Just Ryou

Bakura sitting on a rock

Bakura in the GX Teacher AU! He starts off as a freshly hired history teacher in season 1, but gets abruptly made the new head of Slifer Red in addition to teaching history right before the Genex Tournament. (Primarily due to the ongoing lack of a Red dorm head after what happened to Daitokuji.) (No, the long red dorm head coat does not help his grappling with his ties to TKB.)

the gang saw shadi's portrait in pegasus' castle.

JOUNOUCHI: You know, that guy wanted to uncover the secret of Yugi's Puzzle too... Bakura... He's the same as your... He's the same as the entity in that shady Ring!

RYOU: ! The Ring... You don't have to worry about that (anymore)... because I won't let it control me anymore... (okay?)

ryou uses もの, which is the non-contracted/still casual but less so form of (だ)もん. it indicates the reason for something or can express dissatisfaction.

so ryous really attached to the ring! he doesnt take lightly to it being insulted lmao

ryou... twice youve lied... and to your friends! that narcissism in your character chart really ringing true here. I mean he does have bakura more under control. bakuras handling ryou differently, and hes behaving somewhat too...

its also interesting how ryou tends to deflect from talk of the ring. right after, he turns the topic back to pegasus.

RYOU: Yugi-kun. The secret of the Millennium Items is surely hidden on this island! Pegasus must know something!

ATEM: Yeah, seems like it!

or yknow. he just straight up ignores the freakout it causes 🤭

RYOU: That's right! Jounouchi-kun has a younger sister, and her eyes are...

JOUNOUCHI: Bakuraaaa!! Don't you say any more!!

RYOU: ...! Jounouchi-kun...

JOUNOUCHI: Don't tell a prick like him about that...

RYOU: (I don't know anything about DEATH-T or what Kaiba-kun has done) But meeting Kaiba-kun for the first time on this island... I mean, I see that he's aloof... proud and selfish in his ways... but he risked his life to save Mokuba-kun... I can't think of him as a terrible person at heart...

JOUNOUCHI: Bakura! You don't know what he's really like!!

RYOU: ! Sorry...

quite the clash when tension runs high because of their opposite personalities.

it puts ryous lv4 "careless" (as in, "without due thought") trait from the character analysis chart on full display. cuz to me, it looks like ryou says it how he sees it to get a point across, almost objectively 🤔 while jounouchi's lv2 "fixation" has him unable to let seto's past actions go.

also its funny cuz,

ryou: defends jounouchi at the risk of revealing a personal matter

jounouchi: no

ryou: acknowledges he doesnt have the full picture and gives his candid two cents thats in favor of seto

jounouchi: no!

what just happened in these two pages? why is ryou talking like that???

ですか？？？行きmあしょうか？？？ to HONDA too of all people!!

who is this! this ryou is being more suspicious than bakura! honda, my good man, is this not setting off warning bells?

you can tell where it starts getting weird. here, ryou is using his normal, casual speech in these two panels

and then sudden shift to uncharacteristic politeness for the rest of the page???

bakura… is this you failing to be ryou again… if it is, my demon son, Im disappoint!! youve been with ryou for six years at this point and you still dont know the basics! the fundamentals! this is why you lost the dark rpg! you didnt get to know your host properly lmao!

ok but did bakura put ryous "harmless" face to use and let ryou take control for a bit to look genuinely confused around the guards (but why the need to do this in the first place? where did bakura go?)? then bakura assumed control again as soon as honda appeared (out of surprise? to reflexively protect ryou from being jumped by a potential guard???). but its not a guard. its just honda. so bakura has to act natural and be ryou. but he just sorta fucked up anyway with his poor attempt at pretending...? wtf is this messy 2 pages...

maybe thisll be explained later but right now Im upset. what was this all about, takahashi-sensei? what was the significance? did you mess up and forget???? is that what happened.

anyway, speaking of harmless. have this honda thinking a nice thing about ryou

HONDA: You look harmless, so you'll be fine!

Meanwhile, traveling with the Reds are Shou (just wants to hang out with Judai), Kenzan (also just wants to hang with Judai), Fubuki (really doesn't want to stay with Blue atm after most of Blue got converted into the Society of Light/he narrowly avoided conversion/the Obelisk Whites are all gunning to convert Fubuki since he's one of the strongest Duelists in the school), and Edo (starting to feel a little offput by Saiou's Society of Light cult but not willing to admit it yet), and a good chunk of the students are more interested in sightseeing the major Battle City locations/trying to pester Bakura about the tournament (which he doesn't remember most of).

Bakura definitely has to remind the kids that Battle City had some messed up stuff going on without getting into his own possession situation, especially once they stumble on the pier where Yugi and Jounouchi were forced to duel or die. (Bakura, probably: My friends almost died here, this isn't a sightseeing spot.)

his younger sister and mother die in a car crash when he was a kid. He writes letters to his sister in heaven updating her on things that have happened and asking her how shes been.

(before the main story) everyone he makes friends with loses their souls and falls into never ending comas because of the evil spirit in his ancient relic necklace thing. He has no idea why. it causes him to avoid making friends and getting too close to people. he doesnt want them to get hurt.

because his friends keep "coincidentally" getting into comas, awful rumors spread about him which get so bad he needs to switch schools. cycle repeats until he meets the main character.

said evil spirit that posesses him stabs him 1- In the arm, 2- straight through his hand, and 3- in five different spots in his chest!!

(later in the series) without even knowing it, he gets sent to what is sort of an equivalent of hell for people who are still alive (the shadow realm) because his evil spirit loses a bet he couldnt win. This is barely brought up by the other characters, instead they keep talking about a different character who was also sent to the shadow realm because they were closer, and ryou was just kind of.. there. whereas the other characters who got sent there (but still have their empty soulless bodies left behind) have people at their bedsides always looking over them, ryou doesnt have anything of the sort.

he gets his soul stolen and noone barely cares or mentions it!! its only when the villain who did it brings it up a long time after that people are like "!!"

the spirit has taken on ryous identity so much that at times people cannot figure out when it is posessing ryou, which you can also take as People not caring enough to tell the difference from two VERY different people (when one of them is supposed to be their friend.)

he is in a sense a parallel to the main character except everything went wrong.