He closed his eyes and saw the same nothingness, but this was more comforting. With his eyes closed, it meant he didn't really see any of it, if only for a few precious, empty, and content, moments.

The clock tics and toks in the eternal rhythm of something too powerful for him to understand. And he doesn't want to understand it.

He's heard time tic away for far too long to want to know it's secrets and workings anymore. This life, the last life, and probably, if he gets that chance at all, the next life.

Time tics and toks away, leaving him behind like all the rest. To say he's used to it would be a serious understatement. No one else knows how these things work like he does. He knows how they would all work out in the end as well.

It was inevitable no matter what he or his Darkness did.

He knew, his Darkness knew, they both knew. Knew it all from the start.

They were meant to fall and fall low, just so others could rise and rise high.

They had to not only fight against, or with in his Darkness's case, but eventually turn into that which has damned them both, this life, the last life, and certainly, if they got the chance at all, the next life.

He knew with a disturbing certainty, that he had by far the shortest life, counting them all, and it wouldn't continued onwards with the rest of the unruly souls that surrounded him.

Two short, cut off, bitterly cruel, self-destructive, and despairing lives.

The unnamed King of Thieves, the very essence of Darkness, literally and metaphorically, the Spirit of the Sennen Ring, the half-soul of the Millennium Item.

The host of the Dark Ring, the vessel of his own Darkness, and the dimming Light of what could have been, and the half-soul of a man now boy, still without a name, Ryou Bakura.

He didn't know what he really was, even his very material name had lost it's value, and the one-sided, but damned self-inflicted, arguments and conflicts between the two broken souls didn't connect.

None of his lives had any balance whatsoever. He knew that now. His thief self couldn't however, that part didn't really exist anymore, but that in itself was a lie. He was the thief.

With the same certainty, he knew he already had his second chance, and a third would never come.

He failed the Light, he failed the Darkness, in each short life he's had over the course of a time too ancient for him to question anymore.

Maybe, just maybe he'd be given another chance, if only as the angsty, misunderstood villian or backstabbing, bipolar, schizophrenic side character.

No, no, he'd rather not exist past this point if it all just lead to a repeat of the already two wasted lives he's had.

So he opened his eyes in contentment and walked on.

Soon he was running again, the shadows at his heels, grabbing at his legs and pulling him another way when they believe he's started to go astray.

The shadows screamed at and dragged away anyone who got too close to him.

Some things just weren't meant to be.

He almost cried out as the stigma, on his left arm and hand, burned in a memory of pain and sorrow as he ran past the forever growing graveyards.

With his eyes open, he only saw a nothingness he knew all to well. They both knew it.

They were that very abyss after all.

Him, and the newly reborn Thief inside him.

The Thief he remade in his own need for his other fallen half, the Thief Spirit he wanted back despite all his hatred and fear.

Some things just weren't meant to be.

Call him a hypocrite, he just wanted someone to hate, but he didn't want to hate anyone in the first place. So he hated himself and built the image of that hate as himself, or rather, his other self.

His Darkness.

In disgust, he was thankful for his time with his Darkness now, since he didn't have to face what he really was with his other self there. With himself there.

The shadows lead him here and there, and he did their bidding for his own amusement.

The next time he closed his eyes, he saw the same thing, and didn't feel anything from it, because it was the same as when his eyes were open.


Disclaimer: Owns nothing, any and all rights go to their rightful owners.

*shrug* Bored writing is alright I guess... Yeah, I just have very little to say on this one. Just whatever.