Notes: //…// is a yami speaking to a hikari via mind-link; /…/ is hikari speaking to yami via mind-link; this goes for all chapters.
Originally posted as LoneWolf16, now Toboe LoneWolf. So I had a pen name change. This is still the weirdo fic. XD

Oh yeah. This fic is rated PG-13 because I highly doubt kids under 13 would want to read about Ebola viruses ravaging the human body in grotesque ways…he he. But hey, if you want to freak out, fine by me.

A killer virus stalks the human race.

However, there is exactly one person who knows the cure.

Someone doesn't like that.

Yugi and the gang were walking from Burger Palace with full bellies, chatting like typical teenagers. However, Yugi noticed that Yami was being strangely quiet. Usually Yami would be calm and happy after doing things that normal teenagers do: eat, sleep, chat, hang out, etc. Most of the time Yami had to worry about saving the world and all that. After Duelist Kingdom and Battle City, Yami was overdue time to rest. But now Yami seemed concerned and worried yet again.

/Yami, is there something wrong?/

Yami sighed, within his soul room. //It's nothing…well, ever since we've left that burger place I've had this premonition that something was approaching. Something dark.//

/What? Again?/ Yugi stopped walking. /Um…that doesn't make much sense./

//I can't explain it,// Yami muttered in frustration. //I just know that something wrong is coming, something seriously- //

Joey noticed Yugi wasn't walking. "Hey, Yugi. What's wrong?"

Yugi rubbed the Puzzle. "The spirit's sensed something…"

Tristan blinked, and pointed at something behind Yugi. "Hey, look guys. It's a monkey."

Joey peered closely. "Whoa, check it out. It is a monkey."

"What?!?" Tea exclaimed. She glanced at Joey and Tristan. "Is this some sort of a joke?"

Turning around, Yugi (and Yami) looked as well. The monkey was one of those small tiny brown types that you usually dismissed at the zoo except for their antics. Except this monkey had red eyes, a gaping mouth, and lesions all over its skin. Not exactly one to be dismissed. The nose and even the eyes were dripping blood. This was a seriously sick monkey. Oh, and it was running straight towards them. It stared straight into Yugi's eyes, boring with blood-red eyes, closing the one-and-a-half block distance rapidly. Like it had an agenda. An agenda that had Yugi and the gang on the top of the list.

"Dude, that monkey's running straight for us…" Tristan took a few steps back. "I'm getting freaked out…"

//Run! Run, Yugi!//

Immediately Yugi turned back around and started running. "Run, you guys!"

The rest of the gang started running, but the monkey kept following them in silent chase. Not even making a screech or chatter that would be normal to its breed, only a relentless pursuit and bloody splatters as a trail… Pushing bewildered and scared passerby aside, trying to get away from the monkey, and still the animal followed…

"Man, what the heck is wrong with that animal?" Joey panted. "It's still following us!"

Glancing back, Tea swallowed as she saw the bloody drool trailing out of the monkey's mouth. "Rabies?"

Tristan shook his head. "No way, it can't be rabies, monkey's don't get rabies…"

"I ain't stayin' around to ask it. Run!"

Yugi gasped, trying to keep up. Even if he had been exercising more, that didn't make up for his shorter legs. Yugi began to fall back. And the monkey was catching up.

"Hey! Wait…up…guys!" Yugi panted.

Joey turned around and saw Yugi falling behind. "Aww man! We forgot about Yugi!" Joey started to run back. (To do what, Joey had no clue; he certainly couldn't carry Yugi and get away from the monkey at the same time, but it's the thought that counts.)

The monkey had practically caught up to Yugi.

"YAMI!"

The millenium puzzle blazed, but the monkey opened up its mouth, with large, three inch fangs…

And bit Yami, not Yugi.

Yami screamed in pain as he felt fangs bite into his leg. Now, in the scheme of things, this was certainly a new experience for the three thousand year old pharaoh. One, he had a 30 pound monkey hanging onto his leg. Two, he had unfortunately not assumed control before the monkey caught up to his aibou and now he had to pay for it.

"MIND CRUSH!"

And with that, the poor, diseased, insane monkey flopped over dead. Yami wasn't feeling too merciful. Flipping his hand, Yami sent the body into the shadow realm to clean up. With surprising aplomb, Yami slowly sat down at the curb. Thankfully there were no strangers nearby; no need to worry about inadvertently scaring people with shadow magic…

"Yugi! I mean, Yami. Are you okay?" Joey asked Yami anxiously.

"I believe that I should go to a hospital for treatment." Yami pointed at his ravaged leg. Blood was dripping down, and there was a deep bite that made Tea almost sick to look at it.

"Guys, Yami definitely needs to get to a doctor. That monkey probably had rabies, and now Yugi's probably infected…" Tea said.

"Right! I'll call the hospital!" Tristan dashed into a nearby store.

"ARRGGH! Why does it have to take so long!" Joey ranted.

After an hour, the ambulance had still not arrived. Unfortunately, the monkey apparently had run loose for a good deal of time. That meant that the monkey ran around recklessly around Domino and created a great number of car accidents and traffic jams. Some people seem to think that swerving around and crashing into others to prevent running over a rabid monkey is a good thing. And as such, the ambulance couldn't get to Yugi because the monkey just happened to have created a circle of jams around Yugi, and they were trapped until the police could untangle the mess.

Tristan stared off in the distance, hoping to see the ambulance if he just stared hard enough. "I seriously think that monkey knew what he was doing. I mean, how could there be jams in every direction, just from that one monkey?"

"Shh!" Tea waved. The cell phone was currently attached to her ear, listening for some news from the ambulance crew or the police. "Yeah! The police have finally gotten one road way free. They'll be here in about three minutes!"

//Yugi, I am very sorry that I didn't act sooner.//

Yugi gritted his teeth from the pain, squeezing his leg above torn flesh. The medics said he couldn't even take aspirin, because they didn't know what condition he was in. /Yami, it's okay./

//No, it's not. If we had switched earlier, then I could have banished that creature before it bit you.//

/Well then, why didn't you?/ Yugi winced. The pain was making him snappish.

Yami sighed. //I don't like to take control of your body without your permission. It is not polite and certainly not nice to you.//

/We're bonded, right? So, if you really think I'm in danger…then do what you have to do./

Yami smiled down towards his hikari. Yes, he was Yugi's protector. He should 'do what he has to do.' //Thank you, Yugi.//

Just then, the ambulance arrived, and everything went crazy from there. There was lots of shouting, and flashing lights, and Yugi's mind almost blanked out in the middle of it all. The paramedics lifted Yugi onto a stretcher and rolled him into the ambulance. Giving a terse explanation that 'they could meet up with him at the hospital' the ambulance left Yugi's friends behind.

Inside the ambulance, Yugi was just confused. With all the sirens blaring and the shot they gave him to relieve the pain making him dizzy and confused, Yugi didn't have a clue of what was happening. Everything was becoming blurred. Why weren't his friends here…wait, the paramedics wouldn't let them come…said they'll meet up at the hospital…

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

A paramedic began spewing out questions. "Sir, did the monkey look sick to you?"

"Uh, yeah…" Yugi answered, weakly.

"Was it dripping saliva? Lesions? Blood?"

"I dunno…"

//Yes, it was, Yugi.// Yami reminded.

"I mean, yeah, it was…"

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

"Do you know where the monkey went?"

"No…"

The paramedic cursed softly. Without knowledge about the monkey, they couldn't know exactly what the monkey was carrying. It was clear to him that the monkey carried some sort of infectious disease. A monkey with skin lesions that bit people was big trouble. It could contain Lassa virus, SIV, rabies, or even some new disease, and without some sort of sample, they would be completely guessing on how to treat the patient.

"Are you sure? That monkey could have been carrying something. We need to find that monkey in order to get a sample and know for sure. Can you remember anything?"

Yami cringed. With the monkey dead and in the shadow realm, there would be no way to tell exactly what the monkey had been carrying.

//Sorry, aibou. I overreacted. By Ra! Why didn't I learn about modern medicine? I should have known that we would need information about the monkey!//

/It's all right, Yami…/

Yugi answered the paramedic's question. "No…"

Yugi was lying on a hospital bed with an IV drip.

With no idea of what the monkey could possibly have infected Yugi with, the doctors decided to inject as many vaccines as possible, in hopes that it would prevent a breakout.

The doctors were definitely scared. Monkeys were frequently used as test animals for diseases and vaccines. With a monkey, possibly infected with a hot and lethal agent, on the loose and biting people, there was a huge possibility that a pandemic would break out.

Yugi groaned. He had been given no less than five shots, all for various diseases, and one blood sample. The doctors were hoping to identify something and then know the proper treatment. It had been practically a whole day now. At least his friends were here, keeping him company. Those needles must have been the biggest ones in the hospital…

Just then, a doctor came in. His face was perfectly blank.

"We have the test results. They are not good."

Joey stood up. "What's wrong, doc?"

"Due to some new testing, we have detected a previously unknown variety of the Ebola virus in his bloodstream."

Yugi blanched, Tea covered her mouth, Tristan hung his head, and Joey scratched his head. "E-whatsit?"

The doctor glanced at Yugi. There seemed to be pity in his eyes. "The Ebola virus. It is a rare and lethally hot virus that kills nine of ten people. In comparison, yellow fever, a distant relative, kills one out of twenty. I have no idea how the monkey, and thus Yugi, contracted the disease. As I have said, the virus is extremely rare."

"What…what can it do?" Tea asked with a white face. "What'll happen to Yugi?"

"The incubation period for Ebola is around three to twelve days. However, with a new strain, it may be sooner or longer, and thus his symptoms arrive sooner or later. Ebola attacks everything except skeletal muscle and bone. It is famous for its massive hemorrhaging – that is, heavy bleeding. There is no cure. Yugi will most likely die."

Yugi's face went white. In his soul room, Yami was also in shock. How could he have let his hikari get into this state?

"Die? Wait, you can't do anything?" Tea pleaded.

The doctor shook his head. "I am sorry. As this is a serious case, we must quarantine Yugi and we must ask you to leave this hospital - that is after we have tested you as well. We must make sure that you were not exposed to the virus."

"Wait a sec. You're just going to let Yugi die?" Joey looked at the doctor incredulously.

"Again, I am sorry. But all we can do is give Yugi is supportive care. There is no cure."

With protests, screams and pleads, the doctor shooed Yugi's only comfort out of the lonely hospital room. Then the doctor came back in, carrying a few things.

"I'm afraid that you'll have to stay here. Certified personnel will come in occasionally, to see if you're doing fine and to try to keep the symptoms down. To keep you…occupied…you can watch TV or read this."

The doctor handed over a TV remote and a paperback book. The title: The Hot Zone.

"I'm not sure if you would be interested, since it's about the Ebola virus. It's probably one of the few things written exclusively on Ebola, translated into Japanese, and also open widely to the public. If you want to learn more about it, you can read it. Again, I am very sorry."

The doctor turned towards the door. And then stopped. "Though if I were you, I would not read the first twenty-five pages." Then he walked out - the last human contact that Yugi had.

//Yugi, at least I am still here with you.//

/But what about Joey and Tristan? And what about Tea? Will I ever see them again?/

Yami had no answer. //I- I just don't know.//

Yugi sighed and picked up the book. At least he could read about the life form that was living inside of him. He flipped through the pages. It wasn't too bad…kind of factual at some parts, talking about viruses and the like. In the end parts it was more militaristic. A bit intrigued (and bored) Yugi went back to the beginning pages that the doctor had warned him against reading.

His stomach turned somersaults as he read about a tiny life form that acquired, replicated, and destroyed a human body in less than a week. First it was a headache. Then it turned into raging fevers, flowing blood, blood shot eyes, the literal eating of the mind. It ended with a massive gushing of blood and terminal shock.

Yugi slammed the book closed. So that was what was in store for him.

Then he winced. Oww, his head hurt. Like he had a headache…

Yugi shot up. A headache. And from what he just read, after just one day, he was doomed…