A/N: Hello, all! So it's been a ridiculous amount of time since I've updated. Looks to be about five years and three-ish months. (July 2, 2005 – October 1, 2010). Wowza! So the only reason that I'm actually updating this story again is a sweet review from xxpinkblinkxx. So a huuuuuuge thank you to Pink-chan for bothering to review even though it'd been dead for so long. This chapter is absotively posolutely for you. :)

Also, I'd like to add that because it's been so very long my writing style has changed/(d)evolved – your call – and that will definitely be reflected in my writing. It's still the same old Nobody, though, so don't worry. :)

Disclaimer: I own no facets or aspects of Yu-Gi-Oh! However, the original characters and characteristics of this story (Kanthra, etc.) are irrefutably mine and partly contributed to by a friend of mine (dbox) from when this story started out. The phooka, which probably won't appear again unless brought back by popular demand, belongs solely to dbox. Thank you.

-NWTC (Nobody Writes This Crap)

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Similarities Over the Water
Chapter 6: All I Have

Noisy. That's all he could think of amidst the dark haze of non-light. Beeps, hisses, and clinks invaded his consciousness with more persistence than any possessive spirit ever had. But what was this place? Certainly not the Shadow Realm, was all he could think. He'd been there enough to know that place was a symphony of silent screams, and, yes, such things existed. But this was not nonexistence either, nor was it any version of Heaven or Hell or Afterlife that he'd ever heard of. So, then, was it possible that he wasn't dead? Had he actually, sincerely failed the one thing he was so certain he could succeed at?

He knew, then, that he could open his eyes; that they were still his – still attached to him. And with the same resigned misery with which he did so many things, he let the real light in. But it wasn't truly real light, was it? No, he told himself, this was an artificial, man-made, man-controlled light. This was a hospital. Ryou squinted against the bombarding faux photons of the buzzing fluorescent bulbs above him. His body felt heavy, as though encased in cement, and his mouth was dry and bitter.

For a very long time, because time always passed slowly when he was in pain, the white-blond boy lay in the stillness of that sterile room. He could remember almost everything, right until he'd passed out hoping the footsteps he'd heard weren't coming for him. Apparently they had been. The prickling sensation in his eyes that he'd come to associate with sadness became tinted with rage. He knew who was to blame for this failure; for once it wasn't his fault. It was Kanthra. The name played out sluggishly before him, one syllable at a time. There was a facet of the Japanese about it, he supposed, though he would've been inclined to write it as a foreign word – scrawl it in the sharp, angular cuts of katakana that denoted "the Other". Who was she to intrude on his life like this? She had chosen the plague of the Spirit of the Ring and couldn't possibly understand what it was like to be held captive as completely as Ryou was. He was never alone, and, even now, he could feel Bakura slowly rousing himself from whatever state of inactivity he'd been in and coming to invade his consciousness again. He felt his right hand move, though he knew he wasn't moving it. He'd grown accustomed, by now, to the subtle ways in which Bakura controlled him when he thought he was being sneaky. Ryou didn't have the energy to resist; the Spirit never truly felt his pain. Idly, he wondered how the Millennium Ring had found its way back around his neck; he always expected it to happen, but it never ceased to be at least faintly impressive.

In any event, he watched his hand move, like an infant first discovering that its digits were attached because it controlled them, but, obviously, in a sort of perversion of that stereotype because he wasn't controlling them. Still, this felt just as normal to the young man. He was surprised, however, when the hand did not move to hurt him but rather to press the nurse call button that rested on the bed. What would that accomplish? He was too tired to do anything but lie here; there was something beyond the blood loss draining his will, and he supposed that was just the effect of realizing all he ever hoped to do was futile.

A nurse arrived after not very long at all, her dark hair pulled back into a bun and her pink scrubs seeming a little too cheery for the moment. But Ryou hadn't really picked to start this whole charade up like this, had he? He hadn't pushed that button. He wanted to just lie here until he fell back asleep and was left alone with the blankness of his mind that he would always try to reclaim no matter how the Spirit tried to take it from him. "How are you feeling?" the nurse asked him, her tennis shoes squeaking faintly on the tile floor as she moved to check his vitals and his chart.

"Like I should be dead," he rasped out. He saw the nurse smile, and did his best to return the gesture, though it was void of feeling. He was good at that by now, though, faking it for the sake of everyone else. They shouldn't have to suffer, even if he did.

"Well, you look like you're in pretty good shape. You owe it all to that friend of yours; she's in the waiting room. I'll send her in?"

"Yes, all right." What more damage could she do, after all? he thought to himself, resting his head against the pillow for a moment. "Could I have some water first?"

The nurse stopped on her way out the door, coming back into the room. "Absolutely," she said as she made her way to a water pitcher and poured him a cup. Tenderly, she helped him sit up and hold the cup, though his head swam faintly in the dizzy haze of not-quite-aliveness that he'd ended up in. He was grateful for the water, though, and knew that, in time, he'd be almost back to normal, maybe.

The nurse left him with his water, and he let his gaze settle on the dull blue blanket that covered his legs as he sat. ((You're there, aren't you, boku no yami*?)) he spoke into the utter silence of his mind.

((Yes. And you're an idiot, yadonushi**.))

((You can't call bravery idiocy. Even if Kanthra's too weak-willed to face her own suffering and prefers to let others suffer instead, that doesn't mean I have to do the same.)) He took another sip of water, forcing his body to move despite the fact that it didn't want to. The Spirit was going to make him move around anyway; he might as well get used to the idea.

((I think you underestimate Kanthra...))

((If you like her so much, why don't you just stay in her mind and leave me alone!))

((Yadonushi!))

((What? If you're so infatuated - ))

((Ryou!)) The Spirit never called him that. There was a pause of several moments before the Spirit of the Ring spoke again, ((Don't do that ever again.)) What was he saying when he said that, aside from the obvious command that he shouldn't commit suicide? Did he care beyond simply losing a body? He couldn't, could he? Was that possible?

"Ryou." He was startled from his thoughts, almost jumping out of his skin as he turned to look toward where this real world sound had come from.

"...Kanthra."

"You're awake. I'm so glad."

"Stay away from me. You have no idea the fate you've condemned me to!" The prickling returned, sending angry, hot tears down his pale cheeks as he turned his face away from Kanthra and watched the far wall as it grew blurry as things always did when viewed through that prickling.

Kanthra was taken aback, though, in a way, she understood. Ryou had done this to try to keep them all safe, hadn't he? He wanted to do away with his yami and free them all from that slowly approaching doom of the Shadow Realm. "Ryou..." She moved to sit on the edge of the bed, watching as the young man tried to edge away from her. She put her hand on his arm, gently, and he stopped. She could tell he was crying now from the way his chest shook faintly and how he kept his face turned away. "You're not the problem, Ryou. You dying isn't going to fix this. You know that."

"In a way I'm already dead," he insisted.

"Don't say that! You know damn well you have plenty to live for!"

"Like what?" His head whipped back around. "That bastard controls my every move! There's nothing I can do about that! Do you think I was the one who pressed the nurse call button?"

"Well, y-"

"Exactly! You would think that, wouldn't you? Because you don't know what it's like to live with that kind of monster in your head. And he doesn't just press buttons. He takes things, as I'm sure you've noticed, like souls," he continued caustically. "You're just not clever enough to see that this is only the beginning. You've forgotten about your friends, haven't you? That's how it starts!"

Kanthra's palm stung as it connected with Ryou's pale, tear-stained cheek, and Ryou fell silent for a long moment. In that beeping, mechanical silence, he heard a far more human sound - the quiet, hiccuping breaths of disguised tears. Was Kanthra... crying? "Don't you know," she began, her voice barely above a whisper, "that Sai and Anay and you are all I have? Or weren't you there, somewhere in the back of his mind, when he tried to force me into obedience?" She rose, then, wiping her eyes vehemently to chase away the tears. "I'm sorry I hit you, but I'm not sorry you were alive to feel it," she remarked, her voice no longer colored with the weakness of sorrow. Ryou watched her back as she left the room, long hair always hanging in the air a little as though it was reluctant to follow her; as if she was reluctant to leave. He scooted back down under the blankets, pulling them up as high as he could on his body, though it still took a great deal of effort to move. His cheek still stung where she'd hit him, and he wondered if it might even bruise, but it made him sleepy to think about bruises, so he let his eyes close so he could maybe dream about something else.

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A/N: Well, this is the end of Chapter 6. I'll be working on Ch7 shortly, I promise. I already have an outline in my mind of where I want it to go, but this seemed like a good place to stop. R&R.

Translations:
*boku no yami: my yami
**yadonushi: host, landlord