Bakura: *sweatdrop* You should have seen her ten minutes ago. She was bawling her eyes out! Anyway, we don't own YGO, but SJ does own Hiro, Gwen, Takeo, and Scott. Lisa, Amoura, and Yunet are Brood's.

Ryou: Yes, I really do have a sister named Amane. She's dead. *sweatdrops* Mentioned only in one volume of the manga.

()()()()()

The Yamis of Tokyo U: Freshmen

Chapter 6: Who We Are Meant To Be

He was standing in darkness. Not that that was anything new. But presently the blackness cleared from in front of his eyes, and he saw that he was standing ankle-deep in some sort of white mist, or maybe foam. He shuddered as he looked around him, because it was obvious he was in a graveyard. Crumbling headstones jutted through the mist every so often, along with weeds and small, spindly, barely-alive trees no taller then he was.

He felt unexplainably drawn forward, and began to walk, his feet making no sound on the ground. At least, presuming there was ground somewhere under the mist. There was no passage of time, nor any marking of distance, save that headstones would appear out of the mist in front of him, he would walk past, they would disappear behind him, and he'd come upon new ones.

After a time, he couldn't begin to guess how long, he saw something begin to form out of the mist in front of him. Not a headstone, something else. Three something elses. He began to run forward, but about five feet away from the somethings it was like he hit an invicible wall. An electric shock ran through him, and he was thrown back onto the ground. He lay for a moment, dazed, and then struggled to his feet, staring at the three forms with lay just out of his reach.

Two females and a male lay bruised, beaten, and naked side by side by side, the male in the middle and the women on eather side, their faces turned inward toward him. Behind each of them was a gravestone bearing their name.

The woman on the left looked the worst off. She couldn't have been more then thirteen or fourteen, at the very most, probably younger then that. Her pale blond, almost white hair was limp and ragged, draped around her form in a great swirl that suggested she'd been thrown there and hadn't the strength to move herself. She'd been slashed and torn all over the place, bruised and bleeding. Her lips were swollen and cracked, her eyes swollen shut. Her nose sat at an odd angle, probably broken. Her arms had been cut, her wrists slashed. Her torso had been cut as well, and her legs. What chilled the man watching for no reason he could name was the fact that the soles of her feet had been slashed as well, yet he had no name for the sense of anger that filled him at this sight, besides the pounding, red hot fury because he knew who this woman was.

The man in the middle wasn't slashed at all, save for a deep cut across his right cheek, a stab wound over his heart, and what looked to be a bullet wound on the other half of his chest. His arms were laid over the wounds, his left wrist crossed over his right, another thing that made he who was watching angry for no viable reason. Other then that, the man lay untouched, his white hair tangled and blood stained around his shoulders.

The second woman, on the man's right, had had her throat slit, as well as her wrists and the soles of her feet slashed. Again the sight of the slashed feet made the man watching furious. Her hair too, long and auburn, was swirled around her as if she'd been dropped. Carved into her back was a cresent moon, a star inside of it.

The man who watched now began to beat against the barrier, headless of the shocks it gave. He had to get to them, had to reach them, had to save them... Were they even still alive?

He stopped, and saw the rise and fall in the white-haired man's chest, saw the mist tremble before the auburn haired girl's nose and mouth. But the blond, the one he held dearest, lay motionless. As still as the graves she lay among. His heart suddenly overcome by an intence sadness like no other, he stopped his struggle against the barrier, staring helplessly at the three on the other side.

Suddenly the mist around their bodies trembled and rose, forming itself into a figure. Cloaked and robed in black she stared down at him with intence hatred in her cold blue eyes, her flame-red hair shivering in a breeze that the man could neither hear nor feel. She held a staff in her hand, one that he'd seen somewhere before if he only had the time to think.

But he didn't because then she opened her mouth to speak to him.

"I am Jalila," said she, "Servent of the true pharoah. Did you think you could hide from us forever?"

The man found his voice and countered her, trying to block out the roaring in his own ears and the pounding of his heart against his ribs. "You serve no one! It is I who know the true pharoah. And I will hide no longer! I will fight you, mark my words, I will fight you, and I will destroy you! No, I will kill you, just as I killed Firas, and I killed Briar-Rose."

Jalila laughed harshly, pointing with her staff to the three figures she stood over. "No, I don't believe you will. Not when at any time we could kill those that you love the most. One is dead, the other two flail on the edge of a chasam. Would you sacrifice Serenity, whom you love, even if you do not yet admit it? What about Bakura, the one that you caused to be made mortal, and is now a brother to you? Would you have them destroyed, no, killed, just so you could have your day?"

The man's mouth had gone dry, and he again began to pound on the barrier. "No, no! I will not believe it!" Tears were running down his face now, but he didn't notice. "You had nothing to do with Amane's death!"

"Didn't we?" she asked, her eyes glaring cruelly into his own. "Who caused the car to be unable to stop? Who made her suffer in agony, holding on just a few moments longer, only to die in your arms? Us! And we can and will destroy the others too. Ryou Bakura, you cannot hide from us, because we will find you. And if we cannot find you, we will find those you love, and you will come to us, because of what we will have done to them."

"No!" Ryou yelled again, pressing his hands over his ears and shutting his eyes tight. "No, I will not believe you!" He was weeping now, and though his eyes were shut tight, the image of Serenity, and Bakura, and dear little Amane laying dying in a graveyard was forever burned into his memory.

And then suddenly another woman stood with him, between Jalila and Ryou, her arms and wings stretched wide to protect him. As the dream began to fade, Ryou saw white feathers and black scales, and fancied that it was the Change of Heart that protected him.

~*~

Ryou awoke with a start, sweat and tears running down his face in small streams. He was back in the blackness of blindness, but he could still see the three bodies laying still as death, a white mist swirling around them. He sat up in bed and pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and burying his face in them. He wept, although he tried to muffle it. Bakura is just across the room, he had to keep telling himself, and he clung to the sense of that blue aura like it was his only hope.

Presently he felt someone sit down on the edge of his bed, and Hiro put his hand on his shoulder. "Ryou?" he whispered. "What's wrong?"

Ryou let out a couple more shuddering sobs, raising his face to wipe the tears away with the edge of his blanket. "N-nothing Hiro, just a nightmare." Of course, what was really unsettling him was that his nightmares were rarely just nightmares. Usually they were visions, as this one had been for sure.

"It doesn't sound like just a nightmare," Hiro said wryly. "What was it about? Sometimes it helps to talk."

Ryou wanted to say 'Go away! You know nothing about me or my dreams! Leave me be! Go back to sleep!', but he didn't. Instead he raised his face fully and shifted on the bed so that Hiro didn't have to perch on the edge. He spread his hands out flat, palms down, on the blanket and chose his words carefully.

"Fifteen years ago, my family was happy. Normal. Well, as normal as any family is. My parents were both archiologists, so we moved around a lot. It was on a dig in Egypt when I was five that my little sister Amane was born. We were the perfect greeting-card family, the four of us..."

"Four?" Hiro asked, surprised. "Shouldn't that be five? What about Bakura? Was he adopted later or something? Then why do you look so much alike?"

Ryou smiled mysteriously, although it drooped, ignored the questions, and kept going. "As a present, my father got me an Egyptian artifact. The Millenium Ring."

"I've seen you wear it," Hiro said. "Is it really ancient?"

Again Ryou ignored him, plowing on. "Then, when I was ten and Amane was five, Mom got cancer. We moved back to Domino City, and for awhile Dad still went on digs while Mom went to the doctor's and did chemo and stuff. And then..." Ryou dropped his face, so that his eyes were hidden in shadow. "Everything fell apart. Dad was on a dig in Israel when Mom finally died. I was only eleven, I didn't know what to do..." he was half-weeping now, and Hiro didn't know what to do, so he awkwardly put a hand on Ryou's shoulder. It was all the white-haired boy could do not to slap it away.

"For the next month, Amane and I were forced to live like animals. I forged on the street for food, stole what I had to. Anything, just to keep Amane safe. And then, the day before Dad was going to come home, Amane ran out in front of a car and..." he couldn't finish the sentence, and his shoulders dropped. "I couldn't save her..." Ryou's voice was now weak, quiet. He turned his hands palm-up and held them in front of his face, as if staring at them somehow. "I held her, right there in the middle of the street as she died... I couldn't save her!" He balled his hands into fists and dropped them back to his lap.

But, of course, he hadn't told Hiro the whole story. Those last few weeks had been hell on earth, literally. After Angeline Bakura had died, Bakura had often come out and beat not only Ryou, but Amane too. The reason Amane had run out into the road was because Ryou had been across the street, and had fallen because of an ankle twisted the night before from being pushed down the stairs by Bakura.

In that moment, Ryou suddenly made a vow. He would protect Serenity, and Bakura, from whatever Jalila wanted to do to them, no matter the cost. He'd protect them all. Joey, Tea, Tristan, even Hiro and Gwen, if they got mixxed up in it. No matter what. He would save them from whatever came, just as he hadn't been able to save his dear Amane-chan.

"Ryou," Hiro said suddenly, his voice tinged with alarm. He'd grabbed Ryou's wrist and was now examining the scars that ran up and down his arm and over the back of his hand. Some were older, much older, and some were more recent, but thankfully none of them looked fresh. "What happened here?" Suddenly his eyes narrowed. "Where did Bakura come from? How were you really blinded?"

"That is our business," said Bakura quietly from behind him. Hiro jumped slightly, and dropped Ryou's arm as if he'd been scalded. Bakura's face softened slightly, and he shooed Hiro off the bed so he could sit next to Ryou. "Go back to sleep Hiro. We'll tell you... Someday."

Once Hiro was back in bed and snoring quietly, Bakura turned a worried face back to his hikari. "Ryou, are you okay? What happened?"

Instead of answering, Ryou asked the question that he hoped Bakura could answer. But at the same time, he dreaded what the Egyptian theif might say. "Did it mean anything in Egypt if a woman had the soles of her feet slashed?"

Bakura frowned, wondering why Ryou would ask. "Yes, it marks them as being adulterous, unfaithful to their husbands. It symbolizes cutting off their transport, so they won't be able to wander again."

Ryou shuddered, his hands curling into fists again. "What about if a man was laid with his left wrist crossed over his right?"

Now Bakura stiffened as well. "Blaspheme! The way of the gods was to lay right over left, so left wrist over right would be the highest insult a man could suffer!" He dropped his eyes. "Come to think of it, I was probably burried like that."

Bakura hardly ever spoke of his past, so Ryou smiled in sympathy. "Oh Bakura. It doesn't matter. Not anymore."

"You're right," Bakura said, raising his eyes to meet his hikari's sightless ones. "But why the questions on ancient Egyptian culture?"

Ryou shivered, hunching his shoulders as if against a draft. "I had a dream," he said softly, "Jalila, apparently an enemy of ours-mine-contacted me. She said she served the True Pharoah, but I'm pretty sure she wasn't talking about Yami. And..." his breath choked in his throat, and he swallowed a sob. "And she said if I didn't make myself easy to find, she'd come after you. You and... And Serenity."

"Why Serenity?" Bakura asked, wracking his mind for where he'd heard the name "Jalila" before.

"I don't know! I don't know!" Ryou was shaking his head furiously, his hands curled over his ears as if to block out all sound. "Amane-chan, I couldn't save you then, and I couldn't save you again! Forgive me imouto-chan!" He was getting close to hysterical, and Bakura was getting worried. He knew that Amane was Ryou's little sister... But hadn't she died years ago? He had to find out about that dream! But first, he had to get Ryou to make sense.

"Come on aibou," he said suddenly, getting to his feet and pulling the sobbing Ryou after him. "Let's spar. I challenge you." Together they made their way out to the courtyard. Bakura was dressed only in boxers, and Ryou in boxers and a tank top, but it was a warm night, and it made no difference. Bakura fell into a fighting stance, and, still crying and gulping back tears, Ryou did the same.

Bakura jumped forward, swinging his arm in a punch that Ryou easily dodged. As Bakura's fist flew past the side of his head, Ryou's reflexes took over even as his brain was numbed. The telepath grabbed his yami's wrist in both hands and tossed him over his shoulder, a move meant to land an opponant on his back. Bakura, however, had been expecting that, and twisted his agile body to land on his feet. He crouched as Ryou came in for a half-hearted attack, a flurry of kicks and punches that were far too easy to dodge.

And then Bakura sprang, grabbing Ryou by the ankle and giving him a deft twist, so that he spun in the air and landed, hard, on his back. Bakura came in and, had this been a real fight, would have finished his hikari off. But as it was, he landed his fist on the ground beside Ryou's head. He then sat back and looked at Ryou, who was still laying in the grass on his back.

"Ryou, when we spar, you beat me eight times out of ten. What happened? You weren't even trying!"

Ryou shuddered, curling into a ball on the ground. "I can't do it Bakura," Bakura had to strain to hear his voice. "I can't... I can't protect everyone, no matter how much I want to. I'm just not strong enough."

Bakura lifted his hikari as easily as if he were a doll and cradled him in his lap, stroking Ryou's hair away from his face and neck, as a mother might a child. "Shh, shh," he soothed. "Who said anything about protecting everyone?"

"I-I have to!" Ryou insisted, burying his face in Bakura's neck. "Jalila will kill you all!"

"Aibou," Bakura's face took on a look of tenderness, but also of stern assurance. "No one person can protect all the others. I thought you'd have learned that by now. We all watch each others' backs. Joey and Pegasus and I, we made a great team in the Shadow Realm. And when Ishtar and Yami worked together to defeat Kuroi? Ryou, no one can stand alone. No one is strong enough by themselves. But, as Yami is fond of saying, we will stand together, or together we will fall."

Gradually Ryou's tears slowed and stopped, and his breathing evened out, indicating he'd fallen asleep. Bakura still sat, in the feild between the freshmen dorms in the middle of the night, his hikari asleep in his arms. A light breeze tossled his hair and he shivered.

"Not again... Ryou doesn't deserve this." he whispered to no one. "Will he be running from the Shadow Realm all his life? And why do they want him so bad, anyway?" And then he realized just where he'd heard the name Jalila before. She had been one of the generals who had helped capture him and Joey when they were in the Shadow Realm trying to save Serenity. She'd been the Magician of Faith one, if he recalled right.

Bakura's hand curled into a fist, and he slammed it into the ground in frustration. Then a flicker of movement caught the corner of his eye, and he blinked against the darkness. "Who's there?" A low chuckle ran through the air, and Bakura instinctively hugged Ryou closer to him. The hikari whimpered in his sleep and clung to Bakura.

"Who's there?" asked a mocking voice from the shadows. "I am here." The voice was low, and seemed to echo in the dark all around them. "You should have listened to your hikari, Yami Bakura of the Ring. We will triumph, no matter the cost."

"But who are you?"

"Who am I? I am the True Pharoah."

There was a glint of light from the direction of the boys dorms, as if starlight were reflecting off of glass. It gave Bakura barely enough warning to shove Ryou off his lap and to the side and throw up his arm for his own protection before a knife sliced right through where Ryou would have been, imbedding itself into Bakura's upraised arm. He hissed in pain, falling backward onto his back as the man holding the knife pressed forward. Bakura couldn't see anything of his face, save his eyes, which were as brown as Ryou's but with a crazed, sadistic light in them.

"Tell Yami-Yugi this:" the man said, pushing forward with the knife and causing Bakura to yelp in pain. "Egypt died five thousand years ago, but it will rise again, this time under my name. No one had better get in our way, for we will destroy them. That goes for you Tomb Robber. And your aibou." His eyes narrowed as he smiled in the darkness. "Because your aibou will fail. My powers are far superior to his, and he knows that very well. You will all fall to your knees before me. And I will have no mercy!"

The last two words were shouted, and a thunderclap rocked the area. With a shock like ice water being thrown on him, Bakura fell to his side, gasping and clutching at his arm. He lay curled into a ball for several minutes as the True Pharoah's demonic laughter rang in his ears. Then he remembered Ryou, and scrambled to where he'd thrown the telepath.

Ryou lay still, his breath shallower then it should have been. Bakura whimpered, reaching out a blood-stained hand to shake him. "Aibou... Aibou please wake up!"

Behind him he could hear running footsteps and familiar voices. As they got closer they developed into three seperate voices, each talking earnestly.

"...we the only ones who heard?"

"...sense a desturbance in the Shadow Realm."

"My god!"

The last one was voiced by Ishtar as he, Yami, and Shaadi slid to a halt beside Bakura and Ryou. Ishtar bent to pull Bakura away from his hikari as Shaadi dropped to his knees and felt for a pulse at Ryou's neck. As Ishtar put his hand on Bakura's arm, it came away wet and sticky and he swore again. "Bakura's hurt. Of all the times for Ryou and his healing powers to be asleep. Hey Shaadi, wake him up already!'

The Guardian looked up at him from his place beside Ryou, a puzzled frown on his face. "I tried and tried again Ishtar. He will not wake up."

"What?" Yami dropped to his knees hastily and spread a hand over Ryou's forehead. He then blinked and looked up, puzzled (no pun intended). "This is unlike any magic I have ever felt before. Something holds him asleep."

"Not magic," Bakura rasped from where he was laying half on Ishtar's lap, his arm wrapped tightly in Ishtar's shirt, which the Egyptian yami had stripped off for the purpose. It was already soaked through with blood though, the knife wound ran deep. "Not magic, telepath."

Ishtar looked startled. "You mean that other telepath attacked you?"

Bakura nodded feebly, his eyes half-closed. "Hai. He says... He says Egypt will rise again, under his name. He'll stop at nothing. Put a telepathic block on Ryou probably. He will not wake up..." The ex-yami went limp, and the other three looked at each other in alarm.

"This," Shaadi said slowly, "Cannot be good..."

~**~

WSJ: *snickers* I was going to stop it here, but I decided that since you've waited long enough for this update, I may as well give you a good one. *sighs* Evil play practice, taking away too much time from my writing...

~**~

"There's nothing we can do about Ryou right now," Yami said, taking charge. For a moment, Shaadi could see a bit of the pharoah he used to be shining through. "But we have to take care of Bakura's arm. Ishtar, how bad does it look?"

Ishtar grimaced. "Pretty bad. Looks like a knife-cut, and it's really deep. He should probably get stitches."

"No time." Yami hissed, biting his thumb-nail in consternation. "Who can we go to who will keep this quiet?"

"Isis," Shaadi said automatically. "She'll take care of him."

"Right..." Yami said slowly, giving Shaadi a strange look. "To Isis and Mai's room, then." He stood up, and then stooped to pick up Ryou, who would have to come with them, awake or not.

"Problem," Ishtar said as he hefted Bakura into his own arms. "The dorms are locked this time of night, and their room's on the second floor. How are we going to get in?"

The three men thought about this for a moment, and then Yami said "Well... What about Tea? Her room's on the first floor."

"Very well then," Shaadi nodded. "Let's go, Bakura and Ryou run out of time."

The group walked to the wall of the girls' dorms, and Yami handed Ryou over to Shaadi so he could knock on Tea's window. "Tea!" he whispered feircely. "Tea!!" He saw someone moving around inside, but when the sash of the window raised, it was not Tea who stood there, but Serenity, who was staying for the weekend with Tea, Gwen, and Amoura, just as Shaadi was with Yami, Yugi, and Joey, and Kaiba was with Ryou, Bakura, and Hiro.

The younger Wheeler sibling's eyes widened as she took in the unlikely group standing in the moonlight and pulled her nightgown a little tighter around her. "What do you want?" she asked, glancing back over her shoulder at the other three sleeping women.

"Forgive us Serenity," Ishtar said, "But Bakura and Ryou have been attacked, and Bakura's hurt. We need to see what Isis can do for him, but we can't get to Isis unless someone lets us in."

"Why don't you just have Ryou heal whatever it is?" Serenity asked.

A look passed between the two yamis and the Guardian. "He can't." Yami said flatly. "Whoever attacked them sent him into some sort of a sleep with his telepath's powers, and since it's not magic, I can't defuse it."

Serenity saw then the cradled forms of Ryou and Bakura, and her eyes widened again. "Oh kami-sama! Get to the front doors, I'll let you in." The three men hurried around the corner of the building, and a moment later Serenity let them in, a bathrobe hastily thrown over her nightgown. "This way," she whispered as she led them toward the stairs. "But be quiet."

When the reached the RA double-apartment, Serenity knocked quietly. There was a sleepy shuffle from inside, and then Mai opened the door, looking pretty much awake. The TV behind her, which was on, indicated that she hadn't been asleep, dispite the hour. "What?" she asked Serenity, for the moment unable to see the boys.

"Mai," Yami said, stepping into the light cast by the open door. "Please wake up Isis. We have a situation here."

Mai's eyes widened and she backed up so that they could all get inside the dorm. Shaadi hurridly pulled the door closed after them. "What happened?" Mai asked as Ryou was laid down on the couch, Bakura in an armchair that was hastily reclined. She caught sight of the blood-soaked t-shirt wrapped around his arm and choked, her eyes widening. "What the-"

"Oh no,"

Everyone turned to see Isis, who was standing at the door into the bedroom, her eyes widened slightly. "What happened here?"

"We're not sure." Ishtar admitted. "But we're pretty sure they got attacked, and Bakura's hurt. Ryou got thrown into some sort of a psycic sleep. We can't get him awake."

Isis, who was majoring in archiology with a minor in medicine, strode swiftly to Bakura and peeled the edge of the make-shift bandage away from the wound. She hissed through her teeth as she saw it. "Looks bad. Mai, get me some clean towels. Ishtar, grab one of the cotton sheets out of the closet and start tearing it into bandage-sized strips. Yami, go into the kitchen and get me some hot, and I mean hot water, and while you're in there turn on the gas stove. We're going to have to use something as a sterilizer. Shaadi, my sewing kit's in the bedroom next to my dresser. We're going to have to improvise here people."

Everyone hopped to their assigned tasks, and only Mai, pausing for a minute to allow Ishtar first access to the linen closet, noticed that Serenity was kneeling next to Ryou, apparently fallen asleep with her head resting on his chest, her arms wrapped around his neck.

~*~

He was back in the graveyard, but it was different this time. The mist that rose was dark grey, and the tombstones were made of obsidian, instead of white marble.

This was the Shadow Realm's graveyard.

He was hanging with his arms tied over his head from a tree of some sort, his legs tied down beneath him, although they didn't touch the ground. Before him lay three coupses, and he shivered.

One of them was obviously Briar-Rose, the evil preistess who had tried to kill him thrice before. She was still dressed in her blue and purple robes, but they were torn and bloody. Her body itself was mangled, twisted as no body should be. Ryou shuddered and turned away.

The second was male, and was dressed in the red and black robes of a Shadow Dark Magician. His body seemed to fade in and out, as if he were on the verge of dissentigrating. Beside him lay his staff, broken cleanly into two peices, although the orb at one end still crackled faintly with electricity. Even in death, Firas was scowling defiantly.

The third was another man, and Ryou jerked with surprise when he saw himself, or at least at first glance. As he looked closer, he saw with relief that this was not the case. This man had the same white-silver hair, but it was closer-cropped then both Ryou's and Bakura's. He was tanner, and leaner, and if Ryou had to guess, he would have also said taller. Ryou realized with a start that this was his "brother's" brother, the man he'd never met. Jonathon.

He was still staring at Jonathon when he heard the deadly crackle behind him, and barely had enough time to duck as Firas's staff flew over his head. He craned his neck to see the Dark Magician standing behind him, his staff and body whole, and very much alive. There was something about his eyes though, they were vacant. It was almost as if the man that stood before Ryou was only a zombie.

Ryou tried to swing away as Firas swung his staff again, the DM's face expressionless. The swing of the electricly charged staff cut Ryu's bonds, and he fell. The staff caught him across the shoulder, and he cried out in pain as the electricity rocketed through him. He fell again, and to his own disgust landed right on top of Briar-Rose.

The preistess suddenly grabbed him, pinning his arms to his sides with a surprisingly strong grip even as he struggled. He turned his head, and her eyes were also vacant. It was like the two courpses were being possessed, since Briar-Rose's body was as cold and un-lifelike in appearance as ever, save the fact that it moved. And even with Ryou laying with his ear pressed to her breast, he couldn't hear her breathing, nor could he feel her heart beating.

Firas approached, his face still devoid of emotion, and lowered his staff so that just the tip touched one of Ryou's ankles. He cried out as the pain coursed through him, sending tears to his eyes. Firas ran his staff up Ryou's leg and over his stomach and chest, sending waves of energy through the helpless telepath.

He was almost unconcious with the sheer pain of it when, as if from a long way, he head a vaguely familiar voice shout something. There was a great burst of light, and suddenly Briar-Rose was no longer beneath him, no longer holding him. But in any case, he was too weak to do anything other then lay where he'd fallen and wait for the end, whatever it would be.

He had no energy to be surprised, to wonder what she was doing here or how she'd gotten in, when Serenity dropped to her knees beside him and pulled his head into her lap, the Gyakutenno Megami hovering behind her. She had tears in her eyes as she stroked his hair and the graveyard began to dissolve around them. He had only the strength to say "That's twice you've saved my life..." and see her surprised face, before the darkness claimed him.

()()()()()

WSJ: Huzzah!!!

Ryou: *warily* What now?

WSJ: *grinning like an idiot* One of my friends traded me Harpie Lady, Harpie Lady Sisters, and Petite Angel, all for my Salamandra card! ^___^ I really have no use for Salamandra, since my deck focuses on dragon and female monsters, so I'm really liking this trade!

Ah, and another thing! My good friend Hikari NoTenshi, who posts under the name of Kage NoTenshi, has recently sent me a story to beta for her. It's extremely good, and should be posted soon! Not sure what the title is going to be yet, possibly Zeros and Ones; Virtual Reality, Virtual Fantasy, or Just a Game. I'll let you know for sure next chapter. But you all need to read it once it's up! It's really, really, really good!

Chapter 7: Now Ryou's showing Serenity around campus. They meet Mai at the kareoke bar, and see Isis with who??? They then head for the mall, where they encounter... Duke Devlin. Who still thinks Ryou is a girl. ^^; Hiro demands that Bakura tell him the truth about Ryou, and how he was blinded, and where Bakura comes in. What's Bakura to do?

God bless minna-san!