See chapter two for any questions you might have pertaining to the Yu-Gi-Oh part of the story. If those don't answer your questions, ask in a review.
For those of you who did review, I must make it clear that you have brought me great joy, because that's the most reviews I have ever recieved in such a short time period. (Even though I have 14 stories) You gave me a few ideas, too. Corisanna's review helped me patch up an idea I have. Never heard of a Fullbring before. But, Ryou and Bakura aren't that. Ryou is also not getting Quincy powers. That would create a confusing plothole in the story.
If you've watched Bleach, you know it looks like Uryuu has blue hair. If you've paid attention to YGO anime, you [might] know that Ryou's father has blue hair. Insta-click in my head! Ryuken doesn't have blue hair, but Uryuu's got to get that color from somewhere. It's a random plot idea to make things interesting.
The question of Ryou's and Bakura's powers will be answered next chapter.
Mwahaha. Everyone has secrets, some more than others.
"What did you do?" Ryou asked as soon as Bakura put him back in control.
Ignoring the resounding cackle, Ryou surveyed his surroundings and checked his person. The sight of the apartment made some of the weight lift from his shoulders, but he didn't stop there. He still wore his school uniform, so Bakura hadn't returned before morning. He emptied his pockets; no lead figurine with a trapped soul, no jewels that looked as though they belonged around the meaty neck of a wealthy entrepreneur. Next, his wallet: no change in the amount.
/Do you expect me to multiply your money overnight? Hikari, I didn't think you cared!/
Ryou ignored Bakura again. He patted himself down, careful to avoid the many hidden blades. No hidden items-
Ryou stuck his cut finger in his mouth. Scratch that, Bakura found himself a new knife.
There was a knock at the door. Ryou pulled out the new knife and hid it under a chair. No need to cut an arm off when he could wait until Bakura taught his body to subconsciously avoid the blade. Muscle memory was an amazing thing. He opened the door.
"Good morning, Ryou! I thought that since we live in the same apartment, we could be friends. I want to introduce you to my other friends, and I thought it would be best if I had plenty of time so you could all get to know each other."
"Good morning, Orihime," Ryou greeted with a smile. "Can meeting your friends wait? I haven't had breakfast ye- Well, I guess it won't hurt to skip breakfast this one time."
Orihime tilted her head, a confused frown on her cute face. "Are you sure? I can-"
Ryou cut her off, "No, it's fine." He grabbed his shoulder bag and made sure to lock the door on his way out.
"Hooray!" The girl seized Ryou's hand and with much more force than he had been ready for, pulled him along, Bakura laughing at his stumbling hikari.
"Rukia! Ichigo!"
Orihime dragged Ryou across the street to where two teens wearing similar uniforms had stopped. The shorter raised a hand in greeting.
"Hi, Orihime! Who's this you brought?"
The tallest out of all four of them, an imposing figure similar to the leaders of gangs Bakura would abandon Ryou with, stared at the albino, and the spirit's laughter ceased.
/The shadows are confused about him./
Ryou's gaze dropped to the sidewalk, to the shadows basking where the morning sun let them escape.
He noticed his own shadow, blacker than any, which he knew to be Bakura, as it always disappeared whenever the yami was in spirit form.
Orihime's shadow looked like any other's and Rukia's looked faded. Ichigo's...
Ryou blinked. Then blinked again.
It looked normal enough now, but he would have sworn he saw-
/I saw it too./ Bakura's voice echoed in his head. /His shadow laughed./
A glint of light off a speeding car, the orange haired boy's shadow once more twisted, making it look like it was leering at them.
/The hollow's twisted shadows reach him,/ Bakura observed.
/But his shadow isn't as dark as normal hollows./
/No.../ There was a pause and Ryou could almost feel a buzz as Bakura muttered to himself in his soul room before letting the hikari hear his conclusion: /What is he?/
"Ryou? Hello, Earth to Ryou~?"
Ryou blinked, flinching away from a hand waving close to his face. He looked up to see three confused and worried teens.
"You spaced out," carrot top supplied. "Is something wrong?"
"Sorry. I must have had an absence seizure." Ryou rubbed the back of his head, a light tinge of pink on his face.
"Absence seizure?" The smaller girl asked, her black eyes widening in accordance with her worry.
"Aren't you supposed to be taken to the hospital as soon as you have a seizure?" Carrot top asked.
"No, no!" Ryou waved his hands in front of him, trying to placate them. "I'm fine, really! It's not that kind of seizure!"
"During an absence seizure, I stare off into space. My mind pauses, like it's absent. Hence the name, 'absence' seizure. It's nothing to worry about! It's just annoying at times."
The spirit chuckled. /You actually found a medical condition to explain the 'zoning out' you do when we talk./
"Okay!" Orihime chirped, reacting to the odd condition better than the others. "I guess you didn't hear my introductions, then."
Ryou flushed and shook his head.
"Then we'll do it again! Rukia, Ichigo, this is Ryou Bakura."
Ryou bowed, although he kept his eyes trained on Ichigo.
"Ryou, this is Rukia Kuchki and Ichigo Kurosaki."
The petite girl bowed and said, "Nice to meet you," while carrot top mumbled a greeting. Introductions over and done with, they started on the walk to school.
"Isn't it against school dress code to wear flashy jewelery like that?" Rukia asked, pointing to the Millennium Ring.
Ryou absently traced the Eye of Horus symbol in the middle of the gold pendant. "I hope not. This was a gift from my father."
"Where'd he get it? It looks Egyptian."
"It is. My father bought it from a merchant while working in Egypt several years ago."
Ryou felt a poke in his mind and let his darker half take over. Though his features sharpened at the possession, Bakura kept his voice soft like Ryou's.
"Speaking of trinkets, where did you get that?" Bakura asked, pointing to the badge at Ichigo's hip.
Ichigo opened and closed his mouth a few times before saying, "A...friend gave it to me."
"It started yelling 'hollow' in the middle of class, and no one took any notice."
In his soul room, Ryou shuffled his Duel Monsters cards, a nervous habit he had developed. How could they explain being able to see the hollow? What if they found out Bakura had killed it? What if-
Bakura growled through the mental link. /Yadonushi. Pay attention./
Ryou continued shuffling, but focused on the world outside his mind.
Ichigo started to stutter a response, unsure how to answer the question and how much to tell Ryou. Lucky for him, Orihime came to his rescue.
"You can see spirits as well? That's so cool!"
'Ryou's' eyes widened. "That monster thing was a spirit?"
He stopped in his tracks at that moment, so they paused as well and waited for the seizure to pass.
When he blinked, Rukia said, "There are two kinds of spirits: plus spirits, the ones that look like normal people; and hollows, ones that look like what you saw yesterday."
Ichigo muttered under his breath, "At least you forgot your sketchbook at home."
A few minutes later, Ichigo sported a bump on the back of his head and glowered at passing cars. Rukia had a wide, innocent smile to beam at Ryou.
"I've only seen hollows so far in my life. I'd like to see one of the plus spirits."
Ichigo grinned at 'Ryou', ignoring the pounding pain in his head. "I'll show you one after school, then."
Ryou spent his morning classes of his first -or second, depending on how you look at it- day of school in the company of fangirls and fanboys (be it for his looks or celebrity status in the world of Duel Monsters, he couldn't tell). Class was a blessing, as it was the only time he could be free from them, even if he spent the time trying to ignore Bakura's teasing and the adoring stares burn holes in his uniform. After his last class before lunch, Ryou ran out of the room, determined to escape the love-struck crowd. He ran in to Orihime, and almost burst into tears at the sight of her. She led him to the roof, where students could spend their lunch hour.
"Ryou, this is Uryuu Ishida," Orihime gestured to a dark-blue-haired young man with glasses, who bowed. Orihime then gestured to a much taller and more muscular person with a dark complexion, who bowed as well. "-And this is Yasutora Sado, although we call him Chad."
Ryou bowed in kind before sitting with the rest of Orihime's friends to enjoy lunch. Their classes had been scattered, so he didn't have an opportune time to meet everyone until then.
"So, Ryou," Uryuu asked, trying out the name, "Why did you move to Karakura?"
"Two weeks ago, a bunch of students, including myself, fell into comas during school."
Everyone froze. Bakura dissolved into shrieking laughter at his light's blunt answer. Ryou knew, without a doubt, that they had been expecting something like, "My father got a job here," or "My mother always wanted to live in Karakura." But neither of those were true and Ryou didn't want to lead them in circles before finally coming to the same answer.
Orihime's hand flew to her mouth. Ichigo choked on his food and Chad had to pound him on the back. Rukia recovered first, choking out, "H-how?"
Ryou shrugged and found his gaze drawn to his lunch, suddenly unable to meet anyone's eyes.
"I don't know. One minute I was listening to the science teacher explain cell division, the next I'm waking up in a hospital being told a week's gone by. My father doesn't want something like that to happen again and he doesn't think it's safe there, so here I am."
"What about everyone else?" Rukia asked.
Another shrug. "As far as I know, they're still in comas."
Lunch resumed in silence, occasionally broken when someone attempted to restart conversation.
Soon lunch was over, and everyone headed to their afternoon classes.
Ever the helpful one, Orihime asked Ryou, "Do you need any help finding your next class?"
Ryou looked at his schedule. "I have math next."
"With what teacher?" Uryuu asked immediately, trying and failing to keep the anticipation out of his voice.
"I'm not sure how to pronounce it."
Uryuu glanced at the paper. "We have the same class. I'll show you where." The two started through the halls, with Uryuu leading the way.
"Ryou," Uryuu asked suddenly. When he didn't get an answer, he noticed that Ryou was staring off into space. "Ryou?"
Ryou tore away from his staring contest with his book. "Yes?"
"Are you...by any chance," Uryuu started, clutching his books harder than necessary in an effort to keep calm, "related to Miu Chiyoko Bakura?"
"Yes, she was my aunt. Why do you ask?"
Relief washed over Uryuu. Another one of his family members was alive. Of course, he only allowed a somber smile to grace his face. "She was my mother."
A similar expression crossed Ryou's face, as though to say he understood. "I guess that makes us cousins. I wonder why my father never mentioned you."
"We'll have to talk sometime. Perhaps over the weekend?"
The albino nodded, and Uryuu walked to his seat as the teacher walked in. The teacher introduced Ryou to the class and assigned him a seat.
"Now, it's important you know the formula for the volume of a cone..."
Uryuu dutifully copied the formula in his notes, pushing back emotions and questions he was sure would distract him. One question still plagued him, though.
Why hadn't Ryuken told him about Ryou?
Absence seizures are a real thing. Real-life, the condition starts around the ages of 9-14, and usually goes away after the age of 19. The treatment is some sort of medicine, but I didn't look into that too much. The afflicted can have 30-50 episodes lasting from a few seconds to half a minute in one day. In said episodes, they can have typical or atypical. Typical: stares off into space. Atypical: Lasts a bit longer than typical and the person does small muscle movements, like tensing and relaxing muscles, blinking repetitively, etc.
My mom used to think I had absence seizures since I had a habit of staring off into space when thinking, and I would barely remember what I was thinking about seconds later. My memory's weird like that. I have no idea if she still thinks I have them or not.
Anyway. When I kept reading about Ryou and Yugi staring off into space when in their soul rooms or talking to their yamis, I instantly thought of absence seizures. I've read nearly all fanfictions that aren't AU with Ryou in them, and never once have I come across absence seizures used as an excuse. It's the most obvious excuse I can think of!
I unwittingly let my friend take a peek at the rough draft of chapter 4 in my notebook the other day. As it was the rough draft, the page she looked at had many words you would find in casual speech and no fancy description at all. In short, she took it all in a, ahem, dirty way. A conversation about hollows and shadows between Bakura and Ryou turned into yaoi in her mind.
*shudders*
Anyway. Long author's note, but not nearly as long as some I've seen in the HPxYGO fandom. So, anyone have any ideas? How will Bakura slip up and act non-Ryou, making everyone suspiscious?