Story

Duelist Kingdom Arc

Ryou Bakura can be seen early in the first episode, "Intimitadting Blue-Eyes White Dragon" in Yuugi's classroom, but only from the back. He was seen from the front, and indentified, when Mizaki Anzu saw him on the boat to Duelist Kingdom in "Exodia Cards Are Lost!". Anzu saw him once again as the players arrived on the island. However, he wasn't given a speaking role until near the end of episode 12, "Dark Flare! Red-Eyes Black Dragon!".

In that episode, Bakura initially startled Yuugi and his friends, because his movements made the bushes around their camp rustle. Everyone immediately relaxed when Bakura appeared. As he sat with the others around the campfire, a conversation started about which Duel Monsters card was everyone's favorite. Bakura's selection was the Magic Card "Change of Heart", a choice that surprised the others. Bakura suggested they have a duel against him for fun, with Yuugi, Honda, Anzu, and Jounouchi's favorites in Yuugi's deck.

After the duel was set up, Yami Bakura manifested, showing Yuugi that he had the Millennium Ring. Yami Bakura took everyone to the Dark Realm, sealing the others' souls inside Yuugi's deck to have no interference when he took the Millennium Puzzle. However, Yami Yuugi appeared and challegned Yami Bakura to a Duel Monsters game. If Yami Yuugi won, everyone's souls would be returned and they would be sent back to their dimension. If Yami Bakura won, he would get the Millennium Puzzle.

This duel had a new twist; a minature Jounouchi, Anzu, Honda and Yuugi each appeared on the field, dressed as the creatures on their favorite cards and subject to the games' terms. Yami Yuugi managed to make sure no one stayed in the Grave long, but Yami Bakura still felt he had the upper hand. He played Change of Heart, intending to turn the Yuugi-as-Black-Magician against his friends. However, Bakura appeared as the Change of Heart creature, and posessed the High Priestess Yami Bakura had on the field. Bakura intended to keep her still so Yami Yuugi could attack her and win. When Yuugi expressed reluctance, because Bakura would be also destroyed, Bakura said, "I don't care! It's better than being enslaved by an evil heart!". Instead of destroying the High Priestess, however, Yami Yuugi switched the souls of both Bakuras, returing Bakura to his body and making Yami Bakura a target on the Field. Yami Yuugi then destroyed the High Priestess/Yami Bakura, sending him to the Grave and the waiting Grim Reaper.

When the group had returned to reality and their bodies, Honda, Anzu, and Jounouchi believed it was a dream. Talking with Yuugi, Bakura explained he'd recieved the Millennium Ring along with a DM card from his father, who had acquired them on a trip to Egypt. From this point on, Bakura followed Yuugi's team to Pegasus's castle. Like the rest of Yuugi's friends, he provided moral support from the sidelines.

One night, Bakura noticed one of the spikes on his Ring was glowing and pointing towards Pegasus's castle. Bakura recalled that the Ring had done the same thing on his first day at Domino High School. At that time, it had pointed to Yuugi's Millennium Puzzle, and Bakura decided that this time, the Ring was pointing towards Pegasus's Millennium Eye.

When Jounouchi was taken underground and forced into a duel by "Bandit" Keith Howard and his three flunkies--Ghost Kotsuzuka and two others--Bakura, Yuugi, Honda, and Anzu went to look for him, eventually discovering the entrance to the tunnels. Shortly after going inside, they saw two coffins set up, and Bakura and Anzu went to take a look at them. The coffins opened and skeletons fell onto Bakura and Anzu, frightening them out of their wits until Honda and Yuugi knocked the skeletons off. Later, the gang lost Bakura, only to have him run screaming from the tunnel behind them, another skeleton on his back. After Honda got the skeleton off Bakura, Bakura accidently triggered a switch that brought a giant boulder rolling after them, Indiana Jones-style. Bakura tripped and appeared to get run over by the boulder, and when the other three were trapped at a dead end, Honda punched it...and the boulder popped, turning out to be a giant balloon with a speaker inside. After gathering up a rather traumatized-looking Bakura, they found Jounouchi.

After Jounouchi won the duel, the quintent was trapped underground by Bandit Keith. The Ring showed them the way through an underground labryinth, where Yuugi and Jounouchi had a duel against the Labryinth Brothers, who guarded the way leading outside. After Yuugi and Jounouchi won, the passageway brought the five up right outside the castle.

The night before the duels between the Duelist Kingdom finalists were to begin, Honda Hiroto suspected Pegasus of cheating. Accompanied by Anzu and Bakura, he conducted a search of the castle dueling arena and its platform. They found a pinhole in the wall that could allow someone from an outside tower to see a duelist's cards, and Honda decided to go to the tower, despite Bakura's fear. The trio searched the castle for a way inside, before finding a grappling hook to use to climb the tower. Once ready, Anzu objected to climbing first, because the boys could see up her skirt, so Bakura and Honda had to follow her up blindfolded. Inside they found Pegasus's private chambers, but no evidence of deciet. Crawford surprised them, and used his Millennium Eye to show them the ancient way of "playing" Duel Monsters. Two men in hooded robes faced off with stone tablets in an Egyptian temple. One tablet was carved with a Blue-Eyes White Dragon, the other with a Crawling Dragon. The former destroyed the latter's tablet, and then the Crawling Dragon player was incinerated. The player with the Blue-Eyes revealed himself to be Pegasus. Yami Bakura then appeared, sending them all back to reality and erasing everyone's memory except his of the event. Sitting in Bakura's room, Yami Bakura said that Pegasus's Millennium Eye would soon be his.

During Yuugi's duel with Pegasus J. Crawford for the souls of Mutou Sugoroku and the Kaiba brothers, Honda decided to find the souless body of Kaiba Mokuba, to make sure Pegasus didn't have all the advantages. Yami Bakura appeared and decided this wasn't a bad idea. Using the Ring's powers, he eavesdropped on messages recieved by Pegasus's henchman Croquet, monitoring Honda's progress through the castle's corridors. After the second call to Croquet, Yami Bakura left the dueling arena, telling Anzu and Jounouchi (in Bakura's normal voice, yet) that he was going to check up on Honda.

The Millennium Ring guided Yami Bakura to where Honda was trapped by two of Pegasus's goons. Yami Bakura drew the Magic Card "Magical Bands", and used the Ring's powers to snare the goons in bonds identical to those in the card's picture. Honda followed Yami Bakura away from the scene, already suspicious of his friend's behavior.

A new group of henchmen were soon chasing the pair, cornering them atop a staircase that led to a tiny ledge outside. Yami Bakura drew the Man-Eating Bug card, and used the Ring to summon the card's real counterpart. A translucent, living Man-Eating Bug attacked the goons. Honda finally deduced the truth: this wasn't the real Bakura, but the one Yami Yuugi had defeated before. While the goons were fighting off the Bug, Yami Bakura summoned a Metamorph Pot, which sent the goons to the Grave and the Grim Reaper.

Honda voiced his suspicions, and the confident Yami Bakura revealed he wanted Mokuba for the key to KaibaCorp, which was disgused as a Duel Monsters card that Seto had given him, held in Mokuba's locket. Yami Bakura began threatening Honda into handing over Mokuba, as the makings for a Game of Darkness appeared around them. Honda agreed, but suddenly tossed Mokuba at the surprised Yami Bakura, who barely managed to catch the boy. Honda then knocked Yami Bakura out. Deciding Bakura's necklace was the cause of the trouble, he took it off and threw it outside, where it landed in the forest. After that, Honda took the unconscious Bakura and empty Mokuba back to the dueling arena balcony.

When Yuugi's duel with Pegasus ended, Bakura awoke and greeted his friends. When Honda told him about the Ring and throwing it away, Bakura appeared not to understand what the Ring did to him. Bakura then agreed to watch Mokuba for his friends as they went to find Pegasus. However, the instant Yuugi and the others left, Yami Bakura appeared, and the Ring was shown to be hung round his neck. Yami Bakura proceeded to go after the weakened Pegasus and steal the Millennium Eye.

As Pegasus mourned in his inner sanctum, Yami Bakura came in. He asked, if Pegasus could read minds, could he also read the future? Walking over to the table in Pegasus's room, Yami Bakura did a Tarot reading of sorts with Pegasus's deck. The card Happy Lover represented Pegasus's early life, and revealed to Yami Bakura that Pegasus had known love, but its upside-down position meant the love ended in tragedy. The next one was Pegsus's present, the Mask of Darkness, which told him that Pegasus's recent actions disgused his true motives, which came from deep within his heart. As Pegasus grew annoyed, Yami Bakura flipped up his "The Angel of Death and Silence: Doma". Yami Bakura said that Pegasus couldn't escape death, and beams of energy came from the Ring and Eye and clashed together. The one from the Ring drove Pegasus into the wall, and he collapsed. Yami Bakura told Pegasus that he was a collector of Millennium Items, and asked if Pegasus knew that an owner of the seven Items could control the world. He then proceeded to remove Pegasus's Millennium Eye.

At some point, Yami Bakura left Pegasus's chambers and returned to the balcony, letting the real Bakura appear. Bakura went with Yuugi and his friends to search for Kaiba Seto, and then managed to catch a helicopter back home with them. Just before leaving, Yami Bakura appeared again and took the Eye out of his pocket to look at it. Grinning, he licked the eye. The manga version of the Eye's theft is consisderably more graphic, as shown by this image.

Battle City Arc

Shortly after the Battle City tournament began in Domino City, Yami Bakura detected the same dark energies from the warehouse duel. Sugoroku, Honda, Anzu, and Jounouchi ran into him on the street, and he briefly posed as the real Bakura to chat with them. After Jounouchi and the others rushed off to the aquarium to see if Kajiki Ryouta would duel, Yami Bakura left also.

As Malik drove his motorcycle through the Domino City, Yami Bakura ran out in front of him, causing Malik to stop. Showing Malik the Ring, Yami Bakura demanded Malik hand over the Millennium Rod, stating he needed the seven Items to open the door to darkness, and gain the dark powers. Malik said that if the pharaoh (meaning Yami Yuugi) died in Battle City, than the Rod was useless. He proposed that Yami Bakura should help him. Yami Bakura refused, so the two tested their dark powers against each other. But then, Yami Bakura decided it was better to target Yuugi's friends, which was also part of Malik's plan. Yami Bakura said he had an "easy" host that he could use.

So a bargain was struck; Yami Bakura would get the Millennium Rod after he helped Malik kill Yami Yuugi. Offscreen, Yami Bakura cut his left upper arm, and let the real Bakura out to experience the pain. Malik, under the alias "Namu", brought Bakura to where Yuugi's friends where. Bakura didn't know why he was in such pain or what had happened, and Sugoroku took Bakura to the hospital.

Afterward, when Bakura lay in the hospital, Yami Bakura found that part of Malik had taken up residence in Bakura's head. Malik told Yami Bakura the deal had changed: Malik and Yami Yuugi would be at the Battle City finals, and Yami Bakura ought to go, too. In the outer world, Sugoroku tried to wake Bakura up, concerned because the boy had been moaning in his sleep. Yami Bakura said he had a nightmare, and Sugoroku said he'd just recieved a call; Yuugi and the others were making their way to the finals, but Sugoroku had forgotten to ask where they were being held. Yami Bakura rose from the bed, and Sugoroku said he should rest. But Yami Bakura used the Ring to make Sugoroku pass out, and left the hospital.

After stealing a Puzzle Card and Duel Disk from a novice duelist, Yami Bakura overheard other ones talking about the finals. Grabbing the shirt of one of the boys, Yami Bakura asked if there were other duelists anywhere who wanted a duel. He learned there where some in the cemetary.

Ghost Kotsuzuka and Bandit Keith's other two former henchmen were in the local cemetary, wearing halloween masks and scaring duelists into leaving their decks and Duel Disks there. By doing this, they had acquired five Puzzle cards. They tried the same on Yami Bakura, but he was unfazed. The trio remembered Bakura from before, and assumed he was a beginner. Ghost asked to duel, and Yami Bakura agreed. He turned the duel into an inescapable Game of Darkness, in which the three boys' lives were the price of losing. When Ghost lost to Yami Bakura, all three were absorbed by dark creatures.

Battle Ship Arc

Aboard the Battle Ship, the duelists waited for the first round combatants to be announced. Yami Bakura sat in his room and gobbled a steak, saying that blood wasn't enough for him. Part of Malik still remained inside Bakura.

In the room where the draw was to be held, Yami Bakura posed as the real Bakura again. Jounouchi bumped into him by accident, and Yami Bakura said how nervous he was. When Jounouchi asked what kind of deck he had, Yami Bakura said it was an Occult Deck, telling Jounochi, when he asked if it was like Ghost's deck, that he'd duelled Kotsuzuka before. Surprised and a little scared, Jounouchi thought that he never wanted to duel Bakura. The first-round combatants were selected using a bingo machine shaped like a Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. Bakura was number 6, and was set against Yuugi, number 3.

Yuugi and Yami Yuugi were already suspicious that it was Yami Bakura in control. As the two squared off, Yami Yuugi manifested as said that Yami Bakura could show his true face. The Ring appeared around his neck, and Yami Bakura thought how he needed Yuugi to open the gate to darkness, and so his enemy must live. He told Yami Yuugi that he wanted the God Cards, but Yami Yuugi wasn't fooled. Their duel began.

Near the end of the duel, Yami Yuugi had his foe on the ropes, and Malik suggested to Yami Bakura that there may be a way to win. Yami Bakura, annoyed, ignored him, even when Yami Yuugi drew God of Osiris from his deck. Rishid, still posing as Malik, walked out to the edge of the dueling ring and said Bakura and Yami Bakura were controlled by the Millennium Rod. To prove it, Rishid said he'd release the real Bakura's spirit. This surprised Yami Bakura, but he let Bakura out anyway. Bakura immediately collapsed, clutching his arm, still not knowing why he was hurting or how he'd ended up here. "Malik" said if Osiris attacked, Bakura may be injured. Yami Yuugi started to run to his fallen friend, but the referee for the duel said that if Yami Yuugi went over to Bakura, it was an automatic loss for Yami Yuugi. Watching from the sidelines, the others told Yami Yuugi to stop, or Bakura might die. However, Yami Bakura still had his Ouija Board on the field, which was almost done spelling out "Death", and would make Yami Bakura win. In Bakura's head, Yami Bakura acknowledged that Malik's tricks were better than his Occult Deck, but quickly added that he had his own way of doing things, so he drove Malik out of Bakura's mind, and re-manifested. Standing, he told Yami Yuuugi that Bakura's body was important to him, so he needn't worry about Bakura dying. As Osiris attacked, Yami Bakura declared he would own all the powers of darkness in the end. The cord that he wore the Ring on broke, as Bakura fell to the deck. Everyone rushed to him, and Honda carried the semi-conscioius Bakura to his room. Yami Yuugi refused to take any cards from Bakura's deck as the winner.

According to Kaiba, the Battle Ship had better medical facilities than any hospital, so there was no need to land. Bakura was put in bed, but no one could find the Ring. Some of Malik still existed in Anzu from when he'd controlled her before, and he took control again, keeping the Ring for himself.

Many things passed as Bakura lay in bed. Shadi was aboard Battle Ship and visited his room briefly, but Bakura did not wake. Yami Malik took control of Malik's body, sealing the original Malik away. But facets of Malik remained in Anzu and Bakura, and he used the former to take the Millennium Ring to Bakura's room and lay in on his pillow. Waking as Yami Bakura, he went to Rishid's room, where Yami Malik was planning to kill Rishid. Yami Bakura demanded the Millennium Rod, and Yami Malik used his powers to freeze Yami Bakura in place. But the Ring countered this, and Yami Malik said that as Millennium Item holders, they were equally matched. Their true competition would be in a Game of Darkness, where the loser would disappear. Yami Bakura eagerly accepted, confident he'd win.

Malik was still within Bakura, and he discussed things with Yami Bakura as the duel was to start. Yami Bakura said the bargain was still in effect, but now Yami Bakura also wanted to know about the tattoos on Malik's back. He believed there was more that he thought to opening the gate of darkness. The Game of Darkess began, with a new condition: as one lost Life Points, random parts of their body would dissolve. Yami Bakura attributed it to hungry spirits in the Dark Realm. Meanwhile, Anzu woke up by Bakura's bedside. Realizing he was gone, she went to find Yuugi. They looked for Bakura, coming to the top of the Battle Ship.

Inside the "bubble" of the Dark Realm, Yami Malik won using God of Ra. The God's fire breath decimated Yami Bakura's field, and Yami Bakura himself begain to dissolve into smoke. Just before his head was gone, Yami Bakura said he was darkness, and thus could never be killed. The Millennium Ring and its cord were all that remained. though a part of Yami Bakura was still inside the Puzzle, and found that he could explore Yami Yuugi's Soul Room as well.