i like this it strikes me as the sot of thing that might actually happen post series because your right there wasn't really much of the thief to begin with and with him taking so much of Ryou this is very plausible.

Wow. This story is beautiful. Sad, wonderful, and breath taking.

"But there are others. Ryou wonders if there is enough left of the thief to even give him a name."

Incredible, truly. I loved the word usage, and the repetition of 'empty' was brilliant.

Very enjoyable.

Aww. I love this fic, I really do. It’s perfectly IC and could-have-been, the story told in a way that’s not forceful or opinionated, not even definitive, just distantly almost-matter-of-fact (and that’s so Ryou), just the right combination of introspective and quietly heartbreaking.

And ‘bloodied fragments of a jewel’ is just so apt a description of Bakura. It seems like the spirit of the Ring is many-sided and deceptively translucent, a precious treasure distorting light (Ryou?) in reflection and refraction and partial transmission, and now stained and shattered for it—each piece has its own discrete identity, drawn together by sheer force of will (and concentrated into Ryou’s soul room) but unable to coalesce themselves into the single collective entity that is Yami no Bakura.

And ‘enough left of him to even give him a name’… compared to the spirit of the Millennium Puzzle recognized as mou hitori no Yuugi, and therefore a separate entity from Yuugi himself, it seems as if it’s because the spirit of the Ring is known only as Bakura—half a name taken directly from his host’s (and in doing so depriving Ryou of that aspect of his identity) effectively reducing them both to a half-life as a part of what was previously whole, and so only together are they enough to be identified as a person, ‘enough of a heart to weigh’, enough to be given a ‘permanaent name’.

(I’m so sorry for the above mess of words, and even more if it wasn’t at all what you intended for the fic. The quoted lines from the summary ran circles in my head for days until I dragged out half a semi-plausible explanation from physics class for my inner literature student, who happily ran away with the rest…)

And the last section’s tie-in to the first, as if everything that happened in between was an interlude separate from the main timeline. Ryou and Bakura aren’t the focal characters of the series, just a silhouette parallel, so their loss seems inconsequential. It’s almost as if no matter what did happen to them, things really will just go on the same way, like a pebble that can’t alter the course of a river.

And yet it did happen, Ryou figured it out, and they found their eternity. And you have another awesome fic to your name. I’m sorry if this review didn’t make a lot of sense, since I know my logic is weird sometimes and I’ve probably misunderstood quite a few things in the course of reading this. But (even if I missed the entire point) I still love this fic, and I do think you’re a great writer for coming up with something this fantastic.

Oh, I love this. Such beautiful words! I wanted to pick out the sentences I liked best, but there are so many, and I want to quote the entire first section.

"He tries not to feel wistful about it."

"The thief is strewn about Ryou's soul room like the bloodied fragments of a jewel."

"Ryou begins to fade away afterwards. The one who is most concerned is Anzu, who turns to him one day and asks him if he's eating well, if his apartment is too lonely, if he'd like to go to the arcade with them after school.

He shakes his head and smiles serenely. She doesn't know; he can never be lonely."

This is really lovely-the mention of rotting groceries, Ryou telling the thief he'll go with him-the last sentence. There is a wonderful flow and a quietness to it. Heh, I wish I could write tendershipping as you do!

Oh my.

That was beautiful. So haunting and thought provoking. I really enjoyed it.

*shivers* Yes, this is nice. Not happy about the 'suicide', but that's just me and I can see how it's one of the very few ways for this to end. It's nicely done.

Personally I like the ideas you've put into writing here, the way you've made their relationship (you know how) and references to Bakura's 'shattered soul'. One that struck me in particular was, "There was not enough heart left for Ammut to devour" _ Interesting~

Anyway. This goes into favourites.

~*sonryz

Oh, very dark. I like the present tense-it makes it seem like Ryou's past and future can't be defined.