Era: GET OFF YOUR LAZY ASS AND TYPE ESTHER!

Esther: Ah shiite! starts typing ...

Three days pass

Era: peeks in

Esther: snoring on desk

Era: ESTHER!

Esther: Yes Ma'am! Finishes a month later

Yep, Era kicked me off of my lazy ass to finally type. Why on earth do I type better during the school year? Oh well, welcome to the next chapter of Black and White Roses...

The death of Honda caused a lot of chaos. Three deaths. THREE! This was just getting ridiculous. Not only did they all die, but how the hell were the damned plants appearing. It was impossible! Improbable! A one in five million chance! This kind of stuff only happened in the movies! But then…their lives had been like movies. Good guys, bad guys, but what were they going to do?
Ryou stared out his window, reveling in the moonlight. Who else? He wondered. Who was next? He smiled, his teeth glinting, reflecting the light. Jou. He already had the note ready for them. His eyes turned miserable again. It wasn't like he enjoyed the killing. He took his palette and began to paint again. The art of Jounouchi. The fifth mirage. He wondered if Bakura was getting the clues yet.

He took out a copy of the previous four.

Start of my Final Hell, a particularly endearing one to him. He had painted it with a mix of his dear father's blood, and his. He had expected to die that day, but somehow, he had lived.

Oh, and dear, dear Justice and the fallen. Justice, and Anzu. He smiled softly. "How sad." He said softly. "For Justice to have to prove a fallen as such."

Then again, there was Death of a King. Another of his mirages. It showed the back of an emperor as he watched the whipping of a thief, not Bakura's, oh no. It was just a common thief. And then in that same dungeon, you could see the remains of a sand storm…and the skeleton of the same king.

And the latest, Virtually Victorious. How were they to know that he had been slowly killing Honda even before he had given any of them the roses? He had implanted a curse into his heart. He had been having nightmares for the past week, tortured by the reality that Ryou forced him to go through. Who knew that this 'strong' biker, was so weak in reality? Ryou, oh yes, the 'weak' one, had brought Honda to his knees, brought him to shame! He had frightened Honda to tears, disgraced him so that he was weeping and sobbing like a newborn, shamefully showing his sin. He had pleaded with Ryou, begged him to let him go, but oh, he had been merciless.

And Honda had been unable to say anything about it, for that was all part of the curse. He had no idea what happened once he woke up. And now…he was trapped in his dreams. Forever.

Oh, the picture was simple enough, just a picture of a monkey. But besides that, the monkey had not robotic eyes like in the virtual world, but purple, emotion filled eyes. And they were smiling. And in the mirage, was Rikuya in all his glory, Honda's grave at the bottom.

He smiled, gently stroking the last few points on his painting when someone burst into the room. He quickly tried to cover everything, but failed. In the doorway stood…

Seto and Serenity were sitting in the library together, Serenity weeping into his shoulder. "What are we going to do?" She moaned. "At this rate, we're all going to be dead! And Jou's next!" she was referring to the find of white roses in Jou's room earlier that day

Seto shushed her, gently stroking her hair. "We'll find out who it is." He murmured gently. "And if we both have to die, I'll make sure we die together."

"Now…isn't that sweet?" Marik drawled. The two jumped up.

"Marik?" Serenity looked both shocked and frightened. All of a sudden, she was on her knees. "OH Kami Marik! Don't tell Jou, please!" She had tears forming at the edge of her eyes. Marik grinned.

"I might be willing to, if you-" Seto proceeded to grip Marik's collar and lift him up to face level.

"You say anything and I promise that you'll end up deader than everyone that died in this mansion." Marik shrugged.

"Yeah, do you guys have any idea what happened to the bodies?" Seto looked shocked.

"Actually, I've never even thought about it." Serenity said, astonished. "I always assumed that one of you guys took it away."

''nope, it's disappeared when no one was looking for it. And they didn't use shadow magic either." The duo's eyes widened.

"Oh god, what kind of person are we up against?" Marik looked deadly grim as he answered.

"I don't know."

Bakura looked around the room with the pictures recklessly, looking for a clue, a hint, something! There was too much at risk here for them to stay any longer. And the Ishtars, he had to keep them out of danger. This was the code of his and Malik's friendship/alliance. And beyond anything, anything at all, he had to get Ryou out of this madhouse.

Start of Final Hell

Divine Justice

Death of a King

Virtually Victorious

What did any of these have in common? He asked himself, demanded himself. HE couldn't think of this rationally, couldn't figure anything out! Then his thoughts went back to Ryou…Dear Ra, was it possible?

What kind of trap are we in Bakura? You can get us out of a trap, can't you? Of course! This was nothing more than just another trap. He was the King of Thieves and he could worm himself out of any trap!

With a renewed vigor, he studied each thing closely, on the tips of his toes. Was there anything in common with the other? Final Hell, Divine Justice, Death, King, Victorious. He studied these words more closely. Divine fit in with King, and it was logical for a king to be victorious and to be final. And any death that the king decreed would be Justice to the people, but…still, it made no sense. He began to piece the words together radically.

"Virtually Divine, Victorious…Death, Justice of Hell, A King of Final…" He was missing something! Just one word! One word could let him finish this whole puzzle, even if this wasn't over. Because that stupid note on his desk that morning said that there were no more titles for these, but pictures. But just one word! He looked around, angry, enraged, tired, and tears threatening to spill at the same time.

Then he saw it. That final word. Put on a brass template right above the door. He laughed hollowly. "Judgment."

If I've gotten repetitive, I apologize, I'll be looking over my stories this weekends and tweaking any parts that I think need it...

PLEASE READ AND REVIEW!