See chapter one for disclaimer.

Sorry for the delay this time. I made some very minor edits in the last chapter and hopefully the dialogue is less confusing now. Many, many thanks for the comments!

Chapter Five

(In which there is, at last, a confrontation of sorts.)

When he woke up, the floor was moving beneath him, and it took him a moment to realise this was because he was on a boat; he opened his eyes unsurely; coming back to consciousness was always frightening, but now that he knew for a fact that the spirit was up to something, it was even worse.

However, there were no dead bodies or anything equally horrible in sight; his body was sitting on the floor, leant against the wall of the small cabin; from where he was, he could see Malik's back, as he was standing by the front of the boat, looking over the sea.

It made him feel a little better that Malik was there, no matter how little trust or sympathy he had for him: the spirit almost always left him to himself just after leaving control, probably resting, and now at least he wasn't alone. Malik might even tell him what had happened and where they were, so he wouldn't be left to his horrible suppositions... And maybe, Malik was someone who wasn't in such imminent danger because of his closeness to him: after all, if he had almost not survived his first partnership with the spirit, it had not been the spirit's fault.

He breathed in deeply and stood up and looked around; a man was standing at the wheel, and remained stiff and unresponsive when Ryou approached him, then poked him lightly – ensorcelled in some way, maybe the rod. After a brief hesitation, Ryou walked over to Malik, silently praying that the spirit had not convinced him to leave him in the dark: he knew that the spirit hadn't been pleased when Malik had told him so much in the car.

Stupidly, he wondered what might have happened to that car: it had certainly looked expensive.

"Malik?" he asked softly, when he was standing right beside the blond; the latter turned his face to him slowly, cast him a piercing look, then nodded. "Where are we?"

"On the way back from Duellist Kingdom. Apparently the guy needs his own utensils to work," he snarled, clearly displeased. "Things to photograph the painting, turn it into a card..."

So Pegasus's soul had been freed?

"Where is he now?"

Malik raised an eyebrow at him, as if trying to figure out how he meant that question.

"We left his body somewhere safe."

"So..." He passed his tongue over his lips. "You still have the card?"

"Of course..."

"Could – could I take it?" Malik's eyes became sharp again; Ryou knew he had to be searching for the spirit. "Please?"

"Why?" Malik asked suspiciously; Ryou flinched at the cold tone, feeling that he just couldn't take this double animosity a second time!...

"They have to be taken care of. It affects the soul if the card is damaged."

"I... see..." Malik said slowly, leaning against the border of the boat, looking him over again. "What should I call you?"

He blinked up at him, confused.

"Bakura."

"No; I already call him that; what should I call you?"

"It's my name."

"I know," Malik said impatiently. "But it's his name as well – don't you have a nickname, anything? What's your first name?"

"Ryou."

"Ryou. Right." Malik thought for a moment, but couldn't remember ever having known that. "Can I call you that?"

Ryou chewed on his lip again, and flushed a little. Cold and fresh sea air was blowing through his hair; the sun was close to setting; soon, the moon would be visible, and it was all as peaceful as during his first journey to Duellist Kingdom.

"I – it's very – personal." He looked up at Malik's face and sighed; he didn't like being called by his first name by someone he barely knew, let alone someone who was involved in his kidnapping – if the spirit doing whatever it wanted with his body and dragging his soul with him in the process could be called that –, but in a sense it was almost nice that Malik would want to have a separate name for him at all. "Fine..." he murmured.

"All right." The blond smirked, and held out his hand; "Malik; or, Namu."

Ryou cautiously took the hand, not seeing why this was supposed to be funny.

"Can I have the card?" he asked again.

Malik hesitated for another moment, then shrugged and drew the card out of his pocket and handed it to him; Ryou closed his fingers around it with as much force as he could without bending it, worried about the strong wind blowing it overboard, and tugged it into his own pocket, hoping he'd have the time to check it for scratches later.

"Thank you..."

Malik said nothing, and studied his face attentively; Ryou wondered what was so fascinating about his face. He was probably still trying to figure out if he could be the spirit trying to fool him; or maybe he was searching for differences in their features. He knew quite well that the lack of such a thing could be unsettling.

Then again, Malik should be used to far more disturbing things. He wondered if he could risk more questions.

Stop fooling yourself, he heard in his thoughts, even though the spirit was still asleep or deep inside his mind: but the voice would not entirely leave him alone, even when it really was silent. It doesn't matter what you do or don't know. There's nothing you can do. Never again.

But it was easier, to keep pretending; any maybe, Malik –

But he shouldn't get high hopes just because he had accepted to give him the card; after all, the spirit had always done as much as well, had let him take care of his game pieces so they'd be in good shape when he needed them. And he had not left him to die in the duel arena...

"What do you want with the card?" he eventually asked tentatively. What was the worse that could happen, anyway? "The Blue Eyes, I mean."

"Sell it," Malik answered promptly, as if that should have been obvious.

"What? But – everyone knows there are only four and that one has been destroyed! No-one will believe it's real! And Pegasus will tell them how you got it..."

Internally, he was shivering slightly: this wasn't that horrible, if Malik wasn't lying. But he was confident he knew his spirit well enough to be certain it wasn't just after money...

"That's what we have memory-manipulating magic for," Malik replied with a grin. Ryou jumped when he reached out and lifted his chin with two fingers. "Don't worry so much, Ryou."

Ryou took a step back; Malik wasn't pronouncing the name completely right, and it made it better, but it was still someone unpleasantly intimate; then again, maybe he shouldn't worry about such a thing with someone who had been inside his very mind.

"Nothing too bad will happen," Malik went on. "Just try to enjoy the sailing." He leaned back against the border again, so that it looked dangerous.

"I don't like the sea," Ryou murmured.

"You don't?" Malik looked aghast. "I love it. I had my own boat before Battle City," he added, vaguely dreamily.

"What happened to it?"

"My sister gave it back. I'd stolen it – well, manipulated people into giving it to me, anyway. I still have no idea how she managed to do it without getting me arrested."

"Maybe there was a bail?"

"Yeah..." Malik looked down, tapped his finger against the border; but he felt he had to get that question out. "Do you remember what happened in Battle City?"

Ryou tensed.

"...why?"

"Did Yuugi tell you about his and Bakura's duel?"

Ryou didn't answer immediately, confused by the way his name was used in reference to someone else – as if the spirit was family –, then shook his head.

"No – he did." He looked up at Malik, suddenly feeling a little better – less alone – when he noticed how uneasy Malik appeared. "I have a debt because of it." He lowered his gaze again. "I can't possibly pay it back."

Malik stared at him, feeling decidedly uncomfortable; he'd never given Bakura's host, the way he would be caught in-between his and Bakura's plans any thought at all; in his mind, the host was just something that came with Bakura, intrinsically part of him, and a façade he could use than a person of his own right. But he knew what it was like to be banned from your own body, and –

"Malik?" He had spaced out, and this was dangerous, in presence of the ring spirit, no matter how inoffensive his host might be looking. "What does he want?" Ryou went on, and instinctively lowered his voice, as if that could prevent the spirit from picking up on his words if he was listening.

Malik shrugged, forced himself to appear casual.

"He wants to use the card for some ritual."

Ryou didn't ask for any clarifications; instead he spoke quickly, intently:

"Can't you – you can get money elsewhere, especially with this." He motioned the millennium item. "Can't you let go of this, if you don't know what he –"

The rest of his sentence was inaudible, as the sound of an approaching helicopter covered it; Malik whirled round and looked up. The engine was approaching fast, and he realised that this couldn't be a coincidence.

"Oh, shit," he murmured, and drew the rod out; silently, he ordered the enslaved driver to accelerate.

"It's Kaiba," a silky voice beside him said; Ryou still somehow recognisable, but the tone quite obviously different.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Malik screamed back; the helicopter was heading towards them, and if it might have been a good idea for him to hide, it was late by now; he could clearly make out the silhouette of Seto Kaiba, who, being Seto Kaiba, was standing by the open door of the engine. Freak.

And he must have seen him. Malik grit his teeth: he'd pushed the boat to its full speed on their way to the island, just for fun, and been highly disappointed.

"I told you we should break the man's fingers until he draws the thing right instead of listening to him!" the spirit snapped back; he had gotten out his deck and was shuffling through it so fast that Malik could not tell just how he could possibly see any of the cards in the process.

Kaiba was shouting something, but the engine was still too far above them to hear; Malik was sure he knew one of the other people standing behind: Jounouchi. And could the third one be Honda?

"They're the pharaoh's friends!"

"Can't you do something already?" Bakura answered, still not looking up from his deck, even as a ladder was being rolled down. "Reclaim control over the blond one."

Malik grit his teeth, and didn't waste time telling the thief that while he had still been capable of controlling Anzu's body even after he lost his millennium item, the same wasn't true was Jounouchi, who had broken its power with his own will, and would be near impossible to subdue again. Instead, he focused on Kaiba, who was standing close to the exit, and raised the rod.

He could hear Jounouchi scream as light streamed from it:

"He's going to take over your mind – dammit, hide you total –!"

What Kaiba answered, in a much quieter voice, he couldn't hear, and he wouldn't have cared, as he was confronted to a rather horrible realisation: the rod had no effect whatsoever on Seto Kaiba.

Jounouchi managed to push the CEO aside, and began to climb down the ladder; Malik cursed under his breath as he uselessly directed the rod on him; there were maybe two people in the whole world immune to the effect of its magic without a millennium item, and it had to be them!

He wouldn't have thought one of them would be stupid enough to try to come down to them, but now that one of them doing just that, he wasn't so certain the idea was all that stupid; he had seen Jounouchi fight; he wouldn't stand a chance... Jounouchi was dangling several feet above them, and Malik was beginning to think they might really not manage to get out of this – Bakura wasn't exactly being any help, and he wasn't entirely sure if he wanted his kind of help anyway – when he saw Honda appear just behind Kaiba. This was someone he could control at least, even though it might not turn out to be very useful.

But just as he was about to set off the magic, Honda collapsed on the spot.

He whirled round; Bakura had his head thrown back to look up at Jounouchi; he cast him a short smirk:

"Slow down the boat," he told him quietly; Malik narrowed his eyes, but followed the instruction quietly.

In his hands, Bakura was holding a card, between thumb and index finger, as if ready to rip it apart.

"What did you do?" Jounouchi screamed down at them; he was far down enough now that they could hear him even though the helicopter had had trouble to keep up with them at their sudden change in speed; he was glaring at him, instead of Bakura, which Malik found rather unfair.

"You might want climb back up if you don't want to lose your friend's soul forever," Bakura replied; and, as Jounouchi hesitated, not moving, neither for- nor backwards: "Or you could join him..."

Kaiba shouted something from above, but none of them paid attention. With the last words, Bakura had walked over to the border and –

The card fell into the see bellow; horribly slowly, so that Jounouchi felt as if he could hear it slide through the air – and yet way too fast.

A scream of horror escaped his mouth. The card was still floating on the surface; a little longer, and it would be soaked and sink. A sentiment of déjà-vu washed over him, only this time it was worse, because Yuugi could win duels without Exodia, but they could not retrieve Honda's soul without the card.

The boat moved, and the helicopter started to follow; Jounouchi didn't bother telling Kaiba, who would just argue, and instead simply let himself fall into the water.

For a moment, in panic, he couldn't see the card anywhere, and was certain he had lost it, washed away by the waves made by the boat, or simply too far already; then, through the haze of the moving waves, he saw it floating not far off, and steadily moving away.

He was a good swimmer, but somehow, he wished he could at least have taken off his shoes.

When he finally reached the card, and turned round to lay on his back to catch up before actually having to start worrying about how he would get back to the coast, he became aware of the fact the helicopter had never stopped hovering just above him.

Kaiba, still standing in the door, didn't have to shout: his voice carried far without effort.

"Are you going to bath here for long, or will you actually get back inside?"

The rope ladder, right above him, descended and traitorously pocked him on the nose. He wouldn't put it past Kaiba to have instructed the pilot to do this on purpose.

With a sigh, he put the card between his teeth, and forced himself to reach up and drag himself out of the water despite his exhaustion.

Even looking back at this later, he could never understand how exactly he had managed to climb up; Kaiba would pretend he had actually dragged up the ladder, but Kaiba was just being a jerk as usual.

He didn't want to think about how he had to look to Kaiba as he finally reached the entrance, soaking with water, bringing back something in his mouth, and dragging himself up to the floor where he collapsed right away.

A few seconds later, he was asleep.

End of chapter five.

I hope this made any sense. (If not, I might be able to put the blame on Ryou and his confusing life... :p )

In the next chapter, things slow down considerably. Comments are always greatly appreciated!