A/N: Ugh! I'm late with my update yet again. I'm sorry. This chapter did not go through beta phase because I was so late! I have to go straight to homework now. I hope that everyone enjoys this chapter.

Chapter 4

"Hey Ryou, you're actually really good at drawing," Marik said as he looked Ryou's shoulder. They were stuck in this group therapy session with a busty therapist that was named Mai Valentine. She insisted that all of her patients addressed her by her first name, but no one was comfortable with doing that other than the ones that were cocky perverts that had their eyes on her breasts.

They were doing a little of art therapy, which Ryou was glad. It didn't have any probing into the past or extreme questions about his behavior. He was just drawing whatever he felt like. It just happened that he was drawing a card of a Duel Monsters, the Change of Hearts.

"Yeah, you're really good," Yugi said, looking over. Mai forced him to put down his games and he decided to draw out a complicated maze. "Did you ever think about making money with your art?"

"W-well," Ryou stuttered out. His face was red from embarrassment. He didn't expect getting positive feedback from the other two since he hadn't drawn anything in years. He looked at the drawing and found that there were plenty of mistakes where he wouldn't have made if he wasn't so rusty. The eyes were soulless as well. It ruined the charm of the picture.

"You could work for Kaiba Corps's game art division!" Yugi suggested, which made Ryou wince.

"I don't think I can. Kaiba doesn't exactly like me," Ryou replied as he looked at his art with a frown. Marik hugged him to cheer him up, but that failed considering that his arms were wrapped around Ryou's neck, making the other choke.

"Come on, what's did you exactly do to make that stuffy CEO hate you?" Marik asked. "You're harmless."

"Marik, I think he can't breathe," Yugi pointed out. He watched as Ryou's face turned slowly to blue.

"Oh, what makes you say that?" Marik asked as he looked down. He freaked out and let go of Ryou's neck before the other got the chance to pass out. "Ryou, I'm sorry. I didn't notice that I was choking you!"

"It's…alright…" Ryou said out weakly. He looked at the time. It was almost time for the group session to be over and the others would have to go thief separate ways until dinner came. Ryou frowned at this as he really enjoyed the time he spent with the two. "I have a session with Dr. Ishtar after this. What about you two?"

"Oh, ugh," Marik said, making a face of disgust. "At least you have my sister. She's probably the best out of the therapists here, other than her weird approach on therapy. I have Pegasus. He's going to go more about his problems than mine."

"Oh?" Yugi asked. "I don't think he's that bad. I have Dr. Shadi today."

"What? But he actually does his job," the Egyptian said, flailing around his arms. "He's the most normal therapist here. No offense Dr. Valentine."

Fortunately for him, Mai wasn't even looking in their general direction. She was over at another table, commenting about the drawings and giving advice to a crazy psychopathic girl.

"I don't like him," Yugi said. "I mean I don't hate him or anything, but he gives the Pharaoh a bad feeling."

"The Pharaoh says that I give him a bad feeling too!" Marik said, waving dismissively at the other. He had enough with these bad feelings from his sister. He didn't need any more of that type of thing from Yugi. "But that's strange that you don't like him. Normally you like everyone, even those guys that used to bully you."

"Isn't that normal though?" Ryou suggested. "You know, to have at least one person you dislike?"

"True," Yugi mumbled. He also had a bad feeling. Normally, he wouldn't get a bad feeling. He never got one from Marik, only when he went into Malik mode. So he felt that his sixth sense was better than the Pharaoh's.

"I think you'll be fine, Yugi," Ryou said, patting the other on the back. Yugi smiled at him as the kind gesture did make him feel better about the next session. He will just keep his guard up, that way nothing bad could ever happen.

"So the brat has a bad feeling about this therapist, Shadi, huh?" Bakura said, becoming interested in the conversation. Ryou tried to dismiss his voice, but it was hard. He settled for rolling his eyes at the other's comment.

"Hey, don't ignore me," Bakura said. "I think you should find out as much about Shadi as possible if he is going to become a future threat."

"He's not going to be a future threat," Ryou mumbled. He soon realize that he had spoken out loud in front of Yugi and Marik, who were staring at him.

"Where is that voice coming from?" Yugi asked, looking around.

"I don't know," Marik complained. "I hear him talk to that voice all the time in our room, but I can't seem to find the stalker."

Ryou paused.

A few things hit him square in the face. One, Marik heard him talk to himself in their room. Two, Yugi could also hear Bakura. And three, Marik thought that Bakura was a stalker of his. The third thing caused Ryou to laugh loudly. He wished it was that simple.

"It's amusing how those two can hear me," Bakura said, smirking, even though the others would not be able to see it. "Maybe I'll talk to them since you're ignoring me."

"How about no," a voice came from Yugi's direction. Ryou looked at Yugi, who didn't seem to notice that booming voice. Marik didn't seem very disturbed about it either.

"Oh it's about time you showed yourself," Bakura said, as if he was talking to an archrival or something like that. Ryou just liked to think of it that way, because it made this scene less messed up than it already was.

"Do you guys hear that?" Ryou asked, nervous. He never heard this type of voice. Well, he did. This type of voice was the type that Bakura had, but he had never heard it in this way.

"That's the Pharaoh," Yugi commented, as if everything was normal. Ryou looked at him with huge eyes. He sat there, with his mouth open. It was an understatement to say he was in shock.

"Alright, clean up," Mai said to everyone. She finally went over to Ryou's table that he shared with Yugi and Marik. She was amazed by the artwork that Ryou made, but her mind were already wrapping around the possible messages that Ryou's subconscious was trying to express through the art. She decided that she would do it later since there was the constant chatter that interrupted her thoughts.

Ryou took this time to leave the room in a hurry. He didn't know what to think or to say. When he was cornered in moments like that he found it better to avoid it until he had calmed down. He didn't want to say something that made him look stupid.

Yugi however found Ryou's escape as a sign that he didn't like the Pharaoh.

"Yami, stop scaring off my friends," Yugi said with a sigh. Mai ignored the fact that Yugi was talking to himself. He was known to be talking to himself in this place, plus he wasn't the only one with that strange habit.

"Well, I didn't know he could hear me," the other said as he seemed to come out of Yugi's chest. He was transparent and looked a lot like Yugi. He sat on the table in front of Yugi and waved his hand in front of Marik's face to check if the other could see him. The other was oblivious to it and had gotten up to go to his session with Dr. Pegasus.

"And I didn't know that there was someone else like you," Yugi said as he cleaned up his things. He wanted to take his time walking with the other.

"Don't compare me to him," the other stated, crossing his arms.

"I don't know, Yami," Yugi said, using the other's name instead of 'Pharaoh'. "He seemed to be like you a lot. He has the booming voice and intangible body."

"I don't think he has gotten that far as to figure out that he could come out of his host like this," Yami said, putting his hand to his face. He was deep in thought. "These are some strange people we met here. They have potential to cause some future problems."

"Yami, I think you're over analyzing the situation," Yugi said. "Ryou is harmless and I doubt his friend is any more dangerous than you."

Yami laughed nervously. He was glad that Yugi didn't know what happened to the bullies that used to beat him up. In Yugi's eyes, Yami couldn't harm a fly, but the truth was Yami definitely killed people before coming here into Millennium Asylum. He was the reason why Yugi wasn't allowed to have any cards. It was amazing what a person could do with a simple thing such as a card.

"Oh you're here," Ishizu said, not looking up from her book. She flipped to a blank page and wrote Ryou's name at the top. "Please, take a seat."

Ryou looked around nervously, but took a seat in front of Ishizu.

"Are you going to probe me with questions?" Ryou asked. He didn't really know what kind of therapy they were going to be doing. Marik told him that Ishizu used some weird methods when it came to therapy. But considering how Marik considered Mai Valentine's art therapy as normal, Ryou thought that Ishizu would actually ask some questions about him.

"No, of course not," Ishizu said. "I'm not the type to force you to face your past. When the time comes you will be able to face the past on your own."

She took a couple stones from inside of the box.

"Here, please choose one," she said as she displayed the different stones on a cloth in her hand. She didn't seem to want to touch them directly.

"Woo~, stones," Bakura said. He chuckled. "How is this going to help you?"

"She'll explain it later," Ryou told Bakura in his thoughts as he looked at the stones. He really didn't know which one to choose. They were all the same shape, but the colors were different. "You pick a stone, Bakura."

"The green one with flecks of red in it," Bakura said, after a long pause to make up his mind. He decided to go with the one that called out to him the most. Ryou took this one and found the strange green against the red that was a color similar to blood actually soothing.

"The blood stone," Ishizu said as she nodded to herself. She put the other stone in the box and took out a silver chain. She attached it to the stone and made Ryou hold the stone by the chain so that it was dangling. "This is a pendulum, but not just any pendulum. It's your pendulum."

"What? How does this help me?" Ryou asked, frowning.

"Well pendulums are commonly used for finding things," Ishizu said. "But truthfully you can tap into your subconscious with it. It's not witch craft like some ignorant people would think. You hold it and when you ask a question, you subconsciously make the stone move in a certain direction. At least, that is what I believe."

"What a load of bollocks," Bakura said and then the pendulum jerked and moved back and forth. Ishizu stared at the pendulum as she didn't expect such a strong reaction so soon. She shook her head and looked at Ryou.

"I thought it would be a nice, fun activity we could do since this is your first session with me," Ishizu said. "The first thing you should do is ask it to show you yes and no."

Ryou raised his eyebrow, but he listened to Ishizu. Bakura found it strange that the pendulum would move when he was talking and decided to play a little game.

"Yes," Bakura said and the pendulum moved counterclockwise. He smirked and started to fake moan out yes over and over, making Ryou's face turn redder than a tomato. It just so happened that the more that he said yes, the faster the pendulum moved. "This is fun."

"Stop it," Ryou thought to the other. He hoped that Ishizu wasn't looking at his face.

"No, this is too much fun," Bakura said. The pendulum moved clockwise. "Oh? Yes, no, yes, no."

"What are you doing?" Ryou said out loud, annoyed with the other's voice.

"Landlord, look at the stupid stone," the other said. "It's moving according to my voice."

Ryou looked at realized that it did. He also realized that he was talking to Bakura out loud, in front of a therapist. Ryou wanted to slap himself for doing that. He wasn't going to get out of the damn asylum like this.

"Very strange," Ishizu said. "This happened with that boy Yugi. Your subconscious wants to tell you something."

Ryou wanted to laugh, but that would be rude so he stopped himself. Bakura however did not care at all about how rude it was to laugh.

"Yeaahh your subconscious wants to tell you something!" Bakura exclaimed in between his laughter.

"Miss…Ishtar?" Ryou said, shifting uncomfortably. "I don't feel comfortable with this."

"Oh, I understand," Ishizu said as she put Ryou's hand down. "Hm? You have a strange..."

She didn't finish the sentence. She looked at Ryou and shook her head. She wrote in the book some details that Ryou couldn't read even though he leaned over to see what she was writing. She wasn't writing in any language than Ryou had knew how to read, so he shrugged and waited for her to send her attention back to him.

"Do you believe in destinies?" she asked.

Ryou raised his eyebrow. Ishizu was definitely weird. If Ryou didn't know any better he would accuse her of being just as crazy as her brother, but he decided to keep that to himself.

"Why do you ask?" Ryou asked.

"I feel like that there is something big is happening here, right under our noses," Ishizu said. She didn't look up from the book. "It's like we have all gathered here for some odd reason."

"That's strange," Ryou said, frowning.

"Well, I don't expect you to understand what I mean," she said as she put the book away. "I know that you won't take my warning seriously, like Marik, but I think that you may be heading down a dark path. I suggest you chose your friends wisely and keep your enemies close."

"This sounds like something from a movie, Miss Ishtar," Ryou said with a nervous laugh, but he stopped his laugh when he realize that she was serious.

"Can you do me a favor?" she asked. "Can you keep Marik out of trouble?"

"I don't think I can," Ryou said, nervously, but he relaxed noticing that she was just worried about her younger brother. "But I'll try my best."

"Thank you, you're a good kid."