Yami No Matsuei Fan Fiction / Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction / GetBackers Fan Fiction ❯ Something for Nothing (All Possible Worlds part 1) ❯ In Which Bakura and Ryou Get Back Something for Nothing, 1 ( Chapter 1 )

 

 

 

All Possible Worlds, Part 1: In which Bakura and Ryou Get Back Something for Nothing

Author: Tsutsuji

Fandom: Yugioh, with crossovers!

Crossovers in Part 1: GetBackers and Yami no Matsuei (Descendants of Darkness)

Crossovers100 Prompt: Teammates

Rating: PG13

Warnings: - a little language, shonen ai (m/m romance), a bit of angst here and there.

 

Disclaimer: Yugioh! characters and Duel Monsters belong to Kazuki Takahashi and associates. GetBackers characters and settings belong to Yuya Aoki and Rando Ayamine and associates. Descendants of Darkness characters and concepts belong to Yoko Matsushita and associates. Tenchi Muyo! characters belong to Hitoshi Okuda and various others. "Tsutsuji" is just a fangirl who is borrowing them all for the moment, and she makes absolutely no money from any of this silliness.

 

Something for Nothing, Chapter 1

 

A few days after their visit to the vanished Masaki house, Ryou found out that the tourist brochures weren't exaggerating: the old city of Kyoto was beautiful, even past the last fading days of autumn. An early snow had fallen, muting the late autumn colors and blending the lines between the old world and the newer parts of the city.

 

The snow was a whole new experience for Bakura, who only had known of it vaguely through Ryou's memories and sensations when they shared a body. He didn't like it.

 

"Damn, this shit is cold! How can people live in a place like this?" he said. He stood next to Ryou on a street corner at the edge of the oldest part of the city, with his arms wrapped around himself and shivering in a heavy, dark red coat. His hair stood up like ice-spears.

 

"In 5000 years you never experienced winter first-hand?" Ryou said, amused. "That's hard to imagine!"

 

"I never had such a well-traveled host before," Bakura retorted. "The Ring was never out of Egypt before your illustrious father bought it, you know."

 

"No, I didn't know, but I guess it makes sense now that you mention it."

 

Ryou cocked his head as they walked along the narrow streets, wondering vaguely as he did now and then just how Bakura's spirit had ended up trapped in the Millennium Ring so long ago. All he knew of Bakura's past life were the glimpses he had in the nightmares he shared with Bakura through their mental link, and what he could guess from the things Bakura had done when he first possessed Ryou, back when he was only obsessed with acquiring the Millennium Puzzle and the other five Items. They never spoke of Ancient Egypt or Bakura's life there.

 

However, Bakura no longer seemed interested in the Items, and the only remaining vestige of his former obsession was his continuing (and mutual) animosity toward Yugi's Other Self, who didn't even remember his own past life as Pharaoh. Ryou didn't care much about that, though. As far as he was concerned, all that mattered now was their future together, and that relied a great deal on Bakura retaining his own body.

 

He clasped his cold hands against his chest to warm them, but it was really to feel the solid familiarity of the Ring under his shirt. They had talked together a little about what might happen when the clone body made by Drakken began to break down, if Shego's message had been true and Drakken really didn't know what he was doing when he made it. They didn't even know if Bakura's spirit could return to the Ring or possess him again, if the new body did give out - and Ryou couldn't bear to think of the alternative. They had to find an answer before that happened.

 

"We should be able to see the university from around here," he said, turning from side to side. "The directions said it wasn't far from the old historic district..."

 

The line between the historic old town and the newer neighborhoods was marked by a wide area of new construction, all hidden behind flimsy wooden panels that lined the sidewalk for blocks. Ryou heard faint sounds of hammers and saws, muffled voices and the rumble of vehicles, but the only visible sign of what was going on behind the wooden barriers was a fifty foot tall crane that towered above one section they passed. Ryou wrinkled his nose; the cold air stunk of diesel fuel and tar, or something worse that he couldn't identify.

 

He was surprised and a little sad that there was so much new construction going on in the ancient town. If the circumstances had been different, he would have loved nothing better than to drag Bakura around to all the old temples, gardens, and shrines they could find. It seemed like a strange place to be hunting for a scientist engaged in cutting edge medical technology.

 

Bakura stumped along with his head down and muttered about the cold, unimpressed by either the jumble of historic buildings or the wonders of modern construction technology. Ryou craned his neck to see something that looked like the buildings of a major university. He assumed it was large enough that it would be easy to find, but all they eventually found was a school building that turned out to be no more than a high school.

 

"But it has the same name as the University," Ryou said, studying the sign near the gate. "It must be connected somehow. But where...?"

 

"Considering the situation," Bakura said through chattering teeth, "I am not above asking directions from schoolgirls."

 

"What do you mean? Oh!" Ryou caught sight of them then; there were three of them, all in identical coats, scarves, and skirts, huddled on the path a few yards away. All three stared at them with wide eyes while they whispered to each other. When they realized they'd been spotted, they stopped, blushed redder than Bakura's coat (or even Bakura's frozen nose), and their eyes got even bigger. Then the squeals and giggles broke out again in a rush.

 

"Not again," Ryou said wearily. "I wish they wouldn't look at you like that!" he muttered, but he followed Bakura toward them.

 

"It's only because the genetic material I'm made of came from you," Bakura said, wiggling his eyebrows at Ryou.

 

"No," Ryou said, giving an appreciative once-over to Bakura's broader-shouldered, slightly taller build. Even under the bulk of the coat, hunched over like an old man against the cold, the sight and closeness of him gave Ryou a very pleasantly warm flush through his whole body. "No, it is not because of that at all. It may have been my DNA that Drakken used, but your spirit gave that body its form, and that's why..."

 

That was why the trio of high school girls stared up at Bakura with awestruck gazes, as if he'd descended from the clouds in a golden glow of sensually-charged energy. One of them backed up a step, while the second one appeared to be frozen to the spot with her mouth hanging open. Miraculously, the third one managed to recover her wits and her manners enough to step forward with a refined little bow.

 

"May we help you?" she asked in a soft voice. The others twitched and blushed a little redder. Ryou realized - with a little bit of glee which he immediately felt ashamed for - that they were embarrassed to look so immature next to her more adult behavior.

 

"We hope so," Bakura said bluntly. Ryou winced. He didn't know if Egyptians had never had much for manners to begin with, or if it was just Bakura who so obviously lacked them; he strongly suspected it was the latter. "There's supposed to be a Shion University around here somewhere, isn't there?"

 

Ryou wouldnt have thought their eyes could stretch any wider, but they did, and the girl who had been frozen in place before now stepped back as if she'd been shocked. The polite girl faltered for a moment. He heard the two behind her whisper to each other behind their hands and nod, eyeing him and Bakura, but now they seemed rather more wary than excited. He didn't quite catch what they said at first, but a thrill ran through him when he caught one word: clones! He realized what they must be thinking: They look so much alike - could they be...?

 

The polite girl recovered herself, but answered with pursed lips. She pointed back the way they'd come, along the street that was lined with blank wooden walls.

 

"You just passed it," she said stiffly.

 

"What's left of it!" the most frozen-looking girl whispered loudly to the other.

 

Bakura glanced back at the area and frowned.

 

"That doesn't sound promising," he said.

 

"But, wait," Ryou stammered, confused. "You mean it's all being remodeled, or...?"

 

The acrid, unpleasant air that he'd noticed a moment ago came back to him on the wind, and his heart sank into his cold feet when he recognized the smell for what it was - The smoke of burnt wood and melted plastic smoldering under freshly fallen snow. That wasn't new construction in the midst of old Kyoto after all.

 

"Oh, dear," he said. "There was a fire...?"

 

The girls nodded slowly.

 

"Is there anything left worth visiting?" Bakura asked bluntly. Ryou cringed, but the girls shrugged in a way that was not entirely a negative answer.

 

"There's nothing on the university campus, but everything they could save from the fire is here," the polite one said, waving her hand toward the grounds of the high school. "They suspended all university classes, of course, but the staff have taken over our school until they can sort everything out. They're even planning to start holding some classes again soon, in our classrooms."

 

One girl groaned at that but the other giggled. Ryou couldn't understand either reaction, until he tried to imagine a flock of college students swarming into the classrooms and hallways of Domino High School. It would be confusing and crowded, to say the least.

 

"I can show you where their new offices are, if you like," the same girl offered, while her friends made impatient noises behind her back indicating they had other, better plans.

 

"We don't want to be any trouble..." Ryou began, but Bakura stepped past him.

 

"Thank you, that would be perfect," he said, grinning down at her. For a moment, it seemed as if she'd frozen to the spot as well, except that Ryou was fairly certain her suddenly bright red cheeks had nothing to do with the cold air. She proved her relative maturity once again, however, and recovered herself with a little shake before Bakura had to nudge her back to awareness.

 

"This way," she said.

 

It must have been a tremendous fire indeed, Ryou reflected after they passed through the high school gates. The wooden panels along the boundary between high school and university grounds had been thrown up more casually than the ones hiding the wreckage from view on the street, so they caught slim but clear views of the ruins within. There was little to see but a blackened mass of broken timbers and bricks, still smoldering under the light coating of snow. There had been at least one large building in common for both campuses, and the fire had started to spread across to the high school as well; yellow tape was strung like a web around several buildings on this side of the makeshift fence, and even beyond the far side of the high school grounds where some family homes had been damaged as well.

 

He wondered how long ago the fire had been, and what had caused it, and how it could have spread so fast that the entire University campus was destroyed. It couldn't have been very long ago. Perhaps, he thought with a shudder, if they hadn't gone to search for the Masaki shrine first, they would have arrived in the midst of it. He also wondered where the science lab had been.

 

Their guide's two friends had hestitated, reluctant to give up their other plans (or perhaps more reluctant to spend any more time than necessary within sight and smell of the ruins), but had finally decided to follow them, and now Ryou could hear their hushed whispers behind him and Bakura as they trudged across the campus toward the main building. Other students and a few adults passed them, most of them huddled against the cold; several had scarves over their faces to keep out the cold and the smell, which grew stronger as they got closer to the ruins. Even so, almost every one of them looked up sharply as they passed, and Ryou knew without turning around that several people stopped and watched them after walked by. He glanced at the girls; all three of them stared straight ahead, obviously well aware of the stares but pointedly ignoring them.

 

As much as it bothered him when it involved goggling school girls, Ryou was actually quite used to Bakura getting lingering looks from strangers, and to getting double-takes when people saw the two of them together. He frowned; he really didn't think they looked that much alike, but everyone else said they could almost be twins.

 

"How anyone could think that!" he often ranted at Bakura, who just laughed at the reactions they got. "You've got blue eyes and mine are brown; your hair is an entirely different shade of white and thicker than mine will ever be (no matter what I use on it), you're a good inch taller, ten solid pounds heavier and generally better built and..." he usually stopped about there. The other differences in size were things that other people didn't need to know about.

 

On this occasion, though, all the startled glances seemed more significant, coming from people at a school that was known for research on cloning. On the other hand, Ryou reminded himself as his heart speeded up, nobody had ever said they were cloning humans here; in fact, that whole idea was rejected in the scientific journals he'd glanced through at Domino High School library. Nervous, imaginative school girls might pass around horrified gossip about human cloning, but nobody (except self-proclaimed evil geniuses and mad scientists who kept a few extra planets in the closet under the stairs) would ever condone such a thing officially.

 

So why did everyone here at Shion keep looking at him and Bakura so strangely?

 

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continued in Chapter 2

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