Blood Only Glows in the Dark Chapter 25: 25, a yu-gi-oh fanfic

(NOTE 3/8/06: Chapters have been restored to their original order! Assuming nothing ELSE goes wrong, here ya go!)

I'm sorry, but in my ignorance I assumed people already read the stuff up here...

Not even a single idea! My fic is so terrible that no one wants a chapter dedicated to them?

Contest will be continued until the last chapter is posted. C'mon ppl, any (almost) sort of idea is welcome! Help make this fic a better reading experience by providing the theme for cool chapter titles!

Disclaimer: Chaos Chao does not own Yugioh

Claimer: Chaos Chao owns the stuff she invented...lets see, thats Dammug Beasts, the shape-shifter, the Korikosos thing, what else is there...?

Several more hours passed. Yami found himself dozing more than once, interrupted only a few times by his collective aches and pains and exactly one time by Jou.

The blond, having woken up to answer nature's call, discovered Yugi's absence and went to look for him. And Jonouchi had the blasted gall to laugh when he found the so-called 'adorable' position they were sitting in!

It was ONLY because brutally thrashing the idiot boy would have woken Yugi that Yami restrained himself. Getting the hint of what would have happened otherwise, Jou stayed long enough to drape the blanket over his friend before returning to his own sleeping spot.

It grew lighter in the warehouse, as dawn approached. Not that the sun would actually rise, but that was a minor detail for the mortals to fuss about later on.

Ribs healed and the aches slowly subsided as Yami turned his returning magic to the cuts and bruises he had ignored until now. When that was all taken care of, sleep felt almost irresistible, but it seemed like Yami had barely closed his eyes before he roused to the sensation of Yugi's weight being removed from his side.

Sliding his eyes open slightly revealed that Yugi had woken up on his own and left, leaving the blanket draped over Yami instead. And was that a trick of the light or a manifestation of Yami's overly-hopeful imagination, or had Yugi actually been blushing to find them in such a situation? No way to tell.

Another half-hour of being half-asleep, and Yami judged the mortals were being noisy enough for him to be 'woken up'.

"Oh man, I'm hungry enough ta eat Leftover Lunchmeat Lollapalooza at da cafeteria," Jou was grumbling, shaking out his jacket in apparent hope that some sort of food would fall out of the empty pockets.

"The idea of being in mortal danger seemed a little bit more important than bringing any food at the time," Ryou pointed out.

"If we're going to stay here, we'll need supplies," Yugi pointed out, before turning and greeting Yami with a cheerful "Good Morning!"

"Hah! You call dis morning'?" Jou snorted, "It's still dark! Like an eclipse!"

"Well of course its dark," Bakurah hissed, striding into view from whatever niche he'd spent the night in, "Weak monsters fry in sunlight. Idiot."

"Well pardon me fer not being an evil psychopath like ya are," Jou grumbled, "So, what do we do with dis food problem? Are we staying here?"

"Only scared little bunnies and other defenseless creatures stay hidden in their little hidey-holes," Bakurah sneered.

His words were normal enough, but Yami picked up on how the necromancer-demon kept peeking at him from the corner of his eye. The usual venom in his tone seemed almost forced, which gave Yami's formally half-baked theory on who Bakurah was interested in new credence.

'Its as if he doesn't want me to know that its one of them…he thinks that if he acts normally, I'll assume that he was making it up to bother me…' Yami mused to himself, 'But its obvious that whoever it is, Bakurah's completely fallen for them!'

Though he was keeping his composure outwardly, internally Yami was grinning fiendishly. At the very least, Yami was now being offered an endless chance to tease and mock the annoying Bakurah…the greater possibilities included blackmail.

"Surprisingly, he has a point," Yami said aloud, giving no indication of his true thoughts, "We need to keep moving…and we need to get to the source of all this madness and put a stop to it once and for all."

"Bra-VO," Bakurah sneered, "Your speeches are so inspiring, Pharaoh!"

'If he's faking, he's laying it on pretty thick,' Yami noted with annoyance.

Bakurah seemed to figure it out, because he refrained from making any more comments as they packed up and headed out. The alleyways were mostly deserted, but here and there were humans, singularly or in little groups, cowering in the refuge of the city's narrow hiding places.

They regarded the passing teenagers and demons with feral suspicion, and not even Jou tried to approach any of them.

The streets were a mess, especially where the mob had been last night, but were eerily deserted of both humans and supernatural creatures for the most part.

Yugi and Jou insisted on going to the hospital to check up on Honda. Ryou agreed, Bakurah just made a 'huff' sound, and so off to the hospital they went.

The hospital - one of several in the city - had been turned into a fortress during the course of the night. Many of the town Fire-men, Police-men, and also other humans who were identified as being part of 'The Army' ringed the building with several barricades.

Inside those barricades, wounded and terrified humans were being tended to. There was food to be had - the three humans gladly helped themselves to it - and the place reeked of fear and ill humans.

Bakurah left to find someplace 'less utterly disgusting and unpleasant', as he put it, within minutes. Yami would have done something similar if Bakurah hadn't come up with the idea first, so he held his breath when necessary and bore it as best he could.

Honda was up and volunteering with the 'doctor' healers of the hospital: they found him working amongst some other humans who had been attacked by gargoyles, and some of them were suffering from the same side-effect as he had.

Plenty of those hadn't gotten treatment in time, if they had ever gotten it at all. And while Bakurah would have been more than capable of coping with the stench of decaying flesh, Yami had never dabbled in necromancy.

It was the smell. He'd never had the stomach to ignore it like Bakurah could - and there was so MUCH of it filling the air around him right now that Yami was EXTREMELY grateful he'd turned down the food he'd been offered.

"Guys, I am SO glad you're okay," Honda greeted them, "Hi…Ryou, right?"

"Yes," Ryou replied.

"Busy night, huh?" Jou said, trying to sound glib and failing miserably.

"You don't know the half of it," Honda sighed, "And it turns out that being x-rayed fixes this for some reason, but they need the x-ray machines for tons of other stuff besides this - not to mention lots of people didn't figure out what was wrong and get here until it was too late…"

One of the doctors came over at this point and chided Honda for chatting on the job.

The brunette explained that 'his friends and folks were here and they wanted to see him', and the doctor managed a smile and sent them off, to the eternal relief of Yami's senses.