A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews! I wish I could present you with a better chapter since you've all been so amazing. I feel like something about the ending is off and I can't put my finger on what it is, but it's massively annoying. That's what I get for going to bed early and finishing a chapter the next morning instead of just completing it while I was on a roll! Oh, well. Enjoy!
Once, and only once, a long time ago, Ryou had come into contact with the entity known as Yami Malik. It had happened during Battle City, and it was one of the few clear and vivid memories she had of that long stretch of time that was otherwise a complete blur. Ironically, it was also one of the memories that she would have given anything to be able to forget. Out of everything that Bakura had done to her and, on a rarer occasions, for her, his nearly complete suppression of her soul during the time that they had been in close contact with Yami Malik was something that she would have liked to thank him for.
She could still remember the moment when she'd been roused from a thick, heavy sleep to find herself standing outside of her body. That had been the first time it had ever happened and she'd been frightened, but that paled in comparison to the ice that had gripped her when Yami Malik turned to look at her. His eyes were fathomless, flat discs of deep purple, but the glint of insanity had chilled her to her core. Even the presence of Bakura hadn't frightened her as much, and she easily recalled the split second when she'd chosen the lesser of two evils and huddled behind the imposing form of her yami, seeking protection from his stiffened form.
Yami Malik had been amused by her fear and he'd taunted Bakura for having such a weakling for a partner. Bakura was oddly snappish and cold in response, biting out a command for Yami Malik to mind his own business. To this day, Ryou still didn't know why she'd been summoned when it was apparent that Bakura was against the idea, but she suspected that it had been Yami Malik's way of reminding Bakura that he still had some form of a weakness. What surprised her the most was that Bakura had been protective, standing solidly in front of her with clenched fists, and when Yami Malik had tried to get closer, condescendingly mocking her like she was a child or a pet, Bakura had warned him away and summoned Ryou back into the Ring with a strangely gentle call that stunned her to this day. At the time, confused and terrified, she'd gone willingly and that had been the end of her experience with Yami Malik.
Until now, at this moment, when she wanted nothing more than to be able to hide behind Bakura again. Barring that, she wished she could flee into the Millennium Ring, where no one could touch her but the evil she already knew. Desperate, shivers wracking her body, she drew her knees up close to her chest, eyes searching the foggy clouds for any sign that a physical being had materialized into the room with her. She could feel his presence as surely as though he was standing right beside her, could almost imagine that the sounds of his breathing and harsh laughter were echoing in her ears, and it was enough to make her skin crawl. Her whole body felt weak and kind of detached, but she knew that she couldn't just sit there; she had to get up and move.
Her legs trembled and nearly buckled under her weight when she put them down on the floor and stood up. Ryou grabbed the locker door and hung on, panting from exertion. "Leave me alone," she wept into the mist. Instantly, she regretted opening her mouth as a sour taste began to gather at the back of her throat, like she'd eaten something rotten. Her stomach heaved and she clapped a hand to her mouth in an effort to avoid throwing up, pressing her other hand out in front of her and taking a shaky step forward.
"Poor little hikari...So alone… so vulnerable…"
Ryou froze and her heart skipped a beat at the sound of that voice, a voice that had haunted her nightmares. "No!" she cried. "Leave me alone! Go away!" A very large part of her wanted to curl up on the floor and put her hands over her head to block out the soft, mocking laughter that seemed to fill the air around her. But the thought of staying inside the room for even a minute longer was unbearable. She closed her eyes in an effort to keep the tears back and pressed her hands against her chest, where the Millennium Ring had once hung. "Bakura… Please help me," she whimpered.
The door to the locker room slammed open without warning and Ryou jumped, a choked gasp falling from her lips. The boy standing in the doorway - one of her classmates, she thought, though she only vaguely recognized him - raised an eyebrow at her and sauntered across the room towards the lockers. As other students began to file into the room behind him, the foggy, deep greyish purple clouds dissipated so quickly that it was like they had never existed in the first place, and the temperature began to rise slowly. Ryou shuddered and staggered towards the door, unwilling to stick around any longer.
"Fuck it's cold in here," one of the boys was saying as she left.
There were so many students in the hall, so many lights and so much noise, that it left her feeling disoriented. She stumbled down the hall, catching her balance against the wall, and didn't even hear the voices calling her name until hands landed on her shoulders. Ryou jerked and instinctively tried to pull away, panic flooding through her system, before she realized that she recognized those voices. She looked up blindly and finally realized that it was Yuugi and Malik who were standing in front of her, both of them wearing expressions of concern.
"H-He w-was in th-there," she stuttered, her legs finally giving out on her. Two sets of arms caught her before she could fall to the floor and Ryou clung to both of them, pressing her face into the nearest shoulder in an effort to block out the rest of the world.
Isis swept past their huddled forms and strode towards the boy's locker room and pushed the door open. Ignoring the surprised squeaks and squawks from the boys who were getting changed inside, she glanced briefly around, noting the perceptible difference in the temperature between the room and the hall before she retreated. "I think we should go outside," she said briskly. "There are too many witnesses here."
Suddenly conscious of the other students that were openly staring, Ryou allowed herself to be pulled back to her feet and walked down the hall with Yuugi and Malik on either side of her. Isis hovered behind them as they made their way out of the school and out onto the grass of the field. Yuugi headed instinctively for the little spot where their group always ate lunch and Ryou followed. She felt better as soon as she was seated on one of the flat rock, which was warm beneath her thighs. The large sakura tree afforded them a little shade from the sunlight while still allowing the heat to strike her face and shoulders. It felt marvellous.
"What's going on?" she asked, keeping her face tilted towards the sky. Someone sat down beside her - Yuugi - and she shifted over an extra couple of inches to make extra room. In their current bodies, both of them fit easily on the rock. Malik crouched down in front of them, seemingly not bothered by the fact that his position left the sun shining directly into his eyes, and stared up at them in open fascination.
"You… you're girls," he said, sounding torn between amazement and shock. There was also a tinge of amusement seeping through, and it seemed like he was trying hard not to laugh. "I didn't think… I heard your voices, but then…" His face went pink and Ryou remembered an arm sliding around her in support, a hand brushing against her chest and how fast it had moved, and flushed as well.
"It's a long story and from the sound of it, you've already gotten the gist," she said, uncomfortably folding her arms across her chest. "What's going on?"
Malik was apparently too shell-shocked to explain, so it was Isis who told her about Yami Malik's return, and how the Shadow Realm's opening had given him the opportunity to escape into the real world. In the end, she pinned them with a cross look and stated, "Yuugi-kun, you said it was your fault that Yami Malik had escaped. I must admit that I am failing to see how that could have happened, but being that the two of you are now female, there has definitely been shadow magic at play. I want to know what happened. Now."
"I kind of told you already," Yuugi mumbled, threading her fingers together nervously. "I miss Mou Hitori no Boku. I tried to move on but it was hard. Harder than I thought it would be." Her violet eyes focused on something in the distance. "But I didn't think I had a choice, so I never thought much beyond it until a couple of nights ago when Dark Magician showed up in my bedroom. He said that Mou Hitori - that Yami could come back if I was willing to make a sacrifice to have him return, but he couldn't tell me what it was. When I said yes, he did something. It hurt a lot and I passed out afterwards." She bit her lip and looked up at Isis with a pleading gaze. "When I woke up, I was like this, but there was no sign of Yami. Please, Isis-san, do you know where he is? Why hasn't he shown up yet?"
Something Isis's deep blue eyes softened and she sighed. "That's hard to say," she said gently, looking very much like she wanted to pull Yuugi into a comforting hug. "Shadow magic is complicated at best and there could easily be a delayed effect that's preventing the Pharaoh from materializing in our world." Her brows furrowed and she frowned slightly before she glanced at Ryou. "I assume that you had a similar encounter. Have you seen any sign of Bakura?"
It would have been hard to describe the way that Ryou's heart flipped over at the thought of seeing Bakura again, even if it was only so that her yami could sneer and call her a weakling. She swallowed hard. "No, I haven't."
The woman nodded, her lips pursed in thought. "I suppose you assumed that because you missed your yamis so much, that's what led to the Shadow Realm opening?" she asked, looking back at Yuugi and Ryou. Without waiting for them to nod, she went on, "I'm not sure that's true. The Shadow Realm should have been bound away when the Pharaoh's soul went to rest. The fact that it could still be opened means something along the line went wrong, though I'm not yet sure of what that could be. But no matter how much you were grieving, your monsters shouldn't have been able to pass through. Don't blame yourselves for this. It's not your fault."
Ryou felt Yuugi relax against her back, but she wasn't quite ready to let it go. "Why?" she asked, pulling her knees to her chest. "Why has Yami Malik returned? I thought he was destroyed." She cast a hesitant glance at Malik. All traces of laughter had vanished from his expression.
"I don't think it's something I did, but he's smart," Malik said softly, shuddering. "Smarter than I expected. When he appeared to me, I…" He trailed off and dug his fingers into the soft grass, like he was searching for something to hold onto, something to help tie him to the real world. "I don't think he's going to give up. He was… so angry. I have Nee-san and Nii-san to help keep him away, but you two…"
"Have you told your friends about this?" Isis asked, stepping closer to Malik and resting a protective hand on his tanned shoulder.
"No," Yuugi said, trying not to wince. To be quite frank, she didn't like where this was going.
Sure enough, Isis said, "You should. It won't be safe for either of you to go anywhere alone until Yami Malik is stopped. If the Pharaoh and Bakura were here…" She sighed. "Yami Malik is not very powerful right now. The more portals he opens into this world, the weaker he'll get. He's no doubt trying to conserve energy so that he can escape the Shadow Realm permanently, so if there are more people around you, he won't risk trying to open a portal. He'll try to wait until you're alone."
The idea of telling their friends about the situation made Yuugi squirm, especially now that they knew about Yami Malik. She had hopes that they would take it well, and considering the things they had gone through together the evidence did point in that direction, but there was something about telling them that just felt… wrong. It made the whole situation seem entirely too real, like there would be no going back once the truth was out. And even though she knew that this was permanent, that if Yami and Bakura returned they would be stuck this way forever, she wasn't sure if that was something she was ready to face.
"I need to lie down," she mumbled, putting a hand to her head. This was too much to accept when it wasn't even ten in the morning.
"Me too." Ryou's face was still pale and now that she had warmed up a little, the encounter had left her feeling weak and tired and not at all in the mood for classes. She tilted her head in the direction of Isis and Malik. "I'm going home. You can come if you like."
"You three go," said Isis. "Call Rishid and have him meet you there. I'm going to go back to that locker room and look around a bit." She rubbed Malik's shoulder when he started to speak and added, "Go. A nap would do you the world of good, Malik."
"Nee-san!" he grumbled. "I'm not a little kid."
Isis just looked at him with a raised eyebrow that dared him to argue. "All of you should go to sleep when you get there," she said firmly. "I don't want to hear any arguments, understood?"
"I liked it better when Yami was inside me. Then she couldn't order us around," Yuugi muttered in an undertone to Ryou, who smirked. Isis shot them a mildly admonishing look, but couldn't stop the faint smile from curling around her lips as the four of them parted ways.
Please review!