Ryou, meanwhile, awoke to find himself in a long hallway. Grey stones lined the walls and floors. And roughly two feet away from him, a jackal-headed man was leading an older man up a set of stairs.

He blinked a couple of times. The old man glanced over at Ryou, unsure if he was truly seeing another spirit. Anubis, however, paid no heed, and went about his duty undisturbed.

"The… the person can see me, but the god can't…" Ryou whispered, and stood up. A few moments later, Anubis appeared again, crossing him in the opposite direction. "I… I have to find my yami. Before it's too late."

He did not have to search far, however. Following Anubis, he came to a large opening. As soon as he reached the end of the hallway, he saw exactly who he was looking for.

The thief Bakura slouched on the floor in a dank prison cell. His hands and feet were chained to the ground, the reigns so tight that he could not even stand up. His soul looked exhausted, hopeless even, as though he were merely waiting to be executed.

He looked so unusual in his true form. Ryou had grown accustomed to seeing his yami in his own body, as though he were a mirror's reflection. But this was his proper body, with dark leathery skin, shaggy white hair, and several frightening scars. And it was truly a sight to behold.

"… Yami?" he whispered, stepping closer.

Bakura noticed him instantly, rubbing his eyes.

"Anubis, if this is one more damn mirage… I swear…" he grumbled, blinking again.

"Yami? Is that you?"

"Ryou?" he gasped, sitting up sharply. The chains pulled at his body as he crawled forward. "Ryou? What the hell happened! The pharaoh killed you too!"

The thief reached out as far as his shackled hand could go. Ryou immediately dropped to his knees at his yami's side.

"I'm not dead, Yami." He weakly answered.

"What do you mean 'You're not dead.' You're in the afterworld if that dog-headed freak didn't explain it well enough to you." Bakura snapped. "What'd he do, dammit."

"I'm not dead." Ryou repeated himself. "And the gods… they can't see or hear me."

Bakura blinked.

"What?"

"I… I found the buried millennium items. And I put them back into the stone." He whispered. "It opened a gateway, so that I could see you again."

Bakura felt his tongue drop through his chest. His hikari had placed the items into the stone, possibly making a contract with the darkness, only for the purpose of seeing him again?

"See me again?" he could barely speak.

"I… I couldn't stand it, Yami." Ryou looked back up at him, with sad eyes. "I… I tried to go on with my life. I tried to get back in a daily routine. But… I… I don't like it. I… I don't like being alone. Yugi was able to choose whether he wanted to be separated… I…"

"Well, what about that pharaoh-runt and all his little friends?" the thief scoffed.

"What about them?" Ryou answered. "They… they don't talk to me now that you're gone."

Bakura hid a smirk.

"Nobody does. I… You were the only one who I could talk to. And… and without you in my head… it's… it's very lonely…" he weakly admitted. "I… I don't want to separate… I don't want you gone."

"Well, you're going to have to get used to it, hikari." Bakura rolled his eyes. "You might not be dead. But I am. The minute they take these chains off, a crocodile-headed mutt is going to rip my heart from my chest, and tear her teeth through my soul. So you might as well get your ass back to the other side while you still can."

Ryou gasped.

"If you can't stand being alone, then trust me. You don't want to see that."

The pale soul trembled. The thought of his yami being brutally devoured rolled through his mind over and over again.

"I… I don't want that to happen, Yami…"

"Well, it's going to happen."

Ryou crawled closer, and put his hands over those of his yami.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Sometimes I think you need to be locked back up in your stupid head." He growled. "I'm about to be put on trial, idiot. For everything I've done in the past three thousand years. I'm not exactly what you'd call a model Egyptian citizen."

"Isn't there anything you can… can say in your defense?"

"I can deny it all I want, but it won't change anything." He lowered his head. "They're going to weigh my heart against the feather of Ma'at, and forty-two judges are going to know that everything I just said was a complete lie."

He just glanced at the wall, refusing to say anything else. But that didn't matter to Ryou.

"Just… take this." Ryou eventually whispered, almost jumping as he reached into his pocket. He pulled out the necklace. It was rather plain for a piece of jewelry, a small green stone, carved into the shape of a stag beetle, welded to a tiny chain. "I almost forgot…"

"What's that?" Bakura asked, staring at the tiny rock.

"My… my dad brought it back from… from Egypt. A long time ago. He said the hieroglyphs said something like 'I miss you.' Or… something like that. I can't remember…"

"I can read that, hikari." He sneered. While he couldn't really read them, given his past as a thief, not a scribe, he at least recognized some of the characters from the walls of the tombs he had looted. And he knew he had seen something like that before, although he couldn't quite remember where.

"Well… I… I want you to have it, yami."

The thief slid the necklace over his greasy white mane.

"Thanks." he muttered under his breath. Gratitude was never his strong suit. "I don't… exactly have anything for you."

"It's okay, yami. You don't have to." Ryou smiled. "I'm… just glad to be with you…"

The hikari smiled. It was not the best of circumstances, but they were together, even if only for a brief moment. And that was all that mattered.