Yami Bakura

I wandered around the shadow realm. This was fairly pointless of course, seeing as one area of the shadow realm was pretty much the same as any other part, so it didn't matter where you were. It was insanely dull. But I milled about anyway. It helped me think.

I wasn't sure how long I had been here. Ten years could have passed just as easily as ten weeks for all I could tell. Time in the shadow realm was a funny thing. When there is no sun to rise or set, time was impossible to tell. Ah, the sun...Who knew I would ever miss it so much. Its warmth was heaven in comparison to the coldness of the shadow realm.

Vast, empty darkness stretched out before me in every direction. How I longed to see something, anything. A tree, a stone, it didn't matter. The swirling shadows were really getting on my nerves. I had been imprisoned before, in the millennium ring. But it was so much worse now that I had tasted freedom and power again. I did not want to spend another millennia in nothingness. I wanted out. I wanted vengeance against those who imprisoned me. And my time alone was spent trying to find a way out, and it had not been time wasted. Escape was at hand.

Yami Yugi had indeed sealed my soul in the shadow realm, but he did not sever my ties to the earth completely. There is one thing that is so bound to me by the millennium forces that not even being in a different dimension could cut me off from him: Ryou. As long as the ring exists, my ties to him are unbreakable. I have long been attached to the magic of the millennium ring, and now, whether he knew it or not, so was Ryou. The ring created a bond between us. That's how I knew that Ryou was alive. And that he still possessed the millennium eye. I had feared him dead. Yes, feared, for Ryou is my only was out of the shadow realm. Discovering that the link between us still held true was a ray of hope.

I doubted Ryou was aware that I was not powerless (I would be much stronger if the shadow realm did not weaken me so). So much of the ring's magic was gone now that I no longer possessed it. I didn't think he could sense anything from it. That was good. Him being unaware made it so much easier for me.

I had tried to leave the shadow realm by joining once again with Ryou. But I'm afraid that I could not escape so easily. The shadow realm would not permit it. I had another plan, however. I found that, with the little bit of power I still possessed, I could enter Ryou's dreams and bring his sleeping mind to this place of darkness. I doubted whether the shadow realm could tell the difference between one soul and another. Especially when they were so similar. Ryou and I may have different personalities, but our likenesses go far deeper than that. He is my reincarnation, after all. My body and spirit reborn. Seeing as I had no intention of staying in the shadow realm myself, I would find the next best thing to replace me.

If I could just get Ryou's soul to stay in the shadow realm long enough for me to come in contact with him, I could summon the power from the ring that remained with him, and use it to pull me back to the real world, leaving Ryou trapped. The ring still gave me just enough power to manipulate him, and he would follow the orders I gave him without so much as a second thought. And by the time he realizes what is going on, it will be too late. And a mortal soul cannot survive in the shadow realm the way an immortal one like me can...

But there was a problem. In my limited power, it was easiest to bring Ryou's spirit to the shadow realm when he was asleep. His actions were easier to control when his mind was at rest. But he didn't sleep with the ring on, and that made the connection much weaker. I'd tried it once when he was awake and had the ring in his possession, but it drained me because it is harder to keep a fully awake person under your influence. But I will wait. The time will come when he will be within my grasp. If there is anything that my failures have taught me, it's patience. I will have him. And once I am released, nothing will be able to stop me. Not even Yami Yugi...
 
 

Ryou

"Bakura! Hurry it up. The movie will be starting soon!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," I called back to Jounouchi. I was at the theater with him, Honda, Yugi, Anzu, and, surprisingly, Yami Yugi. Yugi had talked him into experiencing some "modern culture". I'm pretty sure Yami (as we often called him because it seemed less formal) only agreed to make Yugi happy. We were in the lobby. Honda and I were on snack detail.

"Jounouchi knows no patience when food is involved," Honda muttered to me and I chuckled. It was true. Jounouchi practically knocked me over in his hurry to get popcorn as I brought it over. We handed out the snacks, Yami being the only one who took nothing. He didn't need to eat, and didn't trust the kind of food we ate. The way Yugi explained it, Yami had been unable to rest for days the last time he'd had sugar. Jounouchi just joked about "The Game King" being unable to handle a sugar rush.

"Bakura, this yours?" Honda asked as he flashed a box of candy and I handed out the last bag of popcorn. I nodded and he tossed it to me. I made an attempt to catch it, but missed by a mile.

"Sorry," he said as the little box cluttered to the floor, but thankfully did not break open.

"It's okay," I said. "No depth perception." He laughed as did Jounouchi. The rest simply smiled. I was, of course, referring to the lack of vision in my left eye, and everyone there knew why. Yugi, Yami, and I had not kept it secret from them. We felt that, with all they had seen in the past, they would understand. And they did. I did not want to keep secrets when I could help it. The fact that we could joke about it was good. I did not want them to pity me.

We entered our theater and made our way to our seats. I sat on the end, then Yugi, Yami, Anzu, Honda, and Jounouchi. The latter two managed to get into a popcorn war before the previews even started. Kernels went flying everywhere. It was good entertainment until Jounouchi threw a piece of popcorn down Anzu's shirt and then volunteered to fetch it. She dumped her bag on his head.

As I was on the end, I offered to go get her another popcorn and she thanked me.

"At least SOMEONE knows how to be a gentleman," She said, casting a look of death at Jounouchi. I blushed.

I stood and brushed myself off, to make sure none of the flying kernels had made their way to me. It was then that Yugi noticed the bandage sticking out from under my jacket sleeve (I always wore a jacket to the movies, even though it was summer. It was always freezing in there).

"What happened to your arm?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "It's not...you know..." He pointed towards my millennium ring, which he knew was concealed under my shirt.

"No," I answered, not needing the millennium eye to understand what he was hinting at. "I burned it on the stove this morning. It was kinda weird, though."

"Why?" he asked. Yami turned his attention to us.

I wondered whether I should go into it. It really wasn't that big a deal. But he asked, so.....

"It's just that I had been thinking about a dream I had. And then suddenly, it was like I was back in that dream. Father said I spaced out. I guess so, because I wasn't paying attention to my cooking and I touched the stove."

"What kind of dream was it?" Yami asked.

"A strange one," I replied. "It was dark, and there was this voice calling out to me."

"A voice?" Yami said, raising and eyebrow. "What kind of voice?"

He was making too much of this. It was a dream, and nothing more. This was easier to believe now that it was not fresh in my mind and I could barely remember anything from it. The lights were dimming, and I didn't want to ruin anybody's time with worries of me. I was sure that my reaching out when the dream told me to was nothing more than a form of sleepwalking. Though I had been awake...

"Don't worry about it," I told them both. "It was just a silly dream. It's nothing, really. Now let me go before I miss the movie."

I thought I heard Yami saying something about how I shouldn't dismiss my dreams, but I ignored him. I invoked the millennium eye a bit as I walked away to make sure that they were not allowing me to spoil their good time. Yugi was already absorbed in the previews. Yami was concerned, but then, Yami was always concerned about something. That's just how he was.

I opened the door and walked into the lobby. I bought Anzu's popcorn, but suspected that I had not been given the right change. I paused just outside the door to the theater, my head lowered as I counted the change and did the math in my head. I didn't want Anzu to be ripped off. I should have known better than to stand next to a door.

Someone flung the door open very forcefully and hit me. The corner of the door met my head and I fell against the wall behind it, spilling popcorn all over. I heard a man's voice curse loudly seconds before I blacked out.