I want to thank AndiNara and SaraGeorgia for betaing for me. I couldn't have done it without you guys!

I want everybody to look at the url. It says Fanfiction dot net. This clearly states that I do not own any of these characters. I'll even be nice and tell you who does own these. It's Kazuki Takahashi. So there you go.


Ryou woke up in his bed safe and sound. He groaned, as he remembered his fun-filled night, and sat up. He immediately fell back down as pain lanced through his arms. He pulled up his sleeves and gasped at the purple and blue bruises decorating his arms. He sighed and grabbed some aspirin from his nightstand. Then he started shambling through his morning routine still very tired from his late night. He had just finished when Bakura appeared before him.

"It is time for more training."

"Really? Now?" A grumpy Ryou replied. "I haven't had breakfast yet and it's daytime. Are we going to attempt a daring daytime robbery?"

"Eventually, but you are not ready yet. You need to learn much, much more before you attempt that."

Ryou shook his head and walked through Bakura's spirit, heading down the stairs.

"No. First I'm going to get breakfast, then you can start with whatever crazy scheme you cooked up this time."

He suddenly blacked out. He managed to catch a glimpse of his soul room before he was thrust back into his body. A body that was quickly heading downwards. His head hit the floor hard. Very hard.

"Owww." He groaned holding his head. Bakura appeared next to him.

"Oh, look at that." He sneered. "You can't even walk properly. It's sad really."

"You tripped me!" Ryou shouted. Bakura glared down at him.

"You do not get to talk back to me. Ever. You got off lucky this time." The millennium rings tines pressed hard against Ryou's chest, breaking the skin slightly. "The consequences will be severe if this ever happens again."

Ryou was starting to wake up and was beginning to realize exactly who he was messing with.

'Is it too late to wish for the old Koe back? All I had to do was stay in my soul room. It was boring and he was actively plotting my friends deaths, but I didn't have to jump through these hoops. I'm getting more injuries now then I have ever gotten in my life.'

"Sorry Koe." He tried to change the subject. "What are we doing today?"

Bakura didn't answer and Ryou found himself in his soul room, again. 'What am I doing here? Did I upset him again? I really hope not.'

The door to his soul room flew open and Bakura walked in.

"Come with me." Ryou follow Bakura out of the room. He gasped in surprise at the scene before him. He had never been out of his soul room before. When ever he was in there the door was locked. Over time he had learned how to form a spirit outside of the body and how to see and hear what Bakura could see and hear, but he had never seen this.

A long endless hallway stretched from left to right. It was dark and despairing and filled with fog, but that's not what captivated Ryou's sight. An enormous double door stood in the hallway across from Ryou's small wooden door. It was made from ancient stone and cemented with anguish. It filled his heart with dread.

"What's that?"

"Are you an idiot? It's my soul room."

Ryou stared at the behemoth of a door. "Oh."

"This way." Bakura started running down the right hallway.

"Wait up!" Ryou dashed after him.

The doors soon vanished behind them. Bakura never slowed or showed any signs of stopping. Ryou could feel his breath growing labored and he developed a stitch in his side. He wanted to stop, but he didn't know the layout of this corridor. He had to stick with Bakura. If there was a sudden split in the corridor he could get lost.

After what seemed like forever a light developed at the end of the tunnel. Ryou followed Bakura into the source of the light. An enormous cave-like cavern greeted his eyes. It stretched out further than the eye could see. You couldn't even see it's ceiling. Looming nearby, large splotches of shadows dominated the space.

"What is this place?"

"This is your new practice area. Every day we will run from our soul rooms to this room, so you can practice here."

"Every day?" Ryou chest and legs ached at the thought of it.

"You need to build up your strength. This is where you will practice essential thieving skills with out fear of harm. Any damage you get here will not affect your real body, but unfortunately for you, it will still hurt like it was your real body."

'That's going to be fun.'

"We will start with self-defense. A thief has many enemies. It is important to learn how to protect yourself against these enemies." One of the black floaty blobs floated closer to them. "This is a shadow. One of the powers of the millennium ring is the ability to control shadows. With my mind I can form the shadow into any shape I want."

The shadow formed into a vague humanoid shape.

"We will start the lesson evaluating what, if any, fighting skills you already have. Start!"

"Wait... What?" Ryou turned around and saw that the humanoid blob was running toward him, so he did the only reasonable thing to do and started running for his life.

"That's cheating." Bakura said. Large black walls formed around Ryou and the blob, trapping Ryou in a corner. Ryou turned to face the blob and just barely missed his face getting smashed in.

"Koe, he's going to kill me!"

"Probably." Bakura said in a bored tone. "Punch him. Don't just stand there."

Luckily, Ryou had some experience dodging attacks. He discovered that the blob was actually much slower than the people that were usually beating him up. Ryou took advantage of this opportunity and stuck. The punch, unsurprisingly, barely made a dent in the blob.

"That's simply pitiful. You couldn't knock out a baby with a punch like that."

Unfortunately the punch had thrown Ryou's dodging out of balance. The blob took advantage of this and hit him in the gut. Ryou bent over and collapsed to the floor, wheezing. Ryou tried to quickly stand back up, using the wall as a support, but the blob kicked his feet out from under him. Ryou fell back to the floor. The blob continued to kick at him. Ryou decided that the best course of action would be to curl up in a ball and wait for it to stop. After all that worked with all the other bullies he had faced.

"Stop. Stop." Bakura waved the blob away with a motion of his hand. Surprisingly Ryou's pain and his bruises went away as soon as the blob did. He stood up and faced Bakura. "You can not give up like that. The enemies a thief has aren't schoolyard bullies. They will kill you if you give them that opportunity."

'I Don't Want To Be A Thief!' Ryou wanted to shout this from the top of his lungs, but he knew he couldn't. If there was no lasting damage to the real body here, then Bakura could hurt him as much as he wanted and he wouldn't suffer any consequences. Ryou didn't think that that particular remark would go over very well with Bakura, so he stood there with his fists clenched, but he was silent.

"As for your fighting style, it's weak. You seem to have some experience with dodging, but you don't look like you've ever punched anything in your life. We will have to work on building up some arm strength first."

"How is building up arm strength in here going to help me out there?" Ryou argued, letting some of his anger through.

Bakura scowled at him, but answered his question. "Whatever strength you gain in here is directly translated into real body strength. Which is why I am stronger than you even though we share the same body. It can only go as far as your body can go, so you won't suddenly gain super human strength."

"Oh."

"Getting back to what I was talking about before you interrupted me, you need to build up your arm strength. You can start with push-ups."

Ryou grumbled but got down and did a push-up. It was a bit clumsy, but not too bad.

"Now keep doing them until I tell you to stop."

Ryou continued to do push-ups. After a couple of push-ups his arms grew weak and his tempo slow to a grinding halt. He struggled to lift himself, but it was no hope. Bakura face-palmed.

"I should just give up now. There is no way that you will ever be a good thief."

"Why isn't the pain going away? Last time it went away when the blob did."

"What blob?"

"That thing I fought."

Bakura scowled. "It's not a blob. It's a shadow. Pay attention."

"Ok, but this pain isn't going away."

"The wounds you received from the shadow were caused by the shadow, so they went away when it did. You are the one making your arms hurt and the pain and exhaustion will go away when you leave here." Ryou groaned. "Now get back to pushups."

Ryou started push-ups again. After Bakura figured Ryou had done enough he had Ryou take a lap around the enormous cavern and after Ryou collapsed at the end of the run he decided that it was time to take a break.

"Alright it's time to head back." Bakura said.

"Awesome. How do we get back?"

"Same way we got here."

Ryou was too exhausted to even complain. He just followed Bakura back down the long hallway. When they finally made it back to their soul rooms Ryou was ready to collapse and sleep for a week, but he had no such luck. As soon as they were in their soul rooms Ryou found himself in control of his body.

A refreshingly non-painful body. Apart from the bruises he had before his body was pain free. Except for his stomach. His tummy was currently complaining about the lack of yummy food, so Ryou headed to the kitchen and started making breakfast.


And that's the end of this chapter. I'm not going to be home this weekend so I don't know when I'll be able to update next.

Thank you for reading and I hope all of you have a good day.