchanged for a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt identical to Ryou's. To an onlooker it would have looked extremely odd, but as there are generally no onlookers in one's soul room, the strangeness was dismissed. Finally, Bakura crashed out through the mirror and on to the floor, which Ryou noticed had shifted back into Bakura's soul room once again. But the mirror still remained. They both stood up and looked at each other. Ryou spoke first.

"Well… that was interesting."

"Being forced between the living world and the afterlife feels…disgusting. Don't do itagain. I demand to know why the mirror did not accept me!"

"Um... I really don't know. But I have sort of and idea."

'And it is?"

"I think that when you left, you had to take a part of me with you, because I'm you. And when you left, you had to leave something because you're me. And through that, we could see each other again. I think the reason that I could get to your side is that it's easier for a living person to get to the afterlife than a dead person to get out. The trap and the mirror was a safeguard to keep you form coming back."

"For once you say something useful." Bakura looked at some of the things in his room and then back at Ryou. Ryou looked at him as seriously as he could.

"The reason why I didn't let you fall to the depths of hell or something is because I missed you. And if you turn out to be a mistake…"

"So?"

"If you try to take over the world, start sealing souls, torture me, try to steal the items, or summon the shadow realm without my permission, I'll… I'll… I'll shove you back in that mirror where you belong and leave you there!" Ryou said with the most potent glare he could manage, which was not at all frightening, but sort of cute.

Bakura started to laugh. "Landlord, you've grown something of a backbone while I've been gone!" He stopped and looked Ryou in the eye. "I'll abide to your conditions…for now." He concluded. In his book, anything was more interesting than being stuck in the afterlife.

Ryou smiled and immediately attacked his counterpart with a tight hug. "Then welcome back, Bakura!"

For a second, the thief king was at a loss for what to do, but after three awkward seconds, he accepted the hug reluctantly and whispered, "I'm glad to be back."

The soul room faded out and Ryou found himself waking up, as the plane was about to land. His face split into a look of joy and stood up in his seat.

"YES! HE'S BACK!" Ryou yelled before he could think. Almost immediately, he noticed the looks people were giving him, collapsed back into his seat, blushing seventeen shades of red and two of purple and four of pink.

"Not back five minutes and you're already making a fool out of yourself." Bakura thought to his hikari as the plane pulled in for a landing.

"Oops."Ryou thought meekly as he handed the limp pillow back to the stewardess.

End Chapter
And that's it right now!

Ok, just so you know, this chapter is REALLY short for me. but I don't update that often unless I am suddenly ultra-inspired with like... say.. REVIEWS?

reviewreviewreview. I need to know what you, the readers think. Or correct me if I mes sup so I can fix it so I don't look like and idiot. Whoo. Anyways, see you... whenever I get off my lazy bum and update.