Ryou: What's the matter with you? Finally admitted that you're being too cruel on me?

WSJ: *glares* You *sniffle* Wish. *holds up what appears to be a dirty, mangled and trampled plushie* All the fangirls stepped on it! *begins to cry again*

Ryou: *sweatdrop* Er... Slight lack of vision here 'SJ. What is it?

WSJ: *sobs* My Otogi plushie!!! It was brand new!!! I don't like him as much as I do you or Bakura or Yami or Yugi or Pegasus, but he was ok... *stops crying suddenly* Actually, now that I think about it, he's got to be one of my least favorite characters! *shivers* I mean... Duke? Duke?!? What kind of a name is Duke, and how do they get that from Otogi?

Ryou: *shrugs* Same way they get Tea from Anzu and Tristan from Honda, I guess...

WSJ: *growls* If they mess up Malik's name, I will gather an army of fangirls, storm 4Kids headquarters and demand they change it back to Malik!

Ryou: *squeals* You go girl!

WSJ: *looks at him weirdly*

Ryou: ^.^; Um... I think Ushio hit me harder then I at first thought... *falls over*

WSJ: 0.o; Oh shimatte... Bakura's gonna kill me...

Mangled Otogi/Duke plushie: *in a voice more annoying then Mai's dubbed voice and Rini's put together (if that's possible)* WSJ doesn't own YGO.

WSJ: *snaps her head around* You shut up or I'll feed you to Yami-Malik!

Mangled Otogi/Duke plushie: Eep! *falls silent after one last squeaky wheeze*

WSJ: ^_^ Good. Ok, now for those wondering, Jade and her three friends play no part whatsoever in the story. Obviously Jade was supposed to be me, and my three 'lackies' are three of my best friends, Baby Winter, KaTyA and HotaruMaxwell. The armband is Baby Win's 'Millenium Armband', just as the ring around my neck is the 'Millenuim Pendant'. They play no part in this story, I was just putting in a breif plug for our yamis.

To Jo: Hee hee... You're the only one who caught that CCS star Sakura was the reporter... And no, Madison was doing costumes, Li was on sports, Meilynn was camera and Kero was the co-ancor. *gags* Hey, they'd figure he was some sort of Duel Monster...

()()()()()

Visions of the Heart

Chapter 15 -- Wounded

After ten minutes several nurses appeared and kicked Bakura out of his hikari's room. Then Dr Bradley had appeared to appraise him on Ryou's current situation. One thing led to another and it was almost a half-an-hour before Bakura shuffled back into the waitingroom. His appearence did not go unnoticed, and within seconds six pairs of sleepy eyes (Tea and Mokuba/Seto were already asleep) were directed on him.

"Ryou needs a blood transfusion." Bakura said quietly, and Yugi suddenly noticed the tired bags under his eyes and the way his shoulders drooped. "I've already been tested, and I don't match."

"That's right." Dr Bradley said, coming up behind him. "Does anyone have bloodtype AB?"

Everyone sadly shook their heads, and when Tea and Mokuba/Seto (now known only as KAIBA. If it's one or the other of them specifically talking I'll put their first name) were woken, they didn't have it either.

"So that's it?" Yugi asked, close to tears. "Ryou just dies?!? I thought you said he was going to make it!"

A concerned look on his face, Yami kneeled down and took his aibou into his arms, offering him some comfort.

Suddenly Joey's brow wrinkled. Not everyone had spoken up. And he seemed to remember... He turned slightly to where his sister was sitting in her chair, staring obstinatly at her shoes. "I'll be right back guys," he said, going to kneel in front of his onee-chan.

"Serenity?" he asked softly enough so that the others couldn't hear. "Isn't your bloodtype AB?" Joey was surprised to see tears in her eyes as she meekly nodded. "Sere', what's wrong?"

"It was bad enough when I had my operation..." she whispered. "Please don't make me!"

One by one, Joey felt his heart-strings snap. He sighed heavily. "I won't Serenity," he said with great effort. "You come before all my friends. But if you don't, Ryou will most probably die."

Serenity gasped and for the first time looked up and into her brother's eyes. "Y-you mean he'll die, just because I was afraid..."

Joey nodded, and this time it was him who cast his eyes to the floor. "Serenity, I told you, I won't make you do the transfusion if it scares you. But if you do, I'll be right beside you all the way. We all will be."

Serenity swallowed hard, and then nodded. "Ok."

^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^

"Bakura, wake up! I think Ryou's comin' to!"

Bakura groaned and tried to roll over in bed, and then remembered he wasn't in a bed, but in a chair next to Ryou's hospital bed. His eyes snapped open as Joey's words penetrated deeper into his sences. It did indeed seem that Ryou was waking up.

Joey ran out of the room to find the nurces and alert the others, while Bakura held Ryou's hand in eager anticipation.

"Will he be all right?"

Bakura looked over at Serenity, who was resting in another bed, a clear plastic tube taped to her inner arm. It was filled with thick, crimson blood that led upward to a sack. A tube connected it to another sack, which led to yet another tube and into Ryou's arm.

Bakura nodded, and smiled. "Yes. Thank you so much Serenity."

Serenity grinned and was about to say something in return, when Ryou's eyes cracked open. He still couldn't see, of course, it was just a reflex.

"Ryou!" Bakura said leaning over his hikari. "Are you all right?"

He was quiet for a moment, listening to the whiring of a thousand different machines and the steady beep of the heart monitor hooked up to himself. "Where am I?"

His voice sent chills up Bakura's spine. It was so dead, so flat, so... hopeless. "The hospital. Joey and Tristan brought you in. And they, plus Serenity, saved your life," he added.

To Bakura's surprise, Ryou suddenly seemed to be fighting tears. "Why? Why did you let them save me?"

Bakura's jaw dropped, and across the room Serenity's did too. "Because they love you! Because I..." he stopped. He couldn't say it, not even now.

(WSJ: *shoos yaoi-fans* Brotherly love people! Nothin' to see here! How many times do I gotta state 'non-yaoi'?)

Ryou turned his face away from his dark. "It would have been better if you'd let me die in peace..."

If Bakura's jaw was floor-level before, it was now somewhere around the region of the center of the earth. "Ryou, what's gotten into you? How could you say it would just be better to die?" Yet even as he said it, a certain scene came to mind...

"Yugi! Hurry up and attack now, while I have his Lady of Faith under my control!"

"No! I can't! It would send you to the graveyard too!"

"I'd be better off dead then possessed, enslaved by an evil spirit!"

The rest of the gang ran in, but Serenity motioned for them to stay back. The scene really was a rather shocking one. Ryou lay on the bed, his head turned away from his yami, who kneeled at his side with one of Ryou's hands clasped firmly in both of his with a pleading look on his face.

"Ryou...?"

Finally Ryou answered his yami, though his reply was soft, and all those in the room had to strain to hear it. "I'm worthless..."

Yugi gasped and started to step forward, feeling that he had to let his friend know that that just wasn't true. Yami's hand on his shoulder stopped him. //Let them be aibou. This, I think, is something between Ryou and his yami.//

/But he's almost suicidal! Shouldn't we get involved? At least let him know we're here for him?/

//You went through this stage too, my little light. Need I remind you of your second duel with Kaiba? The one where you vowed never to duel again?//

/Well, yeah, but this is a lot different!/

//How?//

/..../

//You see?//

/...Sort-of.../

"Ryou, you're not worthless! Why would you ever think that?" Bakura asked, almost on the point of tears and no longer caring who the hell was in the room to see him. His hikari, his aibou thought he was worth crap!

"I'm blind," came Ryou's quiet reply. "I'm only a burden. Nothing but a bother for you and dad and Yugi and everyone else, until the day I die..."

Bakura was momentarily stunned into speechlessness, along with everyone else in the room. After about ten seconds, Bakura got up and stormed toward the door, his eyes daring someone to try and get in his way. The group by the door parted like Moses and the Red Sea, but Bakura was on a search-mission. He singled out Joey and Tristan and grabbed them each by the collar, pulling them close so their noses were only maybe three inches from his own. At such close range, both teens could easily see the rage in the ex-yami's eyes, but also the pain, and the fear.

"Who did this to him?" Bakura asked in a menacing voice.

Joey and Tristan both blinked. They'd been scared to death that Bakura was going to beat them to a pulp. "Wha'?"

"You heard me. Who. Did. This. To. Ryou?"

"U-Ushio Tenrio." Tristan stuttered.

"Very good." said Bakura, dropping the brunette and concentrating on Joey. "Now tell me chihuaua, where can I find him?"

Joey gulped. "P-probably in the alley behind the Crown Arcade, or in the arcade itself. That's usually where he hangs out."

With that peice of information, Bakura dropped Joey as well and headed for the door. Yugi ran out after him into the corridor, his eyes wide. "Bakura! Wait! You don't actually mean to fight Ushio, do you? You'll be killed!"

Bakura's eyes flashed menacingly, and suddenly Yugi was very glad that he wasn't Ushio. "Fight? No. I plan to massacre him." That said he spun on his heel and ran out of the hospital, into the rain. He was soaked in an instant, but he didn't care. The only thing on his mind was Ryou, and revenge, and, most of all, Ushio.

As he neared the roofed alley behind Crown Arcade, he heard drunken laughter and knew that that was where his quarry lie. Sliding easily into the shadows, he crept closer.

Ushio sat on a crate, two of his loser friends next to him. Empty beer bottles were strewn all over the place, and the flickering back-pourch-light of the arcade cast an eerie glint on their faces.

'Chikusho! I have the worst luck!' Bakura thought as the light reveiled the identities of the other two drunks as Bandit Keith Howard and Rex Raptor. But he just tightened his fists, more determined then ever to avenge his hikari.

(WSJ: I heard somewhere that Rex is supposed to be in his twenties. *scratches head* With the voice, I believe it... But really now, is all of Japan made up of midgits? I mean, Yugi, Weevil, Rex, Bones... I'd include Mokuba, but he has an excuse. ^_^ He's young and he's kawaii! Not that Yugi isn't...)

Bakura crept up behind Rex, and then dove on him, landing a solid punch to his jaw before the midget with strange-ly colored hair (WSJ: He's one to talk!) could react. Bakura may not have practiced in five-thousand years, and he may not have the hightened abilities the Ring gave him, but he could still throw a punch. Rex was down, and out for the fight. That was once less person to worry about.

Instantly Bakura spun and ducked under the punch Bandit Keith sent his way, then raised his foot and kicked hard at Keith's, well, you know. *clears throat* Now the American, too, was out.

Something grabbed Bakura by the hair, pulling him down until he was bent over backwards almost double. "Blasted hair!" He saw the leering face of Ushio Tenrio above him, and something glinted. Bakura rolled his head to the side as best he could with Ushio still holding on to his hair, and as a result the knife only slashed a deep gash across Bakura's right cheek, instead of landing square between the eyes, as it was meant to be.

The tomb robber yelled in pain, and when Ushio went to stab him again, he ducked as best he could. Thankfully (or unthankfully), Ushio was drunk, and his aim was off. The knife slashed through Bakura's hair, leaving it cut raggedly just below the chin.

Bakura jumped away, and turned to see Ushio blinking stupidly at the handful of silvery-white hair he carried. "All right Ushio, you wanna play like that? Fine, I'll play like that!" He put his hand into his jacket Napolean-style, and drew out the knife he carried in a concealed sheath there. He narrowed his eyes at the upperclassman.

"Here. We. Go."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Everyone save Joey and Kaiba had been banished back to the waiting room. The only reason Joey was still allowed in was because Serenity was still resting from giving blood, and Kaiba had begged off and left, saying he, er, they had to get home. The doctors were one hundred percent sure that Ryou would recover now, but things got a little awkward when they began to ask about his eyesight. Yugi and Yami had been forced to come up with a real good story real fast. The disease one they used at school wouldn't work here, since the docs had seen Ryou's medical records and knew he had no such sickness.

"Bakura owes us. Big time," Yami complained as he flopped down into a chair in that same old waitingroom they'd been in for the past seven or eight hours. Yugi nodded his agreement.

"It's intresting..." Malik said, looking closely at the clock hanging over the nurses station.

"What's intresting?" Tea asked, going over to stand beside him.

"Everything always happens to us at midnight. The Locking Rituals (or rather, lack thereof) were at midnight, whatever that reality-flip thing was on Friday happened at noon, which is creepy, and now it's midnight again."

"Hey, yeah," Yugi said. "And the first duel we had with Bakura, when he turned us all into cards, happened at midnight. Or maybe the duel with Panik happened at midnight... Well, either way, both happened really late at night."

Yami-Malik, who had desided to come out only a few minutes ago, gave them curious looks. "Turned into cards? I'm assuming this is Duelist Kingdon here, 'cause I'm not remembering any of it." The others nodded at him.

"Guys, is anyone else worried?" Tristan asked, looking uneasily out the glass doors at the still-pouring rain. "Bakura's been gone for an awful long time, and Ushio's tougher then he looks. Joey and I together could hardly get Ryou away from him earlier today."

"Gee, yeah..." Tea said. "I hope nothing happened to him..."

Malik put a hand on her shoulder and guided her reassuringly towards a couch along the wall of the room. "He'll be fine Tea, he's a yami."

"Ex-yami," Tea said, and then looked pointedly at the Rod, hanging from its usual place on his belt. "And that's what worries me..." Yami, Yugi and Yami-Malik had explained about the spell, and the fact that Bakura was now as human as them, after the two white-haired teens had left the Wheelers on Friday night.

At that precise moment, thunder shook the hospital, and lightning lit up the doorway, illuminating a figure who had just come in. He was dripping wet and breathing hard and his hair and clothes clung to him, but there was no mistaking those eyes.

"Bakura!" The entire group yelled, happy that he was ok.

"Yeah?" he asked, obviously not in the best of moods.

"Is Ushio even still alive?" Tristan asked, earning him a whack from Tea but a nod from Bakura.

"What happened to your hair?" Tea asked, and then gasped as he walked farther into the room, as well as the light. "Your cheek...!"

"It's nothing." Bakura said gruffly as he brushed past them on his way to Ryou's room. Rather unfortunatly, however, a doctor managed to intercept him.

"Sir, I am afraid I cannot allow you in there in your wet clothes. And that slash looks deep, you need to let someone see to it."

"Look," Bakura said. "It's midnight. I'm tired. I want to see my brother. Now let me through!"

"I'm afraid I must insist, sir."

Bakura sighed, but wasn't in any mood to argue farther. He changed out of his wet clothes and into a terry-cloth bathrobe. He allowed the doctor to look at his cheek, and even tolerated the six stitches he was forced to get. Then, and only then, was he allowed into Ryou's room.

Joey and Serenity looked up as he entered, and Serenity gasped softly. "Bakura!"

"It's nothing." he insisted, heading toward his hikari's bed on the far side of the room. "My cheek is fine."

Joey chuckled and rolled his eyes. "Actually Bakura, I think she was exclaimin' over that mowhawk a' yours."

Bakura growled. "Shut it chihuaua!" he said tightly, and then immediatly afterwards bit down on a yawn, and then a yelp as the yawn stretched his newly-sewn cheek. He let out a string of curses in Egyptian, ran out, and switched to Japanese.

Joey laughed and was about to say something, but Serenity put a hand on his arm. "Leave him alone for the night Joey. Are you and the others all planning to spend the night here?"

"You and I are." Joey said. "I called both mom and dad. I know Yam' and Yug' are both stayin', and I'm pretty sure Malik and 'is yami are stayin' too. I dunno about Tristan an' Tea."

Serenity nodded. "Well, g'night onii-san."

"G'night onee-chan." Joey leaned down and gave her a kiss good-night, then headed for the waitingroom, where the hospital staff had allowed them to each claim a couch for the night. Yami and Yami-Malik were both sleeping out of their soulrooms, because the poor staff were confused enough as it is! Three sets of 'twins', and one member of two of them keep disappearing and popping up again!

As Serenity's breathing in the other bed became lighter and softer, betraying the fact that she was asleep, Bakura threw himself down in an armchair that had been placed next to Ryou's bed for him. Within a matter of moments he was asleep, snoring lightly.

Ryou waited several minutes, to make sure that both of the other two were sound asleep, and then sat up. He had to be careful of all the wires and tubes and stuff stuck to him in various places, but managed it.

He'd heard Joey and Serenity talking about Bakura. They hadn't even bothered to keep their voices down once he was 'asleep'. He'd heard them say that he'd gone to fight Ushio.

"Would you really do that for me, mou hitori no boku? [the other me, my other half]" Curious as to why Bakura had mentioned his cheek, Ryou felt around at about bed-level with his IV-free arm until his searching fingers encountered his yami's knee. From there he found his arm, and then his face.

Ryou was rather surprised to find that Bakura's hair was now much shorter then the last time he'd, well, looked. But he continued up, and ran his fingers lightly over the skin of his yami's face, until he encountered a long line of rough skin, and what was undoubtably stitches.

Even in his sleep, Bakura hissed a little at the pain, and Ryou jerked his hand away, sitting back somewhat to think. "You got wounded... For me? Why me?"

The questions were ment to be rhytorical, and he jumped slightly when they got answered.

"You're forgetting who you learned how to fake sleeping from. Yes for you! That's why I fought him in the first place, to prove to you that you are worth it!!! And as for your second question," Bakura paused, and shrugged. "Because you are my aibou."

Ryou smiled, a genuine smile, and even in their dullness his eyes lit up. "Do you know how long I've wished for you to actually care enough to call me that?"

Bakura chuckled as he helped Ryou get settled in the bed again. "Jealous of the Motos, were we?"

There was a pause, and then Ryou sweatdropped. "Yes..."

Bakura shook his head in amusment. "G'night hikari."

"Good night yami."

()()()()()

WSJ: *gags on the fluff* Good grief! Any more syrup and we'd have to make some pancakes to put it on!!! *whistles* Guess what peeps! Third to last chapter! This'll run exactly seventeen chapters, so stay tuned! *winks* From here, it gets better. I promise.

Chapter 16: It's two days later, Wednesday. Ryou's just gotten out of the hospital, and everyone throws him a party at the Game Shop! However, their fun doesn't last. Ryou and Bakura go home to find *gasp* RYOU'S FATHER! *dun dun dun...*

God bless minna-san!