Innocence?

Mystical Knight Dragon: Wow... I didn't update too long ago, and look! Another update! Whoo! Go me! *happy dance* Anyways, lots and lots of thanks to my reviewers: Carmen5-Nemrac, Lightning Sage, MENace tenCHI, Bakuras_Hell, Dark-Autumn, Dark Magician Girl / Hikaru, and Xyza!!!!!! None of you guessed who Hikaru was. I sort of don't remember who I picked, so I'll just randomly think of someone... I don't think he'll come back for a while, but I may be wrong. O I really should write down my ideas....

Chapter 15: A Ray of Hope

~*~Yami's POV~*~

I grabbed the Puzzle from the box that it was in. This scared me. If the Puzzle was in here, then where was Yugi...? I threw open the door to the closet that I was in and saw a long, white hall on the other side with too many other doors and turns to count.

I stepped out of the closet, and the door closed behind me on its own accord. I stared down the hallway, pondering which way to go. I was thinking of going down the right side of the hallway and opening up every door until I found my light or had gotten back to this Ra forsaken closet when a woman with curly blonde hair and a white uniform turned down one of the corners with a tray of what looked like needles. She did a double take at me and screamed, dropping her tray of needles.

Immediately, every door along the hallway burst open. Thousands of heads peered past the door frames and looked at the nurse, who was still staring at me. Slowly, the heads turned their gazes towards me...

I looked around. There was nowhere for me to go. Here I was, Pharaoh, and I was quivering under the steady gazes of the people that I should be controlling.

Damn.

A man turned a corner of one of the hallways branching off the corridor. He took one look at me and raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing here?" he commanded.

I searched my brain. I guess telling the truth wouldn't hurt... There didn't seem to be anything wrong with it. And if my light was here, what can they do to stop me from getting to him?

"I'm looking for someone," I answered.

The man smiled through pursed lips. "Then why don't you have a visitor's badge?" he taunted.

"A...visitor's badge...?"

"Yes, it's what you get when you walk through the front doors. You *did* walk through the front doors, didn't you?"

I took a deep breath. "Does it matter?" I asked calmly, my eyes suddenly staring at this man with hatred. How dare he stop the Pharaoh from seeing his hikari?!

"It does. Someone might mistake you as a terrorist."

"Listen," I snapped. "Don't be so paranoid! I just want to see someone who's very important to me! So why don't you just fucking move and tell me where the hell my hikari is?!"

The heads staring out through the doors retreated a little. They must be able to feel the rage radiating off of me.

I looked at the man and then back at the people. One of the heads had actually come out farther and was looking at me with intense curiosity. He had blonde hair that stuck out a bit at the front—sort of like a mullet—and dark brown eyes. He walked out further, and I realized who it was.

"Joey?"

Joey nodded. "Hey, Yami, what's up? What are you doing here?"

"I'm looking for Yugi. What are you doing here?"

"Yugi?" asked the lady that had the tray of needles. "Yugi Motou?"

I turned my head until my eyes had met hers. She shuddered. "Yes. Do you know him?"

The lady nodded tentatively. "He was in my ward about fifteen minutes ago, but...there's no hope for him... He's gone."

My eyes narrowed. "Where is he currently?"

"He was shipped off to the crematorium naught two minutes ago. His grandfather said that that's what we should do..."

My breath hitched. Yugi had said that one of his friend's grandparents had been cremated. When I asked him what this was, he told me that they would burn the bodies instead of burying them. I couldn't stand for this to happen to my light even if he *was* dead... "Where is the crematorium?"

"About two miles southeast from here."

I ran as quickly as I could. I had no idea what I was going; my feet moved on their own accord. I took the first right that I found and ran faster than I ever had in my life—even faster than I had when I was told that my birth mother had just died, minus the fact that my legs were only half as long.

Pretty soon I had reached a pair of glass doors leading outside. I pushed through them and continued running. I reached a highway and guessed which way was southeast. No one was going to burn my hikari without my permission. Especially not since...

I ran even faster, ignoring my paining heart, struggling to get enough oxygen throughout my body.

-*-

~*~Ryou's POV~*~

I opened my eyes partially and could see three indistinct figures of people staring down at me. They began speaking to each other in Chinese, but my muddled brain couldn't sort out the words correctly, especially since I only know a little bit of the language.

"What should we do with the hippo?"

"We could annoy him with out made-up space language."

"Or we could set his panda on fire."

"Let's do the chicken dance!"

I opened up my eyes the rest of the way and immediately closed them again. The rain had started up once more and it was now getting in my eyes. Come to think of it, I don't even remember when the rain had stopped...

"He's awake! Get him below deck!"

"Feed him Spam and chicken guts! He needs to be king when he wakes up so the mongooses can question him."

I groaned. I didn't want to even *try* to sort out any more words. Nothing was making sense at the moment.

"Leave him up here."

A fourth shadow of a person appeared above me. I hope they try to kill me. I *want* to die. I hope Lucifer will make my life hell when I get down there...

The fourth person put his hand on my head. "He's a bit rubber ducky."

I wrenched my head away from his hand and immediately wished I hadn't. My head began spinning, and I couldn't even see straight.

"Kid careful be."

I snapped my eyes shut and tried to focus on the darkness around me. It didn't work. My head still hurt. Instead I began to focus on each and every individual raindrop falling on my face. Unconsciousness began to grab a hold of me, and I began to slip further into the darkness...

Someone grabbed my shoulders and shook me.

"Awake kid stay!"

I moaned. Why did Fate hate me so much?! I didn't mean to kill Yugi! I don't know what came over me!!!

"I'm sorry!!!" I suddenly yell out.

The people around me took a few steps back.

"What is bubble gum?"

I shake my head slightly, hoping that by doing this I'll be able to figure out what they're saying better. It makes it a little better, but not as much as I had hoped, especially since I now had a throbbing pain at the base of my neck.

"Yoshi!" one of the men around me said sharply to the man next to him. "Get this kid water some!"

While I couldn't exactly understand what he was saying, the man named Yoshi did. He ran off and brought me a glass of water. I don't know why. All I had to do was open my mouth... They must not have noticed the rain...

"Can you throw up, kid?"

I looked up curiously at Yoshi. I *must* have mistranslated *that* one... Of course I could throw up! The pain in my head made me feel as if I could hurl for the rest of my life, but I wasn't going to.

He held out his hand as if to help me sit up.

Ah, sit. Not throw.

If I ever stop running away from being a murderer and all of the laws completely change to say that murder is illegal and Yami somehow forgives me and *doesn't* want to kill me, I'm going to touch up on my Chinese. You never know when you'll murder someone, get kidnapped, jump off a boat, and then be rescued by some Chinese-speaking people. It could happen to anyone at any time.

Not really.

Only to people with crazy and deranged 5,000-year-old spirits residing in objects that hang around your neck. I mean, that only takes out almost literally all of the population. That would leave only me unless Malik decided to tie a string around the Rod and make it into a necklace. That'd be pretty weird, though...

I took Yoshi's hand and let him help me sit up. My head began spinning again. He handed me the glass of water. I drank some slowly, and my head began to hurt a little less. I suppose filtered water *is* a bit different than rain water...

Okay, more than a bit.

"What's your name, kid?" one of the others asked me.

"R...Kaeru," I lied. "Shizura Kaeru."

"Well, Kaeru," he continued. "I'm Sven. What brings you all the way out here?"

"I..." I couldn't think of a lie. If I didn't lie and told him everything that had happened, I would one, confuse him, and two, he would probably kill me on the spot. There were too many witnesses that would repeat my story close enough to match what had happened. I couldn't risk it. Even though I did want to die, I didn't want to be viciously slaughtered by these men that I didn't even know.

Yami should be the one to kill me.

It was his light.

His poor light...

A song that I had heard a few days ago began to play in my head.

*We don't know why, the innocent die

Will this world ever find a way to change

And we don't know why, but we know it's not right

Don't know why so many had to die

I don't know why so many had to die*

~*~

Mystical Knight Dragon: A tad shorter than I had hoped, but oh well. I'm wondering how many of you are understanding what's happening with Yami. I figured out a glitch in Yugi's death and that's how it's being played out. ^_^' Anyways, you can still guess who Hikaru is. No one's gotten it yet. I'm kind of stuck on how to fit him in, but oh well.