Title: Second Chance chapter 4
Word Count: 2718

Pairing: Puzzleshipping, Tendershipping (kinda?)
Summary: Ryou refuses to sit back and just let his new houseguest ruin his life all over again, so he goes in search of clues.
Authors Notes: Bakura-centric chapter this time around! He's surprisingly hard to write. I wanted to capture the fact that Ryou really wasn't a pushover in canon so much as in a position where he was unable to do much... this time around he can do plenty.

As always, feedback is my fuel to keep writing, so please comment and let me know what you think!

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Bakura was surprised to find that his unexpected guest was okay with him heading out to his afternoon classes. But there would be no being held prisoner in his own home, at least for the time being.

Well, realistically the thief probably had plenty of trouble to get into. Best case scenario, the psychotic ex-spirit of the ring would just turn out to be his unwanted roommate, coming home to sleep and eat his food.

That wouldn't be so bad, right?

The thief king had sent Ryou off for the day with a smirk and a shushing motion. He knew what that meant. It was an order not to tell anyone about his new... housing arrangement. And if this had been the old Bakura Ryou- the one who had to actually share his body with the psychopath- it might have worked.

But now Ryou was out of the house and the thief wasn't in his head. They weren't connected anymore. And that got rid of the level of control that the spirit had over him in the past.

If he didn't want to do something he didn't have to do it. He had a choice this time.

But what did he want to do this time? Well, keeping the thief from hurting anyone was high on the list. And while he probably couldn't stop the thief from invading his home, he COULD be sure that everyone knew what was going on.

Did his other self have any powers left without the ring? There, that would probably be a good place to start. Just so he knew what he was up against. And then... He'd probably want to determine how the dark Bakura had returned from death to begin with. And... why? His claims of being bored might have been true, but Ryou didn't buy for a minute that he wanted to keep him company. That just seemed too altruistic for the other Bakura.

Gritting his teeth a little, Ryou climbed off his bus to begin the short walk to the Domino University campus.

Okay... He would tell his friends that the spirit of the ring had returned, and then he would figure out how and why the spirit was back in the first place. That seemed like a good start. Once he'd done that much, he could complete the hardest part of his plan.

He could get rid of the spirit again.

As it turned out, Ryou didn't have to wait long to take care of the first part of his plan. Jounouchi cornered him easily on his way to his first class of the afternoon, pulling him aside with a concerned expression.

"Hey... has anything, uh... weird happened with you today?" Jounouchi wasn't really very good at questioning people without raising suspicion, but it was a moot point anyway.

"Yes. The spirit of the Millennium Ring is back, with his own body. He broke into my house and ate the food I was saving for tonight's dinner." The pale boy replied with a tired sigh. "You already knew?"

"Atem- the other Yuugi is back too. Followed him out, or something." Jounouchi explained, scratching the back of his head. "You gonna be okay, what with him at your place and all?"

Ryou nodded. "It's not like I've never dealt with his nonsense before. At least this time he can't hijack my body as he sees fit."

Jounouchi laughed awkwardly.

"Man, it sucks that you even have to say that in the first place..."

"It's okay, Jounouchi-kun. I'm a stronger person than I was back then. I'm not just going to sit back and take whatever he throws at me." Ryou smiled reassuringly at his friend. Jounouchi grinned and nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, the Bakura you are now is way less of a pushover than the Bakura you were four years ago!"

Ryou scrunched his face up.

"I wasn't a pushover. He could take control of my body back then. But now he's in his own body." The boy pointed out with a pout, Jounouchi laughed.

"Sorry, sorry! Didn't mean to imply you were a wimp or anything, Bakura!"

"Of course not. You'd never do that." Bakura teased, a smile crossing his features for the first time that day.

As long as he had his friends he was sure that everything would be okay.

Jounouchi glanced at his watch, and then back to Ryou. "So... what's the plan, anyway? Do you want to crash at my place while that lunatic is around?"

"Thank's for the offer, but... I'm not going to let him disrupt my life like that. I mean, if he ends up being unbearable I'll take you up on it..." Ryou let his sentence trail off.

Jounouchi frowned, but relented.

"If you say so. I'll let Yuugi and Atem know what's up. But if he tries anything, we're here for you."

"I know." Ryou nodded. "If anything happens, I'll call you or Yuugi right away. But don't you have a lecture to be getting to? I thought the professor told you not to skip any more or he was lowering your grade."

Jounouchi made a face at that. Yup, Bakura had hit the nail on the head. He did his best to muffle a laugh.

"Ugh, that old bat is going to murder me... Fine, I'll see you later, Bakura!"

"Bye, Jounouchi-kun!"

As Bakura Ryou watched Jounouchi's retreating form, things didn't seem so bad.

The former Spirit of the ring had a problem. And that problem was that he was undeniably, insufferably BORED. Now that he had made it back to the land of the living and responded to his innate desire to reunite himself with his former host... he had no idea what to do with himself.

Well, he hadn't really thought he'd find a way to return to life in the first place, so it wasn't surprising that he didn't really have a plan for what to do upon returning.

He let out a little growl and slammed his finger down harder than necessary on the channel change button of the television remote, flipping through the stations with little interest. It was all the same old crap. Nothing was ever interesting on daytime TV.

He finally settled on a daytime news show. It was better than nothing- the anchor's talking would drown out the silence, at least. Even if they were just talking about how hot it was outside.

"So what do I do now that the grudge I held for three millennia has been put to rest...?" He muttered aloud, as if anyone would answer him. But he was alone in this form's head, so Ryou didn't reply. "I still hate the Pharaoh... should I just focus on getting rid of him?"

But that would only be a temporary amusement. Hell, he could have just taken care of it this morning. Plus... painful as it was to admit, he didn't really feel that much blinding rage towards the pitiful former king. Burning hatred, but... not enough to merit going out of his way to kill him.

He'd already DONE that.

So what else did he have to occupy his time with? Looking into how all this had happened, maybe? That creepy man he'd met earlier was definitely up to something. Any spell that could pull someone back from the dead was powerful stuff, after all. So should he look into that? Whatever goal he was looking to accomplish was bound to be fairly rewarding.

The thief's stomach growled, derailing his thoughts. Ugh, why the hell didn't his house have more food in his kitchen!? MEATY food, not that green vegetable junk.

Well, at least that settled what he'd be doing this afternoon. Time to go grocery 'shopping'. And while he was at it he could pick up some clothes that wouldn't make him look like a nerd. He definitely wasn't a fan of the kinds of clothes his host seemed to find attractive.

With that settled the thief got up to head out.

He didn't bother to turn the TV off.

When Bakura's last class let out it was only three in the afternoon- plenty of time left to get started on his mission of determining how and why the thief (and Atem, apparently) had returned to life. And he knew just where to start.

The museum.

When it came to ancient spirits and magic, the museum was quite honestly always the place to begin. And it made sense- his father had mentioned that there was a new exhibit set to open in a matter of days. That, paired with the thief showing back up out of the blue, seemed like too much of a coincidence to ignore.

And so it was time to put his connections as the son of the museum's owner to good use. Gaining access the new exhibits shouldn't be too hard. His status as a history student would give him a good cover story, too.

Ryou sent a text message to Jounouchi and Yuugi, informing them that he was going to look for clues at the museum and would be in contact later, and then he headed off. He didn't have to go far, thankfully. The museum was in the same district as the university.

He greeted the women behind the counter as he arrives, smiling shyly in response to the fact that the recognized him. It wasn't as if he visited his father's workplace all that often, but apparently he was memorable? It had been like that back in high school, too, with girls fawning over him despite the fact that he hadn't done anything to deserve attention over. It was embarrassing, but it would be rude to be anything less than polite about the attention.

Ryou was able to excuse himself to the museum hallways soon enough, anyway.

He followed the maze of hallways to the roped off door of the upcoming exhibit, hesitating for just a moment before slipping inside of the room as if he belonged there. That was one of the useful things he learned from sharing a body with the thief- if you act like you belong somewhere, even if you don't, people often won't even question you being there.

It worked. None of the people (interns?) hard at work setting up the various relics even glanced at him. It was kind of unsettling, really. He should speak to his father about improving security in the museum, next time he saw him.

Whenever that would be.

Ryou shook off the negative thoughts and started through the room, taking careful inventory of the kinds of things they had on display. He... wasn't actually sure what kinds of artifacts would be considered suspicious, to be honest. Maybe he'd get lucky and there would be a giant stone tablet with pictures of the thief king returning to life on it. That would be useful.

There was nothing like that here, though. Most of the relics in the hall seemed to be funerary relics, actually. From a royal tomb? Ryou had to suppress the urge to laugh as he imagined his other self's commentary on how tomb robbing was considered an act of historical merit now.

He paused and looked at a golden sarcophagus... yeah, definitely a royal tomb? Maybe a queen?

"It's lovely, isn't it? I still remember how surprised I was when I found the tomb undisturbed!" A loud voice cut in from over Ryou's left shoulder, and he jumped and spun to see who it was that had noticed he didn't belong in here.

An unassuming man, slightly older than middle aged but not yet elderly, smiled back at him.

"Don't look so scared. I'm not going to chase away a young man who's interested in history!" The man chuckled and held a hand out for Ryou to shake. "I'm Professor Iida Takuya, by the way. This is my exhibit. Dug it all up myself!"

"...Bakura Ryou. My father runs the museum." Bakura replied, hesitantly shaking the man's hand. He seemed... passionate about his work?

"Ryou-kun, is it!? Nice to meet you, nice to meet you! I didn't know that Bakura-san had a son! And one so interested in history! How wonderful!" Iida Takuya mused, clearly pleased to have someone to talk about his exhibit with. "I'm jealous. My daughters don't like discussing Egypt with me. They say I'm overbearing and boring!"

"Oh, I'm sure that's not the case at all. You seem like a very... energetic man. I'm sure your talks on Egypt are fascinating." Ryou forced an awkward smile. At least he wasn't being chased out of the exhibit, but this was... an odd experience. Iida-sensei certainly was quite overbearing. Perhaps he spent a lot of time overseas?

"What a polite boy. How old are you? I should introduce you to my oldest daughter! She could use some polite friends!"

The smile on Ryou's face became more strained. "I see... I'd be more interested in hearing about this exhibit, really..."

That seemed to do the trick. The rambunctious professor was thankfully able to focus when asked about his life's work. He immediately began leading Ryou around the room, going into his spiel on the history of the artifacts as he did so.

"Most of these came from the tomb of an Egyptian princess from the eighteenth dynasty. We found her tomb entirely intact, which I'm sure you know is a rare occurrence." The professor stopped in front of what appeared to be some kind of golden book, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. "...There were signs that some of the items in there were added some time after her death, however. Perhaps the tomb was being used as a place to stash hidden treasures?"

Ryou stared at the golden cover of the book blankly, before looking back to the man guiding him. "Someone broke into the tomb and didn't disturb anything? They just left more treasures?"

"Unusual, right? But what better hiding place than a tomb that everyone has forgotten?" The man resumed walking, leading Ryou to a display of various stone slabs taken from the walls of the tomb. "...Poor, forgotten girl. She must have been lonely."

Ryou made a thoughtful sound. "...Maybe she was enjoying the quiet."

The professor let out a hearty laugh. "I think that thousands of years of silence would be too much for even the most embittered of individuals, but that is an optimistic outlook. I like you, Ryou-kun! I have a dinner to get to, but please come back and talk to me again any time!"

Ryou glanced over the piles of artifacts. "I'll be sure to, Iida-sensei."

He still hadn't been able to narrow down any items of interest, so returning was inevitable. Besides, Professor Iida seemed to know his stuff. If he went over the objects here one by one with the man maybe he could determine which ones had suspicious dead-reviving powers.

For the moment the museum was the only lead Bakura Ryou had. And so returning was unavoidable.

Ryou stopped to get himself some fast food for dinner before finally heading home, wanting to postpone seeing the thief again for as long as possible. But eventually there was no avoiding it any longer, and the young man had no reasonable course of action left except to return to his apartment.

He was relieved to find that the thief seemed to be elsewhere as he stepped into the entryway- the television was on full blast and there were a slew of unidentified wallets spread out on his counter, but his guest was nowhere in sight.

Maybe- hopefully- he'd gone out for the night.

A bucket holding the remains of a fried chicken feast was discarded on the dining room floor. On the table was a paper plate with a chicken breast and drumstick on it- the only uneaten of the meal left. Was that supposed to be for him? Bakura sighed and turned off the TV before moving to clean up the mess the ancient spirit had left in his living space.

When he was done, he covered the remaining plate with some plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for when his houseguest inevitably got hungry again.

Well, at least his house wasn't a mess now. Although he was sure that by the end of tomorrow it would be a mess again.

Ryou stepped into his bedroom, eager to rest while he could.

It turned out that was an unreasonable request, because his bed was already occupied. There was the missing thief king, snoring happily in his bed. Ryou winced.

Well, at least he had a comfortable couch.