Ryou Bakura

Name: Ryou Bakura

Age: 16

Nationality: British-Japanese-American

Special Skills: Gaming, woodcarving, forgiving

Likes: Food! Games, cats, not being alone

Best Friend: Yami/Thief King Bakura

Image Song: Missing by Evanescence

Background: Ryou Bakura, who really doesn't care for the Christian name his mother chose and prefers being called Bakura, grew up in England. His British-Japanese father married a Japanese woman and they had two children, Bakura and Amane. The family moved to America shortly after his father James Bakura discovered that an old college roommate, Tuomas, was a very unstable and disturbing person with an unhealthy obsession over white things, including white hair. They were happy for a time, but tragedy struck when Ayoko and Amane were killed in a car accident.

The other two Bakuras were never the same. James took to traveling almost all the time, often for his job but sometimes because he just couldn't stand to be in the house without his wife and daughter. He was so wrapped up in his own pain that he failed to notice his son's. Ryou Bakura learned to fend for himself and longed so desperately to not be alone that even when he discovered an evil spirit in the strange Millennium Ring his father brought back from Egypt for him, he secretly wanted the spirit to stay even though he also didn't want the spirit hurting anyone.

Bakura's sweetness and innocence worked on the human part of the composite being in the Ring, Bakura's own ancestor Thief King Bakura. Despite drowning in darkness for three thousand years, this tortured soul found a glimmer of light in Ryou Bakura and began to care about him in spite of himself, and in spite of Zorc Necrophades, the non-human part of the being. Upon Zorc's destruction, Thief King Bakura was released from the fusion and returned in tatters to Ryou Bakura. The boy was apprehensive and afraid, yet was horrified by the spirit's state and wanted to save him. A desperate prayer for his life brought Shadi and a mysterious angel, who granted the thief the Infinity Ring. He and Bakura needed to learn from each other, Shadi said, and the Thief King would be needed in an upcoming conflict between good and evil. If he fought for the side of good, he would be granted a second chance. Meanwhile, the Infinity Ring would grant him a physical form.

There were many issues of distrust and hurt to work through, but Bakura and the Thief King, whom he still calls Yami Bakura, managed to triumph through all of them, and after a dark and horrifying experience with the reappearance of Tuomas, they realized they were becoming friends and that they loved each other. And after Yami Bakura chewed James out for staying away, the man finally came to his senses and is trying to be around more. Despite problems getting along, they try to have a truce for Bakura's sake, and the three of them and their cat Oreo make an odd little family.

Personality: Bakura is sweet and quiet, but he has gotten to the point where he will snap and express his true feelings if pushed too far. He is very proper and mannerly, and struggles with how to teach Yami Bakura decent table manners. He sees Yami Bakura as a sort of odd older brother and looks up to him in some ways, although he also recognizes the thief's many faults and doesn't blindly idolize him.

Bakura also sees the good in Yami Bakura that the man can't see in himself. Bakura often encourages him and tells him he's good. He also feels that Yami Bakura was good in ancient Egypt, before Zorc poisoned his mind. After all, he says, Yami Bakura believed the Pharaoh's court all knew about and supported the Kul Elna massacre. Wanting to bring down such an unrighteous government was, in Bakura's eyes, righteous and good. Yami Bakura just went about it in the wrong way, and of course, he was really mostly going after innocent people who didn't really know about or agree with the massacre.

Bakura has a darker, more unexpected side, both in how to some extent he agrees with Yami Bakura wanting to fight for justice (even if he doesn't always agree with the methods) and in how he can be pushed into doing some unexpected things to fight for his loved ones. After learning that the Big 5 deliberately made Yami Bakura think Bakura was dead in the hopes that Yami Bakura would use his Infinity Ring in hatred and then be destroyed by it, Bakura was so angry and outraged that he used a Change of Heart card, made real by the Big 5's sick game, and mind-controlled Gansley to escape his prison. Bakura said afterwards that while he felt guilty for having done it, he didn't regret it. He also feels that had he been the victim in Kul Elna instead of Yami Bakura, he would have fallen to hate just as much, if not more.

He still desperately misses his dead sister Amane and often wrote letters to her in the past. Now that he has a beloved friend in Yami Bakura and his father is around more often, he doesn't feel the need to write letters out of desperate loneliness but he still likes to write to Amane in the hopes that maybe she really does receive and read the letters.

Differences between the timelines: Bakura's personality and background are pretty consistent in both, although Tuomas is only present in the current timeline. Bakura and Yami Bakura's interaction is very different, since this timeline is post-canon and Yami Bakura is no longer trying to conquer the world. It is also deeper than in the first timeline, since they have been able to work through the issues that canon presented to them and come out the better for it.

In this timeline, of course, the old mystery stories have not happened and it is somewhat a mystery how Oreo joined them in the current timeline. In Dragons at Dawn, however, it is mentioned that she was found when she and other cats started rubbing against Yami Bakura, the same as in the old mystery story. This venture apparently happened sometime between Taming the Darkness and Dragons at Dawn.