Chapter 3

Emma and Bakura were on their way back after dropping off Sarah at her home on the other side of the bridge. The aurora had reappeared in the sky once more and the few people that they had seen about were making their way to the safety of their homes. As they approached the bridge to return to the city they were warned not to cross by the security guards who had been informed of monster sightings on the bridge itself.

But Emma was tired and just wanted to get home, so she ignored his warnings and sped away across the bridge with her music on full blast;

If I could say what I want to say
I'd say I want to blow you--away
Be with you every night
Am I squeezing you too tight
If I could say what I want to see
I want to see you go down--on one knee
Marry me today
Guess I'm wishing my life away
With these things I'll never say.

"Does it have to be so loud?" Bakura asked as he turned the volume down and rubbed his temples.

"Sorry." Emma apologized as she hadn't meant to cause her friend's headache. "Right now it's about the only thing keeping me awake. I'm just feeling tired and drained at the moment, and the last thing I want is for us to crash while I'm driving."

"What's that?" Bakura pointed to the road in front of them were an unknown duel monster was smashing up abandoned cars.

Emma slowed and stopped the car. "Stay here, I'll sort this out." She reached on to the back seat grabbed her dueldisk and removed her cards from her jacket pocket and placed them in to the dueldisk. She activated it and stepped out on to the bridge to face the monsters.

They were monsters that she hadn't seen before, which she felt was strange as her brother had shown her details for every card that had ever been made. The monsters themselves looked like big ogres with weird looking dueldisks on their arms, and on their foreheads was a strange looking symbol that glowed green. But they didn't seem to be duelling, just smashing up cars, and Emma doubted that they could be that smart to duel in the first place.

She summoned her strongest monsters from her deck and set them loose against the towering ogres. It didn't take much effort to destroy them, but it was going to take a while as they were so many of them.

Bakura watched from where he sat in Emma's car. She was doing a good job of defeating the new monsters but she had failed to see one that was approaching from behind her. He got out of the car and yelled a warning to her. "Watch out behind you!"

Suddenly his whole head felt like it was caving in. He retreated to inside the safety of the car and locked the doors. Holding his head in his hands he looked out the window to see that Emma hadn't heard his warning in time and had been wounded by one of the monsters which was now being destroyed by her Pikachu.

"No." He held his head tightly before he screwed up his eyes and hit the dashboard with both hands. "No!" A tear rolled down the side of his face before his eyes opened and he peered out of the windscreen window to watch Emma's Pikachu finish off the last of the monsters.

Emma tried to hold her shoulder where the monster had struck her but couldn't quite reach as it was too far round to her back. It didn't hurt too badly and she guessed that it wasn't too deep as she hadn't seen any blood loss on the ground below her. She looked around to see that all of the monsters were now gone and decided to call all her monsters back in to their cards.

As she removed her deck from the dueldisk a gust of wind caught her by surprise and swept them over the side of the bridge. Emma ran to the barrier railings and looked over to see her cards disappear in to the dark river below. She swore under her breath at the loss of her cards but knew that she had been lucky not to have been hurt more seriously by the monster that had attacked her.

"That shoulder looks bad." Bakura said gently as he approached her.

Emma stared in disbelief at the river where her cards now where. "Is it deep?" she asked as she felt Bakura's hand run across her right shoulder blade.

"No." Bakura replied. "But I think you may need stitches."

"Great." Emma sighed at the thought of having to spend hours waiting at the local ER. "I don't see how today could possibly get any worse."

"I do." came a voice that made Emma freeze with terror.

Before she had the chance to move she felt herself being lifted up in to the air and began to fall over the side of the bridge towards the dark river. She twisted her body and managed to grab hold of the railings, which sent a pain running all the way through her right shoulder as both arms took the weight of her body that now dangled in the air. She looked up to see the sight that she thought she'd never see again, Bakura under the control of the spirit of the millennium ring.

"I told you that you hadn't seen the last of me." he taunted as he crouched down so that his face was nearer to his terrified victim.

"No!" Emma shouted in disbelief. "I got rid of you. How did you return?"

"Let's just say that your bag containing the pieces of the two broken millennium items didn't reach your vault." He reached in to Bakura's jacket and held up a now complete millennium ring. "Isn't it surprising at just how well things can be mended these days? And I've also heard that you no longer possess your millennium item."

"Bakura, you have to fight him." Emma tried to make contact with her friend as she felt herself slip slightly down the railings. "I know you can do it. You're not weak like he makes you believe that you are."

Inside his mind Bakura could hear his friend pleading for his help. He wanted to believe that he was stronger than the spirit but he just couldn't see how that was possible. He sat there listening as the conversation continued.

"He's not listening to you; his mind is caught up in other things." He heard the spirit say with great amusement.

And he was right. The spirit had attacked his new weak spot and threatened to harm Sarah if he wasn't allowed to have his revenge. Bakura slowly moved closer to the back of his own mind. He played over what Emma had told him earlier. Friends come and go, but what if you only get one chance at love?

Emma struggled to keep hold of the bars as she tried to swing herself so that she could try and climb back up on to the bridge. She stopped after one attempt as the pain in her shoulder raged. She looked up again to see the spirit's amusement at her failed attempt.

"I think that it's time that I paid you back for burning my hands." the spirit held the millennium ring against Emma's left hand that was gripped tightly around the railing, and slowly it began to burn.

Emma held back most of the pain that she felt, and refused to let go as she knew that her chances of surviving the drop in to the river were pretty low with the condition she was in. The pain increased and she cried out even more, before finally it stopped as the nerves in her hand were destroyed, which also meant that she could no longer keep the grip that she had on the railing.

Her shoulder raged once more as her whole body was now supported by just the strength of her right hand. She looked up at the spirit who glared down at her. "I'm sorry did that hurt?" he smirked.

"You don't scare me." Emma summoned all the strength she could to make her voice sound firm.

"Well I think that your tears say otherwise." the spirit snarled at her with annoyance at how well she was managing to last in his little game. "Tell me, where is your hope now?"

Emma turned her face away from him. She had managed to hide it from him for so long and wasn't about to let him see that she didn't have any left. She looked down at the river once more, and released just how tired she was feeling. She could end it all now and rest for eternity if she just let go. But that would mean that the spirit would have won and she wasn't going to let him have the satisfactory for knowing that he had managed to destroy her completely.

"Go on beg." The spirit coaxed her. "Beg for your life, and I might let you live."

Emma returned her stare towards him once more. She drew her head back, hawked and spat in his face. She watched this time for her own amusement as he slowly wiped the spit out of his eye. "I'd rather die."

"So be it." snarled the spirit as he held the millennium ring to her right hand which burned instantly, and grew even more annoyed and frustrated when Emma didn't even make a sound to indicate that she was feeling any pain.

Surprisingly it took longer for her right hand to be destroyed than what it had with her left hand. As she felt herself fall she saw what looked like the look of defeat appear across the spirit's face.

Emma felt the water rush over her as she hit its surface and slowly began to be dragged down in to its depths. Thoughts and memories began to rush through her head. She had memories of her family and friends that didn't remind her of happy times, but instead of the fact that they had all abandoned her in the end. But she felt satisfied that she had been able to find her own strength to face what had been the hardest time in her life, as she looked death in the face and greeted it with open arms.