Title: A Persistent Shadow (Chapter 21)
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 tried not to panic. He knew where he was, he just didn't know where that place happened to be in relation to anything else. He remembered what had been going on just before he'd woken up on the ground and realized that he was probably in a dream.

Given the dreams he'd had about the village, Ryou didn't find that very comforting.

He took in his surroundings, noticing the sand blowing around in the wind, along with a black smoke very similar to what had come out of the mirror. The smoke originated somewhere in the distance, but Ryou couldn't make out where from his position. It smelled horrible, like burning flesh... This is a very vivid dream, Ryou thought uneasily. He tried to reassure himself with the fact that there was light outside, something that hadn't been true in the vision. He wasn't sure whether it was dusk or dawn, but either of those was far from the nighttime attack he remembered.

Ryou pivoted around to take a look at the area behind him and tripped over a dead body. "Ack!" he exclaimed, scrambling off of it as quickly as he could. The man's body was completely dried out, as though it had been mummified, face frozen in a horrified expression. He was wearing the uniform Ryou recognized as belonging to the Royal Guard. At least he won't be able to attack anyone now, Ryou thought grimly. But I still have to worry about whatever did that to him.

Ryou felt something cold brush across his back. He spun around, swearing he'd heard sick, distorted laughter in his ear. He tried to convince himself it was only the wind, but he kept seeing ghostly figures darting around just on the edge of his vision, disappearing whenever he tried to look at them straight on. Ryou forced himself to ignore them and think clearly about his situation.

What happened to everyone else? Ryou wondered. Were they brought here, too? He looked out into the distance and called out over his mental link. Spirit?

There was no response. Ryou had been expecting that – the spirit would probably have said something to him by now if it were possible. Ryou hoped he hadn't been hurt when the smoke had touched him.

Ryou turned around again. It was obvious that he wouldn't accomplish anything by staying where he was. There was no one else around, save the dead soldier. The question was which direction he should go in.

Ryou really had only two options – toward the source of the smoke, or away from it. Away from the smoke seemed likely to be safer, but less likely to provide him with answers to the many questions racing through his mind. If he wanted to get home, he would need to know what was going on.

Ryou sighed, starting to walk toward the smoke.

The path twisted around a corner, merging with a walkway from another direction. Ryou continued down the path, avoiding a few more dead bodies lying in the middle of the road. He stopped when he heard someone calling his name from behind. "Bakura, wait!"

Ryou turned to see Yugi running toward him from the fork in the road. At least, it seemed like Yugi. He didn't know whether he could believe it or not. Even if his friend had been freed by the ritual, he still couldn't know for certain whether any other people he met in this dream world were real or not. "Hey. Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," Yugi panted. "Um. Where are we? How did we get here?"

"We're in the village we saw in the vision," Ryou said, realizing Yugi hadn't experienced what he, Marik, and the Pharaoh had. "And something weird happened after we forced the Pharaoh out of your body... if we even really managed that," Ryou added, wondering if the dark force that had come after them could really be the Pharaoh.

Yugi blinked. "You forced the Pharaoh out of my body?" he asked. "Why?"

"He was pretending to be you," Ryou said. "We don't know how long he was doing it," he continued apologetically, "but we couldn't just let him go on using your body."

"He was pretending to be me?" Yugi asked, though it sounded more like he'd just had a quesiton answered. "He's been in control a lot, lately," he said quietly. "It was getting a little weird, but I wasn't expecting that."

"When were you last in control?" Ryou asked.

Yugi frowned in confusion, rubbing his head. "I don't know. It's very fuzzy," he said. "It felt like I was in my soul room for a long time, but I can't measure time very well in there..."

Ryou knew the feeling well. "What's the last thing you remember happening?"

"Um," Yugi's face wrinkled in thought. "School, though I don't really remember what we were doing... Oh! Someone tried to break into your apartment a few days ago."

"Tried, or succeeded?" Ryou asked, fearing he already knew which it was.

"Tried," Yugi said. "They put a pole through your door, but couldn't get in."

Ryou winced. "That was over a month ago," he said, knowing exactly how it felt to wake up and realize that much time had simply gone missing. He felt horrible for having been fooled for so long. "I'm sorry."

"A month?" Yugi asked, visibly shocked. "It's really been more than a month?"

"Yeah," Ryou said, feeling guilty. "I didn't even know the Pharaoh could look that much like you. Marik figured out something was wrong last week..." Ryou went on to explain how they'd ended up where they were, including how the spirit hadn't really disappeared all those months ago. He'd thought about leaving it out for simplicity's sake, but quickly realized that he had no way of explaining how they had known about the eye without it. He left out everything relating to the 'deal' he'd made with the spirit, not wanting to get into it with Yugi right then, if ever.

"Wow," Yugi said when he was finished. "So he's just... been there, around you this whole time?"

"Yeah..." Ryou said, not sure what to make of Yugi's reaction. "You don't seem that upset."

"I'm not, really," Yugi said. "I might have been earlier, but the way the Pharaoh's been acting lately..." Yugi's expression grew uneasy. "He's been saying some crazy things. You would probably have been in danger if you told us the Spirit of the Ring was still with you."

"What sort of things was he saying?" Ryou asked, wondering if the Pharaoh had given Yugi any clue to his intentions.

"It wasn't anything that unusual at first," Yugi said. "He started getting more paranoid after that thing came out of the ring. He's always been a little..." Yugi made a vague gesture. "...but it got so much worse. He kept saying someone would come after the items, and he was the only one who could protect them."

"Did he say anything to you about the break-in?" Ryou asked.

"Not really," Yugi said, sighing a little. "That should have been my first clue – he was so obsessed with the safety of the items, but he didn't really seem to care about whoever tried to break into your place, even though that person might have been after the ring. Your safety wasn't important at all," Yugi added, sounding somewhat angry.

"And your safety...?" Ryou asked, wondering just how far gone the Pharaoh was.

"I... I don't know," Yugi said quietly. "We were arguing right before he took over the last time. I didn't like that he was in control so often, especially since he wouldn't tell me what he was doing during that time." He looked Ryou in the eyes. "Right in the middle of it, I had the thought that he was acting like the Spirit of the Ring always had with you, and suddenly I was locked in my soul room." Yugi's head dropped. "I don't know what got into him. It's like someone took all his worst qualities and shot them up to infinity."

"The vision we saw was horrible," Ryou said, thinking that it could well have sent the Pharaoh into more of a panic than anyone had realized. He glanced around them, half-expecting the dead soldiers to come back to life in order to terrorize them. "It was here, but it was worse than this."

"Worse than this?" Yugi asked, looking where Ryou had. "This is pretty bad..."

"Yeah," Ryou said. "We should try to get out of here as soon as possible. I was hoping to find something over there," he added, waving toward the mass of smoke dominating the middle of the village.

Yugi nodded. "Let's go."

The two continued down the path.

"Do you think the others are here?" Yugi asked.

"Maybe," Ryou said, not sure whether he should be hopeful or not. It felt safer having Yugi near him, and he knew that he would probably feel even safer with even more people around him, but he wasn't entirely confident that they could ever get out of the village. He didn't want to hope for others to be trapped with him.

"I wonder if--" Yugi stopped, eyes locked on a point somewhere off in the distance, not quite in the same direction they were headed. "I think I saw the Pharaoh!" he said, taking off down an alleyway.

"Hey, wait!" Ryou said, chasing after him. He followed Yugi as he ran between the buildings. "He's dangerous, you can't just--" Ryou stopped at the twisted intersection of several different paths, unable to see which one Yugi had taken. He looked down each one frantically, but Yugi had vanished.

Ryou sighed. The ghosts, which had kept their distance somewhat while he'd been with Yugi, now closed in on him again. I guess I'll just have to stick to the plan without him, Ryou thought. He knows where I want to go. Maybe he'll meet me there eventually. Ryou once again took the path that seemed to be going toward the smoke.

The air got more oppressive as Ryou approached the center, the black particles making it more difficult to see into the distance and the smell making him feel nauseated. The number of dead bodies strewn along the path increased until he was never out of sight of at least one. He kept hearing strange, unsettling noises – sometimes it was just the wind, but other times it was definitely laughter, usually accompanied by the creepy feeling that someone was standing right behind him.

Ryou was starting to seriously reconsider his plan when he heard a new sound somewhere nearby. He listened carefully. Is that... crying? Ryou followed the direction the sound seemed to be coming from, quickly finding himself in front of one of the houses. The noise was coming from inside. Ryou looked in through the empty, open doorway. It wasn't pitch black in the building, but between the air quality and the angle of the light outside, Ryou couldn't see much of anything.

He debated going inside. On the one hand, it might be someone he knew crying in there. It could be Yugi or Marik or... probably not the spirit, but the point still stood. On the other hand, it could also be a trick being played on him, by the ghosts stalking him or someone else wanting to lure him into a trap. Ryou shook his head, deciding that too much time with the spirit had made him paranoid. Even if it wasn't someone he knew, there was someone inside who needed help. He steeled his nerves, walking inside.

He took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the low lighting. "Hello?" he called out softly. "Is someone here?"

The crying was replaced by a combination of sniffling and hiccuping, as though the person was trying to stop, but couldn't manage it.

Ryou followed the sound through the tiny one-room house, stopping at the back door. A small flight of stone stairs, no bigger than four or five steps, led up to the path outside, but the crying didn't seem to be coming from out there. Ryou looked around the area, zeroing in on the stairs themselves. He looked at the side of the stairs, noticing a small hole in the top corner. He put his fingers in the hole, pulling the side piece away. It was surprisingly light, as though whoever had made it had intended for it to be easy to remove.

Removing the side piece revealed a crawl space with a small boy hiding inside. The terrified boy cowered away from Ryou, making himself as small as he could to fit into the very back of the small, cramped space. "Please don't kill me, please," the boy sobbed, his entire body shaking.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Ryou said in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. He backed away from the opening a little, not wanting to intimidate the boy. Did he just go through this...? Ryou thought, horror growing inside him. He'd seen children killed in the vision, but seeing a child who'd just been through the whole thing and survived was worse, in its own way.

The boy looked at him, expression alternating between fearful and hopeful. "You really aren't going to hurt me?"

"I promise," Ryou said.

The boy cautiously moved closer to the opening, looking at Ryou more closely. "Are we related?" he asked, catching sight of Ryou's hair. Now that Ryou could see the boy a little better, he could tell that his hair was a similar color, shining slightly even in the dark.

"I don't think so," Ryou said apologetically. When the boy's face fell, he almost wished he'd lied.

"Then they're really all dead," the boy said, starting to sob again. "My whole family. I'm the only one left."

Ryou didn't how to respond to that. He couldn't bring himself to say such an obviously hollow lie like 'it will be okay' or to get the boy's hopes up with something like 'maybe you aren't the only one who survived'. What could he say to someone whose entire family had been slaughtered?

Ryou reached out one hand carefully, setting it down on the ground where the boy could take it if he wanted, but avoid it if it frightened him. "I'm sorry."

The boy stared at the hand uncertainly for a moment, still sniffling. He wiped his own hands on his tunic, then took Ryou's hand in his, hugging it to his chest after a few seconds. "You're really alive," he said.

"Yeah," Ryou said, wondering how long the boy had been under the stairs without seeing anyone.

"Your clothes are strange," the boy said, reaching out with his free hand to point at the blue stripes on Ryou's shirt.

Ryou didn't know what to make of the sudden shift in conversation, but at least the boy didn't seem as upset as he had been. "I'm not really from around here."

"Oh," the boy said. "What's your name?"

"My name is Ryou," he replied. "What's yours?"

"Akefia."

"Nice to meet you," Ryou said automatically, wondering afterward if it was the most appropriate thing he could have said, given the circumstances.

The boy didn't seem to mind. "Nice to meet you, too," he said.

"Are you ready to come out of there?" Ryou asked quietly, hoping he wasn't asking too soon.

"Will you stay with me?" the boy asked, hugging Ryou's hand even more tightly, as though afraid that Ryou would disappear if he didn't hold on well enough.

"I'll stay with you," Ryou promised. The boy crawled out from under the stairs, and Ryou immediately noticed that his tunic was soiled. Ryou supposed it wasn't that surprising. "We should get you something clean to wear," he said, looking around. He saw some rags sitting on a table, but no clothes.

"There's more stuff in there," the boy said, pointing at a small trunk in the corner.

Ryou walked over to it, never letting go of the boy's hand. He opened the trunk with his free hand, finding a few light blankets and a man's tunic. He took the tunic out, closed the trunk, and put the tunic on top of it.

"That's my father's," the boy said, looking down at the floor.

"I'm sure he'd want you to have clean clothes," Ryou said, rubbing the boy's hand.

The boy didn't say anything, but he allowed Ryou to help him take his soiled tunic off. Ryou cleaned him up as best as he could with what they had available, then put the clean tunic on him. The bottom of the tunic, which would have fallen to about knee-length on a man, fell just above the boy's ankles, and the sleeves fell past his hands. Ryou rolled up the sleeves until they were a more normal length.

"There," Ryou said when he was finished, patting the boy on the shoulder.

The boy sniffled, then grabbed Ryou in a sudden hug, clinging to him and sobbing into his chest.

Ryou was startled at first, but he quickly returned the hug, holding the boy close as he cried. He stroked the boy's hair, hoping he was being somewhat comforting.

Apparently he was, because the boy started to calm down. The boy cried for a little while longer before his sobs completely died down, his breathing slowly returning to normal. He continued to cling to Ryou even then.

Ryou was reluctant to push him away, but he knew that they couldn't stand there like that forever. They still in potential danger, if nothing else. He carefully disentangled himself from the boy, taking his hand again to keep him assured that he wasn't going to run off without him. He used the cleanest available rag to wipe off his face. "We should get going."

"They won't let me," the boy said quietly, sounding afraid.

"Who won't let you?" Ryou asked, looking around. Maybe he means the soldiers. He might not know they're all dead...

"My family," the boy whispered. "They say I have to go to where their bodies were..." he trailed off, visibly sickened, looking as though he might start sobbing again.

Ryou rubbed the boy's back, thinking quickly. He'd assumed the boy had been hiding in that spot the whole time and wouldn't necessarily know what had happened to his family after they'd been killed, but what he'd just said seemed to contradict that. "Did you see what happened to their bodies?" he asked the boy, desperately hoping he hadn't. "Were you there?"

The boy shook his head, giving Ryou a few seconds of relief before destroying it. "I wasn't there, but they showed me what happened."

It might have just been his imagination, but Ryou could have sworn the ghostly presence was getting more active, swarming around them in greater numbers. "Showed you? Like in a vision?"

The boy nodded, starting to sniffle again. "The soldiers took their bodies and... a-and... m-melted them... Th-they m-made my f-family into... into..." The boy looked like he couldn't breathe.

"I know," Ryou said, kneeling down to hug the boy again.

The boy hugged him back gratefully, taking a few moments to steady his breathing before replying. "They want revenge."

"Who wants revenge?" Ryou asked, though he already knew the answer.

"My family. They want me to k-kill the Pharaoh and his family," the boy said, sobbing into Ryou's shoulder. "I don't want to kill anyone."

"You don't have to," Ryou assured him. He felt the atmosphere around him grow tense, even angry after he said it. He had the unnerving feeling that countless pairs of eyes were staring at him in utter hatred. He would have glared back at them if he could. Wanting revenge was one thing, but what kind of people would show a thing like that to a child, or tell him to go kill someone for them?

"They say that I have to, or they can't rest," the boy said. "They k-keep sh-showing me what happened to them. I'm the only one who didn't d-die, so it has to be m-me."

"You don't have to kill anyone," Ryou repeated firmly. "Let's get out of here," he added, standing back up and retaking the boy's hand. He walked to the door, deciding that whatever his earlier plan may have been, he was going to take the boy as far from the smoking ruins as possible. He didn't know why the boy's family wanted him to go there, unless the Pharaoh was already there and they expected him to somehow kill their hated enemy then and there. He didn't know how they expected a little boy to accomplish this, but he wasn't about to let that happen.

"They won't let us," the boy said, though he followed Ryou out the door, gripping his hand tightly.

"I don't see how they can... stop..." Ryou trailed off weakly as he looked at the path going away from the center of the village.

A wall of ghosts blocked the way, faces distorted and angry. The wall continued up over the houses in a semi-circle, emphasizing the fact that there was only one direction left to go in. Ryou moved to go back inside the house they'd just come out of, but the door was already blocked off.

"I'm not taking him there," Ryou said to the ghosts.

He felt something brush against his shoulder, whispering distantly in his ear. "...don't have a choice..."

Ryou stood there, trying to figure out a course of action. Can they hurt me? Can they hurt him? Ryou wondered, looking at the boy. The boy was looking back up at him, expression all but begging Ryou to keep him safe.

Meanwhile, the wall of ghosts had begun moving forward slowly. The boy tugged on Ryou, trying to go toward the open part of the path. "We have to go," he said urgently.

"We can't go that way, either," Ryou told him.

"You can't let them touch you," the boy said, clearly afraid.

"Why n--" Ryou didn't actually finish his question, but one of the ghosts answered it for him anyway, laughing cruelly as it put a hand through him, sending him into a vision of the soldiers and the cauldron. It was like what he'd seen in the vision all those months ago, only this time it was from the point of view of one of the bodies being melted...

"Ryou! Wake up!" the boy pleaded frantically, shaking his shoulders. "Wake up, please!"

Ryou shuddered violently as he opened his eyes, realizing that he'd fallen to the ground. He looked up to see the boy kneeling over him, the ghosts still standing around them in a semi-circle. "Thanks," he said to the boy. He stood up.

The boy clung to his arm instead of his hand this time, clearly frightened by seeing him collapse. "We have to go that way," he said miserably.

"I guess we do," Ryou said, moving forward to avoid being touched by one of the ghosts again. He looked around and saw the ghosts smiling horribly at his cooperation. "Let's go." He pulled the boy along the path with him, not wanting him to experience a vision like that again either.

Ryou hoped that he could figure out a way out of the current situation before they reached wherever the ghosts were taking them. Barring that, he hoped that the place wasn't as dangerous or horrifying as he thought it was.

But Ryou knew one thing for sure: he wasn't about to let the ghosts do anything to the boy next to him, and he certainly wasn't going to let them force him to kill anyone.