Bad Medicine

Ryou's POV

"I….killed……………your …………..mother," whispered Cinetti in my ear. I covered my eyes and cried. He killed my mother. [Mommy! Mommy!] I cried over my mother's body.

"You killed my mother? Why? Why did you do it? I miss her! She was my mother!"

Cinetti leaned to me again and fingered the edge of the blade in his hand. "Don't cry, Ryou. I promise to make your death much more quick than your mother's."

"Why kill me?"

Cinetti brushed the blade over my rib and I tensed. He was going to kill me! My eyes drifted to the door. Please, Bakura! Don't let him kill me!

"This is for your own good, Ryou! Don't worry, Ryou! This is only business! Nothing personal!" Cinetti raised the dagger and put the pillow over my head to muffle my screams. I called out to Bakura and suddenly heard my lover's voice and Marik's growl in the room. I tried to reach out to Cinetti or Bakura and the pillow suddenly left my face. Gasping for breath, I turned away from Cinetti almost falling off the bed.

My eyes were closed and burning from the crying, but I could feel a pair of arms grab me in an embrace. The arms were quaking and my rescuer's body was shaking uncontrollably. I opened my eyes to see Malik holding me close to him whimpering in my shoulder too.

Marik gripped Malik by the shoulder. "Get Ryou out of here. Take him away."

I clasped onto Malik and whimpered into his neck. "Seto….go to Seto."

Bakura cornered Cinetti with a sneer. I coughed into Malik's purple shirt dotting it with drops of crimson.

"Take him to Seto, Malik."

Malik helped me up, but I could hardly move I was in shock from Cinetti's revelation. How easy is it to just hear from the man who tried to kill you that he killed your mother? Malik wrapped my arm around his shoulders and helped me out of the room. "Bakura…don't leave me."

"Go, Ryou. Go with Malik."

I staggered out still sobbing. Cinetti killed my mother? Why?

Normal POV

Bakura grabbed Cinetti's wrist making him release the dagger. Marik jumped on the bed and grabbed Cinetti's hair.

"So, you enjoy torturing people, do you?" Marik scowled. Marik pulled Cinetti back on the bed and gripped his throat in a tight grip. "You wanted to smother Ryou? How does it feel?" Cinetti's face contorted and grew redder every minute.

Bakura took the dagger that fell onto the floor and gripped it. Bakura loomed over Cinetti and kneeled beside him.

"You killed my hikari's mother. You will pay for trying to kill him as well." Bakura placed the point of the dagger at Cinetti's rib. "This is where you stabbed her, huh?" Bakura pressed gently drawing a slight trickle of blood. Marik released his grip on Cinetti's's neck to hear him scream and punched him off the bed. Bakura and Marik watched Cinetti wipe his mouth clean of blood.

"Not so strong now, are you, you murderer."

"I will destroy you both!"

Marik chuckled. "You can't kill spirits."

Bakura picked Cinetti off the floor and threw him into Ryou's desk. Cinetti crashed into the wood hearing snaps and crack coming from his body. Cinetti fell to the floor and Bakura was once again holding him in the air.

"You bastards! I don't regret my job! I do regret not having succeeded this time," Steven spat at Bakura.

"You would have succeeded if we were not here. I love Ryou with every love possible! How dare you try and take him away from me!"

Cinetti gasped for breath. "You better find a new love, spirit. It doesn't look like Ryou has much time left."

Bakura growled and jammed the dagger into Cinetti's left rib where he stabbed Ryou's mother. Cinetti was released and fell to the floor holding his side.

"Ryou is going to die, spirit. When he does, you will be alone." Cinetti laid on the ground. "I may die….but you will have to live with the knowledge…that I was the cause of his death and the death of his mother."

Marik punched Cinetti's face again. "You tried to hurt my hikari, too, you piece of mortal waste! I won't let you harm either of them."

"You are too late to save Ryou, Bakura. Ryou will join his mother soon."

Marik removed the blade of the Millenium Rod and held it to Cinetti. "You touch my hikari and I will shed the blood of your blood."

"My son…."

"He will pay the same price as you if he hurts my hikari." Marik rammed the hidden dagger into Cinetti's right rib. "You are lucky we are not in ancient Egypt. I would mummify you here and now!"

Cinetti fell to the floor gasping for breath. Malik and Bakura licked one drop of blood from their daggers.

Marik kneeled before Cinetti placing his hand over Cinetti's failing heart. "You can feel the air escaping your lungs. Your lifeforce is draining from you. You are the one gasping for every breath. How does it feel….to die by a blade?" Cinetti's eyes went wide as they watched Marik. "That's how I died, Cinetti. Not very pleasant, is it? You can feel the room spin. It hurts down to your very soul."

Cinetti gasped in a breath. "You are…..dead?"

Marik stood up and sheathed his dagger. "I was stabbed to death."

Bakura wiped off the blade of his dagger and wrapped it in a towel. "I was starved and strangled."

Cinetti's breath grew shallow.

"I'm going to send to you to a place where mortals suffer and you will live in shadows and you will never see the light of another day," Bakura growled emitting a bright light from his Millenium Ring. Cinetti screamed and his body suddenly went limp. The body exhaled its last breath.

Bakura's eyes filled with tears. Was it too late for Ryou? Bakura growled and kicked the body angrily screaming in Egyptian at the top of his lungs. Marik pulled Bakura back as he kicked and fought.

"YOU TRIED TO KILL MY RYOU, YOU SICK BASTARD!"

"Bakura! Bakura!" Marik pulled Bakura back and wrapped his arm around the other yami's chest. The crying, screaming yami slowly calmed down in his former lover's arms.

"Ryou…."

Marik pulled Bakura into a hug. Bakura nuzzled his face into Marik's shoulder. "He's gone to the Shadow Realm, Bakura. He'll pay his dues there."

Marik rubbed Bakura's back and looked down at Cinetti's body.

"We have to get to Seto's house to check on Ryou."

"We have to wait for Steven.." Bakura fumed.

"Ryou's health is more important," Marik said caressing Bakura's cheek. "Love is more important than revenge."

"Steven needs to be taught a lesson. How could his father leave him with Cinetti? I think his father had this planned. I can't prove it, though. He says he worked on his own, but I'm not convinced."

Bakura looked down at the body. Ryou's blood still stained the bed and Cinetti's pooled on the floor.

"He doesn't even deserve a decent burial."

"We have to go, Bakura!"

Bakura grabbed the Millenium Ring on the side table and Ryou's wedding ring from the box on the bureau. "I'll be down in a minute, Marik."

Marik ran downstairs and Bakura came down a couple minutes later. They ran outside and saw Steven coming from the end of the block. Marik grabbed Bakura's hand and they ran the other way down the block. Malik and Ryou didn't get very far. Ryou was on the ground sitting when he saw Bakura running down the block. His yami's hair glistened in the air as he ran to him. Ryou stretched out his arms and pulled Bakura into them shaking, crying, and whimpering into Bakura's neck. His high-pitched tone testified to his shock. "He was gonna kill me! He killed my mommy! He killed her!"

"I'm here, Ryou. He's gone. We took care of him, Marik and I. Let's get you somewhere safe, Ryou. To your feet, Ryou. That's it."

Marik ran into his hikari's open arms and turned to face Steven enter his house. His lip curled in disgust at the man who had treated his son and wife so shamefully.

Ryou staggered to his feet and they stopped in front of Yugi's place. Ryou could not walk anymore. He was too tired and Cinetti didn't help. Yami suggested the hospital would be better, but Ryou wanted to be around his friends.

"I was foolish to think I could make peace with my dad! I never should have left you, Bakura."

Bakura took Ryou in his arms and tried to calm his convulsions. Yugi's grandpa offered to drive them to KaibaCorp.

Steven's POV

I walked in the house and walked upstairs to give my son the "medicine." My son was very sick and I couldn't help remember all the colds I seen him through as a child. None were ever this bad. Then again, this is all his fault. My baby boy was not a baby anymore. Nor was he a real boy, which hurt me even more. I never had the heart to tell Cinetti to "take care" of my son. I wanted to. I figured that I was his father. No parent wants to see their child suffer. Ryou doesn't deserve me and I do not deserve him. We both deserve something better. I went into the kitchen and closed my eyes remembering holding him in my arms for the first time, his little body curling up in my arms…..in her arms. I opened up the cough medicine we had and dumped it down the drain. I took out the bottle I bought and replaced the liquid I had dumped down the sink.

Ryou was sick. This would surely cure him of his sickness within a day with proper dosage. I sniffed the concoction and it had no smell. Ryou couldn't smell anyway, his passages were all blocked. All I had to do was explain how my son was sick and how he had just faded. No one would suspect my new "medicine" would ensure that his suffering and mine would end.

I climbed the staircase ready to administer the "medicine" to my son………….his final "cure." He would have to finish the entire bottle for it to be instantaneous. I opened the door gathering my wits and saw to my horror, Cinetti on the floor in a puddle. My son wasn't in his bed!

I looked at the wall above Ryou's bed. In blood was scribbled "Murderer." The Millenium Ring was gone, too.

"Ryou! Time for your medicine! Ryou!"

Running through the house calling my son's name turned up no son. Ryou had disappeared, but it was easy to discern who he had run off to see. I put down the pois…..I mean….. "medicine" and called my friends and the police. I knew where he had gone and I was determined to get him back.

Next Chappie: Escape to Seto Kaiba…..but they aren't the only ones heading to Kaiba's place.