Chapter Text
Darkness. Numbing, encapsulating darkness, consumed everything, both senses and thoughts. Really, it was nothingness. What was within, couldn’t acknowledged it, nor even conjure a dream. So, there was nothing. Yet, something reached into this pitch blackness. An external stimulus, trying to prod a reaction. At first a simple nudge. No response. Then more insistent attempts came, short bursts with occasional pauses, as if listening for something. Eventually, a result was had.
“Hey!” A hiss, quiet yet urgent, tone harsh.
Consciousness felt heavy, like it was being dragged down by the surrounding, weighted, darkness. Why was he awake? He should just go back to sleep. Yes, sleep sounded nice. Let the darkness drag him down and return him to the suspended nothingness.
“-! Dammit. Don’t you dare go back to sleep, boy!”
The sensation of anger burned through the numbness like a lightning bolt, shocking the consciousness within. A sharp, fearful inhale sucked itself into his throat. Confusion swiftly welled up, rattling off the questions: what, where, how- why? He tried to feel around, was he in his room? No, no he couldn’t move. It was like the very space around him held him fast. He couldn’t feel what was binding him. The sensation was like his whole body was asleep, like sleep paralysis! Every inch of his skin buzzed like millions if tiny insects traveling all over, leaving no room to feel.
“Good, you’re staying awake.”
The voice seemed to speak from the space around him and yet echoed in his head. It rattled him. It sounded… familiar .
“Don’t you dare equate me to that leech !”
If possible, he tensed even further.
“Now, listen boy, time is short but, soon there’ll be a chance to ride ourselves of him . Understand? When that time comes, listen and listen to me well. There’s a chance to turn his plan against him and save those friends of yours.”
My friends? That tugged at his hazed over memory. Yes, something bad was going to happen to them. Something that’d happened before. His consciousness floundered for details but failed to grasp solidly at anything. His state of urgency didn’t go unnoticed.
“You’re grasping the situation. Just remember, you have an ally in this.”
At that, the voice left, its presence withdrawing and vanishing altogether from the space. Once gone, the darkness felt vaster somehow with nothing else to contest its dominance, leaving it more imposing and most of all, lonelier.
Something he, Ryou Bakura, was all too familiar with. It was the perpetual in his life, one that, ironically drew his memories back to him, dragging them up from the inky mire. Once again, he’d had to transferred schools after another group of friends had fallen into comas. The old “rumors” around him, of being cursed had become too much, he couldn’t continue to go there. Not because of the consequential bullying and harassment, but to spare said people from the same fate as his friends. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Really, it was for both his and their sake. He could deal with the stares. The fearful looks, much as they pained him. He only wanted to enjoy the presence of friends, not put people in danger.
Domino High had, overall, been very welcoming. Strangely the rumors about him didn’t seem to have permeated to it, but he had chosen a school farther from his home. Immediately, Jonouchi had reached out to befriend him. In his weakness, he’d accepted. Jonouchi’s friends, Anzu, Yugi, Honda, and Miho were all interested in games. Yugi, himself seemed quite knowledgeable.
Yugi, he had a pendent like his.
Once Ryou had laid his hands on it, his chest grew so tight, like it’d been put in an iron vice. Some days later, the group took him out to an arcade in order to help him feel better. They probably thought his health wasn’t well and they weren’t entirely wrong in their assumption. It’d been nice to play games with them. He’d won prizes for the girls from a crane game. Honda had seemed jealous though…
The fun; however, was interrupted by Seto Kaiba’s younger brother, Mokuba, who had used the racing game cabinets to broadcast a challenge to Yugi. Kaiba had built a tower, the “Death-T,” to end the feud he’d had with Yugi, who had beaten him in a match of duel monsters: his specialty.
He’d had to leave due to another hurting pang in his chest, Miho and Honda had been kind enough to help him home. Despite Ryou’s pain, he’d felt drawn, just the next day, to the Death-T. There he saw Yugi and his friends face the deadly trials set by Kaiba. Ryou had been left impressed. His meek little friend, Yugi, taking the challenges head on, despite his fear.
Suddenly, there was a moment where his memory blanked, something now that chilled him. Next thing Ryou knew, he was on the next level of the tower.
That’s when Ryou saw Yugi change. He couldn’t see clearly from the stands, but the air around him had definitely altered, it radiated confidence. One after another, he defeated the Kaiba brothers at their own games.
As he left the Death-T, he blacked out again.
In a haze, he found himself at school, Miho cheerfully greeting him. His chest pained him once more, the intensity seemed to have amped up, but he pushed it down to greet his friends. It didn’t last when the pain made a viscous return, feeling like he was about to retch. It was like something was trying to claw its way out from his chest! He had to leave, immediately. Briskly, he excused himself. No doubt he’d worried his friends, but that was lost in his rush to the nearest restroom.
He recalled the sharp, stabbing pain digging further, and further, into his chest. With no other thoughts, he tore open his school shirt. The Millennium Ring, his father’s gift to him, it was glowing hauntingly, the energy swaying as if alive.
“I am a part of you.”
Those word, chilled him, burrowed into him midst the pain that sent him to his knees. Cold laughter echoed in his head as the stabbing sensation dug ever deeper into his core, threatening to never let go. Something was changing inside him, either he was going into cardiac arrest- or something worse.
Somehow, he managed to push through and get himself to attend his PE class. In hindsight, he didn’t know why. Maybe it was some sad attempt to regain a sense of normalcy, or just denial of the fact that something surreal was happening to him. Ultimately, it proved to be a mistake. When he arrived, Karita, the teacher, was tormenting his friends and quickly turned his attention to him for being late. Yugi, Jonouchi, and Honda tried to defend him but that only agitated their teacher further.
“If your friends with this guy , bad things will happen to you.”
“Everyone, Yugi, you guys would be better off avoiding me...”
At last, his past had caught up with him.
“I’m going to have to transfer schools again...” He’d lamented to himself as he wrote another letter to his sister, Amane. Ryou was jerked from his sorrows by the sound of cold laughter ringing through the air, or so he thought. The hair on the back of his neck bristled to attention.
Bolting up from his chair, he demanded, “Who’s there!?”
“So, you can hear my voice now, can you?” The voice crooned amusedly. “I guess from now on, I’ll be able to talk to my host. Truly a momentous day to remember! Ah yes, something else remembering...I’ve finally found it! The one with the Millennium Puzzle, and Him. ” The voice went on to hypothesize, that contact with the Millennium Puzzle must’ve been what caused them to be able to communicate with each other now. It’d spoke in a rather offhanded manner, like it was more so just thinking aloud than to him. “Anyhow, you transferring would be a problem for me.”
The Ring was a vessel for an evil entity, and it had decided to make him its permanent host, by way of digging the ring’s pointers into his flesh. All five of them. It revealed in detailing how it’d taken his innocent wish, to forever play with his friends, and twisted it, sealing their souls into his Monster World miniatures. How it felt good to resided inside him, having him as its host. How it was going to “pay rent” by dealing with his current problem.
And, I guess, that’s how I ended up here. Wherever here is. He thought quietly to himself. Was he dead? No, that didn’t make sense. Whatever the dark entity was, it wanted him as a host which entailed him being alive, right? Unless it’d taken over permanently, in which case, he’d be stuck in this limbo. Something twisted in him, he didn’t want to be in nothingness forever but, at least then he wouldn’t have to see the looks in people’s eyes, that he was cursed, dangerous to be around, losing so many friends, being alone...
He hated this.
Why did he have to endure this?
What did do to deserve it!?
He wanted to weep but found himself unable to. Now he wasn’t even allowed the luxury of tears.
Yugi, he also had an item, right? The thing was after it, the Puzzle. It had a soul inside it as well, according to the entity.
His must’ve taken over against the Kaiba brothers. Yugi, he also had another half, a dark half, that was courageous and kind. He’d helped him against his enemies. In a manner that was more befitting the crime, not imprisoning his friends inside miniatures. A pang of envy struck him which he soon felt ashamed of, it wasn’t Yugi’s fault his dark half was cruel, twisted, evil...
Wait, that other voice. He’d gotten so caught up in his recollection, that he’d nearly forgotten what’d woken him from his sleep. It’d sounded so like him that his memory almost melded them together but, with what it’d said to him, that didn’t make sense. It sounded like that one hated the other. Still, there’s two of them... the thought filled him with a new kind of dread.
But what choice do I have? Either I take this new voice at his word, whatever that entails, or...I’m left at the mercy of the other one.