by WSJ
WSJ: *glances up at you* Kobon-wa minna-san. *sighs and looks down at the sketch pad in her lap. She wrinkles her nose at it, tears off the top sheet, crumples it into a ball and tosses it over her shoulder*
Ryou, Yami and Bakura walk up behind her. Yami reaches down and picks up one of the many crumpled paper-wads, unrumpling it so the three can look.
Ryou: Hey, WSJ, this is pretty good.
WSJ: *jumps and turns around to see Yami holding up a wrinkled picture of himself, and Ryou and Bakura looking around at the other discarded drawings*
WSJ: No way! You three are the hardest to draw in the entire show! It's your hair and eyes, I can't get them. Even Malik and Joey are easier to draw then you three!
Bakura: Um... Sure, if you say so. So what story is this?
WSJ: *puts down her pad and pencils, grins evilly* It's another one all 'bout you and Ryou. Called Visions of the Heart.
Ryou: *groans* Not the one where I-
WSJ: *jumps up and puts her hand over Ryou's mouth* ^.^;; Don't tell the readers!!!
Ryou: -_-;; Gomen nasai...
Bakura: Hey Yami, what'cha doin'?
Ryou and WSJ turn around to see Yami doodling on WSJ's sketch pad with Bakura looking over his shoulder. He looks up breifly, then hold up the paper which says "WSJ doesn't own Yu-gi-oh!"
WSJ: ^_^ Couldn't have said it better if I tried! I actually wrote most of this chappie in study hall today, so it might be a little shimatte. Excuse my Japanese.
Ryou: WSJ, watch your language!
WSJ: *blinks* Well at least I have the courtesy to say it in another language.
Bakura: ^^;; On to the story!
WSJ: It's Ryou's POV.
()()()()()
As I let my hand lightly rest on the doorknob I let my eyes slide closed. Turning my face upwards I revelled in the fading sunlight, wishing that the peace would last.
After school I'd dared to defy my yami's "no friends" rule and had hung out for hours at the Turtle Game Shop with Yugi and Joey. As long as I was there, with other people, all Bakura could do was rant at me mentally. But now that I was home, alone...
Dad was on another dig, and had left that morning. He'd been home for the last three weeks, giving my yami, or darkness, no time to "put me in my place", which gave him another reason to do so tonight.
I opened my eyes and took a deep breath, turning the knob so I could open it. The livingroom was dark as I stepped in, but I left it so. I tossed my coat and backpack onto a nearby chair and headed for my room.
This was the part I hated most, waiting for my yami to make an appearance. He liked to bide his time and make me sweat before he came out to "teach me a lesson".
I made it all the way into my bedroom and took my shoes off before the Millinium Ring began to glow, hidden now unneccissarily under my shirt.
My yami, Bakura, immerged from the soft golden glow and stood with his back to me. I backed up against the wall, shuddered and began to tremble in spite of myself.
He stepped forward and with a jerk drew the heavy curtains tight across my window, shutting out what little light had been filtering in from the dying sunset and streetlamps.
And I doubted he was about to turn my bedside lamp on, dispite my fear of the dark, which he knew very well and had readily installed in me.
I took a tentative step toward the switch on the far wall and saw his left hand clench into a fist. Next thing I knew he had spun around, his back-handed punch landing firmly on my temple. I flew backwards, my head slamming painfully into the window sill.
It seems to me now that I heard a sort of dull crack when I hit, like something in my head had given way, but of course at the time I paid no attention.
I fell to my knees, holding my pounding head in both hands, and let out a low moan. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bakura's shoes, carbon-copies of my own, come into view. I senced his smirk widen as he registered my pain, but then suddenly his iron grip was clamped around my left wrist.
I cried out as he pulled my arm up until my hand was right in front of his nose, but he just sneered and twisted it hard in his grip.
"What's this?" he asked, speaking for the first time since he'd left his soul room.
I remembered too late the two-hour school assembly that had been held that afternoon. The one Joey and Tristan had slept through. The one where Yugi and I, bored out of our minds, had borrowed one of Tea's pens and doodled all over our hands as the principle droned on in the background. (A/N: Don't you just hate assemblies like that? ^_^;;)
"I-Yugi and I were bored," I whimpered.
I risked a look at his face and saw him scowling, but it was also blurry. 'Probably a result of that punch and my meeting with the window.' I noted.
His scowl went from one of distaste to one of impotent rage. "Yugi? Yami's midget? I told you not to hang around with him, slave! And you were there with him this afternoon as well!"
I whimpered again and dropped my eyes from his face to the blurred floor, not daring to look at him any longer. "I'm sorry Bakura!" Oops. Bad. Wrong move.
"I'VE TOLD YOU TIME AND AGAIN TO CALL ME MASTER!!!!!!!!" the yami roared in rage.
I felt something slash across the back of my hand, which he still held in his grasp, and yelped in pain, jerking my head back around to face him. I saw him digging my pocket knife, which I realised suddenly I'd left on the dresser in plain view of my tormentor, along the spidery rose Yugi had drawn in the back of my hand.
"If you wish so much to have this drawn on your skin, I will draw it in blood." He tore the knife deeper, and I let out another cry. He paid it no heed and continued to trace the drawings that all but covered the skin up to my elbow, tearing his way through muscle, skin and tendons.
Finally he was finished, and delivered one last punch to my cheek before disappearing back into his soul room.
I felt weak, and I realised it was from blood-loss. Crimson stains covered my carpet, clothes and hair. I pulled myself into the bathroom and set about cleaning up my arm as best I could. My vision was still a bit blurry, but I had bigger things to worry about at the moment. The skin on my left arm was literally in tatters, and was bleeding heavily. I couldn't move it, and it was completely numb.
I knew that many, if not all, of the cuts and slashes needed stitches, but I also knew Bakura would kill me if I tried to go to the hospital. So I wrapped it the best I could in gauze, stumbled out onto my bed, and fainted dead away before I'd even hit the pillow.
~*~
When I next woke I could hear birds chirping outside my window and cars honking on the street. Funny, I didn't remember leaving my window open...
I could also hear someone down below, banging on the front door. Through the window I could faintly hear his calls.
"Ryou, are you awake? It's Yugi, it's time to go to school!"
I was suddenly very wide awake and I jerked into a bolt upright possition, sending a wave of nausea rushing through me. Crap crap crap! I couldn't let Yugi see my arms! He'd start asking questions, which would put him in danger of my yami as well, with or without his Yami's protection.
Suddenly something caught up with me and I blinked a few times. {Master?} I asked tentatively.
[What?]
{Something's wrong, Yugi's here and I-}
[Shit, Yugi?!?! What's he want?]
{I think he's waiting for me to walk to school with him, but Bakura I-}
For once my yami didn't care, or didn't notice, that I'd actually called him by name. He was out of his soul room in a flash and was leaning out the window. "I'll be right down!" he yelled in a passible imitation of me.
He turned back around to see me with my head burried in my arms, which rested on my knees, which in turn were pulled up to my chest.
"What now?" he growled, and I senced him raising his hand to slap me.
"I-I can't see."
"Well then open your eyes baka-yarou!"
"They are." Slowly I raised my head, and I knew for a fact my eyes were wide open. I heard him gasp involentarily and the creek of a floorboard as he took a step back. For an instant, in my mind, I saw through his eyes and almost recoiled at the "sight" of me. My hair and shirt were stained with blood, and tangled into a mess.
But worst of all were my eyes. Usually blue and sparkling, they were dull. The pupils had faded until they were almost white, and it looked like I was staring through, not at, everything I turned my face toward.
In that instant, as the picture faded and my mind was plunged back into the darkness of no sight, we both knew.
I was blind.
()()()()()
WSJ: *squeals* I'M SO SORRY RYOU-KUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *glomps Ryou*
Ryou: Dagnabit WSJ, let go!
Yami: What about aibou? Is he going to find out?
WSJ: *grins* Wait for chapter two, which probably won't be out for at least a week because of school. For those wondering (and those who aren't) I have chapter 3 of A Yami of my Own almost done, I just have a few more touches to put on. *waves* Ja minna-san, see you in the next chapter!
God bless minna-san!