A/N References to the manga. (Monster World and how Ryou first "met" the spirit of the ring). Takes place during Battle City, episodes 68 - 96 to be exact. Koe = Voice, Yadonushi = Host, Landlord etc. The usual random Japanese.
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend/somewhere along the bitterness/and would I have stayed up with you all night ~ How to Save a Life, The Fray.
He looks at the reflection of himself.
That sentence sounds strange to Ryou's ears, because for once there is no hidden meaning to it, no himself but not himself. It is just him. Calm white hair. Pale skin. Scared eyes.
Me.
The glass is smooth underneath his hand as he traces his reflection (savoring it because he has come to realize he will never be able to look into a mirror and see only himself ever again) and it is firm and cold ("I granted your wish, yadonushi. Now you'll never be alone again." A laugh comes next and, even if it's just a memory, chills go up Ryou's spine.) but strangely soothing underneath his scratched and bloody hands.
It looks fragile, Ryou muses, this glass wall that cuts through my soul room.
But it's not.
His bruised and bloody hands can attest for that.
Ryou remembers the first time he saw the glass. It was after they (he thinks that loudly, as loud as he can and knows the darkness can hear him) defeated the Voice, the darkness in the Monster World RPG. Again, the Voice had stolen his body and shoved him into his soul room and then the glass had appeared, rose through the ground and ripped across his room. The glass barrier sealed him even farther away from the door and sealed him from most of the picture frames hung on his soul room's walls.
(His memories.)
The Voice would not be satisfied in just stealing his body, it had to steal his memories too. He knows he has forgotten, things about his mother and how he lived without the millennium ring have become fuzzy at best, and he knows he is forgetting. Ryou feels it, when he rests his head on the glass and something trickles out of him like sand in an hourglass. But he knows there was a time when he defeated the Voice. He won't allow himself to forget that day (and after so many other memories have faded, Ryou clings to this one with all force he has left in him – Yuugi, smiling at him and he got to smile back.)
If he could only return to his body, have full control (not the diluted version the Voice gives, but a real life) he would put a stop to whatever it was the Voice was planning.
No matter what it takes.
His reflection's expression hardens and his eyes narrow. Ryou almost looks like…
Pointless.
Such thoughts were pointless.
He's changed. He knows that.
But then as if to mock him, his reflection looks as innocent as ever.
Ryou, frustrated and trapped and hopeless, throws himself at the glass.
(Please just let it shattered, like it break – even just a crack, please, please, pleasepleaseplease.)
The glass remains perfectly flawless. Ryou can already see a bruise forming along his arm. A wave of déjà vu hits him and Ryou has to step away from the glass. He's going to go crazy here. He can feel it in the way tears will no longer fall down.
The Voice, the spirit that dwells in the millennium ring is using his body to hurt Yuugi. (Yuugi, who was kind and so trusting, who did nothing bad other than wanting to be his friend.)Ryou knows it. It's not even a matter of when; he knows the spirit is doing it right now.
The glass blocking the door of his soul room is unbreakable.
The Voice is going to hurt Yuugi.
And there is nothing he could do to stop it.
Ryou, devastated, overwhelmed broken, slides down the glass. He buries his face in his heads, trying to rid himself of such horrible (truthful) thoughts.
They don't go away.
There are footsteps and quick as lightning Ryou is on his feet. It's the Voice, and even if he really is just a shell of his former self, Ryou will not let the Voice see him so broken. He will not give him the satisfaction.
The door to his soul opens with a loud creak and Ryou expects to see not one but two reflections through the glass.
Instead, he sees a boy with bright lilac colored eyes, tan skin, blonde hair…and a millennium item.
"And who are you?" The boy says, voice oozing confidence.
Ryou stares, speechless. This boy is in his soul and is asking him who he is?
"You look like Bakura," He says as he walks along the glass wall, never taking his eyes off Ryou, "But you're not him."
"I am Bakura," Ryou says firmly (because he is and there is nothing the Voice can do to take that away from him), "Who are you?"
The boy gives him a look; one that makes Ryou feel incredibly violated like the boy is looking through him and judging him with to high of standards.
"Oh, I see. You must be his host. Yeah, I think he talked about you once."
His host. Ryou cringes at that.
"How do you know about that?" Ryou asks, eyebrows creasing.
"We're partners, for the time being," and as an afterthought he adds, "My name's Malik."
"Partners?" Ryou can't hide the fear in his voice.
"Yeah."
"You made a deal with the spirit of the millennium ring?" Ryou gasps. It was unfathomable, the thought of the Voice working with someone and not just controlling them but with. How was that even possible?
"Yes, I just said that. You're not very smart are you?"
The boy doesn't even bother to look at him when he says this; he is too busy fiddling with Ryou's picture frames and brushing the dust off the walls.
"Could you please stop that!" Ryou exclaims, because even the Voice shows more respect for his soul room then this Malik does and Ryou can't just stand there and watch his soul be vandalized.
Malik turns his attention back to Ryou.
"So what's your name?"
"I told you," Ryou sighs, "It's Bakura."
"He's name is Bakura. And you can't both be named Bakura. That's just stupid."
"My first name is Ryou. But everyone calls me –," Ryou stops midsentence as what Malik says finally processes.
Malik still only looks vaguely interested.
"We are not both named Bakura!" Ryou shouts exasperated, "He stole that name from me and my family. He doesn't have a name or a body, both of those he took from me! He is just a voice."
(I won't, I won't let you become anymore than that.)
Malik rolls his eyes.
"You're just as temperamental as he is."
Ryou feels like he's going to puke. "I am nothing like him!"
"Whatever, Ryou," Malik sneers.
("Whatever, Ryou. I know my big brother well enough to know you'd never tell on me!")
"Don't call me that," Ryou says voice dangerously low.
Malik, sensing the challenge, steps closer to the thin wall of glass that separates them.
"I'll call you whatever I'd like. You're weak, that much is obvious. What could you possibly do to stop me?"
All at once everything Ryou hates about himself is exposed. Malik is right; there was nothing he could to do.
(And if being the owner of the millennium ring had taught him anything, it was that no matter how hard he tried, there was nothing he could ever do.)
Ryou shrinks away from the glass.
"Please… just go away. Why are you even here? How are you even here?" Ryou honestly didn't mean for so many questions, they just exploded out of him.
"Millennium rod," Malik says and it glows slightly in his hands. "And I thought I should have a look around in my new tool's mind."
"Tool?" Ryou questions with somewhat of a scoff. The Voice was many things, but tool wasn't one of them.
"I'm sorry," Malik leers, "Did I offend you? Are you two friends or something? Does he keep you locked away to protect you?"
"We're not friends," Ryou says and when he hears how hurt his voice sounds he quickly adds, "I hate him."
Malik is a bit taken a back from the bluntness of the statement, but soon he regains his arrogance when he snorts at Ryou.
"What about my other questions?" Ryou inquires, hesitantly.
It was strange; even though his mind was being invaded by Malik he wasn't as angry as he should be. (Ryou almost wants to talk with him.) Though both Malik and the Voice see Ryou as something to use, perhaps Malik was…what did his father call it?...the lesser of two evils.
A horrific thought consumes him.
(Is that what you think about me, Yuugi-kun? I am the lesser of your two evils?)
He is snapped out of his thoughts when Malik actually responds.
"I came here because this was the only door I could open," Malik says with a shrug.
"Why did you make a deal with him in the first place?" Ryou feels his heart racing now in anticipation for the answer.
"Simple," Malik says and leans about against one of Ryou's soul room's walls, "We both had something to gain from each other. He wants the millennium rod and I want Yuugi dead."
"What?" Ryou cries and suddenly his world is spinning very fast. Just when he almost – No, not Yuugi, he had to protect Yuugi! He takes in a breath, and tells himself that knowing Malik's plan would help him at least try to stop it (even if only a part of him wants to hear Malik talk for that reason.)
"Why Yuugi?" Ryou asks, calmer now but still frazzled.
Malik's face which had previously just been home to a permanent sneer was now twisted into some awful mix of several emotions. But he does not respond.
"Why?" Ryou asks again; completely desperate.
He wants to know, needs to know. Why does he hate Yuugi so much? He was used to the Voice's hatred for Yuugi but the Voice was the darkness, so it was in his nature to hate the light. But this boy, he did not seem as otherworldly as the Voice does. Malik, that's his name (and is that part of it, knowing that he actually has a name?)seems human. Angry and arrogant, but human none the less.
Malik stiffens.
"Why?" Ryou pleads again and places a hand against the glass. He must know why Malik wants to kill Yuugi (he needs to know that even someone as good as Yuugi can be flawed, he needs to know that there might still be hope for someone like him, who is flawed and damaged but maybe not beyond repair…).
"The Pharaoh will pay for what he has done to me…" Malik whispers so quietly Ryou is sure that if it wasn't for the fact that he could hear everything in his soul room ("Hey, Ryou! Mum and I are going to the grocery store, you should come with us!" every "Your mother and sister aren't coming home, son." thing.)he would have missed it.
The Pharaoh will pay for what he has done.
That phrase is so familiar to Ryou now; he has begun to accept that the Pharaoh must have been awful. But the past is the past and it's not Yuugi's fault the millennium puzzle chose him. (Just like…just maybe…it's not his fault the millennium ring chose him?) He should not have to bear the consequences for his other actions. No one should.
Ryou stares at the glass, hopelessness threatening to consume him once more. (I'll never be able to protect you, will I Yuugi-kun? I'll never be able to make up for the darkness I've brought to you.) Lazily, he claws at the glass even though he knows it won't break.
Malik, who had returned to looking at Ryou's picture frames, now looks at Ryou and the glass. He strolls towards them both.
"I could probably break this," Malik muses and taps the glass with the water. A ripple shudders through the glass and Ryou looks up at Malik amazed.
"You could set me free!" he says astonished. Ryou's brown eyes bore into Malik with hope and expectance; Malik looks at him with disdain.
Malik gives it another tap.
"Yes, I could."
For the first time in what feels like eternity, Ryou smiles.
"So you'll let me out?"
"No," Malik scoffs.
Ryou is devastated. He can't even fully comprehend.
"Wwwhy…why not?" Ryou stutters out.
"Why should I?" Malik sneers.
"Why shouldn't you?! Do you know what it's like to have your body stolen from you? Stolen from the darkness that lies within you? To be trapped within yourself, to have to see all the horrible things someone does with your body and not be able to protect the ones you care about?" Ryou's voice breaks several times, but he doesn't care anymore.
He means all those words and if something doesn't change soon he doesn't know how much longer he'll last.
"Malik, please."
Before Malik can response, the door to Ryou's soul is opened. The Voice, wearing a distorted version of Ryou's own image, saunters into his soul.
Ryou feels the blood rush to his face and the pure rage he experiences at the sight of the Voice makes him light-headed.
"Yadonushi," The Voice says with an odd mix of regality and indifference.
"Koe," Ryou says with an odd mix of hate and awe.
Malik looks at them incredulously and then snorts. (He seems to have forgotten all Ryou had told him just moments before.)
"Koe? Yadonushi? So you both have cute little nicknames for each other?"
Malik chuckles at his own joke and Ryou feels his fist clenching. That boy had no right to be here (inside of his mind – his soul) much less be making fun of him. He realizes that he is shaking, for once not out of fear but anger – pure anger with a hint of betrayal even if he had just only meet this boy (he remembers – "You've always been such a bad judge of character, yadonushi." – )it doesn't change the fact that he had trusted him…and to think that he was parading around Ryou's mind like he owned it – like Ryou was nothing more than a vessel, a host – …made Ryou so angry, so frustrated he couldn't even think. Couldn't even breathe. All Ryou ever wanted was to fight his own battles (alone, like he deserves, like it should always be and if had just accepted that fact sooner he never would have befriended Yuugi, never would have touched the puzzle, and heard that voice…) and all he wants is for Malik to just –
"Get out," the spirit says, his voice even but his eyes flashing dangerously.
Ryou turns from the glass, bale rising in his throat. He doesn't care who wins the spat they're having. He doesn't care about either of them. He just wants them out. Besides there is no such thing as choosing a lesser evil. Evil is evil. There is only black and white. He should know that by now. Once condemned, no one deserves salvation.
(Not even…not even him.)
Time passes. He loses more of himself.
He hears footsteps, not of just one person but of two. Ryou presses closer to the glass. It had to be the Voice and Malik. Both of them, together.
This couldn't be good.
The Voice steps in first, scowling deeply. Malik follows shortly thereafter wearing a very pleased smirk.
(Ryou's heart begins to beat frantically.)
"Well, do it!" Malik leers to the Voice, "Don't you want to win the duel?"
The Voice glares at Malik but lifts his hand up and –
And – (the glass becomes like water and he falls through it – )
And! (He's falling, tumbling, watching all the things he had experienced in his soul room drift away from him and old memories forgotten come back to him –)
He feels it before he sees it.
Pain.
("It hurts! It hurts!")
Sharp and hot like fire in his left arm, and instinctively he reaches out to clutch it and finds a bandage and blood and a duel disk – and what's is going on?! Ryou looks up around him to see monstrous eyes and lips in a blood red sky. And floating cards? A duel, is he in a duel?
Ryou looks up a sees Yuugi.
Yuugi!
His heart swells and all of a sudden he feels a lot safer, but still very confused.
"Yuugi-kun!" Ryou calls, because he trusts him and knows that Yuugi will help him, "Where am I? Why am I here? Why do I have this wound?"
"Bakura!" Yuugi shouts but does not answer even of his questions. He says something to a man in a cloak next to him, but Ryou doesn't understand any of it. The pain is so great, he can't really think about anything else. Though, his mind does catch the word Malik and it sounds vaguely familiar.
Everything blurs together, though he knows for certain that he is in pain and Yuugi is not helping…
And suddenly he is ripped from his body and sent back into the depths of his own mind.
Then, he remembers.
Ryou looks out from his soul room, (for once he is on the other side of the glass) and sees something incredible.
The Voice must have really hated Malik's partnership or maybe the Voice could have even –
(Don't you dare, he warns himself, don't you dare think that he could have possibly wanted to save you because of you…)
"Koe," he calls out from his empty mind.
No. The spirit of the ring was not good. (He needed to stop thinking such thoughts!) He was darkness. Pure and simple.
(Simplicity, he just wants simplicity. He wants to know who to hate, who to protect and who would protect him. Those roles should be static and not ever-shifting like they had become.)
"Thank you," Ryou says and for once he is not sure if the Voice could hear him or not.
As the spirit is banished (though Ryou knows in the pit of his stomach it is only a matter of time before he comes back) Ryou slowly fades back into control of his body.
He is surrounded by people who do a great job pretending that they care about him. Ryou feels consciousness drift away from him and he allows it. He doesn't want to think.
He doesn't want to change his mind about who was right and who was wrong.
(No lesser of two evils, just good and bad, because that decision is so much easier to make…)
Ryou returns to his soul room.
Time passes. He loses more than he regains.
The Voice comes back (it always does) and Ryou can do nothing but endure being pushed back through the glass.
The glass is not as strong as it usually is. When Ryou pounds on it with all his force sometimes it actually cracks. The Voice must be using most of his power on something else. Like shadows…
So the Voice must be preparing for a game of darkness. But with who? Ryou racks his mind for possibilities but finds that he doesn't care. Whoever it was, it wasn't Yuugi. And maybe if it had been Yuugi he still wouldn't have cared… –
(And, regardless, he couldn't save them anyway.)
He sinks to the floor of his soul room (hardwood floor, like the house he and his father lived in for a year after his family died) and bows his head.
There is no hope.
(Was there, was there ever? He couldn't remember…)
The sound of footsteps breaks Ryou from his misery. The door of his soul opens and a boy with blonde hair and a millennium item steps in.
Malik.
"What are you doing here?" He laments, "Can't you just leave me alone?"
(I just want to be alone.)
Malik looks away, almost guiltily, but holds his head high nonetheless. He takes a step closer to Ryou.
"You once asked me even if I knew what it was like to be trapped. To not be able to protect the ones you care about…I know what it's like now…to have the darkness steal away your body," Malik says, stepping closer to the glass.
Ryou perks up; his mouth is pressed in a hard line signaling disbelief, but his eyes are hopeful. (His eyes always betray him.)
Something passes through Malik's eyes and Ryou knows that Malik is talking more to himself than Ryou.
"But I won't let him kill Rishid!"
("I won't let you hurt Yuugi!")
Ryou doesn't know who Rishid is, but if someone like Malik cares about him he must be good.
Malik presses a hand to the glass and the action startles Ryou.
"You have to understand, I can't let Rishid die. And I don't know where…I don't have anywhere else to go…"
"…I understand."
Ryou however cannot look Malik in the eyes.
"You're not here to free me are you?" Ryou asks.
Malik shakes his head, "No."
Ryou is not surprised, and he does not look up at Malik's face.
"Another deal with him right?" Ryou accuses. Malik nods.
"My darkness, we are going to duel him. Together, I know we can beat him – I have to stop him. I'll give him the rod afterwards, as long as I can get my body back. But if we lose…we lose everything. That's the reason I'm working with him, to make sure the game of darkness goes our way. There's a saying about this right? Something about the lesser of two evils," Malik chuckles, but it is different than usually. It has humility.
"And your darkness isn't so bad. Not like – " Malik stops himself and Ryou is glad. He doesn't think he can take anymore.
"You don't know anything about him," Ryou hisses and turns his gaze away from Malik and to the empty frames of his mind.
Malik follows his gaze and for once keeps his mouth shut.
They stand there like that for some time; Malik looking at Ryou and Ryou looking away.
"If you ever get out of here," the lilac eyed boy says, breaking the silence, "You probably won't remember any of this."
"I won't," Ryou says, because it has happened before (and again and again) and it is always the same. He remembers all that happens within the walls of his soul, but when he is outside of them, he remembers none of it.
(Nothing.)
"That's good."
Ryou wonders if that's Malik apology.
Whatever it was, Malik's eyes are sincere. So finally Ryou presses his hand to the glass where Malik's hand is too.
"Why are you here?" he asks quietly.
Malik looks at him and there is dullness in his eyes.
Ryou looks at him with disgust, but more pity than anything else.
"If we lose, you'll be sent to the shadows too."
Ryou tenses, but forces himself to calm down. It's not that big of deal. He's not that important, as long as it meant that somehow Yuugi would be safe (he still wants Yuugi to be safe, because it was the Pharaoh who refused to help him, not Yuugi, Yuugi would always help…),he wouldn't mind never seeing light again.
"But why are you telling me this? Why not tell him?"
"He already knows. I just thought you deserved to know, too."
Ryou eyes (against his will) light up with hope again. Deserved – that word meant that someone thought he had been worth something. No one ever thought he was worth anything, not his father, and most definitely not the Voice – only Yuugi had ever hinted but that wasn't the same as saying…
Malik turns to leave.
It was darkness against darkness. Either way evil was going to win. There was no lesser, but if the Voice won Ryou would still have a shot at (Redemption? Salvation?) protecting Yuugi. Besides the Voice had come back for him, had saved him (for whatever reasons, Ryou doesn't want to know, Ryou doesn't think he can handle it if the status quo changes) and maybe it was okay to just this once, (just this once) side with the Voice.
"Koe. Malik. Yuugi-kun," Ryou whispers.
His reflection looks at him with wide brown eyes. Inside of them he sees a desire for all three of them to be content, even if all their plans and hopes and goals contradict (and even if wanting them all to be happy is a contradiction as well, after all the things he has said and meant) –
"I hope you win."
A/N Two days of editing and I'm still not happy with the way it turned out. Ugh. At least I wrote something within canon this time. A nice break from all the post-canon oneshots. Also, if Ryou's dialogue seems a bit wonky during the duel, it's because it's taken directly from the fansubs of the anime.
Anyway, I hope you like it and review it! =D
