Disclaimer: I don't own YGO, Get Backers or Beyblade

Summary: Semi-AU. 'Wyrd' is Domino's most prestigious boarding school that the gang is attending, with many 'wyrd' secrets. Ryou Bakura stumbles upon one of these secrets and now he and his roommate have to find a way to reverse its curse on him.

Other Information: Crossover with Beyblade, Get Backers and Hunter X Hunter.

Warnings: yaoi or shounen-ai (can't tell difference, sorry), swearing, implied sexual activities, possible yuri or shoujo-ai and a little angst. Also bad attempts at humour. OOC-ness.

Pairings Introduced: Yugi/Anzu, Ishizu/Ginji, Ban/Himiko, Jounouchi/Mai, Rei/Mao

Crushes Introduced: none at the moment

Author's Notes: I dunno why I'm starting a new fic anyways. 'One Second's Refrain' and 'Identity' have practically been discontinued due to lack of response from people. I dunno if this fics gonna be different or not - but fingers crossed, eh?

- One -

The first day of school is never easy. After two months of lazing about, sleeping in and hanging out with friends, you were thrown back into a school system with strict rules and curfews you never had during the holidays. Well, that was how Ryou felt when he woke up on the day he was supposed to get back to school.

Bakura, Ryou's older brother, was already awake, grumbling about how his uniform was dorky and that he didn't get to finish some holiday assignment or other. Ryou sighed, glad that he had finished all of his in the first few weeks of the holidays so that he didn't have to worry about them later. It was his way of doing things.

"Nee, niisan," he called, pulling on his uniform. "Did you take my school tie?"

"No, I didn't," Bakura called back, stomping out. He was wearing a green sweater, white shirt and grey pants with a ridiculously short red tie. "Oh wait, yeah I did."

He took it off and threw it to his younger brother, who caught it with a grin and put it on. Bakura went to find his own tie, which had ended up somewhere in the back of his wardrobe at the end of the previous school year. Then he kicked his school trunk open and dumped half a dozen porn magazines on top of his schoolbooks and clothes.

"Come on," he yelled. "How long do you take in there, Ryou? We have to GO!"

"I'm coming!"

Ryou thundered down the stairs, dragging his school trunk and grabbed a piece of toast from the table. After that, he wrestled his school shoes on and was out the door after his older brother. Their things were loaded into a cab and they drove off in the direction of the school, fiddling with either a loose shoelace or a hurriedly done tie.

-

"Yugi, we're EARLY."

"Niisan! At least we're not LATE!"

The older teen sighed. His younger brother, Yugi, was ecstatic about coming back to school for some strange reason. Of course, this was about the only time when he would actually get to see his girlfriend, Mazaki Anzu. Wyrd was a boarding school so Yugi could see her day in, day out, whenever he liked. At home, he never got any privacy from his family so that made their 'dates' a little awkward.

"Oh, look, niisan!" Yugi exclaimed, pointing. "There's Kaiba-kun!"

Kaiba Seto had just stepped out of his limo, saying goodbye to his younger brother and ordering a servant to carry his school trunk to where everyone else's was. Then the limo drove off and he made his way over to the shady area under the trees. He was also dressed in the school uniform, only with an added gold badge on his tie showing that he was prefect.

"Stuck up as ever, I see," Yami grumbled.

"Oh, come on niichan," Yugi chided. "You're just jealous cos Kaiba-kun's running for council president and he's a year younger than you."

"I am not."

"Oi, Yugi! Yami!"

They turned to see a blonde running towards them, having already deposited his trunk in the main hall. Jounouchi Katsuya glared at his arch nemesis, Kaiba, who just read his book, disinterested in the blonde 'make inu'. The two Mutous greeted him enthusiastically and they began a long-winded conversation of their holidays. It turned out that Jounouchi had gone to the beach with his little sister Shizuka and their mother for the majority of the holidays.

"How's Shizuka-chan?" Yugi asked. "Is her sight all right?"

"She's getting along fine," Jounouchi replied. "It was a good thing she had that operation, though, otherwise she would be blind by now."

"I thought you were coming with Mai?"

"Nah." Jounouchi flushed a little. "Mai said she'll come by herself."

"Did you two have another fight?"

"No! Mai was just a bit - "

His sentence was interrupted when a brunette snuck up on Yugi and covered his eyes with a whispered 'guess who?'. Yugi grinned and greeted his girlfriend with a kiss on the cheek. The other two rolled their eyes and greeted the next two people of their gang to arrive - Honda and his girlfriend, Miho.

Miho and Anzu wore the girls' version of the uniform - a grey skirt instead of pants and a red tie that was more like a bow. All of them wore white socks and polished black school shoes and carried black book bags with them.

"We have full school assembly first thing," Yami said, pulling out a timetable.

"Hey, how come you've got a timetable?" Jounouchi complained.

"I'm a senior," Yami replied loftily. "And seniors get privileges."

"OTOGI!"

The screech came from Bakura Ryou, another one of their friends, who had just been tackled by his own best friend, Otogi Ryuuji. The black-haired teen grinned evilly and sat on the albino's back, playing with his hair and die earring. Ryou looked more than a little disgruntled. His older brother, Bakura, was clutching his sides and laughing.

"Baka Ryou," he crowed. "You should have seen that coming."

"Not helping niisan!" Ryou shouted, annoyed. "Get up, Otogi, before I hurt you."

"Hey," Otogi whined. "I thought I told you to call me Ryuuji last year."

"I don't really care, you know."

"But I thought you loved me," Otogi said mockingly, pouting.

"Yeah, I do, Ryuuji honey," Ryou drawled sarcastically. "But there's a fine line between love and hate and you are, at this very moment, crossing it."

Otogi grinned wider and jumped off the other teen's back, offering a hand to help him up. Ryou took it grudgingly and dusted himself off, before glaring at his best friend. Then he stomped off to join Yugi-tachi, who greeted him enthusiastically. When the conversation dwindled to topics that didn't interest him, Ryou looked around for his brother.

Bakura was with his own best friend, Malik Ishtar, who had a twin brother called Marik and the three of them were talking in a tight little group by the gates. Probably planning some way to disrupt the school or something. It didn't really matter anyway, they always caused trouble whenever they could. Everyone was used to it.

His eyes wandered over to Kaiba, who was sitting underneath a tree.

-

"Ohayou, Kaiba-kun."

"Ohayou, Bakura-kun."

"Mou, Kaiba-kun," Ryou laughed, sitting next to the brunette. "I think you should call me Ryou. People confuse my name with niisan's because he doesn't use his first name."

Kaiba smirked a little at this. Bakura was infamous for no one knowing his first name, having not used it since he started high school. Ryou was not allowed to tell anyone what his first name was, mainly because Bakura could beat him up without even trying, but also because he respected his brother's wishes to not have his name known to public. The albino sighed.

"Daijoubu ka, Ryou?"

"Un," Ryou replied quietly. "I was just thinking."

"About?"

"Roommates this year. I think we're changing again, for some reason. Last year, with Otogi, was total hell. I wonder who I'm rooming with this year?"

Kaiba nodded. He knew about Ryou's rooming problem. The albino liked his privacy and living with Otogi didn't provide any of it. The dice-boy was gossipy and loved to pry into things that weren't his business. Which was why the fact that Ryou was gay had somehow managed to leak out into society near the middle of last year. Much to his embarrassment, several of the other gay guys in their grade had approached him within the next three days.

"Who would you prefer to room with?"

"I don't really know," Ryou admitted. "I haven't given it much of a thought."

"We'll find out soon enough."

Otogi was flirting with a couple of girls in front of the school gates, standing in that classic pose of his which Ryou had deemed the 'gay pose'. Why did everyone get along so well with others and he was just - well, a loner? He didn't understand it at all. Then again, Kaiba was just the same.

"I was kind of hoping to room with someone like you, Ryou." Kaiba was looking at him. "I like my privacy as well and it would be good if I could room with someone who understood that. I hope you don't mind."

"Iie, of course not!" Ryou flushed a little. "You're my other best friend anyway, besides Otogi."

"Really now?"

"Un."

"I thought Yugi-tachi were closer to you than I was."

"Iie. Yugi-tachi are nice and all, but I don't find that I can talk to them as easily as I can to you or to Otogi. With you, I can be assured that my secrets don't get leaked out into the public and with Otogi - he makes a joke out of almost everything."

He realised how much he had just said and flushed.

"Gomen, I must be annoying you."

"Not at all." Kaiba looked around the schoolyard. "Actually, you're the first person I've actually spent this long talking to, besides Mokuba. Arigatou."

Ryou blinked. Kaiba was thanking him for making basic, idle conversation? And he had always thought that the other teen hated wasting his time! But then, he had never seen Kaiba so . . . like this, before. It was like he could just offer up compliments and the like without blinking or feeling awkward or inclined to do so. In other words, relaxed.

"Not at all," he replied.

"There goes the bell. Come on, we have to go."

"H-Hai."

-

Takao plopped himself onto a seat in the assembly hall and jumped up immediately with a disgusted yell. He had just sat on a piece of chewing gum that had been placed there as a practical joke by someone. He moved up one row and checked whether there was gum there or not before sitting down.

"I hate school," he grumbled.

"We know that already, Takao," his brunette friend, Hilary, pointed out.

"No one asked your opinion."

"Will the two of you just can it?" Kenny said in frustration. "It's the first day of school and you guys are already at each other's necks!"

"Bickering like a married couple," Max added with a laugh.

They were the first in the hall, having been dropped off at school early by the principal himself, Dickenson. Max's mother was the vice-principal of the school and took her duties both as a staff member and as a mother very seriously. Max took after her in many ways. He had her blonde hair, blue eyes and vast intellect, but even his intellect couldn't compare with mouse- brown haired Kenny, the Chief.

"Hey, guess what I heard kaasan telling tousan the other day?" Max laughed.

"What?"

"Well, she was talking to Pegasus-san, the English teacher, the other day and he was complaining about some student's English essay, which was a story. He was furious about it for some reason. It turns out that the kid wrote a story about a prince and a princess and the first thing that the prince asked was 'do you speak Japanese?' and the princess said 'sure!' and then the rest of the essay was written in Japanese!"

They all roared with laughter at that. After a while, when the bell rang, they scrambled for seats and were joined by the other two other members of their 'gang'. One of them had long, black hair and cat-like features while the other was a bluenette with blue face paint. The others greeted them as Rei and Kai.

Soon, the rest of the school came in, chattering and laughing with each other - generally catching up on what they'd missed over the holidays. They all sat in dormitory groups so their dorm, the West dorm (A/N: couldn't think of a better name), sat in the left half of the hall. Other groups in their dorm came in as well, choosing their seats and sitting with their friends. Takao snickered when Mao, from the White Tigers gang, sat on the chewing gum seat and freaked.

"Damare Kinomiya!" she screeched at him.

"Yeah well, SUCKER!" Takao crowed back.

"Takao-kun! Mao-chan! Urusai!" Rei shouted, trying to placate the two.

Kai sat in his seat with a walkman, tuning out the rest of the world with a bored expression. He didn't usually participate in their meaningless conversations, preferring to stay in his own little world where no one bothered him. They were fine with that, so long as he acknowledged their existence once in a while, which he was perfectly all right with.

"Hiwatari-san," a voice said from next to him.

"Nanda?" he asked a little impatiently, removing the earphones.

"Nothing," the girl stammered. "I was just wondering whether this seat was free."

"Whatever."

He went back to his music and the girl sat down quickly, keeping as far away from him as possible. The others grinned and resumed their chattering, not noticing the pinkish tinge around the girl's cheeks. Kai had that kind of intimidating and awing effect on the people who didn't know him. A blonde woman came up onto the stage.

"Attention please, students," she said into the microphone. "Please settle down."

The hall quietened and the staff filed in. Max gave his mother a small wave and Judy beamed back at her son, before joining the staff ranks, on the right hand side to the principal. Dickenson was a jolly old man who wore a brown suit and had a walking stick with him. He was balding at the top of his head and wore spectacles on his nose.

"Welcome back to another year at Wyrd," he said warmly. "I'm sure you're all excited about catching up with your fellow classmates and friends, so let's get this assembly over and done with so you can do so. Now, as you all know, we have four new prefects - two from each dorm house. They are Hilary and Robert Jurgen from the West dorm and Kaiba Seto and Mazaki Anzu from the East dorm."

A scatter of polite applause followed. Takao turned and made a rude gesture towards Jounouchi Katsuya on the other side of the hall. It was returned angrily, until the brunette, Anzu pulled him back down by the hem of his school shirt. Takao smirked and settled back into his own seat with a satisfied smirk. Hilary knocked him over the back of the head roughly, sighing in exasperation.

"Roommates have been listed on the dorm notice boards outside the buildings respectively. If there are any problems, please take them to the counsellor, Amano-san, who will decide whether or not any action will be taken. Otherwise, you will find your rooms, roommate and both your timetables will be in the rooms when you go inside. School starts this afternoon, so you have three hours to unpack and get settled. Dismissed."

-

The clock struck nine as the students pushed their way out of the hall. Ryou clung onto the back of Otogi's bag to prevent himself getting lost in the midst of all the students clamouring to see who they were rooming with that year. Fortunately for Yugi, who was rather lacking in height, he could squeeze his way between the other students and to the front, where he hastily checked the roommates for his friends.

"Hey, what's it this year?" Jounouchi asked.

"Okay . . ." Yugi closed his eyes and began to recite what he saw on the noticeboard. "Jounouchi-kun and Honda-kun room 14, Marik-kun and Bakura- kun in 16, niichan and Malik-kun in 18, Otogi-kun and I are in 17 and Kaiba- kun and Ryou-kun room 15. Anzu and Miho are in girls' dorm 21 and Mai-san and her roommate is in 22."

"Who's my roommate then?" Mai asked.

"A girl called Natsumi."

"Natsumi-chan?"

Natsumi was a girl in Mai's Home Economics class who was known to be vibrant and jumpy. She had long black hair and dark eyes and a very happy- go-lucky attitude towards life. Mai grinned and went off in search of her new roommate. Meanwhile, Ryou was breathing a sigh of relief, seeing as he wouldn't have to room with Otogi any more.

"Am I that horrible?" Otogi asked, pouting. "You prefer Kaiba-kun over me?"

"Yes, any day, Otogi."

"Aw, that hurt, Ryou."

Ryou made a face at him and walked off in search of his room. The first floor was classrooms, as was the second floor. That meant his dorm room was on the third floor, which housed the rooms one to twenty. Otogi and the others trailed after him, chatting and talking still about their holidays. When they reached the third floor, Seto had just opened the door to his and Ryou's dorm room.

"Kaiba-kun, matte!"

"We're in the same dorm, as we hoped, Ryou," Seto said as the albino approached.

"Ee, that's great, nee?"

"Oi, Ryou," Bakura said, clamping his younger brother on the shoulder. "We're right next door so if your roomie here decides to feel you up, just give me a call, k?"

"Niisan!"

"Just kidding, otouto."

Ryou felt a smile tug at his lips as he watched Bakura and Marik go into their shared room. Then he turned and went into his own with a sigh and began unpacking.

- End of Chapter One -

A/N: another new story and I still dunno if I'll be updating this one, so if you like, then review. I most probably will so please review!

REVIEW!

Relinquished