This one is set during Battle City, and don't forget to leave reviews on the way out!


When he had been younger, his mom had always read a bedtime story to Shizuka.

Now granted, Jounouchi never really followed along with those sort of things. He was a boy, and boys didn't read about fairy princesses and finding true love; they read about dragons and blowing things up, if they read at all. Since Shizuka was already having problems with her vision at that point, their mother would read the story aloud and Jounouchi would sit in with his sister, falling asleep almost immediately.

When his parents began their arguing and the whispers of divorce hung in the air, this task fell to Jounouchi.

He would never admit it to anyone but his sister, but some of those stories were not half bad to read (though most of them made him want to gag, there were a couple that he could get absorbed into). In particular, though, one story stood out the most in his memory. He could not recall the exact name, but he did remember what it was about: a princess was cursed by an evil sorcerer and fell into a deep slumber, and only the kiss of her handsome prince could awaken her.

At the time, Jounouchi had made fun of it when his sister was not in his immediate hearing. What kind of sorcerer would put a princess into an enchanted sleep? Why not just kill her and be done with it? Putting her to sleep just gave the prince the chance to wake her up again. That part of the story had never made sense to him.

But now, looking down at Mai's unmoving body in the bed, he remembered the full details of the fairy tale and he was grateful that Yami Marik had not finished her off. He still had a chance to rescue her.

Jounouchi knew it was a silly thing to think about, but some small part of him was wondering if maybe a kiss really would wake her up.