It was nighttime again in the Spirit's soulroom. Normally Ryou would be using this time to work on the diorama but tonight he was too consumed by his thoughts to concentrate. He lay on his back on the desert floor, gazing up at the pitch-black empty sky. For some reason the sky always looked like this, even during the daytime. There was nothing up there: no sun, moon, stars, or light. Nothing except darkness.
The Spirit stood watching Ryou from a distance. Tonight the two of them were alone, for they were in the ruins of an old deserted village where no one lived anymore. All of the buildings were in disrepair as if a massive fire had burned everything down at some point.
"Landlord, if you're not going to work on the diorama then you should get out of here and go mope in your own soulroom," the Spirit said.
"My soul has too many stars in the sky. I much prefer to stare at the empty black void within your soul," Ryou dropped a subtle insult.
"Oh haha, very clever," the Spirit said sarcastically. "If you're not going leave willingly then I'll kick you out."
Ryou moaned. "Fine, I'll go work on the diorama! Happy?" He stood up and brushed the sand off his clothes and hair.
Closing his eyes, Ryou imagined that he was holding a notebook and pencil. When he opened his eyes again, he was holding them for real. He headed over to the nearest run-down building and started sketching his surroundings. Anything he drew in here would not be permanent because he couldn't take the notebook out into the real world, but he took notes anyway because it helped him remember things.
"Why is life so unfair?" Ryou mused. "When I stayed home all the time, my father would always be on business trips or working at the museum. Now that I'm at the museum all the time, he's always at home. Sometimes I think he deliberately avoids me."
"Maybe he's jealous," the Spirit said.
"Of what?"
"Of you. You have the Millennium Ring and he doesn't."
Ryou chuckled. "That's really funny. Good one, Spirit."
Neither of them spoke for a couple of minutes as Ryou focused on his drawing. The silence was a bit eerie, and although Ryou normally liked haunted places, there was something unsettling about this village that made him uncomfortable. He got the feeling that something terrible must have happened here, though he couldn't imagine what.
"Do you miss being alive?" Ryou said to break the silence.
"Why are you asking all of a sudden?" the Spirit said.
"I'm just curious."
"Considering that I don't have any memory of when I was alive, I hardly miss it."
Ryou stopped sketching and turned to stare at the Spirit. "That's insane. You have a perfect life-sized replica of Ancient Egypt inside your mind, and you can't remember anything from your past life?"
"It's not me projecting our surroundings. It's the Ring," the Spirit explained. "My soulroom used to be filled with only sand. The river, mountains, and civilization didn't start to appear until after you became my host, and the ancient people you see walking around only showed up about a month ago."
Ryou's eyes widened with shock. "That's really…sad. You were trapped alone inside a room full of nothing but sand for three thousand years?"
"Don't you dare pity me," growled the Spirit.
"I'm not!" Ryou protested, but his eyes said otherwise.
The Spirit saw the compassion in Ryou's eyes and felt a massive wave of discomfort. Had it been anyone else giving him that kind of look, the Spirit would have laughed with contempt. But it was different with Ryou because of their metaphysical connection with one another.
Something stirred within the dark recesses of the Spirit's mind. Images of a long forgotten past, laced with pain, bloodshed, and the sounds of people screaming in terror came to the surface. There was a little white-haired girl, only three or four years old, shivering in the corner of a small room as the people outside were being slaughtered or captured. She turned her head and looked at her older brother with the same pair of sad, compassionate eyes as Ryou.
No! What am I seeing? Make it stop! the Spirit thought, clutching his head in agony.
"Are you okay?" Ryou said, approaching the Spirit with concern. He gently reached out and tried to put his hand on the Spirit's shoulder. But right before contact was made, the Spirit harshly shoved Ryou to the ground.
Ryou staggered backwards and landed in the sand. Due to the nature of soulrooms, there was no physical damage to his body, but it still hurt like the real thing. The kindness in Ryou's eyes was gone, replaced by an expression of bewilderment, hurt, and a hint of anger. The Spirit liked this expression a whole lot better. The images faded out of existence.
"Quit intruding on my personal life and get back to work," the Spirit ordered.
At first Ryou started to obey because he was still in a state of disorientation. But then the hypocrisy of the Spirit's statement slowly sank in. Ryou blurted out, "Hey wait a minute! How can you tell me not to intrude on your personal life when you're always intruding on mine?"
The Spirit groaned and massaged his forehead. "I'm not in the mood for this. Drop it."
"No I'm not going to drop it! It's about time we talked about this!" Ryou threw his writing materials on the ground so that he could use both his hands for gesturing. "You're always listening in on my personal thoughts and taking control of my body without my permission! Why do you have to be so inconsiderate all the time?"
"I'm not inconsi– "
"I'm not done!" Ryou shouted. "Every time you take control, I black out. Every single freaking time! Why can't you let me stay awake so I can see what's happening around me? Why can't you be more like Yugi's other self?"
"Don't compare me to the Pharaoh!" the Spirit snapped.
"But nooo, you always have to leave me stranded in random places with no explanation of how I got there," Ryou ranted nonstop. "It drives me nuts! When I was a kid I used to think I just spaced out a lot, but it turns out that you were meddling with my life and ruining my relationships with other people!" Ryou started pacing the floor. "And don't even get me started on Battle City. You almost got us both killed! I mean I get that you were only trying to help Yugi defeat the bad guys, but you could've at least put on some warmer clothing before going outside on that blimp with all the wind– "
"Oh yeah? Well I'm not the only one who's almost gotten us killed! What about all the annoying things you do?" the Spirit broke in, and Ryou stopped pacing to look at him. "What about all of your trips into South Domino alone? Or the way you rush headlong into danger to save your friends? You're grown careless haven't you. You know that I'm always around to save the day when you get into trouble so you take more unnecessary risks than you should!"
Ryou couldn't prevent a grin from spreading on his face. It was true; owning a Millennium Item had made him fearless and unconcerned for his own safety. He didn't really feel guilty about it though.
"Stop laughing! This is serious!" the Spirit snarled.
Ryou covered his mouth and forced himself to recompose his face into a neutral expression.
"In fact, you were always putting yourself in mortal peril even before you knew about my existence," the Spirit went on. "Don't think I've forgotten about those experiments with the occult you used to do back in middle school, one of which was actually successful. But you didn't know about that because I was the one who had to deal with the consequences!"
"Wait, one of them was actually a success? Which experiment was it?" Ryou asked curiously.
The Spirit shot Ryou an irritated glare.
Ryou put his hands up in the air. "Okay, okay. I get it. No more experiments with the occult. Is there anything else you'd like to complain about?"
"Just two things." The Spirit started to count the fingers on his hand. "One, you don't take care of your health. You have a bad habit of staying up all night to play games or write stories, and even though you can cook, you live mostly on instant noodles and microwave pizza. And it's ruining our physical stamina! I can't run for more than a block before this defective body of yours starts to get tired!"
"Hey, if you were a high school student living on your own, you'd know how hard it is to cook for yourself every day," Ryou defended.
"And two," the Spirit continued as if he hadn't been interrupted, "do you know how many nights you've woken me up with your obnoxious crying? You've been mourning for your sister for so long that I'm utterly sick of hearing about it. What good does all that crying do anyways?"
Ryou blushed. Nobody was supposed to know about that. "That's none of your business."
"Just look at yourself! Look at what you're wearing!"
"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"
"That blue jacket!" the Spirit pointed his finger.
Ryou pulled at his jacket collar. "Yeah? It's my favorite jacket. So?"
"You don't have it anymore," the Spirit stated.
Ryou cocked his head, unable to comprehend what the Spirit was getting at. "It's true that the real one got destroyed during Battle City, but I can still wear it when I'm inside a soulroom. Just because it doesn't exist in real life anymore doesn't mean it can't live on in my imagination."
"And that's a problem. The fact that you're still trying to preserve it means that you live in the past. You hang onto your possessions after they've outlived their usefulness, and you cling onto memories that don't really matter anymore."
"That's just human nature. You probably just can't understand because you don't have any memories of your past."
"Human nature is counter-productive and doesn't make any sense! How long ago did you sister die? Don't you think it's high time you moved on already? I've seen your mind, Light. Your memories of her are fragmented at best. When are you going to let it go? When are you going to stop writing letters?"
"I'll never stop. I'll continue writing to her until the day I die!" Ryou asserted.
"Pathetic," the Spirit spat.
Ryou sucked in a sharp breath of air, struggling to keep his face neutral. "I do not want to have this kind of argument with you!"
"Human lives are short, meaningless, and full of suffering anyway. Those who die early are lucky to have escaped the pain of living."
"But–"
"Who cares if your sister died? Her life didn't even matter!"
There was a long, drawn out moment of deafening silence. Ryou's expression didn't change on the outside, but something within him snapped. He walked over, grabbed the front of the Spirit's shirt, and gazed coldly into the Spirit's eyes.
"You take that back." Ryou's voice was deadly and quiet.
The Spirit didn't even flinch; instead his lips curled up into a smirk. "Are you going to hit me?" he taunted.
"I want to. You deserve it."
"Go ahead. I won't move."
Ryou squeezed and relaxed his dominant hand several times in a moment of self-debate. Then, before he could change his mind about it, he raised his arm and rammed his fist into the Spirit's left cheek.
The Spirit didn't react much at all. His neck turned slightly but he didn't stagger. Ryou walked away a short distance and sat cross-legged on the ground with his back turned against the Spirit.
"That was weak. You didn't even put your full strength into it," the Spirit said in a tone of disappointment.
Ryou said nothing.
"Oh, so now you're ignoring me?" The Spirit waited again for a reply, but there was none. "If it weren't for me, you'd likely be dead at this point. You have no idea how many times I've saved your pitiful life up until now. You ought to be grateful for my existence."
"–on ell mm tm be grateful," Ryou mumbled incoherently.
"What was that?" the Spirit demanded.
Ryou breathed a deep and heavy sigh. "It's not that I'm not grateful, I just don't agree with your methods."
"I've stopped sealing souls into figurines. Isn't that enough for you?"
"The fact that you used to do that at all is insane! I have to wonder what was going through your head at the time!" Ryou started running his fingers through the sand over and over. "Don't get me wrong. I know you've changed a lot, and I appreciate that. But do me another favor will you? All I'm asking is for you to stop listening to my private thoughts and to stop suppressing my consciousness when you take control."
"If you want to keep your thoughts private, you should learn how to set up a mental barrier. I can't help hearing what I hear. Once your thoughts go through, it's too late for me to block them. And as for the second request–" the Spirit paused to think of an excuse. "I don't know how not to suppress you when I take control."
"Can't you figure out a way? You might get better at it with practice."
"Sure, I'll work on it," the Spirit lied. He didn't actually intend to follow through. "In return, I want you to start eating and sleeping properly."
"Deal. I'm glad we've reached an understanding." Ryou got up and went to retrieve his notebook and pencil. All traces of their previous fight were gone and he was back in his usual mood. "By the way, this should go without saying, but please refrain from messing up any more of my friendships."
"Che, it's not like you were any good at making friends with people in the first place."
Ryou huffed. "Well at least I actually try. I get the feeling that you don't care for friendship at all."
"I don't," the Spirit said bluntly.
Ryou facepalmed. "And that's a problem! Since we're going to have to live together for a while, things would be so much easier if we got along! We could be actual friends instead of…of…whatever's going on between us right now. We could be more like Yugi and his other self."
The corners of the Spirit's mouth twitched up in amusement. "You're asking for the impossible."
"Why's it impossible?"
"Because I'm a literal demon."
"Don't put yourself down like that!" Ryou scolded. "Come on, I'm sure there's still hope for you. I refuse to believe you're as heartless as you say you are!"
So, so gullible, the Spirit thought, mentally shaking his head. Sometimes he wondered if the deception had worked a little too well.
Ryou tried to initiate a handshake. "Won't you be my friend?"
The Spirit turned his back and walked away.