Chapter Text
Bakura Ryou winced as he straightened up to review his work. The sigil on the floor of what had once been his game room was large enough to take up most of the space, every curve triple-checked weeks in advance. He’d gone over each rune and symbol in four kinds of salt: kosher, sea, Himalayan, and iodized table salt, just in case. The downside was that Ryou had to step very carefully around the room, barefoot in case he slipped and smudged any of his handiwork, and almost entirely on tiptoe. His hands were starting to cramp from all the writing, too.
It’ll be worth it, he told himself as he grabbed the measured bowls of salt from the tray and began to sprinkle with all the finesse of a celebrity chef on TV. It has to be.
By the time he was done dusting the last of the table salt over the whole design, it was well past five and the sun was starting to set. Perfect . Everything he had read suggested that liminal hours, like sunset, were ideal for these sorts of rituals.
Ryou stepped carefully into the inner circle that he’d drawn for himself, then rolled his pants down from his calves and undid the knot keeping his shirt close to his body. If he was going to try this now, he was going to look the part, though he kept his hair tied back in a ponytail. That was just being practical.
He checked the clock on the wall, glanced outside at the window and the bright orange skyline the sun was lowering into. He wanted to get this perfect. He had to get it perfect. The chance of failure this first time was high and while nothing might happen, the other possibility… Ryou shuddered. It didn’t bear thinking about.
He waited until he could see the bottom curve of the sun meet the horizon, casting his shadow across the circle until it stretched into the salt-and-chalk triangle. Ryou took a deep breath and pulled the notebook out of his pocket. He had a few minutes to get through the whole mess of hieratic text.
Good thing he’d been practicing these last few years.
Nothing happened as he recited the first few lines of text. That was fine, expected even. But as he got further and further down the page, nothing changed. The lack of some presence, of any thing set off a nervous flutter in the pit of Ryou’s stomach. He tried to force the fear that this was all for naught out of his head. He neared the end of the page and the worry that he’d mispronounced some word or muddled the order of some characters had become a frantic tattoo in his chest.
He let the last word fall out of his mouth, relieved that, as nervous as he was, he had at least managed to sound steady and confident. If nothing happened… Well, at least it was nothing .
The sun vanished below the horizon in silence.
And then Ryou’s shadow split away from his body. A form began to coalesce from it in the triangle he’d drawn, as the chalk all around began to glow bright red.
“I’ve missed this shape,” the voice he’d been hoping-- and dreading-- to hear chuckled. The Spirit of the Millennium Ring grinned at Ryou from across the summoning circle. His too-sharp teeth looked bloodied in the light, and his hair billowed out behind his head freely. “Did you miss me, Landlord?”
It worked. It actually fucking worked.
It took surprisingly little effort to keep himself from audibly cheering his accomplishment. Most of Ryou’s self-control was dedicated to keeping himself from running through the chalk boundaries on the floor and back into the Spirit’s nebulous arms.
“A bit,” he managed, surprised at how calm he sounded. “Did you miss me, too?” He crossed his arms, both to restrain himself and look determined.
“Terribly.” The Spirit stretched back like a cat just waking up and yelped as his hand hit the invisible barrier formed by the triangle on the ground. The pained look on his face didn’t last long, replaced by a look of interest. “You’ve been studying, have you, Landlord?” He asked in the same smug tone. He rubbed his injured hand as if to soothe the burn from colliding with the edge of his confines.
So that works, too. Good. He didn’t need the Spirit to suddenly burst out to hijack his body-- or worse . “I think I learned a fair bit from our time together,” he replied. He was starting to sound just as self-satisfied as the Spirit at the circumstances.
The Spirit grinned. “You always were a clever one. Though, I will say, you took your sweet time about it.”
“What’s three years after three thousand?” Ryou shrugged, the compliment echoing in his mind. That’s how he gets you, he reminded himself. Don’t read into it.
The Spirit shrugged right back. “You get used to the flow of time when you have a body, Landlord. You understand.” It wasn’t a question. It didn’t need to be. He leaned back as much as he could without touching the chalk-and-salt lines. “But I’m sure you didn’t call me here just to chit-chat, did you, Landlord? No, this circle’s too nice and tight for that.”
The repeated ‘pet’ name was starting to irk Ryou, almost as much as it comforted him. It was an ironic reminder of his role as ‘host’ to the Spirit originally, though he’d had little control as the supposed ‘landlord’, if any at all. The Spirit had paid ‘rent’ by granting his wishes for friends or protection from bullies in his own twisted way back then. It meant the Spirit still saw him as a host, even after all this time. That, or he just wanted to prod Ryou’s sore spots until he snapped and broke the circle. Maybe both.
“Awful lot of salt, though,” the Spirit continued as he crouched to inspect his linework. “Just one kind would’ve been enough. That pinky kind’s mostly useless unless your intent is to spread healing energies .” He snorted, and Ryou’s mouth twitched towards an actual smile. He had thought the Himalayan rock salt was overkill.
You don’t have eternity to banter, he reminded himself.
“I have a proposal for you.” Ryou unfolded his arms. “For both of us, really.”
That caught the Spirit’s attention. He looked up from the floorboards. “A deal?” He stood up so fast, Ryou thought he heard the snap of a cord suddenly pulled taut.
“I have questions,” he continued, only to be cut off with a barking laugh. He gritted his teeth and pressed on. “Questions I want answered by you .”
“By me?” The Spirit echoed. “Landlord, if I remember correctly-- and I do, don’t deny it,” he added quickly with a knowing smirk. Ryou’s memories of those years were riddled with holes, and they both knew it. “When we parted ways, you wanted nothing more than to be rid of me. Didn’t even say ‘goodbye.’” He sighed loudly, purely for dramatic effect.
Ryou bit the inside of his cheek. “That was different,” he pointed out. “And it’s not like you don’t benefit from this deal, anyway.”
“Mmm.” The Spirit tilted his head back to stare at the ceiling, humming to himself as he thought. The silence between them stretched on longer than Ryou personally would have liked. He was about to say something when he noticed the Spirit’s lips were moving, just barely perceptible.
Is he--
The figure’s fingers snapped, and he went back to looking directly at Ryou. “Very well, Landlord.” The Spirit stuck out a hand. “Do we have a deal?” His fingertips just barely grazed the unseen barrier formed by the chalk-and-salt triangle he stood within. Enough to tingle, but not so much that it would actually hurt.
Ryou eyed it warily. He could already feel his hand reaching out, a gut reaction to the offer. It was awfully tempting to just reach out and take it. To get answers finally.
The Spirit’s grin widened, just a hair. His teeth were gritted.
I bet his fingers are burning.
“Actually,” Ryou quickly shoved both hands in his pockets, “I remember that every time we’ve made a deal, it was always in your favour.”
The Spirit’s smile didn’t so much as twitch. “Interesting. How differently we remember it,” he remarked. When Ryou moved only to push his hands further into his jacket, the Spirit finally pulled his hand back. “Who did you learn such mistrust from, I wonder?” The way he raised one eyebrow might have been a show of the tiniest bit of respect.
Parasites don’t respect hosts, Ryou reminded himself. “I at least have control,” he reminded the Spirit, pulling a piece of chalk out and tapping it idly against his side. He let himself match the Spirit’s unwavering grin. “It’s quite nice being on the other side, actually.”
There was a minute twitch in the Spirit’s brow. Ryou bit back the urge to grin. It was too early to feel like he’d won. “We haven’t discussed what you’ll get in exchange.”
The pale face across from him cocked to one side. “Do I need any reason to help you, Landlord? I trust you.” Coupled with his pout, the Spirit might have been the very picture of innocence if Ryou didn’t know better.
“I think we should be upfront this time around. I’m sure you understand.” Ryou tilted his head to match. They could’ve been mirror images if the Spirit hadn’t broken his act with a snort.
“So you’ll throw me a bone, Landlord. Scraps. Tch .” The Spirit tossed his head. “Do you think I’m that desperate--”
“I’ll let you out of wherever you are now,” Ryou cut in. “I can’t imagine you like it there.”
The Spirit paused for a moment, seriously mulling over the offer. “ Very tempting,” he said, though his voice dripped with disdain. “You’re right, Landlord. I hate it there. But I’m not going to stay caged here, either.”
Ryou couldn’t help it. He winced. He had hoped that it wouldn’t come to this, but he needed this deal to go through. Badly enough that… “I’ll let you use my body again.”
Now he had the Spirit’s full attention. His eyes narrowed to slits. “Say that again.”
“I’ll let you use my body again,” Ryou repeated. There was the slightest tremble to his voice that no amount of rigid self-control could calm. “J-just, you’ve got to warn me, and I need to stay awake the whole--”
“Done.” The Spirit stretched his hand again, face dead serious this time. Somehow, that was worse than before. When nothing happened, the Spirit rolled his eyes. “Well, Landlord? Do you want this deal or not?”
Before he could stop himself, demand further negotiation or better terms, Ryou found himself reaching across the circle to take the proffered hand. A jolt of static ran up his arm, and he looked up to see the Spirit grin wide enough that it could have split his face in two.
“My deepest thanks, Landlord,” he hissed. There was a weird echo to it, and Ryou realized with some horror that the same words were coming out of his mouth as well. A second jolt passed through his arm, more painful than the first. He winced at the same time as the Spirit but found that he couldn’t let go of the other’s hand.
The Spirit was laughing now and Ryou found himself laughing along despite himself, even as pain lanced through his arm a third time, and then a fourth. Each wave was worse than the one before it, and the fifth one left him sobbing through the hysterical laughter.
When the sixth hit, there was a flash in Ryou’s vision, and then nothing.