Ryou opened his eyes. It was difficult. They were so heavy. What happened to me? he thought woozily. Oh God! I missed school! He put out a hand to steady himself and realised that it was covered in blood. He stood shakily upright and glanced at his watch. I've got about an hour before school ends, he thought. I'll have to sneak into the school toilets and clean myself up.

………………

Peeling away his blood-encrusted shirt, Ryou inspected his side. It didn't look too good. Half-dried and clotted blood was stuck all around the long gash. At least it hasn't turned green, he thought humourlessly. It could be infected. Ryou closed his eyes for a second, and pictured greeny-yellow pus oozing out. Not a pretty picture. He hastily opened his eyes again. He dabbed cautiously at it with some damp tissue paper and flinched when it stung. Quickly, he grabbed a fresh toilet roll and wrapped it around his abdomen. Round and round. He tucked the end in neatly. It'll have to do, he thought wearily. If I do much more I'll be late to meet Yugi. Maybe I should start walking to his house now. The state I'm in, I'll probably reach it tomorrow morning.

……………..

Ding Dong! The bell rang out a jaunty tune through the Motou residence.

"Ryou! Why didn't you come to school? We were worried about you!"

Why didn't I come to school? Ryou thought sarcastically. Well, let me see…I was stabbed in the side by my evil alter ego and blacked out, is that a good enough excuse?

((Oh stop whining,)) said a familiar voice. ((Why can't you just accept your fate, instead of whinging and moaning about it? What do you think you are? Some kind of matyr?))

"Um…I had other things to do?"

((Well that was a pathetic excuse, even by your standards.))

(Shut up!)

((Well, well, well…))

He hadn't meant to say that, it had just popped out, but he couldn't take it back now…

"Ryou? Are you O.K? You seem kinda…spaced out."

Massive knives were driving themselves into his head. He couldn't think. The pain was blinding. Red spots were dancing in front of his eyes.

"Yeah," he heard himself mutter. "I'm fine. Let's just get on with it." Yugi seemed taken aback, but didn't say anything more about it. Silently, he led him through the hallway and into his lounge. Ryou took a few deep breaths and tried to block out the pain. Just as he thought he was going to scream with agony, the pain stopped, as suddenly as it had come.

"This is my cousin, Rebecca," said Yugi.

"Hi Rebecca."

"Say hello to uncle Ryou, Rebecca."

"Hello to uncle Ryou."

"She likes her little jokes," Yugi whispered, as Ryou smiled uncertainly. "Anyway. I'll go and get us something to eat. You try and find something to keep her occupied with. Tell her a story or something." Ryou nodded. "There might be something in that toy box over there," Yugi added, pointing vaguely.

Ryou crossed the room, and started rummaging in the said toy box. After a few minutes of wading through headless Barbies, books with bite marks down the spine, and a Barney toy with Eat Me scribbled on it, he found two hand puppets. One was a white mouse. The other was a black mouse. There was nothing particularly interesting about them, but something in Ryou was drawn to them. "What are these, Rebecca?"

"They stick together! Like this-" She snatched them out of his hands, one of which was bandaged from earlier, and stuck them together by the Velcro straps on the side, which Ryou hadn't noticed. "Now there's only one mouse!" she exclaimed triumphantly. "This mouse-" she indicated the black mouse-"This one's bad. And this one's good." She pointed to the white one.

"Why can't you just leave them apart?" Ryou asked. She looked at him with breezy scorn. "'Cos they're together. The black one wants to be with the white one. And the white one wants to be with the black one."

"Why?" Ryou knew it was just a silly little children's toy, but at that moment it seemed like a lot more than that.

She shrugged. "Why not?"

"Well, how do you know what the white mouse wants?"

Her face grew troubled. Then she shrugged again. "I dunno. Anyway, it's just a toy. How can anyone know what he wants? I don't think even he knows what he wants. He may moan about being a toy or whatever but what can he do?

"I see."

Ryou's voice was quiet and under control, but his head was spinning.

One mouse.

Two mice.

Black.

White.

Bad.

Good.

"Tell me a story!"

"W-what?" He was confused. Her high-pitched voice interrupted his thoughts.

"A story!"

"Um…I'm not much good at stories. Why don't we wait 'til Yugi comes back?"

"I want a story! Now!" Her voice grew insistent. Her face screwed up in anger. Ryou recognised the danger immediately. "What sort of story?" He played for time.

"About the black mouse and the white mouse."

Ryou hesitated. Then he sighed. "O.K, O.K. Once upon a time there were two mice. A black mouse and a white mouse. The black mouse was called-" She interrupted him.

"Booooring! Get to the exciting part!" Ryou sighed again.

"Fine. The black mouse said-" She interrupted him again.

"Still boring!"

Ryou took a few deep breaths, calming his rising temper.

((Why don't you let me out to take care of the tiresome brat?)) came a dangerous whisper from inside him.

(No! She's only six. She can't help it.)

((She'll need a lot of help after I'm finished with her.))

(Yami!) At least his yami had a sense of humour, even if it was slightly warped. That was good, right?

((What? And don't use that tone of voice with me, slave.))

So much for the sense of humour… "RIGHT." Ryou took a deep breath. "Theblackmouseandthewhitemousehatedeachotherbecausetheblackmousewastryingtotakeoverthewhitemousesmindbutthewhitemousewouldn'tletitsotheblackmousestartedtohurtthewhitemouseandthewhitemousewasreallysadandwishedtheblackmousewouldjustgoawayandleavehimalonebuthedidntsothewhitemousewasdoomedtoalifeofmiserytheend."

((How touching,)) his yami sneered.

Rebecca smiled up at him, her chubby little face all smiles. "I liked that story! Tell me another!"