Huntshipping (Bakura Ryo/Marik Ishtar/Rishid Ishtar/Yami no Bakura)

. . .

"I know it's here, Rishid," Marik hissed. "I've sensed it—I've sensed them—since before we arrived here."

Rishid inclined his head, letting the cloak cover his eyes for a moment. He understood Marik's frustration. He, too, had sensed it the moment they arrived in the harbor. The eyes, watching them. The energy that pulsed gently at the back of his mind, dangerous, poisonous, threatening, like a cobra with its frill still pinned to its neck, waiting patiently among the sand for its next meal.

He remembered Marik staggering out of his room on the boat, eyes wide and almost bloodshot, as they always did when he had been using the Rod to look out other people's eyes for too long, his face tight with rage.

"Someone disrupted my hold over the American,"he said. "And the bastard burned the warehouse down—I don't even know what happened to the pharaoh after that."

It had taken them several hours before Marik was recovered enough to use the Rod again and check with his Ghouls about the wellbeing and location of both pharaoh and Puzzle. Marik was still livid. Whoever had been playing with Marik's plans...they were either very brave, very stupid, or...very dangerous.

Rishid was starting to be inclined towards the latter.

Marik stalked off the boat, shedding his cloak as he did and passing it to Rishid. Rishid folded the fabric up as he followed down the ramp onto the harbor. Marik's motorbike was already prepared for him. He ripped the helmet free of the bike with a half snarl and jammed it onto his head.

"I must focus on the pharaoh," Marik said. "But the hunt must not be left off—whatever, or whoever is getting in my way must be dealt with."

"Yes, Master Marik."

"Continue the hunt on your own, and do your best to obtain as many locator cards as possible. We willremain on schedule."

Rishid inclined his head in understanding, and Marik mounted the motorbike. He hesitated then, eyes flickered up towards the city skyline, to the darkened alleys at the edge of the harbor, and his eyes narrowed faintly.

Rishid felt it, then. Just the faintest flicker of...something. Something dark, and dangerous, like the flutter of a leaf that heralded the shifting of a panther hidden in the trees above. He clenched his jaw.

Were they the ones hunting, or the ones being hunted?

He almost laughed. Fools, both of them. Useless fools. But...perhaps he could use them for himself.

They were only two. The others, the Ghouls that they controlled, they were of no consequence. These two were all that mattered—the master, and the shadow. They were the power, the only power. One of the two held the Rod, a piece that Bakura sorely needed.

He felt his lighter half shift within him, felt his sight flicker as for a moment, the boy with the green eyes stared out of his own face instead of the boy with the violet. But Yami Bakura pushed Ryo back down after giving him only the briefest glimpse of the pair.

Patience, my little shadow, he whispered. I'll let you have your body back...when it suits me.

He looked lazily towards the boy on the motorbike, and his shadow looming beside him, silent and obedient to whatever the boy was spouting at him. What an odd relationship...

Well...

Bakura smiled to himself. He had found his prey...now the hunt could begin.

. . .

A/N: End me before I have to write another relationship involving more than three people. Next is Hubrisshipping (Yami no Marik x Seto).