Kaiba: *stuffs a hand-full popcorn in his mouth* Chikusho, look at 'em go!

WSJ: *eyes him* That'd better be you Seto, because I don't like hearing Mokuba cuss...

Kaiba: *begins to sweat* Er, yeah! It's me! *laughs falsly*

Yugi: *also eating popcorn* Jeez... My yami can really fight... *ducks to the left as a ripped-off limb comes flying at him*

Tea: *grimaces as she pokes at the dismembered peice* 'SJ!!! You're getting gruesome!!!

WSJ: *giggles evilly* Yeah, well...

Malik: Hey look! I think they're stopping!

Indeed, both dust-clouds were beginning to settle. Who won? Were they even still alive!?! The cast leans closer to find out...

()()()()()

Visions of the Heart

Epiloge -- Visions of the Heart

~Three weeks later~

Bakura smiled sadly as he placed the small bouquet of white roses next to Angeline Bakura's grave. Shen and Ryou stood on either side of him, heads bowed slightly, each immerced in their own, private thoughts and memories.

The tomb robber, however, was thinking of nothing but his partner in crime, his beloved Anjil. He'd never even had a chance to tell her good-bye. That stupid Pharoah had stripped him of his dignity and his life, and he'd never found out what happened to his lover.

"Curse you Pharoah..." he whispered harshly as a tear rolled down his cheek.

"What about me?"

Bakura turned in surprise to see Yami, Yugi farther behind him. "What are you doing here pharoah?"

"Presumably the same thing as you, visiting my hikari's deceased parent." Yami drew Bakura a bit farther away from where Ryou and Shen now stood talking with Yugi. "Anjil?"

Bakura jerked and glared at Yami. "What do you mean?"

Yami smiled sadly. "I know all about you and Anjil, and I know she was reincarnated. I know everyone who has been reincarnated from our time, even if they themselves do not know it." The Eye of Re glowed breifly on his forehead, and Bakura scowled at him.

"All right then, tell me; what business is it of yours?"

"Anjil did not die alone in the desert, as you have guessed. Ra and Shahi took her into the palace where she died several years later of an ill meeting with a desert scorpian." Yami said, naming with a trace of longing his long-dead wife and 'daughter'.

Bakura's scowl deepened as he tried to swallow the lump suddenly forming in his throat. "How would you know?"

Again, the Eye glowed briefly on the former-pharoah's forehead. "Several years ago Angeline herself told me. She really was a psycic, or rather, a telepath. The word psycic implies something plastic and super-ficial. She contacted me herself, once she knew that the cancer would take her, and told me to tell you and Ryou when you were ready."

Bakura was momentarily stunned. "So she did know?"

Yami nodded. "She always knew."

Bakura gazed over at his hikari as he laughed at something Yugi had said, along with the midget. "And Ryou..."

Yami nodded, his eyes softening. "Yes, he is. Help him Bakura, we can't let the power he holds get too out of control."

Bakura nodded. "I will. Mark my words. Coincidentally, how much of this does Yugi know?"

"None of it," Yami said. "It is none of our business. If you or Ryou choses to tell him however, that is your desision, and yours alone."

Bakura cast him a side-ways glance. "So now you're leaving me to tell this to my hikari?"

"Your hikari? You actually admit you have a lighter side?"

Bakura smiled slightly, not looking at the Pharoah, but instead at Ryou. "Yes, I do, finally. He is my aibou."

Yami clapped a hand on his shoulder. "It's about time... Brother."

(WSJ: No, not literally brother, like Bakura and Jonathon are brothers. Just a general sence of kinship. I mean, come on! These guys are practically the last ones of their own era left!)

Later on, Shen took Ryou and Bakura out for pizza and then to the libary to find a book on braille for Ryou. Bakura suddenly became eager to learn to read English after he spotted a mystery/horror novel that looked particularly chilling.

"Only you Bakura..." Ryou sighed. "Only you would learn a whole 'nother language for the sake of one murder mystery..."

Once they got home it was almost ten-oh-clock, and Shen had headed to his room for the night, yawning. Ryou and Bakura regrouped to Ryou's room.

Ryou sat on his bed, running a brush through his long white hair. Bakura stood over by the window, his hands resting lightly on the sill, looking out at the full moon and stars.

"Ryou?" he asked, half-turning to look at his hikari.

"Hm?"

Bakura bit his lip slightly. "That first night, when you dreamed about Pegasus and Jonathon, and Kaiba got put into Mokuba's body, did they tell you what happened during the ceremonies?"

Ryou shook his head. "No. They said you'd tell me when you were ready."

Bakura sighed in relief and turned back to the window. "Maybe I will. Eventually."

Ryou smiled faintly and put the brush down beside him on the bed. He cocked his head at his yami and looked thoughtful for a moment. "I heard your lullaby at the hospital." he said quietly.

Bakura blinked. "You-you did? But you were completly knocked out and besides, I sang it in Egyptian!"

Ryou chuckled and placed his hand over his heart. "You have a lot to learn about being human, Bakura. The heart hears a lot more then just the ears can."

Bakura gazed out at the stars as Ryou got off the bed and felt his way over to stand beside him. They stood silent for a moment, yami and hikari together, and then Ryou felt his yami's hand on his shoulder. "I look forward to learning."

Standing at peace with his yami, after so long, Ryou smiled. Visions danced in front of his minds eye.

He saw Yugi, laying unmoving and pale in a bed, the only sourse of light in the dark room being the Eye of Re which glowed faintly on his forehead.

He saw the woman he instantly knew to be Serenity Wheeler, although he'd never actually seen her face-to-face. Her clothes were torn and dirty, and her face was smudged with mud. She was crying, and reached out to him.

He saw Isis and Malik, bickering as they always seemed to be, with Yami-Malik standing nearby and looking vaguely puzzled.

He saw Tristan and Tea, clinging to each other. They looked as if the world was falling down around their ears, and they could do nothing to stop it.

He saw Joey, standing in the middle of a dark corridor, possibly a portion of the Shadow Realm, summoning his Red Eyes Black Dragon to fight something in the darkness that Ryou couldn't quite see.

And he saw his mother, smiling at him as she held out her arms for a hug, a great light shining behind her and a gentle breeze of some kind tosseling her hair. 'My Ryou,' she said in words Ryou couldn't hear, but understood. 'My Bekhura...'

In the coming weeks and months, those visions would continue to bother Ryou, and he could never quite put his finger on why. He later learned the reason, of course, but that is a much different story I shall tell you another time.

But that night, as his visions faded, he suddenly saw, in a moment of clarity, just exactly how he and Bakura looked at that moment, standing together next to his bedroom window.

Their faces were reflected back at them in the glass, bathed in soft silver moonlight. They shimmered there, completly identical, right down to the small smiles they both wore, save the dullness in one's eyes and the scar running down the cheek of the other.

Somewhere in the house a clock began to strike twelve.

It was tomorrow.

()()()()()

WSJ: *groans and begins to dig through her pockets* Aw man... Why're you always right...? *hands Malik ten dollars and forks over five dollars, along with Isis, for Tea*

Yami: *grins tiredly*

Tristan: *yells happily* I made WSJ give up money! *dances around happily*

Yami and Tristan had won. Yami-Malik was in the middle of the room, hod-tied with paper-towels. The empty roll was then stuffed in his mouth. Joey was tangled up in Tristan's trench coat, which he'd had the foresight to take off and use like a net. Strangely enough, the ripped-off limb that Yugi had ducked didn't belong to anyone in the room, although the armbands on it signaled it as possibly belonging to Duke Devlin.

Ryou: *blinks* This is really the end?!?

WSJ: *nods sadly* Go bye-bye...

Ryou: Yay! ^_^ Can I take these things out now?

WSJ: *nods*

Ryou: *pops a contact out of each eye, revealing that his eyes are, in fact, intact and normal*

Bakura: THE %#@)&#&^@(??????

Ryou: ^__^ Contacts to make my eyes look dull. You didn't throw me as hard as you thought Kura-kun.

Bakura: *sighs in releif*

Isis: *still miffed that she lost the bet* Can we go now that this dreadful story is over and done?

WSJ: *a little hurt that Isis called the story 'dreadful', but nods. Everyone turns to leave* Oh no you don't! Isis, you can go. Kaiba, I won't need you for awhile either. Everyone else, we have SoS to work on!

Cast: *groans*

WSJ: *pulls out a remote control and presses a button. The lights dim and a huge screen desends from the ceiling. A projector comes on and begins to show the preview for SoS*

Sacrifice of Shadows: Sequel to Visions of the Heart!

Cast: *half-heartedly* Whoopie...

The Locking Rituals weren't completed, and the Shadow Realm still needs a pure heart. It has chosen, and this time it won't let anyone, mortal or no, get in its way. Yugi and Malik have fallen to a mysterious disease, Joey's sister has gone missing, and Ryou's got a secret to hide. Now it's up to Ryou, Bakura and Joey to enter the Shadow Realm and dispell all evil, once and for all.

Joey: *sweatdrops* Great, I get a main roll now?

Couples:

Yami: o.o; Ack! You're turning it into a romance?!?

WSJ: No, just hints and such.

Joey/Mai

Kaiba: *sweatdrops* Mai? But you didn't even have her in this story!

WSJ: I know. She won't be in SoS either, except for the last chapter, but Joey talks about her a lot.

Hints of both Tea/Tristan and Tea/Malik

Malik & Tristan: *groan*

Possible Ryou/Serenity and/or Bakura/Serenity

WSJ: *contemplates* I dunno about that one yet... You'll have 'ta let me know whether or not you wnat it to turn out that way. Because with the others it'll be just a sort-of side-dish. But if you guys want it to be Ryou/Serenity/Bakura, it'll definatly be part of the major plot.

WSJ: ^__^ Anyway! I'm glad you all loved this so much, and please stay tuned for the sequel! Ja!

God bless minna-san!