Ryou rushed out of the tavern, but the thief Bakura was long gone. And in the world of his memories, he could be anywhere, at any time.
"I… I should find a way out…" Ryou whispered to himself, staring up at a sky full of tiny stars. "I… I don't know how long I've been here… If…And if my yami finds out…"
He shuddered to think of the punishment the evil spirit of the millennium ring would inflict upon his body should he discover that he is alone inside it.
"But how?" he whispered, starting to walk in the direction of Kul Elna. It was the first place he had come from, and the only place he could think of going. "Maybe the… the door is back where I left it?"
It was a logical thought, but in his yami's mind, logic was never the driving force.
Ryou arrived at Kul Elna just as the sun started to rise. The city was in ruins.
Angry cries bellowed from the hidden chamber underneath the city, indicating that a fearsome battle was taking place. Gasping, Ryou quickened his pace. The ground shook from an explosion, almost knocking him off his feet as he reached the entrance to an underground cave.
"The millennium scale is mine!" Bakura roared, triumphantly taking the item from the dead body of Priest Kalim. His ka, broken into pieces, left his body in the same state.
Ryou watched as his yami studied the gold item, and smiled at the pharaoh.
"It will only be a matter of time before I have all of them! And then my revenge will be complete! With the power of the ultimate darkness in my grasp, I will annihilate all of you!" he laughed, unaware of the monster approaching his shield.
"You overestimate yourself, Bakura!" the pharaoh shouted. "Dark Magician! Now!"
"Yami, look out!" Ryou shouted, but his voice didn't carry over the battlefield.
Another monster, a fusion of the high priest Mahaado and his ka, suddenly penetrated the shield around Bakura's Diabound.
"What?" Bakura barely had time to gasp before the dark magic attack struck his powerful beast. The blast, far more powerful than anything he had ever seen, or even anticipated, sent Diabound crashing to the ground.
The creature, as dangerous as an Egyptian God, fell into its own darkness, and disappeared.
Ryou held his breath as he watched his yami clutch his chest. He studied the bodies of the dead priests, their monsters also gone. It only took a brief second to connect their fate with that of his yami.
Bakura's face cringed in agony. His heart felt like it was about to explode. Blood dripped down his cheeks, frightening wounds erupting all over his body. He didn't want to admit it, not even to himself, but he knew that the battle was over.
"Finish him!" the pharaoh called to his two remaining priests.
Logic also would have dictated that Ryou stay out of sight. However, that too, did not happen. Unable to stop himself from dashing onto the battlefield, Ryou ran towards his yami.
The broken body of the thief crawled towards the millennium stone, desperately attempting to get the items to their proper places. With the ultimate power of darkness, he still might be able to complete his mission. He might still gain his revenge.
He moved on, attempting to ignore the pain.
"… Yami!" Ryou shouted, but Bakura's head was too foggy to even recognize his voice.
The pharaoh, however, saw the intruder on the battlefield, and stopped his attack.
"It's the prisoner from the palace!" he gasped, calling back the Dark Magician before he could provide a lethal blow.
"I told you he was in the same set as Bakura!" Priest Set announced, pointing his rod at Ryou.
"But his soul was deemed pure! It cannot be."
Having put the millennium ring into the stone, Bakura looked up. His eyes, even his good one, were glazed over. He knew there was someone running towards him, but he couldn't see whom it was. And in the growing darkness, the voice didn't seem familiar. In fact, Bakura could barely remember how he even got there.
He glanced towards where the pharaoh had been standing. The blood ran freely from open wounds, splattering on the dusty stone. He shakily outstretched his hand.
"This… this can't be how it ends!" he gasped, his breath barely moving. He turned towards the new voice. "…Help me!"
"Yami, no!" Ryou ran, but like the receding horizon, he couldn't reach the thief king in time.
In another instant, Bakura's body dissolved into sand. The red cloak fell to the ground in an unceremonious dust cloud. A dark shadow fell upon the millennium ring.
Ryou's body fell over the millennium stone. The heat from the ring, burning with its new captive, pressed angrily against his chest. He could feel the spirit of the thief banging on the other side of the gold, trying to free himself from a prison far worse than the pharaoh's dungeons. And Ryou knew from history that all his efforts could only be in vain.
After a few moments, Ryou finally pushed himself up. He looked around.
The entire chamber was empty again. The pharaoh, his priests, everything was gone, except for the stone and the four millennium items the thief had managed to place there. And Ryou couldn't help but feel its emptiness.
"Why… why are you feeling like this?" he asked himself aloud, seeing as there was no one that could hear him. "You… You came here to find a way to stop your yami… Not help him."
He sat up from the stone.
"When you find your way out… he's still going to be the cold-hearted monster that he always was. He's still going to seek revenge. He's still going to hurt your friends, and you… Always you…" Ryou let a tear slide down his cheek. He ignored it, though. "Why should you care that… that his life… well… was terrible?"
No matter how much he attempted to rationalize his motives for entering the memories of his yami, he couldn't erase them from his mind.
The tender young child, seeking some sort of praise from a village of wicked thieves, scolded for being alive one minute, and given love that corresponded to the size of a gold trinket he managed to sneak from a royal tomb.
The hungry orphan, stealing food from the neighboring markets before escaping back to an empty home in an empty village. Frightened of any intruder, lest he be killed just like the rest of his family.
The young man, beaten and almost killed by the pharaoh's guards simply for trying to survive. One step ahead of disaster, he likely slept with one eye open, constantly looking over his shoulder for fear of being killed.
The bitter tomb robber, finally acquiring the power of his inner spirit, attacking the palace with the intention of recovering the one sliver of life that the pharaoh took away. His rage was built on justified agony. And as much as Ryou hated it, part of him wanted his yami to succeed.
But he knew that he didn't. He just watched Bakura die, his spirit being sucked into the one thing that he despised most. For the rest of eternity, he would be trapped within the items that marked his village's destruction, the cruel irony of fate.
"No wonder he hates me and my friends so much…" Ryou whispered, tracing his finger along the outline of the ring. "I… I wear the ring now…"