A/N: So it seems that y'all have a one track mind when it comes to torture! No, this story will not be going that route. There are more ways to inflict pain on someone than just rape and making Yuugi a girl only to have her go through that doesn't sit right with me. Having said that, I'm putting a warning up for mild torture in the latter half of the chapter - don't read it if that disturbs you. Everyone else, enjoy!
"Bakura, could go you outside and wait for Malik and Isis to arrive?"
Bakura was leaning against the wall, gazing disinterestedly out the window when Ryou made her request. He turned his head slightly, casting his other half a narrow-eyed glare. In the cold light of the moon, he looked like an exotic figure, with pale hair and eyes that contrasted sharply against his tanned skin. "Why?"
"Because I need to talk to Yami," Ryou replied as patiently as she could. The past hour had been agony. Yami had sunk into some sort of stupor. He was sitting on the edge of the couch and staring off into space, no doubt imagining with painful clarity exactly what Yuugi was going through. Ryou felt the itch to pace, to clean, to do her homework, to do something other than sit still and worry, but she'd restrained the urge. Bakura, of course, was the very picture of calm.
He glanced past at her, towards Yami. "And I can't be a part of it?"
"No," she said simply, folding her arms. While Yami and Bakura had been, oddly enough, actually getting along since their return, every interaction included a wariness that could turn violent at the slightest provocation. She didn't think Yami would appreciate it if Bakura saw him at his weakest; it was probably bad enough that Ryou would be the one to break the news, not Yuugi. "Please, Bakura."
For a moment, she thought he was going to refuse. His lips tightened into a scowl, but then he pushed off of the wall and sauntered outside. Ryou waited until the door had closed before she walked over to Yami and sat down beside him. He was so out of it that he didn't even notice her. She took a deep breath before cautiously reaching out and a placing a hand on his arm to get his attention. Yami looked down, staring at her hand like he couldn't figure out what it was for. Then, slowly, he turned his head his head to blink at her.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, "yes, I'm fine, Ryou."
"You don't look like you're fine. It's not your fault, you know."
"That's kind of you to say, but I know it's not true. If I had stayed with Yuugi instead of leaving him at the shop, Yami Malik wouldn't have had the chance to do this." He clenched his hands into fists.
"Well, that's true, but you couldn't have known that would happen. And besides, Yuugi knew better than to wander around the town alone." Even as she spoke, she knew it was useless; nothing and no one would be able to comfort Yami until Yuugi was back where she belonged. Ryou shifted uneasily and cleared her throat. "I have something to tell you. Well, actually, Yuugi was going to tell you before she was taken, but obviously she can't now, and I still feel like you should know because at some point someone is going to let it slip." Technically, she already had when she'd been talking to Malik, but Yami had been too horrified to pay any attention. She doubted it would happen a second time.
Yami's eyes focused on her again and he raised an eyebrow, momentarily distracted from his self-recrimination by her babbling. "What's wrong?"
"A few days ago, Yuugi and I were approached by Dark Magician and Change of Heart. They wanted to know if we wanted you and Bakura to return," Ryou said. There was no easy way to say this, so she decided to just go for it. "The thing was, if our answer was yes, there was a catch. A sacrifice needed to be made in order for the two of you to be brought back."
"A sacrifice." It was impossible to tell what Yami was thinking.
Ryou nodded hesitantly. "Yes, a sacrifice. We weren't allowed to know what it was before we said yes or no, either." She looked down at her hands and straightened the edge of her sweater. "Well, since you're here, I suppose you can imagine we both said yes."
"What was the sacrifice?"
"Yuugi and I… we're both girls now."
There was a moment of stunned silence. "You're both what?"
Realizing that he would probably need some proof, Ryou removed her hand from his arm and grabbed the bottom of the sweater she was wearing. She pulled it over her head and shook her hair out, setting the sweater aside. Without the added padding, the button-up top she was wearing was clingy enough to show her breasts. Yami's lips parted silently and he stared, speechless, though fortunately he made no move to touch. His eyes moved from her chest to her hands to her face and back down again, cataloguing all of the small, subtle details he'd initially not paid any attention to.
"Yami?" she prodded gently after a minute or two had passed without him speaking. Had she broken him for good this time? "Are you alright?"
"You're a girl," he said faintly.
"That's right."
"And Yuugi too. Fuck."
It was so unlike the pharaoh to swear that Ryou just stared, shocked, as he leaned forward and buried his head in his hands, groaning. "Y-Yami?"
"No wonder he… she… was so angry at me," he muttered. "It was my choice… and then you had to do this in order for us to return… Ra damn it." He looked up at her, something like desperation glittering in his eyes. "Why didn't Yuugi tell me before?"
"Both of us decided to keep it a secret for different reasons," she confessed. "I was a little worried about how Bakura would react. And Yuugi thought that you would feel guilty. Clearly she was right." Ryou attempted a smile that didn't come out quite right judging by the way Yami grimaced. She settled for chewing nervously on her lower lip instead. "Like I said, she was going to tell you. That's why I told Bakura."
He muttered something under his breath about the gods and stood up, pacing back and forth. "I can't believe this. I knew that something had changed, but I never could have imagined…" He trailed off and shook his head impatiently before turning to face her. "Thank you for telling me, Ryou."
"You're welcome," she said softly, relieved that he'd taken it well. "I don't know if it will help you find Yuugi, but I thought that you should know."
"You were correct," he replied, closing his eyes briefly. He sighed before giving her a thin smile. "Yuugi and I definitely need to have a long talk, but… We have to concentrate on finding him… her… first. Gods only know what Yami Malik is up to."
There was nothing Ryou could say to that and she knew it. She sat in helpless silence, watching him continue to pace, until the door opened and Bakura came back in. Without a word to either of them, he walked over to the couch and sat down beside Ryou, close enough that their thighs and shoulders brushed. The reason why became clear a moment later when Isis and Malik followed the irate darkness inside. Malik kept darting nervous looks in Bakura's direction, and he wisely kept his distance.
"We came as quickly as we could," said Isis, looking at Yami. "You still haven't heard from her?"
"No," said Ryou, "I can try her phone again but I don't think it's going to make a difference. I sent her a text and she never responded."
Isis sighed. "I was afraid of this happening," she murmured. "If Yuugi has been taken into the Shadow Realm, electronics like her cell phone will be useless." She looked troubled and Ryou knew what she was thinking: even if Yuugi's cell phone had been working, the likelihood of her being able to use it was not high. "My Pharaoh, you'll have to reach out to your duel monsters and encourage them to search the Shadow Realm for Yuugi's presence."
"That could take days!" Yami exclaimed.
"We have no other way of searching," Isis said.
"What about your link?" said Bakura.
Ryou looked at Bakura in surprise. "Oh, yes," she said. It was amazing how fast she'd forgotten about the link now that it was back. Even heavily shielded to keep anything from slipping through without permission, the link had settled into place like it had never been broken.
Yami didn't say anything for a moment. An odd expression crossed his face and he said reluctantly, "I can't feel her."
A cold chill slid down Ryou's back and she found herself clutching Bakura's arm before she could stop herself. "At all?" she asked, horrified, dreading to think about what that could mean. And when she saw the way Yami winced, she wished she'd thought twice about saying anything.
"It might not mean anything," Malik pointed out, speaking for the first time since he'd entered the house. "That could be interference from the Shadow Realm.
"Let's hope that's all it is," Isis muttered grimly. She glanced at Ryou and added, "You would do well to exercise extreme caution. Now that he has taken Yuugi, you or my brother will be next."
Bakura said nothing, but he did pull Ryou's hands off of his right arm. She was embarrassed by her unconscious reaction until she felt his hand sliding around her waist, coming to rest on the warm, bare skin of her opposite hip, underneath her shirt where no one would notice. The grip was entirely possessive and, in its own way, almost comforting. Ryou relaxed against him just a little, her weight coming to rest in the comfortable curve of his body, as Yami and Isis began to make plans.
INC
It was amazing how many ways a person could inflict pain without ever touching someone. Yuugi lay on her back and stared up into the infinite darkness of the Shadow Realm. Every breath hurt, no matter how shallow it was. Her nerves throbbed, singing with a phantom pain that didn't have any one source. She closed her eyes - even that hurt - and felt the sticky gloss of tears burning beneath her eyelashes. Yami Malik seemed to be determined to make her cry, and it was the one thing she had not yet afforded him. With effort, she blinked them away and drew in as deep breath as she dared before rolling over.
The world spun in a dizzying arc and she felt her stomach twisting with the effort to not be violently ill. She gagged on the taste of sour bile and shuddered, pushing her hands underneath her chest in an effort to lever her body up. Somewhere in the darkness, Yami Malik was waiting. He seemed to like watching her struggle to her feet, only to lunge out of the shadows and do something that would end up with her right back on the ground. It was nearly impossible not to twitch at every flicker she saw out of the corner of her eyes.
And yet… he hadn't touched her. Not since the first time he had shoved her down. It had been a relief at first, if only because she hadn't realized just how creative he could be, but at least he hadn't forced himself on her. Which, to be honest, she had been fully expecting from the moment that he appeared out of the shadows. After all, it seemed like the kind of traumatizing act that would be right up his alley. But strangely enough, that hadn't been the case. Indeed, if Yuugi hadn't known better, she would have said Yami Malik was almost repulsed by her. He went out of his way to avoid any contact between them, but that hadn't stopped him from watching the torture with an unholy glee.
"Had enough yet?" a deep, mocking voice rumbled behind her.
She tensed slightly and then grimaced when practically every nerve in her body protested. "I'm not sure what you think you'll accomplish by doing this," she said raggedly. It hurt to speak with a throat that was broken and cracked from screaming. When she swallowed, she could taste blood.
"You don't need a specific goal to enjoy pain," Yami Malik said pleasantly, pacing a wide circle around her. He gave an idle wave of his hand and she doubled over with a sharp cry as a blazing pain opened up underneath her ribs. She cupped her hand over the gash, shuddering as blood dribbled between her fingers. He smirked. "I think I'll leave that one. It looks so pretty when you bleed."
"Bastard," she whispered. Her clothes were soaked with blood. Even though most of her wounds healed as fast they appeared, it was enough to leave ample evidence of the damage that had been inflicted… and of course, the pain never disappeared; her nerves, muscles, and bones all remembered like the wounds were still there. It was too much. Her knees grew shakier the longer she stood and eventually she slumped, a shuttered groan escaping as she fell. Her vision was going dark and blurry and the last thing she saw before passing out was his taunting expression.
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