AN: All right. We're now onto Pegasus's shadow game w/ Bakura. Again, sorry about the line; it's been a while.

Ryou's Problem 9

Opening my eyes, the first thing I noticed was the bright ceiling.

'I never noticed it was so white.' I thought to myself before I sat up and had a look around. 'Where am I? Tristan knocked Bakura and myself out in that dingy stairwell, but this doesn't look like it at all.'

Twisting around I was shocked to see I was on the viewing area over the stadium. Yugi was standing with Tea, Joey and Tristan and they seemed to be talking about something. It seemed to be important. I strained to pick up their words but I didn't find much.

"....... leave....... Mokuba." One of them said. I couldn't follow much after that, but I think they were talking about Pegasus. Deciding that it wasn't worth sitting on my ass as they talked, I stood up and leaned over the balcony slightly.

"HEY!" I shouted as I waved my hand in the air.

"Ryou! Hey Ryou!" they yelled back, seemingly excited to see me.

"Hey, do you think you could watch Mokuba for a bit?" Yugi asked. "We need to go find Pegasus!"

/Let them go. / Bakura laughed. /They won't find him. /

"Sure!" I called back. "Go ahead!"

I watched them go, before I quickly let Bakura take over.

/Where are we going? / I asked.

/To find this Pegasus. /

/Why? Yugi and the others are already after him. /

/Don't be such an idiot. They just want to find him so he'll pay up. I want to challenge him. /

/Challenge him? Does he have a millennium item? /

/Yes./ Bakura replied patiently. /The millennium eye./

/Oh. I guess I'd better just go into my room then./

/Probably best. Though we really don't have time to play a full duel monsters game./

/So what do you plan on doing?/

/Millennium item carriers must challenge another item holder to a shadow game in order to procure their item. That's the only rule. This Pegasus will clearly be tired, because he just took the pharaoh into the shadow realm and challenged him. I believe that I can quickly over power him with a simple mind game. We can get the eye and be gone before Yugi even knows where to look./

/And how do we know where to look?/

/Ryou, why must you ask such stupid questions? We are the owner of the millennium ring. Now, how do you say it? Ah yes, get with the program. Where the hell does that phrase come from anyway? /

/Television, I believe./ I mentally shrugged. /So where is he?/

/In his room. Now be quite. I need to conserve energy. / Bakura snapped before he sped up and leapt up the stairs to Pegasus's room. We came into the room in time to see Pegasus drop to his knees sobbing. Looking out of the corner of our eyes, I noticed that there were three empty soul cards.

/He's released Yugi's grandfather and the Kaiba brothers. / I told Bakura.

/I didn't think he wouldn't. / Bakura mentally shrugged. /A promise is a promise for men like Pegasus. And he's too tired to fight the pharaoh again, so let's play on that, shall we? /

"What?!" Pegasus called. "Who's there?"

"Me." Bakura sneered. "Shall we play a game, Pegasus?"

He took out our deck and set out six cards upside down. Without looking over at Pegasus, he turned four of them over and seemed to read them. I wasn't sure how he did it, but I could tell he was mocking Pegasus.

"Stop this!" Pegasus suddenly yelled at him. "Leave me!"

"But don't you want to know your future?" Bakura asked, still not looking at Pegasus. Turning over the last two cards, he laughed at Pegasus and challenged him to a shadow game. Throwing myself into my soul room, I covered my ears as Bakura fought the shadow realm. The battling seemed to scream inside my head and I could almost feel my head splitting apart. And suddenly....... it stopped. Opening my eyes, I stood up and quickly looked out of our eyes to find that Bakura had closed his eyes. Tilting his head back slightly, Bakura laughed.

"You lose, Pegasus!" Bakura declared in triumph. "And I win!"

"No. No." Pegasus whispered. "NO!"

Ignoring his screams, I watched in open-eyed horror as Bakura leaned over and gripped the millennium eye, before ripping it out with a quick, painful twist. Sneering at Pegasus's obvious agony and anguish, Bakura slowly, almost with a taunting air, extended his tongue and ran it over the millennium eye, lapping up the blood that covered its golden coating. Stopping down so that he was eye level with the cowering man, Bakura brought his face really close to Pegasus's.

"I was never here, was I, Pegasus?" Bakura asked Pegasus. "Cause if I was, I'd have to kill you."

Shaking his head negatively, Pegasus clamped both of his hands over his left eye, where the millennium eye had once been. Grabbing Pegasus's chin, Bakura forced Pegasus to look at him. Staring him in the eye, Bakura held up the Millennium eye.

"Erase his mind of all memories of me." Bakura commanded the eye. There was a blinding flash of light and, when I managed to regain my sight, Bakura had dropped Pegasus's limp body cruelly on the ground and kicked him away.

"Mr. Pegasus?" A voice called. "Master Pegasus, are you up there?"

"I'll leave you now." Bakura whispered to Pegasus's lifeless form and hurried over to the window. Crawling onto the ledge, Bakura gripped the roof tiles and pulled himself up, just as the first servant came in the room. Sliding over to the other side of the roof, Bakura slipped the Millennium eye into the front pocket of our shirt and leapt onto another outcropping of roof a few feet bellow us. He slipped over to the edge and swung our body into the room bellow us, which happened to be Joey's room last night. Making our way back to the viewing platform, I was relieved to find Mokuba was still unconscious.

/Take over, Ryou. / Bakura commanded. /And whatever you do, pretend like you've been here the entire time. /

/I'm not an idiot. / I started to grumble when I thought of something else. /You won't forget your promise, will you? /

/No. Now hurry up and start watching the brat. / Bakura growled as he shoved me into control of our body. Sitting in front of Mokuba, I watched as his eyelids started to twitch and slowly his head rotated so it was leaning against the opposite shoulder. I heard the others approaching and I looked over to see them running towards me. Mokuba let out a low groan and I turned my attention back to the sleeping boy.

"Hey, guys. I think he's waking up." I told the others, as Mokuba opened his eyes and sat up.

"Where's Seto?" He asked.