"Free? What do you mean, I'm free!" Bakura asked again. The boy trembled a little.

Bakura looked towards a mirror, his hands feeling the face he didn't believe was real. He was completely solid, the body looking exactly the way he had grown used to seeing it, almost identical to his light's.

"Answer me!" he turned his attention back to Ryou, who looked slightly more pale than usual.

"You… you're free…" Ryou repeated himself. He slowly held up the ring. "You're alive… It worked… it brought you back to life…"

"Alive?" Bakura shouted. "What worked? What are you talking about!"

"The spell…" Ryou whispered. His voice trembled.

"What spell!"

"I don't know… exactly…" Ryou smiled. "But you're free now… You're no longer trapped inside the…"

He froze. A wave of nausea racked through his body, followed by an unusual spasm of pain. He gulped, trying to force it away.

"the… the ring…" Ryou tried to finish. He blinked a couple of times, his vision oddly blurring. "It's useless now…"

"WHAT!"

Bakura was furious. All his plotting to destroy the pharaoh and gain the power of the items had suddenly been rendered absolutely useless. Five thousand years of scheming had suddenly been all for naught.

"You little…" he curled his now solid hands in fists, and was about to slam one into his hikari's cheek, when he caught a glimpse of Ryou's face.

He was smiling. It was weak, but his light was smiling.

"The darkness… is gone…"

The ring fell from Ryou's hands, as the hikari started to feel less sure of his own footing. His body swayed slightly to the side. He wrapped his arms around himself, and shivered. When he looked up again, Bakura was no longer staring at him with blind rage. He squinted. His yami's face appeared to be one of… could it be… concern?

"Ryou?"

Bakura stood there silently, watching his hikari's pallor blanch. Against his white hair, his skin looked almost green. He only moved when he saw his host's body give out beneath him, and collapse into a dead faint.

"Ryou!"

The boy fell into Bakura's arms. He carefully laid the light in his lap, and pressed his solid hand against the boy's skin. It felt like it was on fire.

Bakura gulped. He was suddenly very afraid.

He wasn't exactly sure why. It wasn't as though his life depended on the life of his host anymore. If what Ryou said was true, and he really was free, then his host's life was completely insignificant. But suddenly, that fact didn't seem to matter.

Bakura shook Ryou gently. The boy didn't move.

"Ryou!" he shouted. "Ryou! Look at me!"

He shook the boy again, and a pair of brown eyes struggled to open. The boy shivered violently in his yami's arms.

"Ryou! What did you do!" he shouted, trying to keep his light awake. Already the boy was dripping with sweat, his breath coming in raspy gasps.

"I… set you… free… yami…" Ryou gasped, trembling. His body spasmed again, to the point that even his pupils shook back and forth.

"Oh Ra…" he gulped again. Something was wrong. Something was very very wrong.

His attention only wavered when he heard someone pounding on the apartment door.

"Bakura! Open up!"

It was Yami Yugi.

Half a dozen conflicting thoughts and emotions floated through his mind in the next few seconds.

He was mortal now, and subject to mortal fears. An attack from the pharaoh could kill them both. In human form, a shadow game would certainly spell his ultimate demise. And the pharaoh would certainly attack the instant that he spotted Ryou on the floor. Bakura still hadn't gotten Ryou to explain what happened. There was no way he could convince the pharaoh that he hadn't done anything to his host. Not after slamming the boy's hand through a spire, or driving a knife into his arm… this wasn't that far a stretch either…

But at the same time, something was seriously wrong with Ryou. And he didn't even know what it was. But if Yugi's yami were there, Yugi would be there as well. As much as he despised the little brat, the kid was intelligent. And he would at least know what to do to help Ryou, right?

He was jolted back to reality when Ryou quivered in his arms, literally gasping for air.

Bakura carefully laid Ryou down on the floor, and dashed to the door. He opened it, revealing the pharaoh.

"Ryou! Something has happened to the spirit of…" the pharaoh began, his words falling apart when he realized who he was talking to.

"Can it, pharaoh."

"You're… still ALIVE…" the spirit of the puzzle gasped. Inside his soul room, Yugi jumped back as well. "What happened to the ring!"

"I don't know!" he shouted back, defensively.

Yugi's yami walked into the apartment, quickly catching sight of the sick hikari.

"What did you do to Ryou?"

Beads of sweat rolled down Bakura's forehead. He wasn't quite sure how to answer his accuser.

"I… I didn't do anything to him…" Bakura finally answered, as the other yami bent down over Ryou's body. The pharaoh didn't even need to touch Ryou to feel the immense heat radiating off his thin body.

"Holy Ra…" Yugi's yami whispered, and starting talking to his own hikari through their mindlink. "Yugi, I need your help."

Bakura watched as Yugi took over the body. For a moment he was thankful that they weren't sending him to the shadow realm. But his thoughts were quickly brought back to Ryou.

"Bakura. Watch him for a sec!" Yugi shouted, and ran off towards the back of the apartment.

Bakura found himself nodding, and rushing to Ryou's side. He propped the boy's head in his lap again, and tried to wipe the sweat from his brow. It clung to the tips of his white hair, drenching them completely.

"Ryou…" he whispered. "Ryou, look at me…"

The hikari tried to obey, but couldn't force his eyes open.

"…Kura…" he finally whispered, in between gasps. "You're… free now…"

"Will you stop saying that!" Bakura barked. "Can't you say anything else!"

"… sorry…" he started to pass out again.

"No! No, Ryou! Keep talking to me…" he quickly ordered. "You can tell me I'm free again. I don't care! Really! I don't! Just keep talking to me!"

He shook the boy, but was getting no response. Bakura's mind was blank, filled with nothing but possible dread for Ryou. He couldn't think of anything else to do…

"Yugi! I can't get him to wake up!" he shouted, still shaking Ryou.

Yugi rushed over. He had been on the phone, calling for an ambulance. He returned with a cool washcloth, and handed it to Bakura.

"He won't wake up!"

Yugi pressed his fingers to the side of Ryou's pale neck. He breathed a sigh of relief when he finally located a pulse. Ryou wasn't dead. At least, not yet.

"He's still alive." Yugi tried to calm the panicked Bakura. "Here, put this on his forehead, and try to cool him down…"

"Why won't he wake up!"

Yugi watched the spirit in amazement. When he first saw Yami Bakura standing in the doorway and Ryou on the floor, he agreed with his yami that this was likely the evil spirit's doing. But now, he wasn't so sure. If this was Yami Bakura's doing, then why was he so concerned over Ryou?

"Bakura. Tell us what happened." Yugi tried to get even a piece of information from the spirit.

"I… I don't know!" Bakura replied, tears starting to form in his eyes. He wiped them away quickly. "One minute I was in my soul room… and the next minute, I'm here… in my own body…"

"Your own body?"

"Ryou kept saying that he freed me… and then… he just collapsed! A few seconds before you showed up…" Bakura again wiped tears from his eyes. This time, Yugi noticed.

"I don't think he's lying, yami…" Yugi whispered through his mindlink. "I think he's telling the truth."

"That doesn't matter right now… the most important thing is getting your friend some help." His yami replied back.

"Help is on the way." Yugi said aloud, to both Bakura and his own spirit. "Do you understand me? I've called for help. It's coming…"

The former spirit of the millennium ring nodded as he held Ryou gently.

"Do you know how he freed you?"

"No… he… he just said it was some kind of spell… and now the ring is useless…"

Yugi paused to ask his yami, but even he had no idea what Bakura was talking about.

"A spell?"

Bakura glanced over to where Ryou had been standing when he first materialized. It looked like a makeshift altar. A bowl was on the floor, along with several glass flasks. The ring had once been in the center of the table.

Yugi crawled over to the table, and picked up the bowl. Traces of a strange yellow substance had leaked all over the tile underneath it. He sniffed it, and it made his stomach churn as well. He looked at the ring, which Bakura had described as useless. It was covered in the yellow liquid as well.

"What did Ryou do with this?" Yugi looked up, holding the bowl in front of Bakura.

"I don't know!" he shouted again, angrily this time. Ryou shivered in his arms. "How can he be so cold when he feels so hot!"

Yami materialized again to inspect the strange substance his hikari found.

"Bakura, do you know what this is?"

"No! I have no fucking idea! Will you stop asking me that!" he clutched Ryou even tighter. The washcloth was completely dry by now, just as useless as the millennium item. "If I didn't know what it was when the brat asked me, do you think I know now!"

"I think I've smelt something like it before…" the other yami pondered. "Back in Egypt…"

He took a little of the potion on his finger and sniffed it. His eyes were firm. There was no mistaking it.

"What is it?" Bakura asked impatiently.

"Poison." Yugi's yami answered frankly.

"WHAT!"

"It's a kind of poison." The pharaoh repeated himself, wiping his finger on his jacket. "Something that the high priests would use for sacrifices…"

Bakura didn't know about any of this. The most contact he ever had with the high priests was when he attacked the palace and killed some of them.

"That's impossible… where would he get something like THAT?"

"From our trip to Egypt, perhaps…" the pharaoh sighed.

"No!" Bakura shouted, glaring at the five thousand year old pharaoh. "I don't believe you! I know Ryou… he wouldn't just commit suicide! He's not like that!"

Yugi's yami was taken aback.

"You don't know him at all!" Bakura started to cry, and made no motion to wipe away the tears.

When he looked back up, Yugi had taken back control of the body. The small boy put his arm around Bakura, and tried to comfort him. Bakura wasn't quite sure how to react. He hadn't cried in over five thousand years… the sensation was troubling, and he wasn't sure how to stop it.

"He must have had some reason…" Yugi commented. "Maybe he didn't know what it was!"

Bakura nodded. He knew his hikari wasn't suicidal… but he never said anything about him being the sharpest dagger in the belt…

"But whatever he thought it was… whether he knew it was poison or not… He knew it would give you a body…" Yugi added. "It's obvious that's what he was doing…"

Bakura thought back. His hikari's first words after he materialized… "It worked…"

"Oh, Ra… Ryou…" he couldn't stop crying. He just couldn't stop. He wanted to, but he couldn't stop. "Why Ryou… wake up… please wake up…"