The wind whips by, scattering his white hair in all directions as it switches course again and again in a whirlwind. The wizard grits his teeth at these unnatural gusts. Everything from their unseasonal heat to the vortex's animalistic roar grates against the wizard's light magic and makes him feel like sandpaper inside. A pace behind him, his companion snarls as she glares at the source of the fiendish storm. A creature stands before them. Taller than the trees of the oak forest, the monster stretches its bat wings as it looks to its prey with gleeful, blackened purple eyes.

A woman, the princess of these lands that the wizard and his companion travel through, regains consciousness amidst the clawed grip of the beast. Her own white hair whips around in the hot wind as she gains enough awareness to kick and scream in terror. A spot of blood hits the wizard's cheek as the Princess thrashes with the leg that had been cut by the creature's claws when it had ripped itself out of the hillside and ambushed their company of three.

While the woman struggles in the monster's grip, its jagged teeth gnash too close to her head. Green, terrified eyes stare up as her small hands uselessly push at the claws that encase most of her body. Below, eyes the same shade of green smolder with determined anger, and a staff rises as the wizard who holds it steps forward.

Before the magic strikes out of the gem at the end of the staff, the wizard's companion jumps up and over his head. Her white hair lashes in the wind as she soars into the air. The leap falls too short to make it much higher than the creature's stomach, but that matters not. The wizard finishes the spell, the incantation a silent rush in his head; and instead of bouncing off the creature's magically enhanced skin, his companion sinks her dagger deep into its belly.

The creature roars and flairs its bat wings behind it. The woman falls from its loosened grip.

"Princess Penelope!" The wizard shouts while he casts another spell. The temporary strengthening spell causes the Princess to blink in shock instead of pain once she hits the ground. Above her, the creature reaches down a hand. Its claws do not reach for her, but instead for the girl who still clings to the dagger lodged into its flesh. Her blue eyes widen in fear as the claws close in.

The wizard stares in horror as his closest friend is lifted into the air. Rather than crush her, the creature throws her off and into the trees where she hits a trunk with a crack.

"AMANE." The Princess screams. Penelope's red gown drags along the grass as she races towards the trees.

The wizard stays silent. Anger and fear bubble up within his heart. He forces the heat from his chest and into his magical circuits. The veins in his arm burn as he raises his staff high, forcing the liquefied heat out of his hands and through the end of his staff. A bolt, as white and hot as any lightning, shoots out of the gem and through the creature. Its purple black eyes dim as it hits the ground and then vanishes in a burst of purple sparks. The stench of burnt ozone spreads through the air. They say that the White Wizard's strengths are healing and defense, but that does not mean he is completely without fangs.

The wind dies with its master. The White Wizard blinks, the complete stillness stunning him as he looks over the flattened grass. The motionless air cools his overheated arms.

Another, softer, cry draws the Wizard's attention back to the trees. The Princess kneels next to his fallen companion. Her hand is placed on top of the still girl's head.

Despite his cumbersome blue and ivory robes, the Wizard races across the small, grassy hill. The dark trees loom over him once he skids to a halt. His companion lies on the ground. As her long red scarf curls around her body, dark bruises blossom across her arms and legs.

"Amane, please, open your eyes." The tears in the Princess's voice seem to revive the girl, who flutters her eyelids before regaining consciousness. Blue eyes focus on the Wizard who has kneeled by the top of her head.

"I can't move." The voice barely brushes past the girl's lips, and the Wizard only hears it because his face hovers inches above hers.

"Don't worry. I'll fix you." He resists the urge to brush his hand through her hair. Her eyes have fluttered shut again; he does not have much time.

The white hair that had been resting loosely past his shoulders lifts up as though a breeze blows by in this still air. His green eyes glow with the magic coursing through him while at the end of his staff, the blue gem twinkles as he speaks the spell.

"Healing Magic. Luonazun." The quiet yet powerful words spark the air with white. Penelope's eyes grow wide as these sparks dance across the girl's body. Bruises fade from dark to light and into nothing but unblemished skin. The girl's breath deepens and her eyes, no longer glazed, stare up at the blue sky. She smiles and sits up.

"Thanks-"

Her words cut off when the Princess throws her arms around the girl.

"Amane, I thought…"

Through the tears of the other, the girl reddens from her mother's hold. "Princess Penelope, I said my name's the Dragon Thief when we're playing." The girl looks to the White Wizard for help.

"Ryo?"

He shakes his head and steps away.

Pleading enters her wide blue eyes at his withdrawal, but the White Wizard Ryo finds the grey-tinted branches above him to be far more engaging.

"Mom, you can let go. It's okay. Even if I got killed here, it would only hurt a little once I woke up."

"You were so pale."

"It's supposed to look realistic, Mom. Like Bakura said, it wouldn't be full immersion without it."

The White Wizard's eyebrows furrow. Since her younger brother—the newly crowned king—disappeared, the Princess has been unwell. Strange bouts have overtaken her where she doubts the very world they live and breathe in. Most recently, she has deluded herself into believing that her two guards are her children simply because they share the same rare features of the royal family. The terribleness of it causes sadness to well up in the Wizard's chest. What must it be like, to think that the life that you had been living was just a dream?

A twig snaps, and sharp green eyes glance in its direction. An amber glint stares back from the trees' shadows. The mysterious figure with those amber eyes wears a dark grey cloak along with a turban over his head. As covering as the turban is, white strips of hair still peek through.

The White Wizard has never met this person before, or perhaps he has since a name springs to his lips.

Bakura?

The fabric of Ryo's sheets bunch underneath as he opens his eyes. While the dark ceiling pushes down on him, numbness wraps around him like a stifling blanket. The dream was not unpleasant. That is what he tells himself in the silent dark. No one died, so how could it have been painful?

The ceiling presses down more. Before it can get too close, Ryo pushes himself up to sitting. He can't feel the wrinkled sheets beneath his hands as the numbness lingers. It should not be lingering. It was not like Mother and Amane died in this dream. They had been alive and well in a world that Ryo had only viewed as carved plastic and wood. It had been a pleasant dream, a fantastical reprieve from the memories of their deaths that have been haunting him night after night.

The walls are still closing in.

Ryo shakes his head before looking around for Yugi, who has taken to slumbering in a sleeping bag by Ryo's bed. Even if Yugi's asleep, having someone else in the room means that the walls cannot close in. A figure lying by Ryo's side catches his attention instead. White hair fans out from this person's head as he bites his lip with the glint of a sharp canine. The sleeping figure's breath comes out a touch uneven while a dream's discomfort settles on his furrowed brows.

Ryo stares at the mirror image of himself.

No, not a mirror image. The reflection wears the same blue pajamas as he does and sprawls on the bed the same way but...on the top of his head sits two tufts of hair that are shaped almost like horns. Bakura lays there unconscious as Ryo sits besides him.

I must be dreaming.

With this thought in mind, Ryo reaches out a hand to the body he's supposed to be in. It hovers over Bakura's arm as Ryo's eyes grow wide. Bakura's arm shows easily through the transparent hand. Lightheaded, Ryo leans back, drawing in his incorporeal limb. This has to be some sort of dream. There is no other explanation—

Ryo miscalculates the width of his own bed. Within a beat, his lean backwards has turned into a fall to the floor. Except, the fall takes ten seconds too long and his hair floats around him as he drifts down.

"Bakura!" The lightness of Ryo's limbs is what brings on the panicked note. With the weightlessness of his body, he feels as if he's floating underwater again.

The whisper of shifting sheets precedes the blotch of white that leans over the side of the bed. Somehow, the spirit's hair is even wilder than ordinary. Amber eyes glare incomprehensively for the time it takes Ryo to finally land on the carpet.

"I…" Ryo takes in the spirit's appearance. Shadows underline his eyes and accent the confusion within them. Whatever dream the spirit had has tired him.

"Did you have the same dream?" Ryo finds himself asking even though he should be pointing out more important things, like how did he end up outside his body.

The confusion vanishes underneath the hardening glare and a frown. Bakura reaches forward, his fingers pale in the grey dark of the room. Ryo prepares for a harsh tug back onto the bed, but instead the fingers brush the front of his chest and he blinks, staring at the carpet his hand reaches to. The gasp that escapes him causes a shift from the sleeping bag on the floor.

"That is not any of your business, Landlord." The voice nicks Ryo's mind. "What you should have asked is 'how did I get detached from my body' or 'does this happen often?'"

Warmth floods through Ryo's veins, chasing away the numbness that had encased his spectral form. The pulse of his own heartbeat courses out from the absence in his chest that he had somehow missed.

"Or, perhaps, you should be asking 'where am I,'" The voice hisses in his ear. Even with the faded transparency of his skin, Bakura's amber eyes glow solidly as Ryo turns towards him with a jolt. "Since this isn't exactly your bed after all."

The anticipation in Bakura's expression at Ryo's reaction remains in place even while the boy continues to stare right at the spirit in silence. Unfocusing his gaze just a little. Ryo can see the wall right behind Bakura with its old-framed photos decorating its surface. A younger version of Yugi's grandfather looks out smiling in the same photo he shares with a small girl with amethyst eyes.

This isn't Ryo's apartment; it's the Game Shop. And for some reason he's in Mr. Muto's room…

The pounding of his shoes against the suburban sidewalk, the glow of those crimson eyes that meet his, a flow of power—white and cold—travelling through his very veins and into his hurt friend and then…

Ryo looks away, he shouldn't, he really shouldn't. If he doesn't push now, Bakura will never tell him whether they shared a dream or not. But he needs to know which of his friends, if any, are here. So, he looks away from Bakura's watchful gaze and surveys the room.

The sleeping bag on the floor shifts again as Joey mumbles in his sleep. Not too far away, Tristan rests sprawled in a chair, his snores barely audible in the quiet.

There's an empty bag on the floor, most likely Yugi's, and the absence of the two girls means that they're probably in Yugi's bedroom because…Tea has to be fine if everyone is willing to split up by gender between the only two rooms. That must be true. If it wasn't, neither Joey nor Tristan would be snoring away right now.

Ryo still crawls off the bed. The warmth beneath his skin at odds with the coolness of the floor seeping into his feet. Silently stepping past Joey, he doesn't need to look back to sense Bakura following him. Neither the ghostly shade nor the boy makes a sound as they exit the bedroom and make their way across the short distance to Yugi's room.

The cold knob of the closed door rests in Ryo's palm as he hesitates. The Spirit of the Millennium Ring leans against the wall next to him, a smirk cutting across his face.

"Really, Landlord, you're going to spy on a pair of sleeping schoolgirls. Where's your sense of decency?" The mocking lilt of that voice draws Ryo's glare to the side. The malicious amusement in the spirit's eyes stares right back.

Bakura looks away first with a shrug. "Yugi's little girlfriend—well, compared to him I suppose she's not that little. Yugi's girlfriend is perfectly fine by the way. The White Wizard's magic has always been potent enough to make healing wounds like that child's play."

Surprise courses through Ryo at the willingly given update on Tea's condition. When Bakura picks up the emotion spiking through the link between them, a recoil of disgust curdles back to Ryo before the spirit glares at him.

"Don't misread my intentions, Landlord. I'm merely avoiding any misunderstandings with the annoying one. I don't want that girl to get any wrong ideas by having you barge in there."

Miho. The annoying one means Miho. If Ryo did get caught trying to check on the two of them, Miho's runaway crush on him could easily cause her to assume that…well, it's just best to avoid getting his friend's hopes up like that.

With the concern for Tea lessened with the spirit's admission, the constant warmth beneath Ryo's skin pulls at his attention. It's more than a fever, with how it rushes through the veins in his body. It's almost like the lightning that coursed out of him within the dream now broils in his blood.

"There's something wrong. I feel too hot." Ryo's murmur through the link pulls along the sensations that he's experiencing. They fill out the words too inadequate to properly describe what he's feeling.

Bakura's unease that he fails to keep off his face causes Ryo's own concern to rise.

"Light and Shadow magic never get along very well. It's not that surprising that our body isn't responding well to channeling both." The spirit frowns, animosity sharpening his glare. "Of course, Yugi's darkness dragging out your powers like that certainly didn't help anything."

"You mean the Pharaoh." The shock that spasms across Bakura's face satisfies Ryo more than it probably should, but he isn't the one who slipped up with that title back in the suburbs and who keeps forgetting that his host is far more aware than he's ever been before.

"You called him that when we were talking earlier." More like warily circling around each other like they have been doing since Ryo's memories have been slipping back into his head piece by horrible piece, but it's far more polite to refer to moments like that as conversations.

Bakura's glare at the neutrality of Ryo's expression disagrees with that sentiment. Yet rather than snapping in response, Bakura's voice crawls in a low growl through Ryo's head.

"I can call him whatever I want, that doesn't mean I have to explain myself to my host."

Ryo leans into the door. Despite the heat flushing through his face, he keeps his gaze steady on the spirit. "You should explain. Otherwise, I'll have to ask him if that title means anything to him."

The wordless sentiment of 'you wouldn't dare' flares up like a flame through the bond between them as Bakura snarls, only for his expression to fade when he looks more closely upon the feverish appearance overtaking Ryo's face.

It's difficult not to look away then, not when Ryo wants to rest his head against the cool wood of the door to dispel the heat.

Silently, Bakura stalks past Ryo and right towards the stairs leading down into the shop itself.

When Ryo fails to move, Bakura whirls around at what the boy suspects may be the limit of how far they can be apart from each other. "Come along, Landlord. There's no point in me explaining anything if you pass out from a fever before I'm finished."