Author's Notes: Oh man has this story been needing a good edit. I've gone through and fixed a bunch of typos and retconned one major thing -- Bakura now looks like a Thief King, but s/he still has the regular Bakura hair and bunny-horn-bat-wing-things.

Anyway, about this story. The pairing is Ryou x Bakura / tendershipping, but this isn't shonen-ai. I enjoy yaoi and shonen-ai but this isn't a shonen-ai story in the most literal sense of the term.

This is a genderbending fic, but it is not funny or silly or done for comedic effect nor in any way intended to reflect upon my attitudes towards women. Yami Malik makes Bakura specifically, artificially tiny and weak. The entire point of the penalty game is humiliation and if she was still a muscular amazon as I imagine a regular female Thief King would be I don't think it would've had quite the same effect. The whole moral of the story is inner strength despite your outward weaknesses and shortcomings or something sappy like that, and I hope I've made that clear enough in the course of telling it.

In a way, I've also gender-bent Ryou. I imagine him to be as tall as Joey and Tristan in this fic and similarly built rather than the tiny waif fanon usually has him as, as that's how he's drawn towards the end of the manga.

It is written in a combination of dub and manga canon, so I use dub names and explanations for nonsense etc, but Monster World still happened. Canon and I part ways when it comes to the end of Memory World because it was written before we knew how the original YGO series would end.

You can find loads of art and musings relating to this specific pairing at my livejournal, which is linked in my profile. If you've happened upon this story via the YGO Dressing Room, please enjoy Thistle and Nerf's backstory.

I appreciate every review I've recieved over the years and I'm always thrilled when someone enjoys this story since it is my most favorite thing I have ever written. I will be posting what I have of the sequel after I finish updating this one.

Warnings: There's one scene containing attempted rape and another with a spur of the moment suicide attempt. Both are averted. Bakura attempts to abuse Ryou several times but is never very successful.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

'Cause this life

Is too short

To live it just for you

But when you feel

So powerless

What are you gonna do?

~Nelly Furtado, 'Powerless'

Prologue

It was a cool night.

The chill permeated the walls of the museum and sank into the smooth marble. Darkness came with it and hid the colors of gold sarcophagi and sandy rock, robbing them of all the warmth of their homeland. Skyscrapers illuminated the journey into the afterlife as the penetrating light of the city just outside threw the hieroglyphs into a sharp relief.

The only person in the museum didn't mind the morbid Egyptian symbols. Though they were as unreadable to him as anyone else, they were far more familiar. He didn't mind the cold, either. It reminded him that he was alive.

Again.

He stood outside the central exhibit, a huge stone tablet encased by glass. Seven distinct slots were wrought into its surface. Five of the spaces were filled.

The former king of thieves set his hand on the glass, having ducked under the red velvet ropes ringing the exhibit without a second thought. He stared at the golden Items, nestled firmly in their respective holes, and the stylized eyes of the relics gazed back. Part of his mind was uneasy at the lack of a sixth Item, knowing the seventh was securely around his own neck. But he had to admit that the stray Item was safe, despite its absence. As strange as it was to admit it, that was good enough for him, now.

Now that the Shadow Games were over, the Millennium Items could rest in peace. They had had many guardians and keepers over the millennia, and finally, the job was rightfully his.

With the Items in a final resting place, so were the ninety-nine lives that had been sacrificed at their creation. That was all he wanted when he first set out on his quest to avenge his town, centuries ago. Now, after the Pharaoh had stripped his soul of ages of corruption during their final confrontation, it was all he wanted again.

Bakura almost felt as though he should have died once his burning hatred and madness were swept away by the Pharaoh's penalty game. Instead, they were both reborn, given their ancient bodies again. Perhaps fate felt that the normal course of their lives had been upended by Shadow magic, and gave them a chance to continue what they had lost. Bakura didn't know, and he doubted the Pharaoh understood it completely either. He smirked.

Even if he was no longer the avatar of a dark god, he and the Pharaoh would always be rivals. No amount of magic could change that. He was still mistrusted and avoided by Yugi's friends, and the Pharaoh had made him vow with his blood to never misuse the power of his Millennium Ring, since he refused to part with it. He kept his oath.

Most of the time.

So what if he had sent the museum's guards to the Shadow Realm for a short visit? They'd wake within the hour and dismiss their experience as nothing more than a nightmare.

They had no right to keep him away. This was the closest thing he had to a sanctuary.

His landlord was a landlord in the true sense of the word, now, since he had been forced to take up residence with the boy he used to terrorize. That same landlord had been annoying him again, trying to get him to talk or play a game or something equally useless. The kid was still pitifully lonely, and Bakura refused to humor him, seeking out the solitude of the empty museum halls. He was loath to even share a name with the child.

The thief did not understand the boy. No matter how verbally abusive Bakura became, no matter how much food he tossed or how many things he broke or how standoffish and rude he was, Ryou still treated him like an honored guest. Bakura suspected the boy might still be scared of him, and he snorted. Good. Let him be scared. Ryou should learn that people have no use for quiet weaklings who all but throw themselves on the floor before others as eager doormats. Perhaps then he would grow a backbone.

Or was it just that the idea of someone being nice to him was so alien to Bakura that it confused and agitated him, making him uncomfortable and prone to snapping and stalking off to museums to brood? Was he worried that, without his darkness, he would become a soft-hearted sap like the Pharaoh if he didn't try his hardest to push Ryou away? Maybe he was the one who was afraid …

Bakura bristled and quickly derailed that train of thought, muttering angrily and pulling his hand away from the cool glass. He wished he had brought his trench coat instead of just a blue short-sleeved shirt, but he had been in no state to remember something so rational when he stormed out of the apartment. Besides, he had only had this body a matter of months. Remembering things like keeping warm were concepts he had to relearn after an eon of being a spirit.

But he could never have anticipated that the temperature of the room would drop so suddenly, as though some sort of villainous force had just entered it. His back itched with the sensation that evil eyes were boring into it, but he brushed it off with a quick shake of his head. No one could sneak up on –

CRASH!

Bakura just barely leapt back in time, nearly getting tangled in the velvet ropes.

A piece of the tablet had been chipped by the impact, and glass littered the floor. The guilty rock tumbled to the bottom of the display.

Bakura whirled around to face the intruder, a snarl on his face, his Ring already glowing. Who dared to desecrate his sanctuary?

A dark, bulky form strode on long legs as it approached him, obscured by a heavy cape. Dead, violet eyes glinted in the darkness, wild blond bangs falling before them.

"Well, if it isn't the spirit of the Ring," a low, amused voice murmured, "I'm glad to see you're still in one piece…I did wonder how you were doing after our last encounter."

Bakura growled as recognized the interloper, "I thought the Pharaoh defeated you, vermin—"

"He's defeated you several times, if I do recall correctly," the possessed Marik cut in with a sneer, tilting his head to the side, "but you're still here." His voice dropped, and he unexpectedly reached a hand out, gently brushing the slightly shorter thief's long bangs back and revealing the long scar sweeping over Bakura's right eye, "It's such a shame that you got rid of that pretty host of yours."

Bakura hissed and flung the Egyptian's hand away, mind racing for an explanation. Had Marik's dark side come back somehow and taken him over again, or did the closing of the Shadow Games give him his own body as well? Either way, he had no Millennium Item and he was without the centuries of practice and absorbed magic of the thief.

"I suggest you return to whatever dark pit you crawled out of," Bakura threatened, the Ring materializing outside his shirt, "You're still a weak manifestation or a weak mortal, and either way, you're powerless against me!"

"Please, allow me to differ."

Abruptly, he swung a broad arm at Bakura's head, taking the thief by surprise and causing him to stumble to the side. It had been a long time since anyone had attacked him physically.

He recovered quickly, though, and turned to face his assailant, his hand going for his cards…

But he was too late. Marik had already reached into the display and snatched the Millennium Rod, which was quickly set aglow. He held it out, pointing it at Bakura.

"Now, I think we already know what will happen if we go through this again," Marik chuckled, "Simply let me take what is rightfully mine, and I'll let you leave with your entire body this time."

Bakura's anger flared dangerously as the words hit a sore spot. "Don't you dare speak of having rights to the Items to me!" He pulled out his deck, "I am their guardian now, and I'm going to finish what that useless Pharaoh couldn't!"

Marik only seemed entertained by the outburst, shrugging nonchalantly. "If you insist."

"And you'll have no God Card to help you this time," Bakura smirked, shuffling his cards.

"Trust me, thief," Marik's eyes glistened with insanity, "I won't need it."

Bakura's lip twitched, and his smirk vanished. The shadows of the museum started to twist, coalescing around them in a cloud, and he tried to reassert himself, "When I crush you, boy, you'll be sent into the shadows for all eternity. There, I'm sure my monsters will have fun tearing you apart…"

Marik just laughed, his face splitting into a deranged grin. "I'm sure, tomb-robber." He snickered, before bobbing his head to the side in a morbid, inhuman gesture of curiosity, his tone shifting abruptly, "You like to talk about the weakness of others, don't you?"

Bakura didn't answer, his metaphorical hackles rising as the stage was set for the Shadow Game, something that never should have happened again. Just this one last time, Bakura assured himself, it was necessary to tie up this loose thread, to get rid of this nuisance once and for all…

"After I get through with you, thief," Marik continued, lowering his head and smiling mysteriously, "Well… let's just say you'll have no room to criticize them."

Bakura narrowed his eyes, and the duel began.