"She cries, children often do
When they're cold, and hungry too,
Come closer, look deeply in her eyes
So delicate, quite unlike her smile

Life clinging backwards,
In the fall of dread confusion,
Still this silence gnaws upon your fingertips,
All-yielding prayer, for instant isolation,
Far more sinister than the price of doubt,

Yet you remain,
Still you remain,"

~Deception, The Cruxshadows

I. You were damned the moment you met me.

"It's so cool! Thanks so much daddy." The little boy squealed. His father only offered a weary smile as he stepped from the room, closing the door softy behind him. Ryou frowned momentarily at being left alone but his smile was quickly regained as he eyed his gift.

Within the golden ring an ancient Spirit smirked. This was what he waited three millennium for. The child who held the Millennium Ring in his tiny hands was destined to be his host. The Spirit could just feel it, the sensation of a missing piece of his soul just now being returned. Years of waiting finally ended.

The child didn't even have to speak to be heard by The Spirit.

"I wish to have friends to play with forever." There, in the dimensions of brown eyes were specific and deep rooted emotions. Ones The Spirit had not dwelled on since he and a part of the Dark One became a single entity. Sadness. Loneliness. He grunted, it was not the time to look back on his diminished humanity.

"Anything for you Landlord." He purred.

Ryou gasped and his doe-eyes widened, the Millennium Ring fell to the floor in surprise.

"Shush Little One." The Spirit chuckled. It was going to be a long day, he knew it, but everything had to start somewhere.

And this child was his...

II. Everything that you wanted I have done. You cowered before me, I was frightening. I have reordered time. I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you! I'm exhausted from living up to your expectations. Isn't that generous?

"Super critical." The white haired boy grinned in triumph.

"I lost already! H-how?!"

"Ryou always wins at this game! Lets play a different one." One of Ryou's friends pouted.

"Sure." He didn't really want to stop playing his favorite game after only one round but he was more than willing to compromise for the sake of his friends. They were so rare after all. He got up from the floor to fetch another board game.

With a sudden chill the entire atmosphere shifted. Air was thick, hard to breathe. The entire room smelt heavily of burnt sugar and dark purplish shadows slowly crept about until they enveloped the room.

Startled, Ryou forget how to breathe. He was paralyzed as beads of cold sweat formed at his hair line.

The screams of his friends pierced through the weighted silence. His pulse returned to life at full-force. All of his will power was used to coerce his body to turn around. The action was in vain. A blinding light flared to life in an instant and disappeared in the next. His friends were nowhere to be seen.

"Wh-what-?"

A menacing chuckle rang through the recesses of his mind, all jumbled thoughts interrupted.

"Enjoy my gift, Yadonushi."

"Koe...What did you do?!"

"I merely payed my rent." The Spirit laughed. A shiver ran up Ryou's spine. Hesitantly, he approached the area his friends formerly occupied. One cautious baby-step at a time. What he saw, or rather what he felt, made his heart drop.

On the floor lay character pieces to the game, Monster World, he had just been playing. Entrapped in them were the souls of his friends begging for help.

The sour tang of bile rose in his throat and stung the back of his tongue. The boy swallowed hard.

"...Fix this...Please!"

The Spirit materialized beside him. An older, almost inhuman looking version of himself. Wild hair, mahogany-rusted irises, and fangs. A darker reflection of his own visage. Yami no Bakura.

"It cannot be fixed. They lost, did they not?" His smirk widened farther. "Besides, I only gave you what you desired. Your friends will never leave you. You're free to play with them until the end of time."

Tears pricked Ryou's lower lids.

"Please, not like this! I didn't mean-!"

Maddened laughter was his only response as Bakura faded away to nothing and returned to his soul room.

Ryou fell to his knees, alone.

III. There is only me. There is only my way. And there is only surrender.

"Kagome, kagome. When will the bird come out of its cage? The turtle and the crane slipped out at dawn. Who's that behind you?"

"Amane," the singing girl's mother chided playfully. "You can't play that game in a car."

"You can't play with this few of people either." Ryou reminded his sibling.

The little girl giggled. "But it's one of the only games Ryou will play with me!"

"Darling you know your brother's just shy. Not everyone gets along well with all the other children on the playground like you do."

"It's gotta be boring staying in all the time. All he ever does is play with his imaginary friend."

Ryou remained silent during the exchange while his most certainly not imaginary friend grinned. The white haired boy isn't sure how he knew Bakura's facial expression when he was not materialized within eye-shot but he knew without doubt. In fact, it was the way the Spirit reacted and how Ryou could just feel his emotions at times. This was one of those times. The Spirit's defenses were up instantaneously. Senses on high alert. Ryou knew something was amiss.

"Koe...?"

The car came from nowhere from a direction it shouldn't have even been. It would later be revealed that the driver was drunk. But is that not how all road tragedies both begin and end?

Ryou only knew the dread and adrenaline that coursed through him, a blur of red, and the feel of a protective silk surrounding his entire body. With the screech of tires and the sound of crashing metal he couldn't even distinguish Amane's final scream from the cacophony of destruction.

The wayward vehicle crashed right into the lower side of their own where Amane and himself were seated. His sister was immediately crushed in her car seat. Only when the motion of either cars came to halt with an eerie stillness was when the tunic of crimson that kept him safe from major injury dissipated. It was then the horrendous sight of Amane was revealed to him.

Blood.

Blood splattered on every surface within view. Half of her skull was completely crushed. Her left eye no longer existed. Limbs stuck out at the oddest of angles while pale bone jutted from her flesh. That was the last he saw before darkness consumed him.

Ryou awoke in a hospital with his sister's corpse seeming much more like a nightmare than a reality. The young boy was sore from numerous bruises scattered on his ivory skin. The big, ugly, and dark sort. Restrained in casts were both his left leg and arm. His mother had to have a bit of glass taken from her skin while she herself suffered a minor concussion and shattered wrist.

He was never forced to see the once rambunctious Amane lay motionless within her coffin. This is because it had to be nailed shut.

His mother never the same after the loss of her daughter. She had always been an introvert who kept to herself, traits Ryou inherited from her, but the grief drew her to a maddening silence. The women only spoke of how unnatural it was for her son to have survived even when logic said he should have perished beside his sister. Doctors and pretty much everyone else believed his survival to be a miracle, his mother claimed it to be an abomination.

Months dragged on until she found solace in a rope. She smiled down at her son as if to tell him she finally forgave him. The child's curious eyes locked with his mother's till the end. Those orbs glistened with an elated insanity and with a snap! they were instantly glassy.

The Spirit smirked at both funerals.

"You're all alone now, sweet Yadonushi." He whispered malignantly into Ryou's ears. "Your sister's gone. Your own mother killed herself just to get away from you and now your father can't even look at you! Only a matter of time before he grows more and more taciturn."

He ended up being correct on the last account. Arguably the previous ones as well.

Bakura cackled lowly in a way that was decidingly inhuman.

Ryou could feel warmth encircle him as he wept. Bakura was a mere spectre whom Ryou could not physically touch but he always felt the warmth of his presenter. It felt a lot like the cloak that had kept him safe during the fateful car crash.

"Shh precious Landlord, you mustn't cry. You don't need them. You never did. I'm all you will ever need...Forever"

IV. My will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom as great...

"It's you...!" Bakura exclaimed as his host took shape before him. The sound of his possessed dice cracking was soft yet sharp in the distance.

"I don't want to lose any more friends! Even if it means my soul should shatter."

For the first time since he was nothing more than a human child he felt true unadulterated horror pulse within him as realization hit. Ryou cast his entire soul in the dice. Even if he quit the game at that very minute, which would devastate his pride, he still was not sure if Ryou could ever return to his body. The Spirit's ancient mind worked in hyper-drive to come up with a solution, undeterred by his own protectiveness over his host. When exactly had he grown to care so much? If he really searched for an answer it would be the moment he met him.

This lovely and disgustingly self sacrificing child was his first possession after three thousand years. Perhaps it was the thief king's greed that made him want to keep the boy in his grasp. Perhaps it was because Ryou was the first person to even speak with him after century upon century of being all by his lonesome.

The dice disintegrated completely and he screamed as he lost. The game. Ryou.

Oh but what a clever little landlord he had! The game piece White Mage Bakura housed a piece of his soul. Ryou had planned this! He and the pharaoh had won the game, but now there would only be many more to come.

V. I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave.

Bakura knew Ryou like the back of hand. This may or may not be due to the fact the boy was born from remnants of his human self.

A mere handful of years ago the boy was naught but a child who sat without company playing in a sandbox. It didn't need to be asked, Bakura knew what he desired most. His forlorn eyes watched the other children merrily play among each other. Bakura never failed to grant the wish of what his host yearned for above all else; friends.

So why did the boy never appreciate his offerings?

The Spirit of the Millennium Ring hardly had time for such luxuries as worrying over his hosts approval of him. If the whitette wanted to fight then so be it. There were always other means of making Ryou submit.

But somehow the frown that held on his lips brought on by forced solitude always unsettled Bakura.

...It reminded him of his own, so very long ago...

An overwhelming sense of nostalgia drenched him every time he saw that particular frown on the boy's graceful features. It was one of the few things that could make his chest tighten, tighten with something he could not describe. He hated it.

Thankfully, Ryou was smiling instead. Bakura sat on the carpeted floor while his landlord was seated at his desk diligently working on a figurine for his Monster World set. A sparkle gleamed brilliantly in the depths of his eyes that made Bakura feel strangely accomplished. There was an inexplicable urge in the former king of thieves to keep that smile preserved.

Ryou had long since grown accustomed to his Yami's long bouts of silence. Eyes that most would find unnerving were trained directly on him for hours on end but Ryou paid it no mind. It was nothing out of the ordinary.

"Though it must get boring," he muttered to himself as he placed the finishing touches on his current project.

"Speak up if you have something to say," Bakura grunted.

With a slight shake of his head he place the completed figurine down gently, his smile never faltering.

"Isn't there anything you would rather do than watch over me like this all of the time? Surely I won't be harmed from just sitting."

"In case it has escaped your notice but I can't exactly do as I wish on my own accord. If I could the pharaoh would be no more. Unless of course you're offering your body to me freely?" The Spirit's grin could only be described as vicious.

"That's not what I meant!...I've only been in your soul room a few times but it's quite vast, that much I know. Why don't you ever stay there anymore until the next opportunity arises and you actually need to take over my body?"

"My business is no concern of yours, Yadonushi. I will do as I please just as I always have"

What Bakura never realized was how well versed Ryou became at reading him as well over the years they spent together. The two were one of mind, body, and soul so it should not have come as much of a surprise. There was a time when they had been one complete being. Ryou understood why the Spirit's watchful eyes were ever present.

The boy stood from his chair to approach his Yami. He gently "placed" his hand on Bakura's spectral cheek. A warm smile graced his lips.

"Your eyes...They remind me of mine."

"Of course they do!" The Spirit nearly snapped. "We're mirror images." But beneath the blood thirst, hate, and resentment, he knew what his host spoke of. What his host could see. The missing link of an emotion that they had in common.

Bakura also witnessed his family die. Bakura grew up with no relatives or friends. Starring into the adoring eyes of Ryou stirred something within Bakura. Ryou was the first whoever wanted to be there with him.

The motion was swift and genuinely startled Ryou. A soft gasp escaped from betwixt his lips. Bakura's none existent arms constricted around his host's svelte waist as he hid his face by pressing it against the teenager's stomach. He refused to show the emotions that were betraying him. The spirit may have been formless but Ryou could still feel the tingle of heat from the his spiritual body.

"Just...Keep your mouth shut."

Ryou blinked before his smile returned, only humming in response.

Bakura had only ever known three goals. Kill the pharaoh. Revive Zorc to conquer the world. And, his latest one, take the utmost care of his host. It took three thousand years for Ryou to be born which was a definite sign of value.

"And she says;

Pray for daylight,

Pray for morning,
Pray for an end to our deception,

...

Life clinging backwards,
In the fall of dread confusion,
Still this silence gnaws upon your fingertips,
All-yielding prayer, for instant isolation,
Far more sinister than the price of doubt,

And yet you remain"

~Deception, The Cruxshadows

So most of the quotes used as line breaks are from Labyrinth, which is the movie that I forewent sleep for to watch again and again while crying on the night David Bowie died. Hmm, I believe it's the second quote that's from Over the Garden wall.