Title: A Persistent Shadow (Chapter 10)
Pairing: Ryou Bakura x Yami Bakura, possible others
Rating: M
Summary: The Pharaoh uses a spell to force Yami Bakura out of Ryou's body, but unfortunately for Ryou it doesn't work quite as well as intended.
Ryou tossed and turned in his sleep. In the past several weeks since the incident with the ring, he'd had some form of nightmare every single night. Some were about the monster rising up and destroying the world, but more were about the horrifying images he'd seen in the vision. He'd fall asleep and find himself in the middle of the village with soldiers murdering people all around him, turning on him when they'd finished on the others.
In the worst ones, the soldiers weren't attacking a nameless village at all – instead they were rampaging through Domino City, killing everyone he knew and cramming their bodies into a huge cauldron.
The spirit seemed almost as upset by his dreams as he was, attempting to shake him awake every time he fell into a dream of the village or the soldiers or the cauldron. It didn't generally work, but over time his mind came up with its own defense against the soldiers, sending a dream version of the spirit to fight against them when they appeared. The dream spirit did all the things Ryou had seen the spirit do in real life and far worse, this time against the soldiers. Ryou had never thought he'd be in a situation were he actually wanted to see the spirit violently ripping people's souls out of their bodies, but it seemed he'd managed to stumble upon the only possible one.
The first time the dream version of the spirit had saved him, he'd awoken to find the real form of the spirit sitting cross-legged on his bed, staring at him with a completely blank face. He'd braced himself for a comment about being weak and always needing someone to rescue him, but nothing had come. The spirit had seemed to have even less of an idea about how to react to the dream than Ryou did. Ryou had wondered briefly if the spirit had figured out how to enter his dreams, but the spirit had promptly dismissed the idea, proceeding to ignore him for the rest of the day.
His addition to the dreams didn't seem to pacify the spirit any; if anything it seemed to make him hate them even more, though Ryou had no idea why that would be the case. A few days after the new dreams had started, the spirit had cornered him in his bedroom right before he went to sleep, running his hands all over Ryou's body while giving him one short, irritated order:
Dream about something else tonight, Landlord.
Though he could readily have pushed the spirit off of him, Ryou had allowed the spirit to continue touching him, first in surprise, then almost in agreement – at this point he would have welcomed any dream that didn't involve people suffering and dying.
Unfortunately, all it had done (aside from making him too excited to fall asleep right away) was add a somewhat embarrassing scene between him and his rescuer to the end of the dream. The spirit had tried distracting Ryou's subconscious mind a few more times, with some attempts making school incredibly awkward for him, but he had stopped as soon as it became clear to him that it wasn't going to work.
Right now, Ryou was in the middle of the village again, running away from a pair of soldiers with blood-covered swords. They cornered him in a dark alleyway with no exit. His panic lessened somewhat when the spirit appeared in front him, but came back full force when the spirit turned toward him instead of the soldiers, trying to grab his arms and stop his thrashing around. Ryou shook him off easily several times, but the spirit finally just threw himself bodily against him, wrapping his arms around Ryou so he couldn't be pushed off without a great deal of effort.
Which is not to say that Ryou didn't try. Ryou shoved as hard as he could, hitting the spirit on the back and sides in an attempt to push him away before the advancing soldiers reached them. He stopped when the soldiers came within striking distance, closing his eyes tight and clinging to the body in front of him as hard as he could.
Moments passed without anything happening. Ryou opened his eyes and saw that the two soldiers had disappeared. He relaxed a little, resting his head on the spirit's shoulder. He released the spirit from his death-grip, loosening his arms into a soft embrace. The village faded around them until they were left floating in a soft, fuzzy space. His heartbeat slowly returned to normal.
They stayed in that comfortable position for an indeterminate amount of time, one moment blurring gently into the next, until Ryou heard the faint buzzing of his alarm clock. Ryou groaned, trying to bury his head in the spirit's shoulder so he couldn't hear it. He was finally having a nice dream. He didn't want to wake up just yet.
But it was too late for him to fall back into unconsciousness. Ryou blinked his eyes open sleepily, initially confused by the position he found himself in. At first he thought that he must have rolled over on top of one of his pillows.
Then he realized that pillows didn't have arms to hug him with.
Ryou leapt off the spirit, tripping over the covers and barely managing not to fall off the bed entirely. As he tried to untangle himself from the blankets, he considered exactly how long they had to have been lying there like that. Why did he even put up with it for any amount of time? Ryou wondered. It was like the spirit had been... cuddling him.
The spirit sat up and crossed his arms, scowling at him. I was not cuddling you. I was stopping you from whining and flailing around like an idiot.
I can't have been that bad, Ryou thought indignantly.
You were, the spirit insisted, turning his back on Ryou entirely. And if you bring this up again, I'll make your day extremely unpleasant.
The threat had some actual weight now, Ryou thought as he made his bed. Other than the brief, ineffective campaign to rid him of his nightmares, the spirit had left him pretty much alone since the incident several weeks ago, seeming lost in his own thoughts most of the time. Ryou had been able to go to school, hang out with his friends, and help Marik get caught up all without the spirit bothering him. He still left the TV on when he was at home, just in case the spirit got bored, but the spirit hadn't paid it any attention, seeming content to spend most of his time brooding. Sometimes he wondered what the spirit could possibly spend so much time thinking about, but he invariably decided that it was probably better that he didn't know.
At least the spirit wasn't bothering him about the ring anymore, though he wasn't certain how long that would last.
I've told you, Landlord, I'm not interested in the Millennium Ring any longer. The Pharaoh can wear it himself for all I care.
Ryou rolled his eyes as he walked to the bathroom. He didn't believe the spirit's obsession with the ring could just suddenly end like that, especially since the spirit had refused to explain exactly why he supposedly no longer wanted it back, or what he intended to do without it.
I don't have to explain anything. My reason for not wanting to go back in the ring should be obvious, even to you.
Ryou knew what he meant – he wouldn't want to have that thing living alongside him either – but for all he knew the spirit was only using the opportunity to lull him into a false sense of security.
You're far too suspicious of me and not nearly suspicious enough of other people, the spirit complained.
Other people don't give me so many reasons to be suspicious, Ryou replied as he soaped up his body in the shower. He'd mostly gotten over his embarrassment of holding completely naked conversations with the spirit, or at least, he generally could handle them when the spirit wasn't actually touching him or leering at him.
The Pharaoh is clearly up to something.
Yugi had been keeping to himself somewhat lately, not hanging out with the others as much as he used to. When asked, all he would say was that the Pharaoh was investigating the items, though sometimes he'd just say was that he was tired and needed to rest. Ryou had been a little worried that the Pharaoh might be wearing his body out doing whatever he was doing during his investigation, but Yugi insisted he was fine. We know what he's up to. He's trying to figure out more about the purple thing. That was the name Ryou and Marik had settled on when they talked about it, though the Pharaoh refused to call it that.
If that's all it is, then why is he being so secretive about it?
Because he's the Pharaoh. He's almost as paranoid as you are, sometimes. That doesn't mean he's up to something. Ryou washed himself off.
What about the tomb keeper? He's clearly hiding something as well.
Ryou had been spending almost every afternoon with Marik, sometimes helping him with school work, other times attempting to research the vision together at the museum, and sometimes just hanging out with the others. But Marik disappeared off on his own somewhere every Monday and Wednesday just after school. He'd never said where he went during that time and Ryou hadn't asked. I doubt it's anything sinister.
He could be plotting something.
Ryou snickered as he dried himself off. And he only does it for an hour or so every Monday and Wednesday?
It's still suspicious, the spirit replied stubbornly.
Ryou couldn't claim he hadn't been curious about what Marik was doing, especially since he never gave even the slightest hint about what it was. Ryou had come up with a few possible theories – a job, an afterschool club, and a private tutor among them – but none of them really fit with the time frame or the secrecy. He pushed those aside. If he wants to tell me, he'll tell me. It's really none of my business.
Ryou put on his uniform and got ready for school.
The school day itself was fairly uneventful. Ryou had found over the past several weeks that even without the spirit bothering him, paying attention to his teachers was still difficult. What he'd told Marik about having gotten used to learning on his own had turned out to be truer than even he had realized. He'd taken to reading ahead in his textbooks and starting his homework early instead of trying to learn from the lectures themselves. The few times he'd truly attempted to keep track of what was going on were only to divert his attention from something the spirit was doing.
Today Marik had told him that Ishizu had gotten a new book in at the museum that might finally allow them to identify who the soldiers had been. "She borrowed it from some university. We'll have to keep it in the museum."
"So I'll meet you there later?" Ryou asked, knowing that Marik would probably be going wherever he always went on Wednesday afternoons.
You should follow him and see where he goes.
I'm not going to stalk Marik, Ryou thought back. He's given me my privacy. I'll give him his. Ryou had caught Marik looking at him strangely on a few occasions, usually when the spirit had managed to distract him again, but Marik had never actually said anything to him. Based on Marik's behavior the rest of the time, Ryou thought he could at least be certain that he hadn't figured out the truth. Whatever Marik did think about Ryou's strange behavior, he seemed content to keep it to himself at the moment. Ryou thought it only fair to give him the same courtesy about his habits.
"Yeah." Marik grabbed his school bag. "Ishizu will let you in if you want to go early, but otherwise I should be there by four o'clock. See you later." He walked quickly out the door.
Ryou turned to the others, who were trying to convince Yugi to go somewhere with them.
"Come on, you've been doing nothing but come to school and go home," Tristan complained. "You should go out once in a while."
Yugi yawned. "I would, I'm just too tired today."
"You've been saying that a lot lately. You haven't been partying all night without us, have you?" Joey asked, clearly concerned under the joking tone.
Yugi laughed. "I wish." He yawned again as he stood up. "Maybe tomorrow? I really have to get home..." He waved goodbye as he left.
Téa turned to Ryou. "Do you want to come with us?"
He did have a bit of time before meeting Marik. "Where are you going?"
Joey put an arm over Téa's shoulder. "Téa here is going to show us how to pick up girls."
Téa neatly shoved him away. "What he means is, I'm going to show them how to talk to girls without being creepy." She eyed them skeptically. "If that's even possible." She looked back at Ryou. "You could probably do it pretty easily. These guys do need a good example."
Ryou held his hands up in front of him and started backing away. "Th-that's okay. I have to go somewhere else today." He all but fled the room, deciding that going to the museum early might not be such a bad idea after all.
It was odd, Ryou thought, as Ishizu led him back into what was technically his father's office, that he was spending more time here now that his father was away than he ever had the few times his father had actually been in town.
"Here it is," she said, handing him a book. "It should contain anything you want to know about military clothing from that time period."
"Thank you," Ryou said brightly, sitting down at a table off to the side. "I'll take good care of it."
She smiled at him. "I know you will. I hope you find what you need."
Ryou immediately turned to the section detailing information about the clothing worn by the soldiers in the Pharaoh's kingdom. It wasn't that he necessarily believed what the spirit had told him, but the section was the largest in the book, and if nothing else he thought it would be best to reach a verdict on that issue as soon as possible.
He browsed through the depictions of various known incarnations of military clothing from the approximate time period he was interested in. There were a lot of different versions – it seemed there were more distinctions between types of soldiers than he'd realized.
The spirit was sitting on the table next to him. The one you're looking for was worn by the Royal Guard.
Ryou frowned, but he went ahead and flipped to the section about the Royal Guard. A few pages in, he found what he was looking for: a diagram precisely matching the clothing worn by the soldiers in the vision (and his nightmares). He read through the short passage about the Royal Guard. Apparently they were a fairly small group compared to the normal army and they only took orders from the Pharaoh and his closest advisors and family members.
Now do you believe me? The spirit's tone wasn't nearly as smug as Ryou would have expected it to be. If anything, the spirit sounded angry, as though he didn't think he would be believed even now, in the face of obvious evidence.
Ryou didn't want to believe it, but he had to admit the evidence was damaging. He made several copies of the relevant pages, then looked at the clock. He hadn't been there long at all – it seemed he still had a good hour left until Marik would get there. He placed the copies in a neat stack off to the side, bookmarked the page, and then started flipping through the book from the beginning, just to eliminate any possibility of a basically similar uniform being worn by a different group of soldiers.
By the time Marik got there, he'd finished looking through the entire book and had turned back to the page with the matching uniform.
"Hey," Marik greeted. "Did you find anything?"
"I think so," Ryou said. He hadn't thought of a good way to put it, so he simply handed Marik the book.
Marik looked at the picture and nodded. "This is definitely it," he said. "Who wore--" Marik cut off abruptly when he read the caption. He sat down next to Ryou at the table. "Why would the Royal Guard be murdering innocent villagers?" It seemed Marik had no problems getting straight to the point.
"I don't know," Ryou replied. "What do you think it means?"
"I don't know, either." Marik set the book down on the table and grabbed one of the copies Ryou had made, folding the page so only the picture was visible. "We should show this to the Pharaoh tomorrow."
"I suppose," Ryou said. But what could he say? He doesn't even remember anything about his past. Ryou closed the book and set it off to the side. "What should we do right now?"
"We could go back to searching for any information about a destroyed village," Marik replied, picking a few other books off of a stack on the floor.
"Okay..." Ryou agreed, though he doubted they would find anything at this point. They'd been through a sea of books searching for the village they'd seen, looking into historical reports and legends as well as archaeological finds in the area.
Ryou had once tried asking the spirit for a hint about where the village was or what it was called, but the spirit had flat out refused to tell him anything about it, even though Ryou was certain he knew more than he was saying. In fact, as time went on, Ryou was becoming more and more convinced that the spirit was somehow connected to the village. His reaction to Ryou's nightmares, his hatred of the Pharaoh, and the little Ryou had managed to find out about the vision were all starting to come together in an extremely unsettling picture.
But Ryou knew he couldn't make any reasonable judgment about the situation with only the information he had. He knew the spirit was keeping a great deal of information from him, and he also knew that he couldn't trust what the spirit told him to paint the full picture even if it did happen to be true.
It would be so much easier if the spirit would simply tell him what he knew, Ryou thought as he skimmed through an article on a recent dig. But until that happened he would just have to keep searching on his own.
After he finished with Marik, Ryou went home and ate a late dinner. Afterward, he'd changed into his pajamas early and sat down in the living room to watch his small TV. Getting his homework done early had its advantages, but it left him with relatively little to do in the evenings.
He noticed the spirit glaring at him soon after he sat down on the couch. The glare only increased in intensity as time went on, until Ryou almost thought the spirit might start shooting lasers out of his eyes. Eventually he couldn't take it anymore. "What? What is it? Why are you staring at me?"
"You," the spirit accused, "You and your... nightmares."
Ryou's shoulders sagged a little. "Hey, I'm not exactly looking forward to them either."
The spirit glared at him even harder before finally looking away. "I may have found a way around them," he said, now pointedly not looking at Ryou at all.
"Really?" Ryou was hopeful, but not overly so, given the spirit's last attempt at getting rid of his bad dreams.
A normal person might have offered an explanation just then, but the spirit remained silent, now fuming at a distant corner of the room.
"Well, what is it?" Ryou asked, feeling somewhat exasperated. Getting information out of the spirit was like pulling teeth. "What made you think of it?"
"It occurred to me earlier today," the spirit said, not really answering either question properly. "You'll find out what it is soon enough."
Ryou thought that sounded ominous. "Um. Right." He went back to watching TV, but his mind was too busy puzzling over what exactly the spirit intended to do to pay any real attention to what was on. It was soon time for him to go to sleep. He turned the TV down and went to finish getting ready for bed.
The spirit remained out of sight until he turned off the lights, only appearing next to him once he was in bed. Ryou looked up at him, curious about what he was going to do. He could still see the spirit perfectly clearly in the dark, as though the spirit was producing his own small light source.
Close your eyes, the spirit ordered.
Why? Ryou asked, feeling a little suspicious.
Just do it! The spirit was clearly pissed off, but he also looked more uncomfortable than Ryou had ever seen him.
This actually reassured Ryou somewhat. The spirit had never seemed especially uncomfortable doing horrible things to him, so that meant this was probably something else entirely. Fine, he thought, closing his eyes as instructed and waiting expectantly.
Ryou could sense the spirit moving near him. Soon the spirit settled down on top of him, arms wrapped part of the way around his sides in an awkward hug. Ryou felt laughter bubbling up inside him as he realized what the plan was and what had inspired it, but he held it back.
You laugh, you die, the spirit growled. It's your fault this is even necessary.
So you're just going to... stay here like this? All night? Ryou couldn't imagine the spirit putting up with that. He'd already known that the spirit hated his dreams, but... Ryou opened his eyes without thinking about it, wanting to see the look on the spirit's face.
The spirit was glaring at him again. Eyes closed, Landlord.
Ryou did as the spirit asked. He could almost feel the spirit's discomfort with the situation, which gratified him a little. The spirit could stand to be the uneasy one for a change. Ryou himself was far less frazzled by this than by the other ways the spirit had used his ability to touch him in the past, even if it was kind of strange.
He tentatively wrapped his arms around the spirit, returning the embrace. The spirit seemed to be treating the bed, if not the blankets, as solid at the moment, so Ryou lifted his back for a moment to allow the spirit to slide his arms around him fully. It was odd lying there like this, but it had calmed him down during his nightmare that morning. Maybe going to sleep like this really would prevent any nightmares from even starting in the first place.
We were in a slightly different position then, though, Ryou thought. I wonder if that will change anything? The thought hung in the air.
After a few moments of silence, the spirit finally responded. Roll over on top of me, he commanded, clearly annoyed.
Ryou had no reason not to. He rolled the spirit over so their positions were reversed. Now Ryou was on top of the spirit, using the spirit's chest as a pillow for his head. He shifted around a bit more until he found the best position, then tried to relax enough to fall asleep. It took a while, since he wasn't used to having another person so close to him when he slept. His mind wandered in different directions. He contemplated the fact that the spirit's chest didn't move in and out to take in air the way a normal person's would, and the fact that to any outside observer it would probably look like he was floating several inches above his bed for no apparent reason.
But eventually those thoughts faded away, allowing him to drift off into the first truly peaceful night's sleep he'd had in a long time.
