A/N: Okie, I KNOW I said I would write all the one-shots first, but this thing has been in my brain for ages and just would not go away till I finally let it take top priority. So, here it is- my new fic. And at last, it's Ryou-centric. (Although there will be a lot of Seto later, as usual. Heh.) Before I forget, this is After the Items have flown away into the ether, but is slightly AU-ish as I'll be doing some twiddling with Ages and histories etc as we go along. At this point... Well, they're still kinda 15/16 ish.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that even sounds vaguely copyrighted.

And now, to another product of my warped imagination. Enjoy:D

A Superhero Story

Prologue: An Angel

The bridge was badly lit. It needed lights on even at this time in the afternoon in the eternal shade of the tower blocks surrounding it, but for the purposes it served that was just fine. She came to a stop beneath the flickering orange street light in the middle, as it contemplated wheatear to continue it's struggle for illumination or not. She really didn't mind, either way. It made no difference to her anymore.

She didn't wipe away the tears, leaning over the waist-high railing and letting them join the sluggish waters of the canal below. It was tempting, so, so tempting. And it would be so easy- no-one would be passing or looking out of the windows at this time of day, they'd all be at work. No-one would know until her body floated downstream. But she didn't want to be in it when it did. She began feverishly scooping up the dirt and gravel on the road, packing it into every available space in her pockets and every fold of her clothes. She felt the effect of extra weight immediately. As she attempted to climb up onto the railing, it was tugging at her, telling her to revise the decision. She knew that the weight was hypocritical- as soon as she was in the water, it would help her.

As soon as she was in the water.

Balancing precariously on the rail, supporting herself on the lamppost, the weight got its wish. She couldn't bring herself to do it. Some basic instinct was pulling her away, calling her back to the road. The tears rushed down her face faster. She was trapped. She had only been able to think of one way out of this hell she was in, and she couldn't even do that. She was trapped… Clinging to the light, she put a foot tentatively down in the direction of that hated life. But, as if reading her thoughts, she misjudged the distance down, her leg catching on the wall, her hands coming free of its desperately maintained hold, and she tumbled. She tumbled backwards, over the ledge.

The fall was fast. If the few small pebbles in her pockets helped, she didn't know. As soon as she hit that icy-cold water, all the thoughts were knocked out of her. And so was her breath. The water leaked in seemingly at every crevice, and she barely registered the fact that once her head hit the bottom she'd be knocked unconscious, and that would be the last of her…

Her head did not hit the bottom. In fact, none of her did. She felt something springy beneath her, becoming more and more solid as she pressed into it. Her need for air no longer seemed quite so urgent as whatever she'd landed on absorbed her inside itself before rushing impossibly fast to the surface, tossing her out onto the road side.

She lay there, chocking, and spitting up water. The buildings before her spun and danced, and the last thing she saw before she fell unconscious was a flash of white, disappearing into the blackness of the tower block's shadow.

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"She tried to kill herself." Joey stated, revelling in being the first to hear this story in his particular friendship group. "Y'know the Remington Bridge, down by all the flats?" Not his flats, you understand. The posh ones, on the other side of town. But that wasn't the point. "She jumped right off."

"That's awful…" Téa gasped, unable to believe someone from their own year group would even think about doing something like that. To be that depressed was a terrible thing.

"But that's not the point!" Joey replied impatiently. "She survived. In school today, actually. Someone told me she says that when she was in the water something pushed her back out. And then…" He paused dramatically. "She saw a flash of white, disappearing!"

Yugi and Téa exchanged glances. They'd learnt not to listen to some of the tall tales Joey liked to pass on. He was a real rumour spreader. Tristan, however, seemed to be as gullible as his blond counterpart.

"What was it?" He asked, wide-eyed.

"No-one knows!" Joey said gleefully. "She reckons it was an angel. When she came to, she marched straight into the first Church she could find, announced that she had been saved by an Angel and turned her life over to Christianity right there and then!"

"…I'm not sure I believe this story, Joey…" Téa said. "She's not exactly the sort for Church, is she? Why would she think an angel saved her?"

"Then what was it?" Joey demanded.

"It sounds too far-fetched." Yugi pointed out. "Someone probably just pulled her out. If she fainted straight after, it would be an easy mistake to make, right?" Tristan and Joey protested against this, insisting there was some sort of supernatural mystery here, but Téa sided with Yugi. All heads turned to the last member of the group for the casting vote, who, as always, seemed completely oblivious.

"Ryou!" Joey yelled, hitting the white-haired boy on the head. "Yo!"

Ryou shot him an injured look, rubbing the offended area. "There are better ways of gaining my attention…" He assured Joey mildly, turning back to the comic he'd been using to studiously ignore everything around him.

"Ryou!" Tristan protested. "Leave the crazy backwards comic book for a moment and help us out here!" He pulled the American comic out of Ryou's protesting hands, looking at it suspiciously. "How can you read it like that anyway?"

"Right to left, left to right… It really makes no difference to me." Ryou shrugged, snatching his issue of Spiderman back and stuffing it into his bag, knowing he'd get no peace to read it now.

"What do you think?" Joey demanded.

Ryou blinked. "Um…"

"You weren't listening, were you?" Téa sighed.

"I'm afraid not." Ryou answered, sheepishly. Joey impatiently related the entire unlikely story again.

"So, what do you reckon?" He asked, eagerly. "It's got to be something weird, right?"

"Ryou's a little too sensible to believe what you tell him." Téa teased, although she was looking at Ryou persuasively when she said it. What an awkward predicament.

"Well…" Ryou began, slowly, trying to delay having to take a side. Then their teacher entered. His name was Watanabe, but, as far as Ryou was concerned, it should have been salvation. And he had some news for them all.

They were getting another English transfer student, a girl this time.

"Hey," Yugi smiled. "Maybe she'll have been to some of the places you talk about!"

"Yes." Ryou nodded, smiling himself. He loved living in Japan, he truly did. But England was where he'd been born, and where he'd lived for a good long time. Sometimes he would say something, or mention some far-off place, or a part of what he still considered culture, and his friends just wouldn't know what he was talking about. Sometimes, when he was explaining things, he could only think of the English words to describe them, but, once again, his friends didn't understand. It was lonely, sometimes, even though he had more, and better, friends now then he probably ever had in the past. It would be nice to have someone in the same boat.

The register done, the form slowly descended into a melee of sound once again as they waited for the bell to ring for lesson one. Joey immediately began the conversation again, and the theories just got more and more stupid- from Angels to Aliens, from Spirits to Superheroes. Sitting nearby, Seto gave a derisive snort. They were, in his opinion, idiots for wasting their time on Superhero Stories.

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Her hair was jet black, although she kept her hat rammed down so far on her head that you couldn't see her face. She preferred it like that. It made her totally unremarkable. If there was one thing she had discovered in her months and years of Egypt, it was that it didn't pay to be unusual. It only drew unwanted attention. The only attention she wanted was the sort that could lead her to what she was looking for. Because, today, as she moved through the market, was just like any other day. She was searching, just as she had searched the day before and would probably search the next. She would always be searching. Until she found what she was looking for, she would always be searching.

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Thinking is the strangest thing. Everyone in the world does it, but nobody knows it. It's a humbling thought to know that even as this runs through my head something completely different will be running through the head of every other person on the planet, and I will never know exactly what. People can break your bones and body, and even your spirit; they can confine your right to act or speak as you please, but no-one can take your thoughts, not really. Your thoughts are your own, locked away inside your head where no-one else can see them. Which is probably a good job, thinking about it, because if people knew what was going through my mind half the time I'd be in an asylum before you could say 'I am Batman'.

Still. We have developed a way to get these thoughts out of our minds and to share them with other people. Language. Unfortunately, when you don't speak a lot, people assume you don't think a lot. I think a lot. Perhaps… I think too much. It leads to things like this, but… Thinking too much lets me forget, you see. But when I don't communicate this, people don't know. I believe that most people don't think there's a lot to me. Which isn't as bad as it sounds. They are more relaxed. And you learn things.

I'm not claiming to be wise. I am far from wise. But I am learning. From body language, and tone of voice, and in the way people talk, and, presumably, think, I am learning to lie. I speak so little that when I do, it is rarely my real thoughts. Instead it becomes what is needed to be said. What people say, and what they think, are not so close together as people imagine. You can choose what thoughts to voice. You can also choose what to say in their place.

Or perhaps that's just me. The funny thing about thinking is that you never know what is in someone else's mind; and so you never quite know how isolated, or supported, you really are.

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A/N: Well, in case you didn't pick up on it, that was a mini Ryou-monologue at the end there. Don't ask me what he was talking about. (Sweatdrop) This fic is a little… experimental for me. Updates will, I'm afraid, be incredibly irregular- not even I can predict when they'll pop up. It all depends on the workload I get from school, really. Ah, GCSEs. (Sigh) However, I'm still on my Easter holidays till Sunday, so I'll update as much as I can before hand. Writer's Block shouldn't be a problem as I have actually planned each chapter- There are fifteen, plus this prologue and an epilogue. And I've planned them. (Dies of shock) So… Join me next time, for A Superhero Story- A Schoolboy…