An update for Light and Dark is in the works, I promise. Until then, have some more time travel shenanigans.

Unbeta'd, my mistakes taste great with some teriyaki sauce.

It's touch and go, especially dodging Karita, but eventually Bakura manages to break free of his crowd of fans while Jounouchi is able to sneak away from the others. They meet in a reasonably quiet stairwell, where nobody's going to be eavesdropping, although Bakura looks a little annoyed at something.

"We really should've planned this a little more. I can't think of a way to play out the Shadow Game that doesn't make Atem or Yugi distrust us forever without exactly recreating what happened to us, but Bakura's not willing to go that far and I won't make him."

If he means playing the final boss, or stabbing Bakura's hand again, Jounouchi's not sure. If he hadn't begged Jounouchi to reset over a cut, the latter would've never seemed possible.

Not trusting the Thief King is fine - hell, he might tolerate him now but there's no way he trusts him - but the idea that Yugi might not trust Bakura isn't something that's occurred to him before. Bakura was the first person who knew about him and Yugi getting together, he was the first person to know either one of them was gay. He was even the first person both of them separately went to at their first realization of how they felt towards the other.

It doesn't feel right.

"I say we just tell Yugi. I mean, if he recognizes Atem and all on his own, we might not have to play the Game at all."

Honesty is always something Jounouchi's valued, but Bakura still looks skeptical. Jounouchi tries again. "C'mon, it's worth a shot, right?"

"I guess I could try it. Frame it as one wielder helping another, maybe."

"'Frame' nothin', that's exactly what you're gonna do."

"And it has been a long time since I played Monster World with everyone..."

Appealing to Bakura's nerdy nature works every time and Jounouchi knows he's got him.

Maybe one more push couldn't hurt though, just to be sure. "If he doesn't believe you, we can just reset, yeah?"

"Yeah."

They make it back to class just in time to dodge Karita again, and Jounouchi does his best to keep Anzu and Honda distracted while Bakura quietly asks Yugi if they can talk out in the hallway. Yugi's confused, but he doesn't suspect anything as he follows him out. It's better this way. He doesn't want to lie to Yugi any more than he already has to.

They're out there for a few minutes before Jounouchi senses something.

Maybe it's just intuition, but after so many Shadow Games, Jounouchi's pretty sure he's got a feel for them, like an old man who can tell when a storm's rolling in.

A cold crackle across your skin, the air getting just a little heavier. The shadows wavering at the edges as the Shadows push and pull them out of place. That same feeling crawls through the classroom but nobody else seems to notice. Even Anzu and Honda treat it like an odd, momentary shiver.

Something's gone wrong.

He hits the switch and wakes up in his bed again.

Being forced into an alley by an angry spirit almost feels routine now - presumably they're also skipping school. This doesn't mean he's any more of a fan of being manhandled, but there's something kinda funny at someone as slight as Bakura pushing him around. He bets it pisses the Thief King off something terrible.

There's no weapon at least but his glare is almost as sharp, even if it's probably not as intimidating as he wants it to be. Bakura doesn't seem to be trying to retake control, so Jounouchi's stuck with the other Bakura.

"What happened?"

"The second Ryou mentioned the Ring, Atem took control and started a Shadow Game, that's what!"

He sounds angry, but his hands are shaking where they have Jounouchi's collar. He's scared, under all that force. Of course he would be; he was trapped between the person who defeated him twice and the realm of the god who's currently eating away at his soul.

(Maybe he was always scared.)

Damn, put it that way and Jounouchi suddenly feels like a dick for laughing at him at all, even in his head.

He drops Jounouchi and starts pacing the alley, angrily but inaudibly grumbling to himself. Jounouchi rubs at his neck - there's gonna be a red mark for sure, but it's not tender enough to be a bruise. He can't tell if Bakura's trying to figure out what went wrong or if he's still pissed. He lets him go for a bit before grabbing him for a change, by the shoulders and holding him still.

"You're absolutely sure neither one of 'em remembered you?"

Bakura pushes his hands away, though with less force than Jounouchi thought he'd use, taking a step back and running his hand through his bangs in frustration. "I'm sure. Neither one of them would bother hiding their dislike for me."

'Dislike' isn't the word Jounouchi would use, but then again 'hate' wouldn't work either, not with how they were. He remembers finding Yugi curled up in his tent the night after unearthing yet another burial pit in Kul Elna with too many tiny skulls, not able to even bring himself to speak. He doubts Yugi could really hate him so strongly, after that. Or Atem - there's no way he wasn't watching over Yugi.

Did he see how Yugi died? Atem wasn't really a normal human in death. He was the Son of Ra, being a Pharaoh and all. Practically a god in his own right. Maybe it echoed across the reset, making him more protective even if he doesn't know why. Makes sense to Jounouchi; he didn't react so badly to seeing the Ring in the original timeline after all, even after going through Shadi's shenanigans.

Shadi!

Now there's someone who could help! He's still not sure who Shadi is, or was, or how to contact him or if he'll remember or...

Yeah, best to put him in the 'maybe' pile, alongside Isis and her Millennium Tauk.

"Let's get something to eat, I don't feel like going to school," Bakura says, interrupting his train of thought. "You're paying."

They end up eating chicken skewers from a street vendor, who raises an eyebrow at their uniforms but doesn't look like the type to snitch, especially considering how many skewers Bakura bought. They settle in the park, and the real Bakura doesn't look like he'll be re-emerging any time soon. He's been wondering when the right time was to ask this, and maybe the Thief King knows the answer.

"How come Bakura remembers, but nobody else does? He died like them, so -"

"Ryou didn't die," he interrupts. Then he bolts down an entire skewer in one go and Jounouchi's pretty sure he doesn't even chew 'em. He says it so matter-of-factly too, like Jounouchi's an idiot for ever thinking any version of Bakura would let themselves die. He won't disagree, they're all pretty stubborn.

He ignores that they're apparently on a first name basis with each other. "How do you know? I thought you were trapped in wherever you were."

There's a brief flash of something in his eyes and Jounouchi kinda regrets reminding him of it.

"I can see all of Ryou's memories. He was... in a lot of pain, and if you'd reset just a dozen or so seconds later he'd be dead, but he was definitely still hanging on when you reset."

He resists the urge to ask for details about what happened, especially since Bakura's looking a little green again. He's also quietly glad that Bakura clearly doesn't care about Jounouchi and Yugi's past relationship, since he'd be perfectly aware of all the secret questions they'd asked over the years, or he would've already used them to jab at Jounouchi or Yugi by now.

Changing the subject seems like a good idea, especially since they're eating (well, Jounouchi's eating. Bakura's stuffing his face like he's not eaten in a week).

"Think that's why he remembers?"

Bakura practically jumps at the opportunity and Jounouchi wonders just how long all of this has bothered him as he launches into it. "See, that's what's getting to me. Surely other people survived the attack, but I haven't seen a single person who looks confused or freaked out about it yet. Not only that, but Ryou remembers all of the resets, as do I. If 'being alive' was the only criteria for remembering, then everyone would remember each new reset you've done since as well. I remember because I've existed in a state outside of the normal planes of reality, but that doesn't explain Ryou."

"Maybe you-know-who's doing it."

Bakura's glare does nothing to stop his snicker as he says that. His face is totally worth it though.

"I'm not calling him that. And he can't touch Ryou anyway, nor anyone else who's not in his realm. There's something else we're missing, but I can't think what it could be. Something that Ryou did to put himself... out of sync with the Universe, like me."

"The RPG!" Jounouchi suddenly shouts, startling Bakura. It's so obvious! How come he didn't realize it sooner?!

"What about it?"

"The RPG we play with you, man! You don't remember, 'cause you'd already been shut away by Atem, but Bakura totally shattered his soul at the very end in our timeline!"

Bakura's glare from before has nothing on the glare he has now. "Actually, I Do remember him thwarting my dice roll. He broke my dice to wreck my super critical."

Jounouchi ignores how petulant he is. "And then his little White Mage put the parts of Bakura's soul that were inside him back into Bakura!"

At that, Bakura looks thoughtful. "I... guess that could do it? Souls that shatter can't be put back together perfectly so easily, especially not with how little time that NPC would've had before his body died."

That means some pieces of Bakura - the real Bakura - were lost forever back in the original timeline. Jounouchi doubts that Bakura didn't know that that would be the case.

If he even planned on surviving at all...

"He really didn't care what happened to him, did he?"

Bakura falls back, lying on the grass and closing his eyes. "He never has. I know everything that's happened in his life but I still don't think I understand him in the slightest. I don't know why he hasn't thrown me away yet, the same way I don't know why he reclaimed me after Battle City."

Well, that's new. He'd always assumed the Ring had possessed Bakura from afar, somehow. He really doesn't know much about Bakura - either Bakura - after all.

One eye slides back open, looking at Jounouchi. "He's been asleep since this reset began - he couldn't withstand as volatile a Shadow Game as Atem hurled at us, especially without any warning. Don't reset for a little while, okay? He needs to recover."

"Yeah, sure."

Considering he's sat with the ghost who tried to destroy the world via evil death god demon thing, that afternoon sitting in the park was pretty damn peaceful. At the first street lamp of the evening, he flicks the switch.

"We were thinking about coming over to your place tomorrow after school to play Monster World, if that's okay with you."

"Sure, I'll see you there! Bye!"

Minus Karita again, and Bakura running off to the bathroom because of the Ring, everything went exactly as last time. He remembers his character sheet from last time, and knowing the rules a little better will definitely give him an edge - or be suspicious as hell, since he shouldn't know the rules to this game yet. Maybe he'll play a different role, just to keep up appearances. Nobody will expect Jounouchi, the Magician!

Even trying to distract himself with designing his character doesn't help him get to sleep that night. It's weird; knowing that he's going to be dragged into a Shadow Game, even one he knows he's not in any danger of losing, doesn't make the thought of it any less scary. It'll be the closest any of them have been to him too, since they started resetting.

He's still happy to see a new morning though. He was getting kinda sick of the old one.