Title: A Persistent Shadow (Chapter 12)
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 watched the police from a distance, wishing he knew why they were there. For a moment he thought they must have finally tracked him down to arrest him for some crime the spirit had committed while still in control of his body, but he discounted the idea almost immediately. If the police had come to arrest him, they probably wouldn't leave police cruisers out front to give him advance warning that they were there.
And there is no way I ever left a trail that would lead them back here, the spirit said, sounding somewhat offended.
Ryou turned around to find the spirit standing behind him. He desperately wanted to ask all the questions he'd been holding in since he'd put the pieces together at the museum, but knew that he had to deal with whatever was happening at his apartment building first. Do you know what's going on?
Yes. I went ahead and looked around.
It took Ryou a moment to realize the spirit wasn't going to say anything else. He felt a little exasperated. This really wasn't the time for withholding information. Are you going to tell me?
If I tell you now, you won't be able to show the right amount of surprise when someone else does it later.
And that might make him look suspicious. Ryou had to admit he had a point. As often as he had to fake things like that, he couldn't say he was actually very good at it. A police officer might pick up on his deception and get the wrong idea. He took a deep breath and walked up to the building.
A police officer stopped him almost immediately. "Excuse me, son, but do you have a reason to be here?"
"Um. I live on the second floor. What happened?"
"The second floor, you say?" The officer waved to a man not wearing a uniform.
The man walked over and held out his badge. "I'm Detective Lawson, and you are...?"
"Ryou Bakura. I live on the second floor," he repeated, starting to feel a little nervous. "What's going on?"
The detective put his badge away. "There was a break in. Someone broke a window on the side of the building..." The detective gestured to indicate the side he was talking about. "And then climbed into the first floor apartment."
"The woman who lives there – is she okay?" Ryou didn't know the elderly lady who lived on the first floor very well, but she seemed nice enough. He hoped nothing bad had happened to her.
"She's fine. It happened mid-afternoon, and she was out at the time."
"That's good." Ryou shifted uncomfortably. "Do you need me for a statement, or..."
"I'm afraid there's a bit more to it than that," the detective replied. "You see, whoever did this didn't take anything from the first floor apartment."
"They didn't?"
"No. It seems they only even broke into the first floor apartment in order to gain access to the inside stairs. Mrs. Lenz found her door unlocked when she returned home."
Ryou felt dread rising inside him. "What did they do once they got to the stairs?"
"They made an exceptionally zealous attempt to get into the second floor apartment. Your apartment, Mr. Bakura."
"M-my apartment? Did they get inside?"
The detective looked ambivalent. "Not through the front door, though not for lack of trying. We can't say for certain whether they found another way in after giving up on the door." The detective put a hand on Ryou's shoulder. "Look, kid, whoever did this is obviously very dangerous. We've been through the first and third apartments to verify that they're clear. We'd like to check your apartment, but we need the keys. We can't break through the door anymore than they could."
Ryou handed over his keys immediately, perfectly willing to let the police deal with whatever maniac might be lurking in his apartment at the moment. It seemed odd that the police hadn't been able to break through the door, but he figured it was probably much more difficult in real life than in the movies.
"Alright. Wait over here with Officer Byrd." The detective walked into the building.
Ryou looked around for the spirit, but he'd gone off somewhere again. After a few minutes of anxious waiting, he saw the detective walk back out of the building, now followed by several officers in body armor. One was carrying a police battering ram. The detective directed the officers over to one of the police cars.
Isn't this kind of overkill for a simple break-in? Ryou wondered.
The detective jogged back over to Ryou and gave him back his keys. "Your apartment is clear."
"Well, that's..." Ryou trailed off, not actually sure whether it was good or bad. He was glad whoever it was hadn't managed to get inside his apartment, but not so glad that this meant the police couldn't just arrest the person right now. "It's something?"
The detective pulled out a notepad and pen and started writing something down. "Now that we've made sure the area is safe, I'm going to need to talk to your parents."
"It's just my father," Ryou said, not liking where this was going. "And he's away for his job at the moment."
The detective looked up in surprise. "You mean you're here entirely on your own?" He looked Ryou over. "How old are you?"
"Eighteen."
The detective shook his head, the expression on his face showing that he didn't like it, but knew he couldn't do anything about it because Ryou was legally of age. "I suppose I'll have to talk to you, then."
He headed for the door, gesturing for Ryou to follow. "Let's go inside." He paused for a moment at the door. "Just so you're warned, there's a fair bit of damage to the hallway just outside your door." The detective disappeared inside.
How much damage could there be? Ryou wondered, following the detective inside. Surely it can't be that much, if they weren't able to get into the apartment. He walked behind the detective up the stairs to the second floor, stopping at the top in shock.
It took a moment for him to process the scene before him. The first thing he noticed was the cloud of white dust, which he soon realized were particles of plaster sent into the air when someone had attempted to rip through the walls. The entire outer surface of the wall of his apartment had been shredded off, revealing the hard concrete surface beneath.
The door had taken a great deal of abuse as well. There were dents all over the front and small chunks of wood littering the floor in front of it. There was a short steel pole sticking out of the middle, which seemed to be a railing torn off the opposite wall. Ryou could only gape at the rod impaled in the door. "H-how is that even possible?" he blurted out.
"I take it you're referring to this?" the detective asked rhetorically, gesturing at the door. "We have no idea. Your door has some kind of reinforced steel core – I hope you have an explanation for that, by the way, but we'll get to that in a minute – but anyway, whoever did this was able to shove the railing right through it, although he clearly couldn't get it out afterward."
Ryou didn't find that much comfort. "He... he put it right through the door?" Ryou repeated, feeling rattled. He looked at the impact more closely and noticed that the door was misshapen where the railing had gone through; it almost looked like the steel in the door had actually melted a little when the railing had hit.
"Right through," The detective affirmed. "If we could discuss this sitting down..."
Ryou realized that he was probably waiting to be invited in now that there wasn't any imminent threat. "R-right. You can go in."
The detective opened the door into the apartment wide enough to get around the rail and walked inside. Ryou shut the door, mind boggling a little at the several inches of railing sticking out the other side, and led him into the living room.
"Would you like something to drink?" Ryou asked automatically.
The detective sat down in the chair. "I'm fine," he said.
Ryou sat down on the couch and waited expectantly.
The detective scribbled something on his notepad before he began. "Whoever did this very clearly targeted this apartment specifically. Are you keeping anything valuable in here that someone else might want?"
Ryou shook his head slowly. "No." The only really valuable thing he'd ever had was the ring, and he hadn't been in possession of that for weeks.
"Is there anyone who might want to hurt you?"
Ryou wondered if the spirit should still be on that list, but he couldn't mention that anyway. "I d-don't think so."
"Nobody you've had a fight with? Someone from school, perhaps?"
Ryou shook his head again. There really wasn't anyone who wanted to seriously hurt him anymore, at least, not that he knew of. "C-could a highschool student really do all that?"
The detective let out a short, humorless laugh. "We're still not sure what could do that. Normally we'd put a mess like that down to drugs, but someone that drugged up wouldn't have left such a clean path through the other apartment. We think whoever it was remained relatively calm up until the door wouldn't break down, then flew into a rage."
"I guess I'm lucky he didn't make it in here," Ryou said.
"Perhaps we all are. Speaking of which, do you happen to know how this apartment came to have such... fortifications?" The detective was looking at him sharply now.
Ryou blinked. "Fortifications?" he asked, feeling confused.
The detective eyed his face a little longer, but then seemed to decide that Ryou really didn't know anything about what he was asking. "Yeah, fortifications. None of the other apartments have doors with a steel core, reinforced hinges or a steel door frame, yet this apartment does. Almost like someone was expecting a crazed attack like this. Or possibly a police raid."
"I didn't even know it wasn't a normal door," Ryou said. That much was true. "Maybe the person who lived here before me put it in," he added, somewhat less truthfully. He had a very different guess about who would go to the trouble of fortifying the front door.
The detective nodded. "We'll be checking into that." He pulled out a card and handed it to Ryou. "If you think of anything you haven't told me or if you notice anything strange, call me. We'll have an officer posted to watch the building in case the guy comes back, but that will only be for the next couple of days."
"O-okay."
"Look, do you have someone you can call right now? A friend you can stay with tonight?"
Ryou thought of his friends, but instinctively discounted the idea. "I... I don't want to be a bother."
The detective rubbed his face. "Kid, a maniac just tried to force his way into your apartment. You have a right to ask for help."
Ryou shook his head. Even beyond not wanting to bother anyone, he couldn't risk accidentally revealing the spirit's presence to one of his friends while sleeping. "You said there will be an officer outside. That's really enough for me." He smiled, trying to sound less nervous than he really was.
From the detective's expression, he'd failed completely. "If you're absolutely sure that's what you want, I can't stop you." The detective got up from the chair. "I'll contact you if there are any major developments."
Ryou followed him to the door. "Thank you."
"Be sure to keep this door locked, alright?" the detective said from the top of the stairs.
"I will," Ryou assured him. He closed the door and locked it.
He wandered back into his living room. The emptiness of his apartment now seemed ominous and threatening; there would be no one to protect him if someone got inside intending to hurt him. S-spirit? Ryou called out mentally, not wanting a stray police officer to hear him apparently talking to himself. It would be just his luck to have the police decide that he was crazy and had vandalized his own apartment.
Ryou sighed in relief when the spirit appeared on the couch. The spirit couldn't physically protect him anymore, but it still felt better not to be completely alone. He was a little surprised the spirit hadn't made any comments while he'd been speaking with the detective.
"You would have reacted to something I said and made yourself look suspicious," the spirit informed him. "I don't trust your ability to escape from the police."
I wouldn't even try to escape from the police.
"Exactly," the spirit replied disdainfully.
Arguing about this wasn't going to get them anywhere. Did you really fortify the front door against an attack? Ryou still couldn't quite believe it.
"Yes. And before you ask, Landlord, no, I have no idea who's responsible for what happened today. It was a general precaution against inept would-be thieves," the spirit answered. "One that clearly turned out to be a good idea."
Where did you even find a door with a steel core? There couldn't exactly be many places that made them. Ryou hoped the police wouldn't find that he had in fact bought a steel-core door at some point. Or... several such doors, even. Did you do this for every place we lived?
"No, only this one. And I never buy anything," the spirit said contemptuously.
You stole the door you used to secure our apartment? Ryou asked incredulously, feeling more surprised by this than he knew he probably should be. But wouldn't that mean it couldn't be very-- No, I'm not going to think about this, he decided, ignoring his curiosity about whether the spirit had stolen it right off of someone's house or merely from a box in a warehouse somewhere. He hoped it wasn't the sort of thing with a serial number the police could use to identify it, since the detective was clearly interested in where it had come from.
"Nothing is ever secure against a competent thief," the spirit answered him. "But as we've already seen, this door is perfectly effective against fools who would attempt to blindly force their way inside."
Ryou had to give him that. You really don't know who tried to break in?
"I haven't a clue."
How about why they broke in? Ryou didn't have anything valuable in the apartment, but at this point he wouldn't put it past the spirit to have large amounts of stolen cash or jewelry hidden in the walls or something. Not to mention all the enemies the spirit might have that he knew nothing about.
"I don't know that either." The spirit's face wasn't giving anything away.
Then why did you even decide to fortify this apartment, when you didn't do it for any of the other places we lived? Ryou asked skeptically.
"The other places we lived weren't near the Pharaoh."
Ryou didn't know whether to believe him or not. The spirit was certainly paranoid enough about the Pharaoh for it to be true, but... You honestly thought the Pharaoh would just come over and try to kick down the door to our apartment?
"Not necessarily the Pharaoh himself. He draws others to him," the spirit replied. "Others who tend to be interested in the Millennium Items."
I suppose that's true.
Ryou decided any more thought about the issue could wait. He made himself a sandwich for dinner, even though everything about the past few hours had left him without much of an appetite.
After he'd eaten, he walked through the apartment, now involuntarily taking note of every weakness in the defenses. He made sure every single window was locked, even though he knew that whoever it was had broken a window on the first floor to get into the building. It may not have made much sense, but at least it felt like he was doing something.
Of course, it didn't stop him from coming up with ways the maniac could get inside. He could climb a ladder and get through a window; fling a rope up to the fire escape and, again, break through a window; break into the first floor apartment again and come up through the floor; go through the first floor apartment to the stairs, break into the third floor apartment and cut a hole in the ceiling; get a blowtorch and cut through the front door...
If he was that determined, why didn't he do any of those things? Ryou couldn't help but wonder as he put on his pajamas.
"Because he was insultingly unprepared to be breaking into this apartment," the spirit replied from Ryou's bed.
Ryou thought of the way the would-be burglar had ripped a railing off the wall instead of bringing a tool to get through the door and had to agree. But how could he be targeting me – or us, or this apartment – specifically, and still be that unprepared? It doesn't make sense.
Ryou turned off the lights and got into bed. He pulled the covers up over himself and looked at the spirit, who was reclined next to him on the bed, scowling determinedly at the ceiling.
If you don't get over here quickly, Landlord, I might just leave you to your nightmares.
Ryou tried not to snicker as he hugged the spirit, still enjoying how uncomfortable he could make the spirit with just a hug, of all things. His mood fell a bit as he thought about exactly why they were in that position. Ryou was certain that if he had a nightmare tonight, it would be about either the cauldron or about a maniac breaking into his apartment to murder him. Or possibly a horrifying combination where a maniac broke into his apartment, killed him, and then... Ryou shuddered.
The point of this is that I don't want to experience your thoughts about these things, the spirit told him. He sounded annoyed, but it was accompanied by a slight tightening of the embrace to stop Ryou's trembling.
It worked, and Ryou felt a little calmer. Thanks.
The spirit only made a derisive noise.
Ryou tried to relax enough to fall asleep, but it was more difficult than normal. He lay there, tensely listening for every little sound in the apartment, wondering if someone had gotten inside.
If someone gets inside, believe me, I will let you know.
Ryou did trust the spirit to know the instant someone made it into the apartment, but... What if you can't wake me up?
A sudden drop onto the bed should wake even you.
I guess... Ryou could see that working, but he still felt generally anxious.
It was quiet for a moment until the spirit made a frustrated noise and started to rub Ryou's back in large circles with one hand. It wasn't... intense... like most of the other times the spirit had done it. It was just... calming. Comforting. Ryou began to feel safe again, slowly relaxing enough to fall asleep.
I could get used to this, he thought fuzzily, just as sleep finally claimed him for the night.
