Chapter 12.
Trouble
It still felt weird going into a cubicle, pulling her panties down and then sitting on the loo to tinkle.
But at least the ladies lavatories smelled whole lot better than the gents urinals did!
Katsu dabbed herself dry, just as she had been instructed to do by Anzu, and pulled up her panties and curve hugging leggings, that were styled to look like jeans. What was it Anzu had called them? Jeggings, that was it.
Smoothing over her bottom and thighs, she sighed. It seemed strange that her female anatomy no longer felt alien.
She washed her hands and met Anzu and Mai back at the vanity mirrors, where several girls were helping each other to touch up their make-up and hair, while giggling and chatting about boys, fashion and pop music.
It was so different to the gents, where guys barely looked at one another as they stood and aimed their streams of piss in the general direction of the urinals. To look at another guy urinating sent out the wrong message and was definitely asking for trouble. A man might give himself a quick once-over in the mirror, while washing his hands. And friends might exchange a few words about work or sport, but that was about it. You certainly did not linger. No wonder girls always took ages in the bathroom!
When Katsu tried to make a quick escape, Mai caught her arm and hauled her into the throng of giggling girls. "You can't go back out there looking like that! Your hair is a mess and your make-up is smudged. I will sort it for you."
"I can't help my hair!" Katsu complained. "And I don't like wearing make up. I prefer the natural look." Truth was, wearing make-up was still unfamiliar. She tended to forget she was wearing it and then go and rub her hand across her face because the eye make up made her itch.
"Stop making excuses," Anzu giggled, "and let Mai sort you out. You do look a bit smudged."
"I don't look smudged!" Katsu pouted indignantly.
"You have got an amazing figure, yet your face is a mess! Now, SIT!" Mai pushed her down onto a stool. Unable to argue further, Katsu groaned and perched her bottom on the stupid little pink stool, while Mai dabbed at her smudged mascara and tidied her up. The giggling girls around her were deafening.
When they emerged, the boys were faithfully waiting for them. Katsu found their body language amusing. They looked so bored, standing there, with their hands in their pockets and slumped posture.
But, the moment they spotted her and her two companions, they straightened up. The look of relief on their faces was hilarious. She knew exactly what was going through their minds: They were wondering what exactly it was that the girls could be doing in there that would take so long.
Well, Katsu now had some very valuable insider information. They were bound to ask her, in the hope that she might tell. But girls stuck together, right? So they could keep on guessing.
Shit! Was she thinking more like a girl?
"Hey! Katsu!" Honda snapped his fingers in front of her face, startling her out of her daze. "What's up? You look like you spotted a ghost!"
"Huh! What? No... I..." She suddenly spotted Goro Inogashira, with two of his cronies, sitting by the window on the far side of the cafe watching them. She quickly looked away again to avoid letting them know she had recognised them in case it made them suspicious. "Actually, yeah..." her eyebrows knotted together in concern. "And it ain't good. Don't look, but Goro and his gang are over by the window."
Of course, everyone immediately looked, making Katsu squirm. "I said don't look!" She hissed.
"Yeah, well, at least they appear to be minding their own business, so lets just ignore them and go and play some more games," Honda suggested.
Mai was baffled and had no idea who they were so nervous about. "Who's Goro?"
Anzu linked her arm through Mai's. "The three guys by the window. The big one with the gauze covering his face is Goro. He kind of had an accident with the okonomiyaki grill at school. No one really knows what happened and he claims to have no memory of it. But his friends accused Yugi, which is unfair, since they hit Yugi really hard with the heavy grill and gave him concussion. There's no way he could have had anything to do with it." Deep down, she suspected the other Yugi might have challenged Goro, but she was loyal to her friend and would never let on.
Mai did not have a clue what Anzu was talking about and just shrugged.
Behind her, Yugi shifted his feet nervously. Even if Anzu knew the truth, he was convinced she would never want to believe what he was capable of – what the other Him was capable of. "Come on everyone! Let's play some more games!" He quickly cut in, before Mai could ask any more questions.
"Yes!" Bakura beamed brightly. "What shall we play next?"
"How about DDR?" Anzu suggested. "I challenge you Mai!"
"Me?! How about... NO!" Mai had no intention of dancing.
"Aww.. come on Mai! You told me you used to dance. You said your mother wanted you to be a ballerina, which was why she gave you your name," Anzu argued.
"Yeah, go on Mai! Don't be such a spoilsport!" Katsu goaded.
"I haven't danced in years!" Probably not since she was fourteen!
"Please, Mai?" Anzu pleaded. "It will be fun!" She was already stepping up onto the dance mat.
Realising that they were not letting her off the hook, Mai reluctantly agreed. "If I break my ankle trying to dance in these shoes, you lot pay my medical bill," she huffed, stepping up onto the dance mat to the right hand side of Anzu.
"Then take your shoes off if they're that bad to dance in!" Katsu suggested. How the heck Mai could wear shoes like that every day, was beyond her.
Mai responded by pulling off her high heeled ankle boots and tossing them at Katsu.
"Geez Mai! That nearly got my head," Katsu complained, swiping one of the pointy heeled clod hoppesr out of the air, as the other hit her shoulder.
Not wanting Mai to gain any advantage, Anzu tossed her shoes, a little more gently than Mai just had, to Yugi.
Anzu placed her coin in the slot and turned to Mai. "Ready?"
Mai nodded. "As I'll ever be."
The music started and the lights on the floor under their feet started to illuminate in sequence to the music, while the screens in front of them displayed the moves they needed to perform and showed the scores.
It was easy to begin with and neither of them missed a step, but as the difficulty level started to increase, so did Anzu's confidence and enjoyment of the game. When Mai chanced an out of breath glance at her, Anzu looked to be in her element. Mai may be the duelist of the two but she could not hope to out perform Anzu at this particular game – it was getting faster, more complicated and harder and harder to keep up.
"I'm done!" Panting, Mai grabbed the hand rail and stopped dancing. 'YOU LOSE' flashed on her side.
Smiling and slightly breathless, Anzu stopped dancing. "Thank you Mai! Look at the level we made it to?! You were a really tough opponent. I'm really out of breath!"
Mai snorted and rolled her eyes. "You don't look out of breath at all." Mai could feel her face glowing and sweat forming on her lower back. Anzu looked slightly pink cheeked, but otherwise was as fresh as a daisy!
It was only when the two girls turned around to look at their friends, that they noticed the crowd of people who had gathered to watch the two beautiful young women dancing. Some were girls who wished they could dance like that. The rest were pimply faced boys and some older men, wanting to see bouncing boobs, a bit of thigh, and maybe a flash of underwear.
Among the crowd was Goro and his two pals. They were standing not far away from where their friends were standing.
Disappointed that the two girls had finished dancing, the crowd started to disperse. But Goro and his pals stayed where they were.
Anzu wanted to shout a warning, to let her friends know that the feared bully was looming large behind them. But apart from standing there, Goro was not doing anything wrong.
However, she knew how much Goro and his friends hated her for winning the prime spot at the school fayre, and they hated Yugi even more for standing up to them. Her biggest fear however, was how Katsu might react to them.
She and Mai jumped off the platform and bounded over to their friends.
Anzu quickly got between Yugi and Katsu. Linking arms with them, she tried to get them to move away from where they were standing."Come on!" She said, anxiously tugging on their arms when they seemed more interested in handing back the shoes she and Mai had tossed to them.
Unfortunately, Anzu also managed to accidentally lock eyes with Goro's. Quickly looking away again, she tried to pretend not to have recognised him. But it was too late. Sensing something was wrong, her two friends had already turned to see what she was looking at.
Before anyone could say anything, Goro reacted. "Hey! What's your problem? Not trying to avoid us are you?"
Yugi started to worry. His other Self had promised not to punish any more people, so a Shadow Game was out of the question. But he might be forced into starting one if Goro and his friends followed them outside and things got bad.
Usually they could rely on Jonouchi's ability as a fist fighter, while Honda backed him up. But he doubted Katsu had the physical strength to fight like Jonouchi always could. Honda would have to take them on alone. He and Bakura would have to try and back him up. But Bakura was even worse in a fist fight than he was.
Unless he could pre-empt the inevitable, they were doomed.
He decided to try the friendly approach. "Oh! Hey Goro! We were just going to play another game," he managed to say, without stuttering. He could see by their body language that they were hoping for trouble – as always.
Goro cracked his knuckles and smirked. "A game eh? And what were you planning this time?"
Only Yugi really understood what he was referring to, but he wasn't about to take the bait. He could feel the Puzzle growing warm on his chest and knew that his other Self preparing to step in, but Yugi pushed him back down – not here, not now. "I don't know. We were thinking of playing..." his eyes were drawn to the machines to the left of Goro and his friends. "Pac Man or Walking Dead. How about you and your friends join us?" He had not meant to invite them, but it had kind of just slipped out!
"Yeah, squirt. I'll take you on," one of Goro's pals replied, with a slightly sinister undertone, as he loomed over the diminutive teen.
Yugi was unsure what to say. He did not want to speak for his friends and commit them to gaming against these three, but where games were concerned, he would take on any challenge thrown at him. And they were in a public arcade! How could anything bad happen here?
Before he could respond, Anzu spoke up. "Don't play against them Yugi, please?" She gripped Yugi's arm, protectively.
"What do you really want Goro?" Honda stepped up. "He knew they would not start a fight in here. But there was every chance that they would when they got outside."
Goro made a gesture with his hands and shrugged. "Why be so aggressive Hiroto? We all go to the same school, don't we? As seniors, we just wanted to look out for the younger students! It can be dangerous staying out too late. A lot of gangs looking for trouble." Goro's face stayed taut under the gauze, but his eyes glinted and his mouth did manage to crinkle up into a smirk. His two friends smirked and chuckled at their boss' comment.
Katsu had been biting her tongue, desperately trying to kept quiet. But her blood was boiling so furiously that it was becoming harder and harder to keep her mouth shut and not draw attention to herself. Luckily, Mai placed a calming hand on her arm.
"Why don't you three just lave my friends alone and I won't report your behaviour to your principal," said Mai.
A moment of tension hung in the air for a moment, as everyone waited for a response.
Eventually, Goro snorted. "Whatever. Woman." The way he said 'woman' was insulting, but dispite her hackles rising, Mai did not react, and continued to fix Goro with her warning glare.
Feeling that this confrontation was now pointless, Goro blinked and looked away from her. "Let's go," he growled at his two subordinates.
The trio pushed their way through the group of friends, to make their way to the exit.
As they passed by, the thug who had challenged Yugi to play Pacman, shoulder barged him. "I should watch yourself Mutou! You might fool everyone else into thinking you're an innocent little kid, but we know that underneath that pathetic exterior, you're a psychopath."
Yugi said nothing, but Anzu was outraged. She had not had the opportunity, or courage, to challenge Goro and his gang for what he had done that day. Now was her chance. "How dare you! You stole our pitch, and when Yugi tried to stand up for everyone, you hit him so hard with that grill you could have killed him! If anyone's a psychopath, you are."
"It's okay Anzu. It's in the past now. Don't be upset. I wasn't badly hurt," Yugi quietly said to her.
The second thug laughed at Yugi and Anzu. "You two are pathetic."
Still wary of Yugi after receiving flash burns at the end of their game, Goro did not join in the heckling. His memories of the Shadow Game had initially been suppressed, but he had slowly pieced together what had happened: The kid was like some sort of vengeful demon! He might look sweet and innocent now, but he had set up a dangerous game and challenged Goro without showing any fear. The expression on his face had been nothing like the brat in front of him now. And when Goro lost and the acid blew up in his face, Yugi had pointed to a bucket of water placed nearby and then calmly walked away, leaving him there to nurse his own burns. If his two friends had not arrived seconds later, the burns might have been worse.
Katsu had been trying to keep quiet, but Goro and his thugs were not leaving peacefully. And now they were insulting Yugi and Anzu. Fists clenched and shaking, she erupted. "Why don't you bunch of losers back off and leave my friends alone?" Instead of sounding threatening, it came out as an almost tearful outburst. Katsu almost cringed at how stupid she sounded.
Goro and his pals had not taken too much notice of her up until now, but suddenly their attention was drawn to her.
Spinning round to face her, Goro stared. This feisty little tart sounded familiar. "Who are you?" He recognised her but he was not sure where from. "Are you and the other bitch their protectors or something?" He snickered, looking at Mai standing beside her.
"Yeah... maybe I am. So what are you gonna do? Hit a girl?" Katsu's retort made her friends squirm.
Goro laughed so much that it made the sore skin under his gauze stretch so much that it nearly tore. "If you want a good spanking, why don't you ask me nicely? I'm more than happy to oblige."
"Why you...!" Like a lion about to take down a wildebeest, Katsu pounced.
Luckily, Honda and Mai caught her and held her back. "Lemme go! I wanna..." Honda slapped a hand over her mouth.
"That's enough, okay? They're not worth it. Don't let them upset you."
"It's okay... Katsu!" Mai soothed. "They're leaving. Don't start a fight with them now."
Katsu pushed Honda's hand away from her face. "They started it!" She pouted.
All three thugs were looking at her suspiciously now. They were starting to place who she reminded them of. They had suddenly noticed that a vital member of Yugi's pack of morons was not here.
"Are you Jonouchi's crazed twin sister or something? You've certainly got his bad attitude!"
"He's my cousin. So, what?" Katsu gulped. Shit! Shit! Please don't let them guess who she was.
Mai salvaged the situation for her. "Yeah, I'm afraid the bad attitude is a family trait. Slightest little thing sets them off. So, why don't we all just go back to whatever we were doing before you came over here and started picking on my friends? And I will forget this little confrontation never happened."
"Yes, I agree with Mai," said Ryou nervously. He could feel the heat from the Ring, burning into his chest. The Spirit inside was stirring and the last thing he wanted was for him to show himself and punish these three fools in public. His expression changed very subtly, as the Spirit pushed Ryou's conscious mind aside and spoke through him. "So, I would suggest you three pieces of insignificant scum, leave now, before something rather terrible happens to you," he hissed.
The trio were dumbfounded and gawked at him, disbelieving of the sinister words that were coming from the usually polite boy's mouth. "What did you just say? Asshole!" One of the trio snarled.
Yugi and his friends turned to look at Bakura and gasped when they instantly spotted that the Ring was controlling him. "Oh, crap!" Honda muttered. "Hey! Bakura. We got this, Okay?"
"No... It's not okay." He sneered to reveal his sharp canines. No one called his host an asshole and got away with it.
Fear suddenly crept up the spines of the trio and they visibly seemed to recoil slightly. Goro snorted. "Don't think this is over." He backed away before turning and sloping off with his two friends in tow. There were too many people watching anyway for him to deal with Yugi and his friends here. Any violence among students of Domino High School was bound to get reported back to the principal, so they decided to wait outside and ambush them on the way home.
"Bakura! Are you..." Yugi began, but had to blink when he saw the gentle brown eyes and soft smile on his friends face. "Phew! For a minute there, I thought you were the other Bakura."
"Don't be silly Yugi!" Ryou smiled sweetly at him. "I'm not stupid enough to risk wearing the Ring! But I am getting very good at acting. And it worked! I succeeded in frightening them off." He was blushing profusely and his friends did not believe him for one moment, but they did not want a confrontation with the evil Spirit, or any more bad feelings with Ryou so they shrugged and let it go.
Not wishing for the evening to end on a sour note, they went to play some more games.
They were all too busy focussing on Yugi taking another high score, to notice Ryou quietly slip away from them.
Cold steely eyes glinted, as Bakura followed Goro Inogashira and his friends outside.
::::::::::::
Crossing over the road, Goro and his friends waited in the shadow of one of the cherry trees that lined the walkway. Although it was already dark, the street lighting illuminated the walkway very well. But under the tree, they were fairly well concealed. They knew that the group would have to come this way to go home.
Bakura exited the arcade and watched them from the shadow of the doorway as they settled in their hiding place. As a masterful thief, he could use the cover of darkness far better than these pathetic humans could. His eyes were as keen as those of a cat on the prowl and he could pick out their every movement with ease.
He watched as Goro pulled out a flick-knife and proceeded to carve his initials into the bark of the tree. Bakura was not afraid of such a pathetic little blade.
Allowing his features to soften into those of his host, he stepped out of the doorway and onto the pedestrian crossing.
One of Goro's pals spotted him and nudged his leader. "Hey! Look! It's that brat Bakura!"
Bakura knew that they had seen him and waved at them with a friendly smile.
"What the fuck is is playing at?" Goro shook his head in disbelief at the stupid, suicidal fool.
"Hello guys!" Bakura beamed, as he approached. "I thought I saw you hiding behind the tree. What are you hiding from?" It was said so innocently, the trio almost choked on their laughter.
"Are you some sort of fucking idiot?" One of the thugs sneered. "You realise we're gonna beat the crap out of you, don't you?"
"Really?!" Bakura pretended to be surprised. "Three on one! Now, that is unfair," he tutted at them.
"Then I suggest you run kid, before we put you in the hospital," said Goro, cracking his knuckles. But Bakura didn't move.
"I have a better idea!" His face and voice started to take on a more sinister edge. "How about I put all three of you in the hospital? " When the trio responded by laughing at him, he smirked. "Laughing at me is unwise. It might cost you your lives. But, before I kill you, how about a little card game first? If you win, you can beat me up. If you lose, you die. Deal?"
The trio snorted. "Are you for real?" One of them asked, trying to hide his growing fear.
"Oh! I'm very real. Human slime..." They looked at him in disbelief as he pulled out three cards.
"You wanna play Duel Monsters?!" Goro chuckled, recognising the back of the cards. "Sorry, but we don't play."
"Oh dear! Then I guess I win." He fanned out the three cards and turned them to face the trio. All three cards were blank and the thugs looked puzzled.
However, their expressions turned from puzzled to terrified when the Ring underneath Ryou's clothing magically materialised on the outside of his sweatshirt and started glowing.
Bakura's form almost seemed to shimmer with dark swirling tendrils, as a burst of bright light shot from the ring. The thugs had to cover their eyes from the brightness.
Seconds later, all three slumped to the ground as their souls were ripped from their bodies.
Leaving them in the shadow of the tree under which they had fallen, Bakura casually walked away and got on the bus to go home.
He smirked down at the images of the open mouthed, frightened faces of the three thugs, who were now prisoners inside his cards. That would teach them to pick on his host and the Pharaohs' vessel.
It was not until Yugi got bored of the game and ended it, that any of them realised that Ryou had gone.
"I will text him," said Anzu, pulling out her phone.
She received a message back almost immediately, to say that the noise and stress had caused him to develop a migraine, and that he had left quietly so as not to disturb them while Yugi was concentrating on playing a game.
Anzu rolled her eyes. Even without the Ring's influence, Ryou could behave strangely at times.
Honda checked his watch. "I should be getting home too."
"We should all go," Anzu decided. "Especially since Yugi has to be up early to help his grandfather."
Agreeing that they should all stick together, in case Goro was outside, the group left the arcade.
"We only have to make it as far as my car," Mai told them. "I will drive you home."
"Thank you Mai," said Anzu, breathing a sigh of relief. It was only about one hundred metres to Mai's car. And the pavement was well lit.
Relieved that there appeared to be no sign of Goro and his thugs waiting for them, they walked across the road to where Mai had parked her car, and Honda his motorcycle. They had no idea that they were walking just metres away from where the trio of thugs lay soulless on the ground.
"I'm worried about Ryou," Anzu suddenly said. "What if Goro followed him rather than wait for us?"
"I don't think we need to worry about Bakura," Honda responded. "Did you see his face earlier?"
Mai looked at him blankly. "What face?" Said Mai. She was not familiar with the Millennium Ring and the influence it had over the quiet blonde boy.
"Yeah, I did," Yugi nodded. "I didn't like to say anything in front of everyone, but he wasn't mimicking the evil Bakura, I could tell."
Anzu was a little upset at Ryou's dishonesty. He had promised her that he would leave that thing at home. "Why would he lie to us about not wearing the Ring?"
Yugi was quick to stick up for their absent friend. "He wasn't lying. The spirit that lives in the Ring was the one speaking. Ryou is just a passenger when it takes over."
Honda's expression was serious. "I was standing close to him. I could feel the malice coming from him. I thought he was gonna slice and dice Goro like he did those goons at Pegasus' castle."
Anzu shuddered. Honda had never been too eager to discuss the incident that night, when he and Ryou had been chased and cornered on a ledge, hundreds of feet above the forest, by Pegasus' guards. All he had recounted of the incident, was that the pair had been hit with such force that their necks had snapped. Honda had told them that he had been forced to rip the Ring from around Bakura's neck, and had hurled it it into the forest below.
It was scary to think that the Ring always seemed to find its way back to Bakura. She concluded that in the wrong hands the Millennium Items could be dangerous. Thank God Yugi and his other Self were strong enough to resist any evil that might be present inside their item.
Walking closely beside her, Yugi felt her shudder and thought that she was cold. "Would you like my jacket?" He asked.
"I'm fine, thanks Yugi. I was just thinking about the Millennium Items. How many are there in total do you think?"
"Well, according to Grandpa, there are seven items all together. We have come across four, but there are two more that are apparently still missing. Grandpa said that, according to records, that they have not been seen for over two thousand years! But I'm pretty sure that they will turn up at some point, because the items all seem to be drawn to one another."
Anzu shuddered again. "I hope that whoever has them isn't evil."
"Well, I will be ready for them if they are," Yugi chuckled and scratched his head. He had no idea why the other Millennium Item holders had it in for him and his other Self. Maybe it was because the Puzzle was the most powerful of all the items, and they wanted that ultimate power for themselves.
Upon reaching Mai's Mazda sports car, Yugi, Anzu and Katsu climbed in, while Honda climbed onto his motorcycle and waved farewell, before riding off.
Mai dropped Yugi off first and then took Anzu and Katsu home.
Sat in the front passenger seat, Katsu had been unusually quiet. Tonight could so easily have been a disaster. She had more or less let herself down by having a Jonouchi style outburst, that could have given the game away. If she had learned anything from what had happened this evening, it was that there was absolutely no way she could go out again for fear of someone putting two and two together and realising who she was. If they did, Jonouchi's reputation as a tough guy would be destroyed in an instant; he would forever be thought of as a transvestite.
At the very thought, Katsu nearly cried out, but instead dug her prettily painted, manicured fingernails into the thighs of her Jeggings until she could feel them burning into her flesh. Don't break down here, not in front of Mai.
But when Mai turned to her and said, "Well hun! I must say, now that I'm over the shock of you changing sex, you make a pretty good girlfriend to hang out with." Katsu screamed.
