Second one! Now that I actually found time to write it up...

I almost feel like I should apologise to Ryou for all that I put him through in my fics. Bless him, he's so much prettier when he's hurt. *ducks flying objects* ... From the perspective of a sadist, anyway. Damn, I'm going to get killed by Yami B for this. Maybe he won't mind so much, since it's him doing the sadism...

Couple of points before we start:

1) I have found that this works well if you listen to a beautiful song called Vide Cor Meum whilst you read it. Search on youtube. Seriously, it's amazing.

2) Anyone not interested in seeing Ryou hurt may want to navigate away now and avoid my fics in the future. I'll make special mention if I ever succeed in writing him some way that isn't impossibly angsty. Sorry, Ryou-chan!

3) This is dedicated to my wonderful jillian101, whom I successfully corrupted into the world of fanfiction and who has consequently written and posted more stuff than I can understand she has time for. Yay for corruption! (By the way, sweetheart, I'll email you a character summary shortly. I know you don't know the characters and aren't particularly interested, but I have to thank you for reading my stuff anyway!)

4) The title is from John Milton's Paradise Lost. The full thing goes, "Strange to us at first it seemed/that Angel should with Angel war". I thought it was appropriate for these two beautiful boys!

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Ryou flew across the room, falling heavily. The skin on his palms tore on the rough ground. He was too tired to cry out, too weak from a thousand other wounds to do anything more than stay where he was, crushing his bleeding hands against the floor to deaden the pain. Long, thick white hair hid his face from the other, but this time there were no tears left to conceal. He wanted to cry. He wanted to feel the prickle and sting of hot tears like minute flecks of glass being pushed into his eyes. The tears let him know that he was still capable of feeling – still alive inside where there was only darkness.

"Get up," his other snarled. He didn't move; he couldn't. "Get up, or I will make you."

The shaking returned again. It happened every time his other was angry with him: uncontrollable, violent tremours which spread through his body and numbed all thought. He screwed up his eyes so that he couldn't see the bright blood dripping from the holes in his chest, soaking his shirt, staining his skin. Whimpered gasps interspersed the ragged breathing. He knew that he was taking too long. His other would not be pleased with him, but he couldn't seem to will the strength into his limbs.

Resignation was the only emotion when the deathly cold fingers twisted in his hair. Once it would have been fear, but a person could only fear death when they valued life. All that he valued now were the moments of dreamless sleep, deep and sweet as death itself, when he felt nothing – knew nothing – not even that he was still breathing. If only, he thought, he could sleep forever, then he might never need to know anything again.

He was pulled roughly to his feet, swaying slightly.

"Look at me," his other commanded. His eyes stayed fixed, blankly, on the ground, on the minute shreds of skin and the rust-brown stains of his own dried blood. "Look at me," his other repeated, inflection rising.

He didn't.

With a snarl of rage a ghostly hand lashed out. Ryou struck his head hard and slid down the wall, limp as a puppet with cut strings. His shirt now clung to his chest. He didn't move. The stinging pain in his hands was getting worse.

"Get up," came the order. Both knew that it would be disobeyed.

His chocolate eyes fluttered open, narrowed in exhaustion and pain. Still he watched the ground, seeing it shift and dance before him. He had learnt long ago that he was not good enough to meet his other's gaze; such an action suggested that he thought himself equal.

Fortunately his other had corrected him on that fault. He still had the scars as a reminder.

And now his other stood over him again, ordering him to stand, commanding him to do the very thing he had been warned against so long ago. He couldn't do it. The order was a test, he knew, an excuse to prove his obedience, and an opportunity for long-awaited punishment if he failed. He was determined that his other should understand his loyalty.

But the cold, cold fingers still closed around his neck, lifting him with suffocating strength. He could tense his muscles, he knew. He could prepare himself for this test of endurance as he had on countless other occasions, but to what purpose? The air in his lungs was all that retained consciousness. Of course, his other would be careful, but there were times when even the spirit was moved to overreaction by anger. And the end of consciousness brought dreamless sleep and freedom.

He didn't fight for breath as he knew that he should. He ignored the instinct that his body was screaming for him to submit to. With his other's dead, cold fingers around his throat, he held himself limp, unresponsive, welcoming each of the black spots as they joined the parade before his eyes.

His other's anger was almost tangible, yet he wasn't shaking. It would require too much exertion, which his oxygen-deprived body was unable to supply.

"Fight me," his other growled, a sharp edge to his voice. Ryou didn't. His other shook him roughly, but by now he could hardly feel it. "Damn you to Osiris, fight me!" the spirit screamed.

Something hard collided with his back. The floor, he realised, and his lungs involuntarily gasped oxygen from the suddenly sweet-tasting air. Then his other was on top of him, crushing his chest, sharp nails on cold, cold fingers raising crimson rivers on their journey down his chest, his neck, his scarred body. A mad gleam shone in the blood-red, sadistic eyes.

"Why won't you fight me?!" his other raged. With closed eyes, Ryou tried to lose himself in darkness, tried to let the pain carry him away. The spirit was panting with frustrated and uncoordinated effort. "I'll show you..." he vowed. "I'll make you bleed... I'll give you no choice but to defend yourself... then you'll see... then you'll resist... you'll have to..."

But he wouldn't. He didn't have the energy to say that he was too weak, too tired of the pain and the misery and the never-ending blood. He couldn't fight any more. He couldn't even gather the breath to apologise.

Sharp nails digging through the raw flesh of the five holes in his chest made him gasp in pain. His eyes flew open, and for the tiniest instant met those of his other.

And in them, in the milliseconds before he turned his frightened gaze away, he saw the anger and pain of a boy whose village was burned, whose family and friends were slaughtered before his eyes, who needed to cause pain to others because it was the only way to atone for what had been done to him so long ago. And Ryou knew that he could never suffer as his other had suffered.

Through the exhaustion and the agony and the lacerations and the taste of his own blood sharp on his tongue, he understood his other, and why he did what he did.

And he smiled, so that his other would see that he was not alone.

-OWARI-

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Yes, I know it was short! Please read and review to help me get through exams happily!