Author's note: I am so, so, so, so, so sorry for not updating for so long! and I do not own anything.... whatever that means but I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! or any of the characters.

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Chapter 8

Domino City, September 2

Ryou

It's now 6:30 am on my 16th birthday and sadly I have no one to celebrate with (except my Yami but he wants to get rid of me, not celebrate with me). I have never told Yugi or anyone else at Domino High when my birthday was so I expect no visits today. Father is coming home today but he won't be home until about one o'clock. Surprisingly my father not being home and having no one to celebrate with did not really bother me. What did bother me was that this was the second birthday I'd be celebrating without Mother and Amane. So to me this is just the day before school starts.

Nanase

Dude, it's 6:30 and we're going to leave. Nothing is happening!

Ryou

I've been sitting around for about an hour now. I have nothing to do. I know Yugi's my friend and I should be hanging with him but... I don't want to put him or anyone else in danger. I know I've said that before but now I just have a weird feeling that something bad might happen if I'm with Yugi too long. I can't explain it. It's just that I'm so weak and pathetic that it is no challenge for my Yami to take control of me... oh no... not again.....

Yami Bakura

I believe I have no need to introduce myself to you mortals. Today is my host's birthday (I'm not dumb). Perhaps Yugi will feel sorry for Ryou knowing that there is no one (family) Ryou has to celebrate with (I for one refuse to celebrate anything) and come over. That would be the perfect chance to strike. But wait... Ryou has never said anything about his birthday to Yugi or anyone. Damn it. *sigh Well no point in controlling Ryou now.

Nanase

It's been an hour.... that's it.

Ryou

Ok, nothing seemed to have happened. It was getting pretty close to eight. I should get out of here just for some fresh air. At least until Father comes home. It'll make time go faster. I went to the door and opened it.

"SURPRISE!"

Instantly, I shut the door.

"Aww man, I knew he heard us." Joey's New York accented voice said.

"Bakura, it's us!" Yugi said.

Well at the moment it seemed like my Yami wasn't going to control me so what could happen? I opened the door again.

"Sorry, you guys startled me." I said. They all just smiled.

"Well you didn't tell us when your birthday was so how could you know we were coming?" Yugi asked.

"Wait, how did you guys find out when my birthday was then?" I asked.

"Well we..." Yugi began, "how did we find out?"

Joey smiled and said, "Heh, well Tristan and I figured it out-HEY!" Tea had punched Joey in the arm. After she hit him she gave him a mean look.

"We used Kaiba's system to look at profiles of the finalists at Battle City and found your birthday there." Tristan said.

The thought of Battle City made me feel sick. I guess Yugi could tell because he quickly said, "But that's not the point. Why are you spending your birthday by yourself?"

I couldn't really answer him right away. Along with not telling him when my birthday was, I have never told them I had a younger sister... and that she and my mother died a little over two years ago. And I knew Yugi would not listen if I told him I didn't want to put him in easy reach of my Yami.

"I'm waiting for my father to get home." I said as soon as that response popped into my head.

"When will he be back?" Yugi asked.

"About one o'clock." I answered (hey I couldn't lie to him again).

"Well that's no problem then!" Joey said.

"Ya!" Tea said.

"Come on Bakura, even if we're running late we can call your dad or you could leave him a note." Yugi said.

Well I can't get out of this now.

"All right hold on one minute." I said. I found a piece of paper and quickly wrote down where I was, grabbed my key, went outside, and locked the door behind me.

"Ok so what do you wanna do?" Yugi asked.

"LET'S SEE FINDING NEMO!!!!" Joey said.

"You saw that three times the first time it was in theatres." Tea said.

"Hey that was a great movie! I for one am glad it is back in theatres." Tristan said defensively.

"You guys, it's Bakura's decision." Yugi said, "So what do you say?"

"Movie sounds great." I said. Maybe today wouldn't be bad after all.

Nanase

Ok we've been on the road for a while now. More than an hour and a half at least. I was writing what looked interesting in my notebook so I could tell Kelly later via-e-mail. Kelly is my internet friend who lives in the U.S. She is a duelist as well and has a good taste in music (at least I think so). I met her once in person when I went to visit my mom in the U.S. Ever since then, we've become more of best friends rather then pen (e-mail) pals. Writing while driving doesn't work that well. There are too many distractions like the music that changes from rock, to oldies, to pop, Rakster's singing (although he just changes the lyrics to a bunch of songs to have something to do with pants) and then the occasional, "Now's the time to point and laugh!" also from Rakster. I looked out the window and noticed we were about thirty minutes from home. While looking out the window I caught myself fingering my necklace again. Ever since I heard that voice say,
"Please don't lose it." and had that weird dream that was so real, I've been kinda spooked.

No matter how many times I tried to say, "It was just my imagination" to myself, I knew I did hear that voice. But maybe... AUGH! Never mind! I need to get my mind off this. ...Well nothing else is coming to mind, or at least anything that helped. The thought of the first day of school twisted my stomach and everything else just linked back to those eerie events. I opened my notebook again and wrote, "Why can't I escape this voice? Escape that thought? Or Escape that dream?" Actually that wasn't half-bad. Needs some work but it wasn't a bad start. Heh, finally a way to make my haunting thoughts do something good.

"OH! LET ME SEE!" Rakster yelled reaching back for my notebook. Before I could firmly grasp my notebook, he had it in his hands and was reading what I had written, or at least I thought that's what he was doing. He handed it back to me rather quickly and I saw that he had drawn a pair of pants... Well at least he hadn't read what I just wrote.

"Hee hee, pants." was all that Rakster said. He may be a senior in high school, but he acts immature at times. There's about fifteen minutes until we get home but we're probably going to stop and eat first.

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If any of you know everything about anime and video games, you might have already noticed that some names came from other things aside from Yu-Gi-Oh! So thank you Nadiesco (or however you spell it) for the name Izumi, thank you Street Fighter Alpha Ex 2 for the name Nanase, and Ranma 1/2 for the name of the city Kolkhos. Once again I am very sorry for not updating sooner! :-(