YGO gang: Cast party!?!

WSJ: *giggles and nods* Cast party. We're gonna celebrate the end of VotH and the beginning of SoS, the sequel!

Everyone's faces fall at the word 'sequel', and they groan in tandem.

WSJ: *indignantly* Hey!

Serenity: *sweatdrops* 'SJ, I've read your rough drafts, and they aren't pretty...

Ryou: *grins* I like them. I'm cool!

Bakura: *sweatdrops* Yes Ryou, we know. You've told us at least seventeen times since you found out WSJ made you a t- *is silenced when WSJ slaps her hand over his mouth*

Ryou: *shudders* After this one, I don't know if anything could be as harsh...

WSJ: *grins evilly*

Ryou: *shudders again in dread*

WSJ: *sniffles* Poor Ry-chan... I really hate to do this to him... I guess the full force of what had happened hadn't hit him.

()()()()()

"Welcome home Ryou!"

The game shop had been specially decorated, even though the guest of honor could see none of it. Blue and white streamers, Ryou's favorite colors, adorned every possible surface you could hang a steamer from. A card table had been set up in the middle of the room, and on it sat a huge cake, baked by Serenity and Tea, shaped like the Change of Heart. The black wing was chocolate, of course, the white wing vanella and the body marble.

Ryou stood just inside the doorway, Bakura standing next to him and trying to hide a grin from the rest of the room. The hikari's mouth was wide open in shock, and for a moment Yugi was afraid he was going to faint dead away.

"Th-thank you!" he stammered, stunned beyond belief. "You really didn't have to..."

"Course we did!" Tristan said. "You're our bud Ryou, you deserve it!"

It was two days later, Wednesday, after school. Ryou had just been released from the hospital, and Bakura had agreed to bring him to the Game Shop for a surprise welcome home party.

"Lemonade?" Tea asked. He nodded happily, and she poured him a cup.

"An' after we 'ave cake, I wanna duel ya' Ryou!" Joey said enthusistically. "I nev'a did get ta' see much a' your deck. Other then that Man-Eater Bug..." He, along with Tristan, Tea and Yugi, shuddered at that recollection, and Bakura grinned at their discomfort.

Ryou brough his hand up until it rested on the front pocket of his jacket, where his Dueling Deck always lay. His face transformed into a look of vague horror, and then he said quietly, "I can't,"

The room went silent, as the reason for this statement dawned on each of them. All except Joey, that is. "So, ya' scared to duel the second best in the Duelist Kingdom?" he asked, puffing up his chest and grinning. Tristan scowled at him and Malik elbowed him in the side. The blond had the courtesy to look confused. "What?"

Ryou was close to tears. "I-I can't see the cards..."

Joey's eyes widened and his jaw shut with a snap. "Oh man Ryou! I didn't mean-"

"We know Joey," Yami said, putting his hand on the blond's shoulder. "I don't think any of us were thinking there for a moment."

Bakura scowled, wishing he could put a comforting arm around Ryou or something, but he had to keep up appearences for Yami and the others. Besides, Serenity, Tea and Yugi were doing their best to comfort him as it was.

The poor boy looked devestated. He might not have shown it quite as much as Yugi or Joey did, but he was just as much of a Duel Monsters fanatic as them. The very thought of never being able to play again...

"I'm ready to go home..." he whispered softly, his face cast downward. Bakura nodded and stepped forward, taking his hikari gently by the arm to lead him out of the shop.

Yugi looked up at his other questioningly. /Look at Bakura./

//Strange, he looks... Caring? No, that's not quite the right word for it...//

/Gentle? Sympathetic?/

//Yes. I don't think we have to worry about Ryou any more.//

Yugi breathed a small sigh of relief and grinned widely. /I'm glad./

Yami, on the other hand, had a small frown on his face. //I am too aibou, but there is something else. I sence a power coming from Ryou. It is unlike anything I have ever felt before. It is not the Ring, or any Millenium Item that I know of. I don't think it is even magical.//

/Should we worry about it?/

//I don't think so. Whatever it is, it is coming from Ryou, and would not be a threat to him. We will just keep an eye on it, and I'll try my best to figure out what it is.//

"Ryou, will you be all right?" Bakura asked softly as the two of them made their way down the street toward the Bakura house.

Ryou gulped and nodded. "I-I guess... It just came as a shock..."

Bakura frowned as they neared Ryou's, no, their home. "Do you know anyone who drives a dark blue Ford SUV?" He felt Ryou shudder under his hands, and looked down to see his hikari's eyes wide in surprise.

"My dad."

Bakura cursed, and then for the sake of forcefulness repeated it in Egyptian. "What the hell are we supposed to tell him?!? I was planning on at least having another week to come up with something!"

The concealed anger in his yami's voice made Ryou tremble, and Bakura immediatly regretted being so harsh. He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.

"We'll have to tell him the truth... You're forgetting, my dad's the one who gave me the Ring in the first place. He even said when he gave it to me that he felt drawn to it, like it was magical." Ryou said.

"Do you think he'll actually believe us?" Bakura asked, giving his other a side-ways look.

Ryou shrugged. "Can you think of anything better?"

Bakura sighed and shook his head, holding the door open as he ushered his hikari inside. "Dad, I'm home!" Ryou called.

"Oh, Ryou," his dad said coming out of the kitchen. "How was scho-" He stopped as he saw Ryou with Bakura beside him, a hand placed protectively on his hikari's shoulder. To the surprise of both of them, he just sighed. "I knew this day would come," he whispered. Then, louder, "I know one of you is my son, and one of you is the Spirit of the Ring. So which is which?"

Ryou blinked and took a step forward. "I'm me dad. And, as you said, this is Bakura, the Spirit of the Ring. But how would you know?"

"It's a very long story," Shen Bakura sighed, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "And one that involves your mother."

"Mom?" Ryou asked, surprised. She had died several years ago, when he was only six, about a year after he'd gotten the Ring.

Shen nodded, and was about to say more, when he suddenly noticed the mostly-healed slash across Bakura's cheek, and the various cuts and bruises that peeked out from under Ryou's sleeves. "What happened?"

Bakura winced, and Ryou sighed. "That is a very long story too..."

"And we'd have to tell it sooner or later anyway." Bakura growled, again taking his hikari by the arm. "Com'on, let's go sit down and get started."

The three took seats in the livingroom, Ryou and Bakura on the couch and Shen in a chair across from them. Ryou first told about what had happened just after he'd gotten the Ring, when Bakura had first been released, and when the beatings started. When he reached present day and told, with much sobbing and help from Bakura, how he'd been blinded, Shen almost strangled Bakura before Ryou got him to calm down.

Bakura traded seats with Shen, so that father and son could sit together. From here on he did most of the talking. He told about the Shadow Realm and the Locking Rituals, carefully leaving out the fact that he had almost sacrificed himself for Ryou's sake, saying simply that Yami and Yugi, (who he quickly explained about) got them out. He told about the fight(s) with Ushio, and Ryou's stay in the hospital.

He purposfully didn't tell about the murder convictions, or the stay in jail. He presumed that Shen had been caught in the glamour of Kaiba's false death along with everyone else, and he was right.

By the time Bakura'd finished, he had tears running down his face along with Shen and Ryou.

"So you are a mortal?" Shen asked. Bakura nodded, and Ryou's father looked thoughtful. "I suppose you'll continue to live here?"

"If you'll let me. I swear, I'll never hurt Ryou again. I was just blinded by my own want for power." Bakura said, and Ryou placed a hand on his father's arm.

"He's telling the truth dad. Bakura won't hurt me."

Shen considered for a moment, then hesitantly nodded. Ryou breathed a sigh of relief and gave his dad a quick hug. "Thank you. Now what about mom? How do you know about Bakura?"

Shen sat silent for several moments, contemplating. "Your mother was a wonderful woman Ryou. She had beauty like no one I've ever seen. Long blond hair and the biggest green eyes I've ever seen on a human." Shen stopped and chuckled sadly. "And she was very, very talented. She never told me right out, but I think she was something of a psycic. Sometimes she would say something, just an off-hand comment, almost a 'what-if' sort of sentence, and then later it would come true. She knew you were a boy even before the doctors knew you were coming.

"When I first took up archeology, she would travel around with me. She was actually the one who first found the Millenium Ring. She said she senced a power from it, and that you were meant to have it. Later, she told me that the power she felt was another presence, a spirit, you," he said, motioning at Bakura.

"And that's really all I know about it. She was so beautiful, and I loved her very much..."

Neither Ryou nor Shen noticed that in the seat across from them Bakura had tenced up. "I know you told me a long time ago, but what was her name, Ryou?" he asked tightly.

"Angeline..." Both Ryou and his father said at the same time.

Bakura heard the name, choked, and nearly broke down into sobs. "Anjil..."

Ryou shrugged at his father and went to kneel in front of his yami. "Bakura, what is it?"

Bakura looked at his hikari with tear-stianed eyes. "Bekhura... My name was Bekhura..." he said, almost to himself. "And Anjil... I thought she'd be with me forever..."

"Bakura, you're not making sence." Ryou said, clearly puzzled.

Bakura looked him sharply, both having long-forgotten that Shen was there. "Not making sence? I'll tell you what doesn't make sence! How are you to be my desendant if I never had children?"

Ryou blinked as the realization hit him, several question marks dancing around his head. "Erm..."

Bakura looked down at the floor, a single tear dripping from off the end of his nose to land on Ryou's hand. "Anjil and I were meant to be, I swear. She and I were both slaves, and grew up together. When I ran away and started robbing tombs, she came too. She wanted to. And..." Bakura trailed off, his mind in a different time.

After a time he continued, his voice more husky then before. "We had a daughter. Heaven knows how she survived that Ra-forsaken land called Egypt... We left her at the palace, and," Here Bakura paused to chuckle a little. "The irony of it all! The pharoah raised her as his own!"

Ryou's jaw dropped. "Yami raised your daughter?!? Does he know?"

Bakura shook his head, still chuckling. "No. I-We never told him. Anjil got caught robbing a tomb one day, and I convinced the guards to take me instead of her."

"That's how Yami got ahold of you to seal you in the Ring!" Ryou gasped.

Bakura nodded. "You didn't think he'd actually caught me on his own, did you? No, I gave myself up so she'd go free. Strange that while she was my lover, she was reincarnated as your mother." he mused.

Ryou suddenly remembered what his dad had been saying a moment before, about his suspicions that his mom had been a psycic. His mind flashed back to one particular memory of when he was five...

Little Ryou ran inside crying, looking for his mother. "Mommy mommy, where are you?"

Angeline Bakura stepped out of her room, kneeling down to sweep her son into her arms. "What's wrong?"

Ryou sniffled and held out his slightly cut finger to her. "I gots a boo-boo!"

Angeline smiled and planted a kiss on it. "All better, my little Bekhura?"

"Wha's that Mommy?"

"Bekhura? Just a name, child, the name of someone I loved very much..."

"I wonder..." Ryou said, hesitantly. "I wonder if she knew?"

Bakura stared at him for an instant, eyes wide in disbelief, before breaking down into tears completely.

()()()()()

WSJ: O.o; I have absolutly no idea where that came from... The last chapter will probably be pretty short, I just have a couple loose ends to tie up.

~~At the cast party...~~

Yami-Malik: *wolf-whistles at Serenity* Hey babe! How'd ya' like to come over here and lay a little something on the guy that killed Kuroi?

Serenity: *grossed out* Ewww... Onii-san! Your friend's idiot yami is trying to hit on me!

Joey: -.-; He does that... Jus' ignore 'im...

Yami: *glaring at Yami-Malik* Do I have to remind you that it was I who killed Kuroi?

Yami-Malik: Wow... Spiffy rhymes... *shakes head* And it was not! I fired two energy blasts at him!

Yami: I Mind Crushed him!

Yami-Malik: *growls*

The two get into a typical anime/Warner Brothers Bugs-and-Daffy fight. You know, the ones with the big dust clouds and little red an' yella' stars and swirly-thingyes? -_* Yeah, those...

Malik: *eating chips as he watches them fight* Ten bucks says Yami wins.

Ryou: You're betting against your own other?

Malik: *shrugs* Yeah? So? Even I can beat up my yami. You're the one who had trouble in the physical-strengths department.

Ryou: ;_; That hurt...

WSJ: *grins* You're on Malik! Your yami'll use the Rod and stab Yami... Or something...

Malik: -.o; D'oh!

Ten minutes go by, and still the fight appears to be nowhere near ending. The rest of the cast has now started taking bets on whether or not this fight would actually end before the end of the fic.

Joey: Twenty bucks says one of 'em dies!

Kaiba: *trying to hold back a snicker* You're on chihuaua!

Tristan: *leans over to Joey* You do know you just lost a bet, right? Neither of them can die, they're both immortal.

Kaiba: *snickers louder*

Joey: -_-; Greeeeat... Thanks for warnin' me earlier Tris'... *hands Kaiba twenty bucks, who hands it immediatly to Tristan* Whaaaat!?!?!?

Tristan: *shrugs and stuffs the money into his pocket* He owed me money!

Joey: HE'S A MILLIONAIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tristan: He's also not legally old enough to work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kaiba(Seto): -.- Getting stuck in a ten-year-old's body sucks...

Kaiba(Mokuba): Hey!

Joey and Tristan get into another dust-cloud-fight.

Tea: Dibs on the cash! I say that Tristan wins.

Isis: *grins* I'm in. My money's on Joey.

WSJ: *shrugs and snags a brownie off the refreshments table* I'm with ya' there. Joey can fight! *bites into the brownie, then spits it out* WHO PUT NUTS IN THESE!?!?!?!?!?!?

Cast: Ewww! Hentai! *backs away*

WSJ: X+ That's not what I meant you morons!!!!!!! *sees a snickering Bakura, high-fiving a snickering Jonathon* Ugh... I should have known...

Ryou: Double trouble, aren't they?

WSJ: *groans and slaps herself on the forehead* There's gotta be a really bad analogy to Team Rocket in there, but I dun' wanna find it...

About Shen and Angeline Bakura: My personal theory is that Ryou's dad is Japanese, and his mother is English. Think about it; both his first and last names, Ryou Bakura, are obviously Japanese, and in the flashback during "Evil Spirit of the Ring", his dad has really dark (blue?) hair, thus strengthening my theory.

However, Ryou has very light hair, and since his dad has dark, he must get it from his mom. We know Ryou isn't an albino, because he has brown eyes. If he was trully albino his eyes would be reddish-pink. So, his mom must have light hair. Check. Also, he had to get his accent from somewhere, thus completing my theory with the fact that his mother was English. Thank you. *bows*

Chapter 17: Story's finale/epiloge. Three weeks later, and most everything is back to normal. Shen, Bakura and Ryou visit Angeline/Anjil's grave, and Bakura finally has the chance to say good-bye. Ryou experiences something intresting. Could it be that his mother's powers lie also in him?

God bless minna-san!