A/N: Long time between parts again, sorry about that, everyone. And we're finally, officially, into post-canon! Enjoy!

Historian's Note: This story takes place before, during and (eventually) after the original story through Millennium World, following the canon established in the manga. There will be spoilers, so proceed with caution.

Soundtrack: 'Haunted' on 8tracks.

Warnings: Body horror, major character death.

Disclaimer:Yu-Gi-Oh! and related characters are © to Kazuki Takahashi.

Haunted

Ehtar

Part XVIII

Somewhere, an alarm was going off. The noise was incessant, annoying, chasing away the last remnants of sleep, no matter how hard Ryou clung to them. Slowly, as he rose back into consciousness, he recalled that he could make the alarm stop, if he would only wake enough to find the clock.

That seemed like a lot of effort when all he wanted was for the noise to stop.

Groaning, Ryou rolled over, and with arms five times heavier than they ought to have been, found the alarm and silenced it.

He stared at the digital readout. The numbers meant very little to him. It was early, the sun had that pale quality which meant 'morning.' That was enough to tell him that it was time to get up, to go through the routine of cleaning himself, donning clothes, eating breakfast…

Go to school. Yes. That was another thing to be done today.

He very much didn't want to. Just the idea of those first steps – getting up, putting away his bedding, brushing his teeth, making toast… It was exhausting just to think about. And that was before getting to the part where he would have to leave his apartment and go to school. School, where he would have to interact with people, look normal, act normal…

It would be so much easier to just… go back to sleep. Close his eyes and slip into dreamless unconsciousness.

He stared at the glowing numbers until they finally made sense. Time existed, and he need to move.

Without allowing himself to think about it, lest he convince himself to stay, Ryou got up and prepared for the day.

—•—

The world… felt less real than it used to.

It was strange to realize that now, when things like ancient magic, gods, curses and ghosts possessing him and his friends were gone, now things felt less like reality. Was it just because the previous reality had been his reality for so long that any difference felt wrong? Possibly. Possibly he'd been so affected by what his life had been that he no longer fit in with the world around him. It wasn't reality which was out of shape, but him. Which was reassuring, in a way. It suggested that with time he would 'reset.' The world would mold him back into a shape which fit in just fine, and he wouldn't feel so…

The train jostled, bringing Ryou out of his reverie enough to blink and look around. Where were they, had he missed his stop again?

No, there were still three stops to go before his station.

It had been one of those rare mornings when he had found a seat, rather than having to stand the whole trip. Standing didn't normally bother him much, but it was just… If he could avoid the effort, he would. It wasn't as though he would fall asleep if he sat.

Blinking some more, mostly to convince himself his eyes were open, Ryou glanced around, taking stock of his fellow passengers.

There were a few students, one or two in uniforms for the Domino middle school, the rest in the dark blue or light pink of Domino High. There was a girl with short hair held back with a band who was reading a book, another girl who was concentrating on a handheld game system, a boy right at the back of the car who was writing quickly in a journal, and two more boys who stood with their heads close together, talking.

Ryou didn't know any of them.

There was also a young mother and her toddler out on a morning shopping trip. A business man in a rumpled suit who sat slumped in one of the seats, looking as though he were struggling to stay awake. An old woman sat towards the front of the car, face seamed and eyes closed as she awaited her stop.

Were any of them real?

It was like seeing the background characters from a show, or the NPCs of a game. There was no depth to them, no meaning. They passed before his eyes, made their motions and their noise, and then… they were gone. No impact made, no impressions left, the very memory of them fading and bleeding back into the background completely. Like they were never there.

They didn't matter to him. He would never see any of them again – or in the case of the students, never remember them. And he meant nothing to them.

They were all just shadows, passing by and through one another.

Ryou looked down at his hands, half expecting to be able to see through them.

He was just a shadow as well… with neither object nor light to cast him.

—•—

Concentrating was difficult when one was a shadow. Everything was distant, and Ryou was hard pressed to find a good reason to attempt bringing things closer. The world was a miasma of vague shapes and dull colors swirling around him, occasionally resolving into patterns he faintly recognized. Sounds were too muffled to make out and too loud to ignore. Voices came to him as though from under water, while the clanging of the bells threatened to split his skull in two. Lessons were given, but they were just noise with no meaning. Ryou opened his books dutifully, but the print skittered away from him, refusing to be read.

He sat quietly at the back of a class he had no desire to be a part of, hearing but not understanding, looking but not comprehending, existing in place until it was permitted to leave again.

There was no point in attempting to focus outward. He had come to that conclusion days before, and was beginning to think that perhaps it had never mattered. Not really, not for him. When had any attention to the world outside his skull offered more than grief? The bullies of his early childhood; an absent, overworking father; a forgetful mother… no. It had always been best and safest to cultivate his own inner world, crafting tales and adventures he could dream of sharing, but knew he never would.

Within there was peace, and safety, and sometimes even joy, while outside…

Well, there had been Amane. But she was gone. Gone save for what he kept of her in his heart.

One might have said that once he'd come to Domino, and had made friends who were capable of surviving him, there was an outer world worth living in. But by then, he'd been living a second life for some time. A past relived in dreams, even more of a life lived within himself and through another, taking him even further away from the reality his body resided in.

There was comparatively little outside the inner world to anchor him, even now. So Ryou turned inwards, trying to find a sense of stability there, when all else had become chaotic and unclear.

But that was the real trouble, wasn't it? His inner world had been literally torn apart, and he was left to make sense of the wreckage left behind.

There was a certain irony in the fact that he was left to piece himself back together out of the shards of two broken lives. He enjoyed puzzles, possibly one of the few traits he'd inherited directly from his father – one who pieced together the past with whatever survived to the present. This puzzle of Ryou's was one where at least half of the pieces were missing, and what was left had no way to hang together in a coherent whole.

But he could remember having all of the pieces, the complete picture. He could remember that second life lived in his dreams, that child of the ancient past, so different from himself in circumstance, yet so similar in his heart. He remembered what it had been like to be that child, that boy who grew to manhood amid hardship and cruelty, taking whatever was not given as a means of survival and defiance. He remembered the struggle, the victories, the plans, the despair. He remembered.

He remembered Bakhura. And he could remember Bakhura's memories. And therein lay the trouble: They were Bakhura's memories. Ryou's memories were the memories of memories.

It was like if he, in the present moment, were to recall a time a few years before, when he had been thinking of a time in his early childhood. The original events from his childhood he could still recall, but there was an extra distance between himself in the present and that far off time. There was a disconnect between the two. He could recall the events… but he couldn't recall them as happening to him.

Which was true. He knew that. He had never grown up in Egypt. He hadn't had to steal to survive alone in the world. He hadn't been taken on by a disgraced scribe as an apprentice, given his soul to an ancient horror, or planned the downfall of a kingdom.

…But he could remember when it had been him. He could remember when that life had been his… and now it wasn't. Memories remained, but he had been removed from them.

He had never been a part of them.

Bakhura was gone, and he'd taken half of who Ryou had been as well. A life lived in dreams, but lived all the same, reduced to nothing more than memories of something he had once seen.

The bright, sharp edged quality of a life lived in truth was all gone. What Ryou was left with were the worn, soft recollections that held no heat, no scent, no life. Bakhura's memories hadn't always been comfortable, but they were vibrant, alive. What Ryou had now felt like a book full of faded pictures. Flat, with no connection to him at all.

And they were only fading more each day. With Bakhura gone, details Ryou once knew he could recall clearly were disappearing. He tried to hold on to them, bringing them up over and over, like an intricate bauble where if he only studied it enough he would never forget it. But there were so many memories that made up a life. No matter how hard he tried, the memories slipped through his fingers like sand snatched away by the wind.

Just the same way Bakhura had been taken, so were the last traces of him crumbling away.

That was one memory which he had no issue at all recalling, either awake or asleep. A face crumbling away as Ryou watched, the pain of two enmeshed souls being torn away from one another, the terror in his heart, the acceptance on Bakhura's face… the warmth of a palm against his cheek…

"You are my Sheut…"

A shadow left behind.

How long could he last with nothing there to cast him?

—•—

"…ra? Hey, Bakura?"

Ryou blinked. The blur of printed words swam and stilled, but made no sense when he tried to read them. The desk was cold and hard against his arms where he leaned. His back and neck ached from remaining bent for so long… how long had it been?

He looked up. The classroom was mostly empty, only a few students still packing their bags or chatting with one another. The teacher was already gone, a tangle of formulae left on the board in his wake. Was any of it meant to make sense?

His lungs caught up with him, expanding in a spasm and forcing a deep, sudden breath. It was painful, as though he hadn't drawn a breath in ages, and the abrupt change strained everything inside. Had he been holding his breath?

"… Bakura?"

Ryou blinked again. Yugi was standing beside his desk. His school bag was slung across his back, like he had been about to leave for the day and head home, but decided to turn back and talk to Ryou. Automatically, Ryou glanced behind Yugi to see if any of the others had also remained, either to speak with Ryou or to wait for Yugi. They hadn't.

Just as his lungs felt as though they had gone for hours without expanding, so did his face feel stiff and unpracticed as he arranged his expression into a friendly smile. It was too slow, he knew it was too slow, and from Yugi's replying expression, there was something vastly wrong with how his smile looked. There was little he could do about it, though.

"Hello, Yugi. Do you need something?"

Yugi fidgeted in place. He had already been giving a clear impression of awkward concern, his posture closed, fingers gripping the straps of his bag at his shoulders, a frown clouding his face. Ryou's simple question only seemed to deepen his worry, his grip tightening on the straps. "Not really. I was just wondering if… you were feeling alright? It's just that you seem a little… out of it… lately."

Ryou didn't allow his smile to move. 'Out of it?' Yes, he supposed he was. He felt like a ship without an anchor, without a rudder, without a compass – adrift and without any idea of which way lay the shore or with any means to get there. The only reason he came to school was because that was one of the very few things he was certain he was meant to do, even if he saw no purpose in doing so. For now, it was a better alternative than not coming in, which would lead to trouble with the school and his father, and questions he couldn't answer.

Questions he could see lurking behind Yugi's eyes.

He nodded, trying for a small hum of agreement. It still felt too delayed, too slow. "Yes, I've been feeling a little… I think I'm just tired. Still processing everything that happened."

Yugi's expression cleared slightly, and he nodded. "Yeah, I get that. There's… a lot to that." He paused, biting his lip as he struggled to say something. Ryou remained silent, letting him find the words.

"You know… if you ever wanna talk about it – or anything," he added quickly, "you can always talk to me. It was something we both went through, so… O-or if you just want to come by and play some games, one on one, that's cool, too!" He stuttered to a stop, the offer of a heart to heart obviously flustering him, his cheeks going pink. He kept eye contact, though, making certain what he said was heard. "Just… you're not alone, Bakura."

Ryou's throat tried to close up. He wasn't certain what emotions exactly were rising up to choke him, but it felt as though he were drowning. Even his hearing had gone strange, as though he were underwater again.

He cleared his throat, turning his face away. He couldn't stand to look at Yugi just now, it made the sea of emotion trying to swallow him worse. Very carefully, he closed his textbook, squaring it exactly in the center of his desk as he tried to force a smile back in place. "Thank you, Yugi. I'll keep that in mind."

Yugi remained a few moments longer before nodding, when it became apparent that Ryou would say no more. "Alright. See you tomorrow, Bakura."

"Goodbye, Yugi."

He didn't watch as Yugi left.

He appreciated the offer Yugi had made. He appreciated the thoughtfulness, the concern he must have for Ryou, and the attention it had taken to notice something was wrong. Yugi was a good guy, considerate and kind, and did his best to be a good friend. The offer to talk about what had happened was generous, and Ryou was certain that the offer encompassed more than just their trip to Egypt.

'Something we both went through.'

What they had both gone through was the hosting of an ancient spirit. For years, they had both experienced what it was like to know and to be inescapably known by another who lived in their heads. No one else, not even the other bearers of the Millennium Items, could know what that was like. There was no one else to talk to about that experience.

Ryou took a long breath, unclenching the fist he had made on the desk, and carefully packed his books into his bag.

Yugi was the only one who had experienced anything like what Ryou had, who had lived with another soul nestled against his own… But his experience was not the same as Ryou's. The Pharaoh had had no memories of his life, and so Yugi had not lived out that life for himself. He had seen some of that life in their journey into the past, but it hadn't been his life he was living in the moment. He'd been an observer looking in. And even if he had… what sort of life would have experienced? One of privilege and plenty, his every need seen to from the time of infancy until its end. The Pharaoh had lived a life of power, undoubtedly one with its own kind of struggles, but not one where every breath had to be fought for. The Pharaoh had never known what it was to be so hungry he could feel his body falter and fail and to wonder if that was the last sensation he would experience. He had never known the nights so cold they burned, the sounds of predators as hungry as him circling close and salivating over the spare meat clinging to his bones. He hadn't known what it was for every hand to be turned against him, to have to fight and defy just to survive, and to be despised for it.

Ryou and Yugi shared a uniqueness of circumstance, but how they had each experienced it were as far apart as could be imagined. Yugi… wouldn't be able to understand what it had been like to live as 'the Thief King.' He'd never understand the empathy or compassion one could have for a man who had come so close to ending the world.

He'd never understand how broken and incomplete Ryou felt without him.

He packed up his things, every book arranged according to size and aligned, papers tucked away neatly, pencil case in its place and secure. When he stood up, he was the last remaining in the classroom, and felt calmer as he walked the quiet hallways.

When he stepped outside, he was surprised to find Yugi sill close by. He hovered around the entry gate, and for a moment Ryou worried he lingered in order to catch him as he left. A closer look, however, showed that Yugi's mind was far afield. Most likely he had paused to spend a moment thinking, and his thoughts had wandered away without him.

Ryou went to quietly move around him, to leave him to his woolgathering, when a question occurred to him. Some small thing which they might actually share between their experiences. Yugi had offered to talk… and there were no other students around now to hear what they might have to say…

"Yugi?"

The boy startled, so engrossed in his own thoughts he'd not noticed Ryou's approach at all. When he looked up, his face brightened on seeing him. "Bakura!"

The enthusiasm, rather than reassuring him, made Ryou uncertain. A thought lingered in the back of his mind.

If he knew where my sympathies lie, he wouldn't remain my friend.

Shaking away the thought, he pressed on. "Would it be alright if I asked you a question?"

"Of course," he said, turning to face him. The contrast in his body language from just a few minutes before was startling, the difference from him approaching Ryou to Ryou approaching him. Open, unclouded, eager to hear whatever it was Ryou had to say.

Conversely, Ryou now felt awkward and uncertain in what he had to ask. It was a strange question, surely it would be better just to remain silent…?

Ryou straightened. There was nothing to fear in terms of losing a friendship. If it was a friendship based on lies or ignorance, then it had never been a real friendship in the first place.

"In Egypt, in Kul Elna, when you and- and Atem were having the duel…"

To that, Yugi's face did fall a little bit, but he didn't turn away or ask Ryou to not speak. He nodded. "I remember. Go on."

Of course he remembered. "When the two of you… separated. Did you feel anything? Or maybe when he went through the door, did you notice any… any pain at all?"

Yugi frowned a little, eyes dropping as he thought back. It only took a few seconds before he was shaking his head. "No, no pain. I do remember a little bit of a weird sensation when we first split apart, and watching him leave was painful in a way, but…"

"But no physical pain?" Ryou pressed.

He shook his head again, and now the concern was back in her eyes. "No, none. Why are you asking Bakura? Did it hurt when you and Thie—"

"It's not important," Ryou said quickly, taking a step back and putting on a wide, false smile. "Don't worry about it, Yugi, I was just wondering. I'll see you tomorrow."

Before Yugi could object or call him back, Ryou turned on his heel and walked quickly away. He had his answer, and though he wasn't sure what to do with it, he was certain he didn't want to talk anymore. Though, there was the slight temptation to ask Yugi one more question about that moment under Kul Elna:

Among the waiting dead, Bakhura had been conspicuously absent. Had Yugi noticed? If he had, what had he thought of it?

He didn't turn back to ask those questions. As much as he might want to ask them, how much they burned on his tongue, he had no desire to hear the answer. He thought he knew what the answers would be and he had no desire to have it confirmed.

Ryou made his way to the station that would take him home, his hand aching from how tightly he kept it balled into a fist.

—•—

It was strange to realize how difficult it was to be alone.

It was a feeling he had never particularly enjoyed, but one which he thought he'd gotten used to over the years. His inability to keep friends for very long, and the necessity to change schools on a regular basis had more or less ensured that he would grow up isolated from his peers. There had been some friendships, always brief and superficial, and he was soon alone once again.

It bothered him, that isolation. He'd dreamed of having friends, of having a social circle to hang out with, to talk and play games with, to just have someone near to him to act as a reminder that he was really real. He hated the feeling of being closed out, separate from everyone around him… but he'd thought, at least, that he'd gotten used to it.

He hadn't realized that for much of that time, he hadn't been as alone as he had thought he was. Now he felt the difference keenly, from when he thought he'd been alone and now, where the inside of his skull buzzed and echoed with how silent it was. Before he'd had the solace of being comfortable in himself. Now he was all out of shape and hollowed out.

What possibly made it all worse was knowing, on some level, that he had friends he could reach out to, and never feeling as though he could. He was an outsider again, looking in on those things he could never truly have: lasting friendship, comradery, openness, trust.

At the same time, watching the others when they were all gathered together, Ryou could only feel that it was right that he remain on the outside. He wasn't a whole person anymore, and while the others might prefer him without those pieces he had lost, he still wasn't the friend they all thought he was.

He didn't belong with them. He couldn't mold himself into a shape that would fit amongst them anymore.

What surprised him was that while he was on the outside looking in, he could see signs that he wasn't the only one feeling the difference between himself and those he chose to be near.

It was subtle. At first all he could see was a group of four good friends who enjoyed one another's company, and who looked complete as they were. Friends who had been drawn together and bonded through the course of adventures. They were happy, vibrant, and apparently untouched in any negative sort of way from all they had gone through together.

But then, Ryou began to notice something, something he didn't think any of the others had picked up on. Every so often, Yugi's hand would stray to his chest. Most often he would pluck at a button on his shirt in a distracted sort of way, or his hand would drift up, only to hover for a second before lowering again. It was an odd habit Ryou had never noticed before. Yugi's expression never changed, nor did anyone comment on it. It didn't take more than a few times of Ryou witnessing it before he realized that Yugi's hand was coming back, again and again, to where the Puzzle had once rested against his chest. It was an easy motion to recognize and interpret – it was one Ryou was also guilty of doing when his mind wandered.

Once that first little chip in Yugi's armor of normalcy was spotted, it was much easier to see other places where it was beginning to crack. It became a distraction, to observe Yugi as he put on a brave face and tried to act and look as normal as he had before. For the most part he was successful, and Ryou envied how skillfully he managed – but there were still signs. A smile that looked too fixed in place; a slight hesitation in responding to a question to do with how he felt, or his future plans; a faraway look which would come over him when conversation lapsed or wandered away from him. And always his hand, seeking something it would never find again.

Yugi wasn't as unaffected by the loss of the Pharaoh, his 'other self,' as he wanted it to appear. He was affected, he was hurt… and there was no one who could really understand what he was going through.

He hadn't forgotten Yugi's offer to talk about everything, or to just spend time in one another's company. Like a gift, Ryou held it in his hands, not daring to open it up, but also unwilling to cast it aside. It was a gift given as much for Yugi's benefit as his own, he realized. They'd both been left bereaved in the wake of Kul Elna, with no one to turn to besides one another. It was just that Yugi was much better at masking his pain, at pretending as though he was fine. It was a veneer which proved ineffective against someone who was going through the same thing.

Except it isn't quite the same thing, is it?

Something else that Ryou couldn't forget, was that Yugi had said his separation from the Pharaoh had caused no pain. There were some differences between the bond Yugi and the Pharaoh, and what Ryou and Bakhura had shared. The largest difference being that while Yugi and the Pharaoh had communicated with one another much more on a day to day basis, the link between Ryou and Bakhura had been one forged by merging their memories. It would make sense that their separations would be quite different, since the very nature of the bonds had been different.

But that assessment didn't feel quite right, or at least not complete. To think that the reason Ryou had experienced physical pain while Yugi did not was all due to Ryou's bond with Bakhura being stronger than Yugi's… felt wrong. He knew the bond between Yugi and the Pharaoh had been strong, it was just of a different type, and physically or not, he'd felt the separation deeply.

Koe had referred to Ryou as 'Yadonushi,' he supposed, and a parasite forcibly removed was much more likely to hurt than a partner willingly letting go.

But perhaps that was another key difference between their experiences: Yugi and the Pharaoh had been willing to let go, despite how much emotional pain it might cause. Ryou and Bakhura had not been willing. They had held on desperately to whatever they could, for all the good it had done. Yugi and the Pharaoh had accepted that the separation had to happen, that it would be the best for them both for the Pharaoh to move on.

Were either Ryou or Bakhura bettered by their separation? Were either of them better off without the other? Two souls brought together across a gulf of millennia, what did they gain by losing each other again? Did Bakhura 'move on' the same way the Pharaoh had – and what was Ryou meant to do without him?

There was a reason they had held on as tightly as they had, and Ryou was still raw in all the gaps left behind by Bakhura's absence.

So he held on to Yugi's gift, his offer to talk, to listen… but he didn't dare to open it. However much he might recognize himself in the strained smiles and searching fingers, however much Yugi might think he could recognize himself in Ryou, there was too much difference for them to truly understand one another.

Worse, Yugi would understand just enough to by horrified by the details of Ryou's experience. Ryou could barely justify his feelings to himself, let alone to someone else. It was just how he felt, how it was, and there was no choice but to accept it. It would be foolish to think that anyone else not directly burdened with those feelings could understand.

He held the gift, unopened.

But he didn't cast it aside, either.

—•—

He was coming to hate mirrors – or any reflective surface.

Catching sight of himself in a mirror or a window was… jarring. Unsettling. He didn't look like himself.

It felt like a ridiculous thing to think, when the face that looked back out at him was the same as it had always been. Perhaps, he thought, he was simply seeing what it was that Yugi had seen, which had alerted him something was wrong. Something difficult to pinpoint, but nevertheless impossible to ignore. There was something of strain around his eyes, perhaps – eyes which looked distant and detached. A little tenseness around the mouth, and the way he stood looked a little… guarded.

Ryou had stared into the mirror, trying to decide what it was which seemed so wrong about the person who was staring back out at him. The small changes in his face and his posture were noticeable, and did alter him somewhat, but not enough to make it seem as though a stranger were staring back at him.

It wasn't until he was at school, walking to class past a long wall of windows, his mind its usual jumble of tangles and broken threads of thought, that it clicked.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ryou caught sight of someone walking beside him. Someone with wild white hair, dark skin, and a scar running across one eye.

He stumbled, heart in his mouth as he tried to turn mid-step and shout at the same time, to catch Bakhura's attention—

And was faced with only himself. His own reflection staring back at him, wide eyed and with an expression of dawning devastation.

Bakhura was gone. All that was left was himself, but it was a version of himself he didn't recognize, warped and distorted and wrong. He wasn't himself, and he wasn't Bakhura. Without both he could be neither one, and whoever was wearing his skin now didn't belong there.

It was a stranger who looked at him from the glass, and a lost companion he could sometimes catch from the corner of his eye, fleeting and impermanent, sometimes even an illusory flash of red drawing his gaze.

Ryou turned his face away from glass as much as he could, wanting to see neither friend nor stranger in the place where he stood.

He should see neither, nor even himself in the reflections, but only a blank space of nothing at all.

—•—

He ought to feel relieved. He knew he ought to, and in a small way, he supposed he did. Playing host to someone like Koe hadn't exactly been a comfortable experience, by and large. It hadn't been pleasant never being certain if what you remembered having happened actually did, or if something had happened which you had no memory of at all. Walking around with the knowledge that your own body was a ticking time bomb set to go off and hurt everyone around you was… stressful.

In that sense, he was relieved. When he thought about it.

It ought to have been enough. He ought to feel nothing but relief to finally have himself, his own whole person back to him again for the first time in over six years. He could start to build and become who he was always meant to be, before the Ring had come into his life, before an invader had co-opted his life and body and mind.

He ought to be happy. He ought to feel complete on his own. He ought to be…

He was glad Koe was gone. But Bakhura had been a part of who he was. He wasn't certain if it was entirely right to make such a distinction between the two, but… it was how he felt.

It was wrong for Bakhura to be gone and for Ryou to still remain. If Bakhura was gone, then he should be, too.

They both ought to have crumbled to dust together on the museum floor.

What good was a shadow without the source that cast it?

A/N2: No notes this chapter, just a bucket full of thanks for everyone for reading!