Author's Note: Now, a special notice – the first chapter was in first person through Ryou. I realize that these last two were in third person. One reason is that I write third person a lot better but, also, it would have been hard to write them in first person. Therefore, I'm trying something new. Hope it doesn't bother you.
Thank you so much to Lita of the Dancing Flames for her beta work.
Much love to RedShadowThief (as always), Cadens Stella, ilovemanicures (I would too, if I ever got one), YamiBakura1988, and Lita of the Dancing Flames. Your reviews make me so happy!
Disclaimer: I'd be in heaven if I owned half of these characters … especially the Akefia and Bakura half.
There are three things I have never wanted to do.
I have never wanted to be left in East Domino City and forced to walk back home, get lost in the process, and end up closer to the center than to my house.
I have never wanted to walk down a dark, dingy alley, only to see the end blocked by a wall and, upon turning around, find myself trapped by four (pretty beefy) guys at the entrance.
I have never, ever, ever wanted to be scared for my sister's life.
And yet, some mad twist of fate decided that I should experience all three of these at the same time.
I was in the center of East Domino City, in the darkest alley ever made, holding Amane's hand really tightly. I was surprised she wasn't complaining. But then again, you don't notice small things like how little feeling you have in your fingers due to someone's grip when there are intimidating people heading your way.
I could only assume that the man two steps in front of his companions was the leader. Upon closer inspection, I determined that he wasn't physically frightening at all. In fact, he was rather small. I probably could have kicked his ass if I had any sort of courage about me. The thing was, he had a knife. And not just a butter knife. I only had my fists and a brave face. In fact, I only had one fist since the other hand was busy keeping Amane behind me.
"You two ain't one o' the big richies from 'round here."
Aside from butchering the English language, his voice had a foreign lilt to it, making it difficult to understand his words.
"Are ya?" He shoved the pointed end of his weapon towards me, stopping mere inches from my stomach. I flinched.
You know what? It's difficult to stand still when someone has a tool that could cut your stomach into little shreds like it was paper.
"N-no," I stammered. I heard Amane let out a little whimper.
"I didn't think so. Ya sure look like 'em, but you ain't. You're too soft lookin'."
His drawl had a ring to it that made me think of someone else's voice. It reminded me to make a mental note for later: I was going to bloody murder Joey. Emphasis on the bloody.
If it weren't for him, Amane and I would be home doing our homework, not backing into a corner to escape some street thugs. (In retrospect, backing into a corner was not the best plan. It's not like we had much choice though.)
But it wasn't entirely his fault. He was the cause for about 89% of this problem. The other 11% of the blame belonged to me. I should have suspected something like this would happen. Certainly not that I'd be trapped in an alley, but the fact that I would be abandoned in this area of the city. I should have been suspicious when Joey first suggested that I was secretly one of the Touzoku brothers – I adamantly denied that, of course. Joey Wheeler was an experimental type of person; in order to determine whether or not something was true, he would go to all sorts of lengths to do so. I was stupid to have agreed to hitch a ride with him today. A warning bell had sounded when he said he needed to get something from a store in East Domino. For one thing, he didn't say what he needed or what store he was going to. For another … Joey can barely afford his room on the third floor of his apartment building. Anything, even a piece of pie, was way too expensive in this part of town. Especially for him.
Every single one of my flags should have gone up when he refused to drop Amane off. I had just picked her up from school and we were on our way home when Joey rolled by. I asked him to run by the bar real quick to take Amane home, but he said he needed to get "something" at "that store" first.
I could murder myself for not insisting. I'd do that after I took care of that blonde, bloody wanker of a bastard.
The pipsqueak with the knife was saying something to me, but I wasn't paying attention. That was obviously not what he wanted because he slashed his weapon at me and, before I could blink, my sleeve had a cut in it and I felt an intense, stinging burn. I clenched my teeth to keep myself from screaming. The knife-that-was-definitely-not-a-butter-knife hurt like hell. I chanced a glance to the right and saw that the pain came from a good two-inch gash, and I watched with some strange fascination as the blood welled up and spilled down my arm.
I opened my mouth to speak, but suddenly Amane released my hand and jumped in front of me. I was surprised enough to be speechless. She spread her arms out and she leaned against me, as if to protect me from everything. Words formed in my head but, try as I might, they never made it past my teeth.
"Please, leave my brother alone!" she shrieked. My fear for her safety and my pride for her bravery were both set aside for a moment as I thought, Thank god, proper English. …I'm terrible, I know.
"Your brother, huh? Ain't that real cute." Pipsqueak chuckled and looked back at his lackeys. They followed suit, laughing. When he faced us again, the gaze he gave my little sister caused a shiver as cold as liquid nitrogen to run down my spine.
"Amane," I managed to whisper. "Get back."
She took one look at my face and knew something was wrong. She grabbed my hand again as she stepped behind me.
I would never deny that I have a strong attraction to the male physique. But that doesn't mean I don't know what guys think when they look at a girl. Especially a pretty girl. There's a certain glint in a man's eyes when he sees something he likes and that glint was there in Pipsqueak's face.
Even at nine years old, Amane was, by far, the prettiest girl I'd ever seen, and I'm not being biased. Her rounded cheeks and nose were accentuated by the jagged edges of her unnaturally white hair and the grey in her eyes, inherited from our mother's grandfather, sparkled like polished gems. There was no doubt in my mind that she would grow up to be a beautiful woman.
But only I was allowed to think that about her. I wasn't about to let some lowlife asshole with a knife defile her the way his eyes said he would. I took a step forward, ignoring the pain in my arm.
"Aw, look at you, bein' a good big brother. Bet'cha feel real protective and tough, huh?"
"Stay away from her," I growled. Inside, I glowed. I didn't know my voice could reach that low! I thought I sounded angry enough and that's what I needed, of course. Obviously, having a tough sounding voice and having a tough body were two different things. Pipsqueak motioned to his pal on the right, who swatted me aside like a fly.
The alley walls were brick.
Cold, hard, and unforgiving.
I'm fairly certain I heard something crack, though I may have imagined it. Regardless, I predicted that my back would be hurting for months. I had, unfortunately, landed on my right side. That meant the terribly cut shoulder had just been slammed into the stone. Suffice it to say that it hurt. A lot.
And just when I thought I'd been dealt enough pain for the day, Thug Number One gave me a swift kick to the stomach. No, make that two. To top it all off, Thug Two came over to bash my head into the wall.
What Pipsqueak lacked in strength, he made up for in goons.
My vision started to get blurry, but I couldn't tell if that was because I just had my skull crushed or if it was the blood getting into my eyes. I heard Amane scream to my left. It sounded distant, although I knew she was only a few feet away. I forced my head up to find her.
Amane was trapped in the corner of the alley, the remaining two offenders on either side of her. Pipsqueak had a chunk of her hair in his fist while Thug Three clamped his hand over her mouth, effectively cutting off her noise.
"Pipe down, girlie. Don't want no one to come pokin' their head where it don't belong, do we?"
I glared in his direction. I used the wall as leverage to bring myself to my feet. My efforts were rewarded with hard shove on my shoulder and down again I went.
"Oh no ya don't, buddy." I think it was Thug Two who said it. I was too busy grimacing to care which goon had spoken.
Just then, the alley grew darker. You wouldn't have thought it was possible, but somehow it happened.
"What's going on here?" someone demanded. Never have I ever been so happy to hear a stranger's voice.
While my personal guards faced the arrivals, I made another attempt to stand. When I was up for more than a couple seconds, I turned to the sound of the new voice. The reason why the alley was so dark now was revealed. The end of the backstreet, where sunlight had been thinly streaming through, was currently blocked by two tall figures. One was a head higher than the other, but both were daunting.
"I asked you a question," the voice said again. "What's going on here?"
"Mind your own business, scum," Pipsqueak responded. "This don't concern you."
"Oh, on the contrary; this concerns me a lot. As for scum… given the position you're in right now, you've hardly a right to call me names."
The figures continued to approach and I gaped openly as I recognized them.
"This girl doesn't know what do with herself, let alone what to do with a man. Are you so insecure about yourself that you'd rape her to soothe your enormous ego?"
"I said, mind yer own business!" Pipsqueak snarled viciously and whirled around, coming to an abrupt halt as he faced the newcomers. If I hadn't been in so much agony, I might have actually laughed at the sound he made. It was a mixture of an 'Eep' and a growl. The growl came first, the eep came second.
Bakura shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "You're in an alleyway of East Domino City. Might I remind you that I own this part of town? Therefore, this is my business."
Akefia stepped forward and effortlessly pinned Pipsqueak against the wall with one hand. The other extracted a knife from his back pocket. Despite my pain, I tried to imagine him without his coat. His muscles probably rippled nicely with the movements.
I shook my head (a mistake, I quickly realized, when the world spun around me). This was hardly the time for that! I leaned against the wall and beckoned to Amane with my uninjured arm. I caught her round frightened eyes in mine and smiled slightly. It probably looked more like a grimace because she frowned, seeming to forget her fear, and dashed over.
Goons One, Two, and Three made a move to stop her, but Bakura brushed back the edge of his suit jacket to reveal a 9mm Glock tucked into his belt, claiming their immediate attention. His hand rested on his waist, holding the fabric back. His hair was brushed by the wind, falling across his face in a way that would have taken my breath away if I had any. He gazed at each of them coolly and raised an eyebrow. They all froze in their tracks.
Damn, I wish I were that good.
"Are you okay, Ryou?" Amane was asking. I pulled myself out of my thoughts to focus on her.
"Y-yeah, fine," I squeezed out. She touched my arm and I hissed like an angry cat.
Amane furrowed her eyebrows and gasped. "Ryou!"
"Seems like you've hurt my friend," Bakura accused. He took the five steps between his position and mine. A grin crossed his features and he winked while taking off his jacket.
He went closer to Amane and she flinched. I frowned at her reaction.
"It's okay," I said. I think.
Bakura wrapped the jacket around her shoulders and rested a hand on her head. He leaned down to murmur something in her ear. I watched as Amane's face relaxed significantly. She even chanced looking up, the smallest of smiles gracing her face.
"W-What are you doing?" I asked, bewildered.
The boy opposite me pulled the gun out of its holster. "Could you hold that for me, kitten? I'd hate for it to get dirty while I do my work here."
He turned back to the trio and raised the gun, his free hand in his pocket.
"So, who gets punished first?"
Thugs Two and Three didn't say a word before turning tail and running. Bakura seemed to contemplate following them but decided against it. He faced Goon One.
"Well?"
The henchman backed away quickly. He would have kept backing away for all eternity, but a solid, unyielding wall stopped him. He obviously hadn't noticed how close he was to it because the impact sent him sprawling to his knees. After a moment of shock, he rolled over onto his back. He put his hands across his face when Bakura stepped over him, the barrel of the Glock pointed directly at his chest.
Yes, because covering your face protects your chest from a gun that's two inches away.
My position against the wall gave me a full view of the scene — Bakura holding a weapon over a person curled into a half-ball. It would have been the type of scene you call the cops on, except I noticed something that no one else probably did.
Bakura's finger wasn't on the trigger. In fact, he was holding it the way you would hold a mug handle. I don't know much about guns, but I was pretty sure that wasn't the way to hold them. He should have been using two hands as well.
The man on the ground wasn't aware of that. He wasn't aware of anything except his apparent danger. "We were only doin' what he told us to, I swear. Don't kill me, man! I promise ya, I wouldna done it if it weren't fer him! I'm real sorry, man, jus' don't kill me or nothing, alright?"
Bakura gave him a long, hard glare that I could only imagine looked dangerous as hell. He twitched the weapon to the side as a signal for him to go. Thug Number One wasted no time in scrambling to his feet and fleeing. In his hurry, he lost his balance and before he reached the end, he fell over again. This time, he didn't bother getting up. He crawled on his hands and knees the rest of the way.
I chuckled as much as my beaten body would allow. My breath finally began to return to my exhausted lungs.
It went away just as quickly when Bakura looked at me again with those damn gorgeous brown eyes. He smirked.
"Thank you very much, kitten. That's one less thing I'll have to wash," he said, plucking the jacket off Amane. She glowed under his gaze. I pulled her closer. Somehow, I doubted he was the type of person to do his own laundry.
"Thanks," I squeeze out.
Bakura replaced his gun and beckoned to us. "Let me take you back to my place and patch you up. You look like a piano dropped on you."
"I feel like a piano dropped on me." I reached up to touch my head gingerly. "What about Akefia?" I asked, glancing back to see the other character still holding Pipsqueak against the wall.
"Don't worry about him. He'll come home soon enough. It's this way." Bakura turned left.
As I followed him, I heard Akefia's words float from the alley.
"Didn't your mommy ever tell you not to play with sharp objects?"
Touzoku Manor was a huge building. And by huge, I don't mean one of those mansion homes you see in developments. I mean, immense. It had a good half-mile driveway. I'd have been able to enjoy the scenery more if I hadn't been limping the entire time.
The house itself was massive. The front had to be at least five times the length of my family's bar and who knew how far back it went.
I gimped after Bakura to the front door. It was elaborately carved and I suspected that it was gold plated. It wouldn't surprise me.
When we walked in, I noticed a statue of armor to my right and an ornately set dining table in a room on the left.
Dead ahead was the staircase to the second floor. It was one of those designs that starts off at a single platform, splits to wrap around a centerpiece, and then meets at the bottom again. Here, the center was a doorway to another large room. I followed the solid oak banister with my eyes from where it started on the ground floor and went up one side of the stairs to the top, created a circle by wrapping around the second floor and came back down the other staircase. The banister ended in a large spiral. I took a step forward to look up at the above floor. It was like a balcony, except it looked down into the foyer instead of a garden.
"Follow me," Bakura said, his voice light, pulling my attention away from the house momentarily. He went straight ahead into the room between the stairs. I took the two steps to the platform that constituted as the ending point of the staircase. The fabric squished under my shoe. Looking down, I registered the fact that it was red velvet.
I blinked. This was fancy. I felt insanely under dressed in my school uniform. I tightened my grip on Amane's hand and went forward.
"Don't touch anything," I warned her quietly. She nodded.
The hallway leading to another room did little to ease my discomfort. It was painted a soft shade of yellow. A portrait of a stern, older woman with grey hair pulled back in a bun hung in the middle of the right wall, the frame seeming to be gold plated, just like the door frame. I hurried through and emerged into a well-furnished living room that was spotless, held the gentle scent of lavender in the air, and had an atmosphere of elegance about it. I was suddenly very aware of how much dirt was on my shoes and under my nails.
"Lay down here." Bakura pointed to the couch. One of three couches, I should say. I was a little nervous about ruining the probably highly expensive piece of furniture, but I was aching too much to worry very long.
Amane helped me to the seat and even arranged the pillows so I'd be more comfortable. She's such a good little sister. I reached for her and pulled her down to give her a kiss on her head.
"Thanks, Amane. I'm so sorry you had to go through that."
"S'okay. You protected me."
I smiled a little. "Yeah. And you were really brave."
Bakura coughed. "I'll get Nicole to take care of your wounds. I've never been good at first aid." He stepped through a door that I hadn't noticed was there before.
Now the house was utterly silent. Maybe it was because of all the cushions – they absorbed all the sound. I couldn't even hear my sister's breathing, though that could have been because my own labored breaths drowned hers out. I pressed a finger to my chest. It hurt like hell. If I hadn't broken anything, I'd consider it a miracle.
I dropped my head to the armrest. I watched as Amane settled herself on the ground next to me. She never removed her hand from mine. Every now and again, she gave a squeeze. I closed my eyes.
Just before my consciousness left me, I remembered my note to kill Joey.
A/N: There! This ending is by far my most favourite! I felt like this was the right place to stop. It feels natural to me. I wanted to make this chapter little longer, but I'm also afraid to go on because I might not find another stopping place as good as this!
Perhaps Ryou seems a little out of character. If you hadn't noticed, I'm trying to stray from the way he is typically portrayed.
No ... Pipsqueak is not Yuugi Motou.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I'm not sure why I was so excited to write about Ryou getting beat up but … apparently that's what I'm into these days.
I beg of you, tell me what you think!