(A/N) OK, this fic will be updated according to how many people tell me to update it next, and whether or not I have the next chapter written. So remember, backlog is your friend, and suggestions are welcome.

Very welcome. Very, very welcome indeed.

Anyway, you all know I own the fantasy world, Coplain, Madame Zemphonia, and Malaura and nothing else, right? Oh, and the plot, such as it is.

Apart and Sad

Split Up

Chapter Six

Bandits

Jonouchi glanced back at his morbid companion. Ryou hadn't said a thing for three days now. He'd thought the man would snap out of it, but no.

"Ryou," he said sharply, as he stopped and turned about. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Ryou started at him blankly. It was even creepier than him looking half-done all the time. Now he looked like there wasn't anybody home.

"Say something!" Jonouchi practically shouted.

"Something," Ryou obediently repeated.

"Not what I meant," Jonouchi grumbled. Then he tried another track, "Can you answer questions?"

Ryou slowly nodded.

"Okay, then." Ryou, do you know what's wrong with you?"

"Yami isn't here," the pale man whispered, sounding for all the world like a small child admitting that he was frightened of the lightning and had wet himself.

"Do you have trouble talking?"

Again, the man nodded.

"How about we stop for lunch?" 'Man, what did I get myself into?' Jonouchi berated himself.

Silently, Ryou sat on a nearby tree stump and stared blankly into space. It was hard to see how things could get worse, with Jonouchi's companion unable to do anything he wasn't told to. It had actually gotten so bad that Jonouchi had to tell the man to lay down and go to sleep at night.

As Jonouchi thought these thoughts and pulled out last night's leftover smoked salmon (they'd been lucky, and camped by a river full of fish, although it had taken a while to catch one that wasn't full of eggs).

That was when the bandits leapt.

Apart and Sad

Ryou stared into the bushes. They were black and white, and everything sounded as though there were three feet of invisible cotton between it and him. Everything except Jonouchi, but he could tell that there was something odd about the bushes. They had men hiding in them.

Jonouchi had his back to them now; he was getting out their lunch. Ryou watched impassively as the armed men leapt out of the bushes. Oh, bandits.

He watched as three of them engaged Jonouchi, fully occupying his attention. Then he heard muffled footfalls. The fourth man was walking around behind him. 'I wonder why he's bothering with me?' he thought.

Then his head jerked back. Even the pain of having his hair pulled was oddly muffled, as though it was happening a long way off.

"What have we here…?" hissed the leader of the brigands, "A stupid little man that can only do as he's told…?"

'He thinks I'm stupid,' Ryou thought, feeling numb.

"Well, fool? Do you have a name?"

Ryou did nothing. Jonouchi was winning his one-on-three fight handily. There was nothing for him to do. No need to move…

"STOP!" the bandit roared.

The fight stopped. Jonouchi froze in the act of knocking two men's heads together while kicking the third in the guts.

"Let my men GO, or your stupid friend here gets a new mouth in his NECK, got that, fighter-boy?"

Jonouchi growled, but complied.

"Now, fetch me all your valuables."

"Ryou!" Jonouchi cried as he pulled out their money, "they'll rob us blind, Ryou! Can't you do something?"

"Don't you get it?" laughed the bandit, "while you may be capable of reducing three men to groaning piles of misery, your friend here has not mind to speak of! 'Ryou' probably can't even hear you, let alone understand what you're saying!" as he guffawed this, he tapped Ryou on the head.

Ryou was starting to feel upset. As most anyone can understand, it is no fun to have you life threatened, and when someone raps you on the head repeatedly, it can become quite annoying. Before the bandit even knew what was happening, Ryou's fist had slammed into his leg, just below the kneecap, with a sick cracking sound.

The bandit howled in pain and collapsed, holding his broken leg.

Jonouchi stood there dumbly, his mouth hanging open and eyes bugged out, looking like a carp.

Ryou went back to staring calmly into the bushes, as though nothing had happened.

Apart and Sad

Honda groaned as he stepped over yet another prone would-be-robber. Only three days on the road, and Bakura had sought out twenty-five groups of bandits and made them wish that they'd listened to their mothers and got a good, productive job and become nice members of society.

"Maybe…maybe we should concentrate on Navaan?" Honda hesitantly suggested. Bakura constantly had a maniac look in his eyes, and Honda really didn't feel like being beaten up.

"You're right," Bakura agreed, docilely. "We should get to Navaan and set about finding my hikari."

"Right," Honda sighed, relived, "and we'll never get there if you keep stopping to fight these guys."

Apart and Sad

Bakura heard Honda's words, and knew they were true, but his blood still sung in his ears. He wanted to fight, damn it, but…

"Fine," he heard himself say. They had to reach Navaan, and find his lighter half, soon.

Apart and Sad

(A/N) so…what did you all think?

Good? Bad? Should have been longer? I'm afraid I've hit a Writer's Block on this poor story. I've got the first section of Chapter Seven done, and I would love to hear some suggestions as to what our poor, unfortunate heroes should run into on the road.

Please? If you're going to get a new chapter, I'm going to need help. My Writer's Blocks aren't the kind that go away if you wait long enough, the longer I wait, the bigger they get. So…help? R&R, the story depends on it!