soul_campaign | The 17th Roll: May 12th, night [Text/Private to various]

Not here, I fear.

[He already knows about Atem and Yuugi and has an eye and several unwitting agents on the rest of the city. Qilby is gone too, so that venue is no longer interesting either.]

[[Really, he should have expected this and he merely nods.]]

... I just would have thought with how mad you get at me for being weak... [[and he trails off, shrugging]] I'll find another way... [[somehow]]

[If the lack of giving in annoys him or not is impossible to tell as he turns one last time to give his host an amused look.]

Well, then let's hope that you'll do better at it than at your futile attempts to keep a Meister by your side.

[[Ouch. Bakura flinches at that, looking away to the side]]

...or at getting the one who will stay to work with me....

[[sometimes he hates the fact that he hasn't been able find anyone else he resonates with the way he does with his double...]]

Well, that's not much of my business anymore. [He can't resist to rub it in.] You may rejoice, because I have found myself a nice Weapon a short while ago. So you won't have to deal with me any longer on that.

[Maybe he should send her flowers the next time. Yes, yellow ones since she seems to like that color... ]

[[Bakura stares, eyes huge. The Spirit had...?! but...!

There was a pang of something he didn't quite understand. That hope that maybe someday, there would be someway for everything to work out and...

... It hurt. Why did it hurt? Something like that... he should be glad of it, right?

Right...?]]

[Sometimes Bakura isn't sure whether he should find it funny or sad how easily his host's thoughts could be read from his face.]

What, you didn't expect me to remain your forever backup plan that you can fall back onto when nothing else works?

That-- that isn't...

[[he shakes his head]] You weren't the backup plan....

[[The Ring spirit was the seeming inevitable choice he had disparately tried not to be forced into making.]]

You're the one that I resonate best with even though you always say I'm no good...

Yeah, well, we might resonate well but what the hell is that worth if there's nothing else between us?

[[Bakura's quiet a long moment]]

It's not that there's nothing. It's just that what is between us isn't anything like what partners should be....

Because there's been too much for us to really trust each other, hasn't there? And because we fight too much... so even when things are going well... it always lurks underneath, like a trap waiting to be sprung.

Is that how you feel about it?

[He gives him an unreadable look and then switches into a short disregarding laugh as if to say that it doesn't really matter to him anyway.]

No wonder it never really worked between us then.

[[He tenses, fists clenching]] ...because you always do things like that...!

I don't know how I feel about it because you always change everything the moment I think I have it figured out and then make fun of me for it! One moment I want things to work out and the next you do something that makes it seem like it never will, only to change again days later!

[Aw, what outburst. Bakura takes that as an incentive to poke his host in the chest, right where the Ring would usually rest against it.]

So I'm to blame because I can't read your mind and keep acting differently than you expect? Quit being so self-righteous, Ryou. You don't want us to work together. You never did, as you just said so directly only seconds before. Don't go saying that it's obvious and just natural that we can never be partners and then shout at me for it being that way only moments later.

The one who doesn't want us to be partners the most is after all you, isn't it?

[[He reflexively flinches at the poke, moving back to cover his chest, breath racing just a touch]]

That-- that isn't.. I-- [[he stammers, thrown off balance]] I didn't--

[[He tenses for a moment before looking down, shoulders going slack]]

...I don't know... [[finally admits miserably.]]

Then maybe you should try and figure out what you damnest want before you go around blaming others for your problems again. [His voice and expression are too pleasant as that he could really mean it in a purely nice way. He has had long enough of Ryou's blaming games.] Just a suggestion.

[[the list of what he wanted was far too long and contradictory to be anything he could possibly hope for.]]

... I want things to be simple... but they can't be... because that isn't how things are. I want us to be friends, but you don't want to be... I want to know where I stand with you but it always seems like it's changing...

I don't want you to just be that jerk. But I don't how to change it....! You're the only person I get angry at and every time I do everything gets worse....

Because you want me to be something I'm not!! [He snaps right back, feeling half annoyed at himself at having expected that maybe, just maybe, his host would quit whining and twisting it into his fault again.]

I'm not your damn scapegoat, I'm not your knight in shining armor that you can call when things look bad and if you think I'll twist my personality into whatever absurd image you have of a best friend then you're fucking delusional!! I'm myself and if you can't deal with that you can go die in the desert for all I care!!

I don't want you to twist your personality! I want you to stop changing every 5 seconds so I even know what I'm dealing with! If you hate me, then just hate me, if you don't then don't, but stop going back and forth between the two so much that I don't know what to even do any more! Everything you show me is some variation on a mask or a trap or something else like it and I don't know how to deal with it!

As if you EVER know how to deal with anything!

[He growls and catches himself, running a hand that sharply through his hair that his fingers catch in the tangles of his mane and he ends up pulling his own scalp painfully. Bakura concentrates on the physical pain, using it as an anchor to pull himself back into a clearer state of mind. He is still angry, but he won't let his emotions get the better of him. For their both damn sakes, because otherwise there'd be blood.]

Okay. Look, yadounushi. Maybe it hasn't occurred to you yet, but the one who keeps saying that I'm hating you is you, not me! I don't hate you. If I hated you I wouldn't have risk my life to save you over and over gain. But goddamn if your way of acting isn't driving me up a tree more often than not! I am not constantly dancing around in glee, hoping to show you or whoever else some damn mask or trap. I am not changing every damn five minutes! That's all you who can't make up his bloody mind about me!!

That's not...

[[The teen trails off, looking down, eyes hidden behind his hair]]

...it feels like almost everything you offer has strings attached... like there's a hidden cost attached to it, even if it's not something you had in mind... I know you're not dancing in glee... but I'm just another pawn in your game against the other Yuugi-kun.

...you don't even use my name....

[Usually Bakura would have charged at that display of weakness , the crack in the shell of Ryou's defenses, with vicious glee. But right now he didn't because he was too angry for it. Thanks to his hosts's antics his bad mood had return with full force.

He doesn't want to use; he wants to hurt.]

I'm still using it more than you have ever used mine! But please [reaching into one of his pants pockets he digs a switch blade the size of a pocket knife out of it. Snapping it open, he holds it so that Ryou can get a good look at the sharp blade.] if you insist we can also do it this way!

[[Bakura startles, moving back, eyes wide.]] Wh-- what are you-- Put that away...!

Oh no, you won't! You'll stay right here and burn this into your mind, Ryou Bakura!!

[He hisses as his hand snaps forward with the speed of an attacking viper and catches his host by the front of his shirt. He jerks the front of Ryou's button down shirt open with raw force, ignoring the sound of tearing fabric and how several of the buttons were sent flying. Finding the marks his Ring had left on Ryou he places his hand on them roughly, his nails digging into the pale skin.]

[[The sound that escapes the teen is one of pure, unadulterated terror and he struggles in his double's grip, trying to push the other way, breath racing and arms shaking.]] L-- Let go of me...! D--don't...!

[He makes a disgusted sound and pushes the other away to quickly run the blade over the scarred back of his left hand. It is an awkward cut, both because Bakura has to make sure not to cut anything important and because the scarred tissue is less easy to sever through than it normally would have been, but he does it in one go anyway, his rage serving as a lens for his concentration and neutralizing any pain he might have felt momentarily.]

You want closure and to know where you stand?! I'll help you!! [Tossing the knife to the side, he gives the largish cut a brief hard squeeze to make sure it bleeds properly and then smears a big bloody X over the scar on his host's torso, crossing out the mark of property the Ring had left. Then he splashes some more on Ryou's face in an angry hit against the empty air as if to server any last remaining connections between them.]

Here!! I have no host anymore!

The 17th Roll: May 12th, night [Text/Private to various]

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