Chapter 11: - Unity
"YUGI!" Yami bellowed as the attack blinded everyone, his voice echoed by the others.
The light died down, the attack over.
Yami, still flash blinded, forced himself to his feet, unable to sense Yugi through the weird energy that was flowing in the area now, "Yugi!"
"I'm ok."
Yami blinked until his vision was clear. Yugi was still in front of him, conscious and still in one piece, one arm outstretched, the last sparks of the attack dying in his hand, but that wasn't what rendered Yami speechless, it was Yugi's armour and the white light that danced around his hikari that did that.
"What…?" He heard Serenity gasp.
"He's merged with our dragons…all of our dragons…" Joey stared.
Yami took in the whitish blue and black torso armour and wings, the blue gauntlets and grieves with the lace like white pattern, the dragon head capsule launcher which looked surprisingly like Curse of Dragon…
Yami felt the young man's relief that the others were still here, and his amusement at Yami's shock, then felt Yugi's emotions turn to anger at Alexandros the Great, anger that burnt hot and bright. If Hermione was there, she would have likened it to the flames you get from magnesium, it would burn out quickly, but it was incredibly dangerous.
"No, this…can't be happening!" Alexandros protested.
"Don't attack them again." Yugi's tone stunned everyone, the power behind the single sentence obvious, with only a hint of the anger he was feeling escaping.
Alexandros had pushed Yugi too far, tried to wipe out his friends and family, and with his new armour, Yugi had the power to stop him from trying again.
Still, even in the mood he was in, he would give the Roman King a chance to back down, to admit defeat, or even allow a one on one battle, instead of involving his friends.
"Why not?" Alexandros didn't take the warning and fired again.
Yugi didn't respond other then to block the attack easily, as he had the last one.
'Maybe it's time…' The thought crossed Yami's mind as he watched Yugi shrug off the attack as if it was nothing.
"This can't be!" Alexandros bellowed as Yugi took off, confused and angry by this sudden turn around. He had been in control of the battle! He should have won! How? How had Prince Yugi turned it around like this? "How can you survive my mightiest attack without a scratch?" He demanded.
"Using the Armour of Unity." Yugi explained, tone heated, anger still burning brightly and reflected in the movement of the light that surrounded him. "I wouldn't have survived had my friends not helped me."
Anger died down slightly, and for a couple of moments Yugi gained a small, sad smile, as he looked at those who followed Alexandros. "I have to end this; I can't let you hurt anyone else. Not even your own people." He said, before turning back to look at Reshef and the person merged with the massive monster. "It's over, Alexandros."
"You can't do this to me! I am the true king!" Alexandros launched the fists of Reshef.
Yugi almost vanished in the glow that surrounded him, which formed a dragon, flying straight through the fists, which exploded upon contact, leaving Alexandros completely defenceless.
Yami thought, over the link, he heard Yugi call, "Dragonforce Attack!"
Then Reshef exploded, Alexandros's screams were heard and the world went incredibly bright and once again they were all blinded.
When the light died, they were floating in the night sky again.
"What's going on?" Serenity asked.
Yami floated over to Yugi, who smiled slightly, relieved by the fact everyone was ok, "We won." Yami told her, "But there might be something else we need to do."
Shadi appeared him front of them. "Your final test is complete. The battle to decide who is more worthy of the power to control mankind is over. King Alexandros chose to sacrifice his allies in order to gain strength, while Prince Yugi sought to protect his allies, even at the cost of his victory, this difference is what decided their fates." Shadi's eyes flickered to the pair and Yami tensed up, wondering why they hadn't been set free if the final test was over. "Prince Yugi has proven that he has what is necessary to rule wisely and fairly as the True King." A ball of energy floated above Shadi's palm. "This belongs to you," Shadi offered it to Yugi, "Simply put, it contains the power necessary to rule the entire world."
"Thank you Shadi," Yugi replied, still, just wanting to take his friends and leave, "But I don't want it, I don't have any use for it."
"I realise that," Shadi looked amused, for some odd reason, "The paradox of the true king is that he who is worthy of the power to unite mankind, can do so without it." Shadi vanished and once again they were all blinded.
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"Seto, Seto wake up."
The panic in Mokuba's voice woke Seto faster then any spell could of, forcing the exhausted and injured CEO to sit up quickly, if only to try and find the danger to his brother and stop it being one.
When there was no one else in the room, just the unconscious forms of everyone who had actually been living during that final battle, including Alexander Brisbane, Seto turned to his brother with a slight frown, "Are you alright Mokie?" He asked.
He would have checked, just to reassure himself, but Mokuba had glomped him before he could do so, causing Seto to wince but manage to avoid actually making any noise as his little brother squeezed his, possibly bruised, ribs a little too hard. "Mokie?"
"I thought… Shadi said…"
"Shadi?" Seto scowled as Joey started moving. By the time Joey had reassured himself of his sister's safety, Solomon was up and checking Yugi and Yami over. "Did he hurt you?"
"No," Mokuba shook his head, "But the entire B Party had to be taken down to Ground Control, I don't know what he did, but they're all unconscious…"
Yugi groaned, sitting up and looking like he'd been dragged through a hedge backwards, forwards, sideways, upside down and a few other ways that Seto didn't care to think about right now, and had to be assured of his friends' safety before he would turn and converse with the ghost of Alexander the Great, who now appeared much saner then he had during the battle, and actually had a conversation with Yami without trying to kill him.
Seto watched for a moment as both the conversing ancients, Yami and Alexandros, seemed to gain an Ancient Egyptian look, Yami's tan deepening, the image of Egyptian clothes settling, seeming to cause the normal clothes Yami was wearing to vanish, while Alexandros's Roman clothes faded and fancy Egyptian ones took their place.
The difference in styles was startling, but it was more then obvious that both had been Pharaohs…
The change was there for just a moment and Yugi and Yami seemed oblivious, so maybe it was just him seeing things but…
"And a member of party A is missing in that map room…" Mokuba continued as King Alexandros and his vassals faded away.
Serenity, who had been checking Dr Brisbane over with Ombre's help, groaned. "Does this mean someone has to go into the game and get them?"
"I'll do it." Yugi said, or started to…
"No you will not." Seto snarled at him. "I'm going to deal with this 'Shadi' character and make him undo whatever he did to my people, and then I'm going in there and getting him out."
"But Seto…" Yugi started protesting.
"You need to see a healer." Seto glowered at him.
"I'm fine!" Yugi continued protesting, though there wasn't a single person there who believed him.
Serenity cast a diagnostic spell on Yugi, who lit up like a Christmas tree in many different colours. "How are you even conscious?" She demanded, staring at the lights.
"Someone takes after their dark side and other link partner too much." Joey snorted.
"We have healers." Mokuba told them, wondering what all the lights meant. "We brought some with us, just in case."
"I'm coming with you." Yugi told Seto.
"You can't come with me now, you're a liability." Seto told him.
"You can't go in alone."
"He won't. I'm not too bad off." Joey said, looking at Seto, "If Rich Boy doesn't object, I'll go back in with him. At least I know what we have to do."
"You are all going to the healers first." Serenity growled. "Including you Kaiba."
"I have…"
"Healer. Now."
Yami helped Yugi to his feet, the hikari leaning heavily on his dark half as they headed down. Seto, and of course Mokuba, who was now refusing to leave his brother's side, went down to the map room, where A Group and D Group who had been trying to work out where the missing member had gone, were now trying to work out where the missing member had come from, since they had come back looking like they'd been run over by a bull and by all accounts that wasn't far off, apparently he'd been chased by a Battle Ox for the last few hours… except he hadn't been gone hours… and told them to pack up and go, because they were leaving.
Once out and safely at Ground Control, Yugi, unable to fight it any longer, finally passed out. Seto, knowing how tired and injured Yami and Joey were, would have carried him the rest of the way to the medical tent, but within a few seconds of Yugi collapsing, they were swarmed by Healers, who insisted on shooing away everyone until they had treated their patients.
Within the medical tent, where the healers worked quickly and efficiently, and which had had a silencing charm cast on it as well as several others, to make the working space bigger, to prevent disruption from the outside world and to protect those inside, no one was aware of the fact that the pyramid had collapsed until a fully healed Seto Kaiba was called outside by Roland to have this fact pointed out to him.
Inside the tent the Mediwitches and the Doctor were busy treating their patients, giving potions, casting spells, Serenity, who had escaped the worst of the fighting, other then when she'd been hit out of the sky, and even then Fae had taken the worst of the damage, giving them a hand, helping out as a Mediwitch treated what she could with spells and potions, then the Doctor took a look and finished it off with whatever Muggle medicine or treatments were necessary.
"How is he?" Yami asked Serenity, who had stopped for a moment, waiting for the next bit of advice or the next thing she needed to do, concerned after Serenity's outburst by the door.
"Yugi'll be ok," Serenity reassured him, looking down at the other end of the tent, where the Doctor and a Mediwitch were fussing over a completely unconscious Yugi, "I don't know how he kept going so long, but if he hadn't…"
Yami knew what she meant. Joey had joked that Yugi was too much like him and Harry, but Yami had been able to sense just how much pain Yugi had been in by the end, hell it had hit that level where he had been feeling part of it himself, and still his hikari kept going, through the worst of what the game could throw at him.
He had defeated a Five God Dragon with relative ease…
"Are you feeling alright?" Serenity asked, checking his temperature.
"I will do." Yami said, not taking his eyes off of his hikari.
"I swear he's going to be okay." Serenity promised, then turned to scold her brother who had been trying to get out of bed.
Yami just sat there for a while, watching the Healers work as Joey explained what had happened to Mokuba.
There was no sense of victory. Oh he felt pride at his hikari's accomplishments, of course, but… Yami couldn't help but feel like all he had actually done to help his hikari was play at being a rechargeable battery.
Mokuba's phone rang.
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Sirius knew something had happened the moment that Wolf had turned towards the east, and Harry had gained a small grin. He wasn't one hundred percent sure if it was because of what he had drawn, or if it was because of something else, especially when Harry schooled himself back into game mode a moment later.
Sirius didn't understand everything, but he did understand the game better now then he had when he'd watched Harry, Yugi and Yami play against each other before they'd gone their separate ways for the holidays and when Harry finished the match with a combination of his Winged Wolf Pack and Phoenix Heart, he would have offered a congratulations, knowing the turn around for what it had been, except Harry seemed happier then now then he had been for a while.
"Harry?" Sirius asked, as they moved towards the boards to find out who Harry would be fighting next and where and Dudley turned back to his portable games console, bored now he didn't have the match to distract him.
"They're back." Harry's reply was breathless and delivered with a grin.
Sirius got it immediately. "Back? You're sure?"
"Of course I'm sure!" Harry quickly looked around, decided that there was no one in hearing range and continued, "It's them, I know it's them…I can sense them again!"
"You thought you sensed them before your match started, then they were gone again." Sirius warned.
"I know, I know." Harry waved him off, his good mood wavering.
"Can't you just phone a Kaiba?" Dudley asked, looking up from his ever so fascinating game for a few milliseconds. "And find out?"
A split second later Harry had his phone out and had dialled the number for Mokuba Kaiba.
It was on speed dial, so it took a grand total of the press of two buttons.
"Pick up, pick up, pick up…" Harry muttered as it rang.
Sirius watched his Godson as he moved across to the railings surrounding the pond, talking in rapid Japanese to someone on the other end of the phone.
Sirius had to admit that he didn't like it. It wasn't right for someone who wasn't a twin to be bound to the mind of another, and Harry had changed so much over the last year, since the year he'd hung around the Hogwarts grounds as a dog that Sirius wasn't sure how well he knew this boy.
In all fairness he hadn't had the chance to get to know Harry properly before the link, but Sirius was fed up of knowing that he couldn't compete with the other two link partners, knowing that Harry would have up and left had Sirius not come to an agreement with him about how long to wait…
And now, watching the relief that was obviously coursing through his Godson as Harry nodded and uh huhed and 'at least they're back and safe'ed his way through the conversation, promising to phone a little later so whoever he was talking to could get themselves checked over, he couldn't help feeling bitter that he would never have the relationship that he would have wanted had Wormtail not betrayed the Potters, with his Godson.
Harry put the phone back in his pocket and sat down on a nearby bench, turning to watch the screen, letting out a relieved sigh.
"Well?" Dudley poked Harry and backed off when Wolf growled lightly.
"They're back, they passed through the real world to get to the last battle, but they're back for real now. They just need some medical attention."
"Good." With that Dudley lost interest in the conversation, amusing Harry.
"What's wrong?" Sirius asked when Harry looked thoughtful for a while, wondering if it was just the tournament, or whether there had been some news Harry hadn't shared with them.
"Nothing, it's just…" Harry sighed, a small frown crossing his features for a moment or two before disappearing.
"What?" Sirius asked.
"Yugi saved the world."
"I thought that wasn't unusual?" Dudley looked up for the grand total of half a second.
"Yami saving the world isn't unusual;" Harry explained, "But it was Yugi who saved it, and Yami's claiming that he didn't help Yugi at all."
"So?"
Harry shrugged, knowing Sirius wouldn't get it. Perhaps it wasn't as big a deal as he thought it was, but… something was going to change because of this, he just knew it.
He just wasn't sure what at this moment of time.
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Seto exited the medical tent a few hours later to find Yami looking at the ruins of the pyramid. He was surprised, considering Yugi was still inside and currently banned from leaving his bed for the next couple of days.
"Yami?"
Yami jumped and wheeled around to face him, causing Seto to be both concerned and curious at the same time.
It was very difficult to catch Yami by surprise. The teen was always on alert and completely aware of his surroundings. He was only ever caught off guard when he was completely lost in thought and that didn't happen very often. Even when important subjects came up, there was a part of Yami that was watching and analyzing everyone around him.
With Yugi in the medical tent, Seto would have thought that Yami would be in there, watching and guarding his partner, not out here, so lost in thought that just calling his name made him jump.
"What do you want?" There was a snap to Yami's tone that told Seto that it had been a rather important train of thoughts he had just caused to go diving off of a cliff.
Seto wasn't quite sure how to answer. If it had been Yugi, he could have just asked what had been on his mind, and Yugi probably would have given him a straight answer, but he and Yami had never really been on those sorts of terms.
Then again Yugi was that open with anyone who he considered a friend that he could trust with his secrets, which was pretty much everyone. No one betrayed Yugi, it was something to do with how Yugi was. There was something about him that stopped people from doing so, something that bonded groups together.
Unity… the armour he'd gained had been the Armour of Unity… maybe that was Yugi's gift…
"You looked completely out of it." Seto settled on saying, "I didn't want my biggest rival surviving that Shadow Game, only to kill himself by accidently falling over a cliff."
"It's nothing." Yami waved it off.
It was nothing. Yeah right, and Seto was in line to be the next Minister for Magic for England.
Seto snorted. "Nothing? Yugi takes over your bit, and you call that nothing?"
Yami's eyes darkened and a small frown told Seto he'd hit the nail on the head. "I didn't get a say in the matter."
"Why?" Seto asked.
Yami preferred to be at the head of the group, probably a left over from his days on the throne. Yami didn't like following someone else's orders, not even Yugi's. The fact it had been Yugi on point, automatically meant that Yami would have had some say in the matter. Things weren't adding up.
"The game chose him." Yami replied shortly.
"The Shadows wanted Yugi to save the world?"
"It was a test." Yami explained, "To find the True King."
Seto raised an eyebrow. "And that's not you."
"Obviously not." Yami replied. "Obviously the Shadows think Yugi's ready for the throne and I should move aside."
Seto shrugged. "Maybe the Shadows think you're getting too old."
Yami snorted. "Maybe. I am what, 5022?"
"5014." Seto replied, "You're Harry's age physically, remember?"
"Harry's fifteen." Yami replied.
"Your birthday's not till the end of the summer." Seto answered back.
Yami didn't retort.
For a moment there was silence then.
"He did a good job." Yami said, "He got us all out safely, won the game, beat Alexandros, who has thousands of years more experience then he does…" Yami shook his head, amused at himself, "I've been blind haven't I?"
"What?" Seto asked, though he had a feeling Yami was talking to himself, rather then him.
"Yugi doesn't need me anymore, does he?" Yami asked, "He's more then capable of looking after himself and the others."
Seto laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Yami looked deeply offended.
"Sorry." Seto smirked, "Maybe. But... Yugi? Capable of looking after himself?" Seto chuckled, "He might be able of looking after everyone else, but he fails epically at looking after himself."
Yami scowled at him.
"Who is the only one out of the lot of you who needs more then five hours with the doctors?" Seto pointed out and smirked when Yami had to concede that he had a point. "There's an easy answer to your problem. Move aside and let Yugi take over, but keep an eye on things in the background. He can look after the others, and you can look after him. Simple."
Yami snorted. "That easy, huh?"
"It's either that or keep sulking until you drive everyone crazy." Seto pointed out.
"I wasn't sulking." Yami growled.
"So what does Yugi want to do?"
"Yugi wants to help his friends out and go back to Hogwarts in September. He also wants Yami to chase what Yami wants and not worry about him all the time."
Yugi's voice in the doorway made the pair of them turn around.
"You're not supposed to be out of bed." Yami darted to Yugi's side.
"You were distressed." Yugi replied, "And the Doctors weren't looking."
"I'm fine." Yami replied, well aware Yugi was just proving Seto's point about Yugi looking after others and not caring for his own welfare. "Go back to bed."
"You're not fine." Yugi shook his head.
"More fine then you. Bed. Now."
Seto gave the two of them an amused look, then manhandled Yami into the tent, taking Yugi with them.
"Muto Yugi." Serenity growled the moment they were inside.
"Uhhh, sorry?" Yugi tried, wondering again if all healers took lessons on being scary.
"Bed." Serenity pointed.
"Going." Yugi surrendered.
'Yugi,' Yami waited until Yugi was settled in bed again, before initiating a conversation over the link, 'Would you mind if, when we get back to Domino…'
"You want to go to the museum." Yugi already knew what he was going to ask, having had expected it to come up at some point over the holiday. Yami had been firm while the Tablet of the Pharaoh had been out of his reach, but his resolve had been wavering the entire week before they had left, when it had been in Domino's museum.
'Yes…'
"What I said outside is the truth. If you want to chase your memories, I won't stop you."
'You don't mind?'
"You've been after getting all of your old memories back for years. You've held back on my account long enough. If you want to go, go."
'Thank you.'
Yugi smiled at him, "You don't need to thank me. Everything you've done has been to get to this point. It wasn't the battle against Great Evil which dragged you into Battle City."
Yugi sensed Yami's amusement and his smile broadened. When Yami had first met Isuzu, at the museum when he'd been on the date with Tea that Yugi had arranged for him, Isuzu had told him that there was a great evil on the way that would attempt to destroy the world and that it was his destiny to defeat it.
This he had accepted. There had to have been a reason that he'd sealed himself away, split himself into two as he had in order to return to life at some point in the future, perhaps this had been it.
But it was Isuzu's parting shot, the simple statement that if he entered the tournament, he would find the answers he sought out, the secrets behind his former identity… that was what had truly dragged him and Yugi into Battle City.
Mokuba's phone rang again, amusing everyone and causing Seto to have to stop himself from rolling his eyes. He was thoroughly sick of that ringtone by now.
"Hermione, hi." Mokuba said, shushing everyone.
"How many phone calls has he had since we've been gone?" Yugi whispered to Seto, having caught the CEO's momentary slip.
"He started it. The others made him promise to ring if something went wrong this summer." He stated, his tone sounding like as if it was a 'when' not an 'if', "Let's just say if I hear that ringtone one more time I might do something drastic with that phone." Seto's grumbling made Yugi laugh, Yami smirk, Serenity giggle, Ombre smile slightly and Joey snort in amusement.
"So… Seto…" Joey paused, "Our holiday…?"
Seto gave Joey an amused smirk. "I told the hotel you would be hiking in before I left Kaiba Corp." He answered, "It's only eight hundred and forty two kilometres from here."
"What?" Joey demanded, glowering. "You can't be serious!"
"He's not. We're taking you to the hotel once the doctors say you're ok to be released and coming to get you in the plane on the 29th" Mokuba waved it off, shushing them again. "When?" He asked into the phone.
"I feel like we're in the library." Yugi giggled at Yami, who snorted and nodded slightly.
Mokuba put the phone down and turned to the others, "Guess who's coming to Japan on the 29th?"
"She's not?" Ombre asked, eyes widening.
"Uh huh." Mokuba nodded, "Her parents have arranged a holiday to coincide with your return from India. Apparently they arranged it when she got worried when you lot disappeared. Again."
Joey watched as Yugi and Yami looked at each other. Yugi tilted his head questioningly. Yami shrugged. Yugi gave him a meaningful look, something along the lines of, 'you're sure?' and Yami nodded. Then they turned back to Mokuba who was telling them what Hermione had told him about the planned trip.
He didn't need to 'hear' what they said over the mind link, more often then not, when they didn't watch their physical body language. It was often possible to work out the basics of what they were saying from how they responded to each other. He'd get the details, if they were important, from Yuge later.
"Are they getting in before or after us?" Serenity asked.
"Actually around the same time," Mokuba had already worked it out in his head, "But Hermione will probably be jet lagged, England's nine hours behind us."
"Gives us a chance to unpack and tidy up a bit then." Ombre nodded.
Yugi was more worried about the fact that Hermione's parents could be expecting to run into a group of fourteen or fifteen year olds, rather then a bunch of early twenty year olds.
"So what do we do until the doctors release us?" Joey asked, bored already.
"Well I would duel you but… that reminds me." Yami headed for the exit.
"Yami." Yami paused when Seto called him.
"What?"
"Looking for this?" Seto held up Mahado's card.
"That's mine." Yami stalked towards him.
"I don't think you deserve it." Seto smirked, a teasing, deliberately irritating smirk, designed specifically to lure the Pharaoh into biting back, "If you were careless enough to lose it, perhaps I should keep it."
"Don't even think about it." Yami growled.
"That's our card." Yugi protested as Solomon watched warily. "Grandpa gave him to us to look after."
"Actually, if I remember it correctly Yuge," Joey intervened, also watching, "Gramps gave you that card to beat Rich Boy with."
"That's true." Yugi acknowledged. "Considering everything, I think the result of that duel was a good one."
Seto snorted, "You beat me with Exodia. It was a cheap win. You can't beat Exodia."
"We beat Exodia." Yami reminded him.
"And you beat Exodia Necross." Yugi reminded Seto.
Seto waved it off.
"Card?" Yami held out a hand.
"Play me for it." Seto replied, smirk back.
"I won't duel you for my card." Yami growled. "Give it back."
Seto paused, as if he was seriously considering not giving it back. The tossed it to Yami. "You're not worth my time without him in your deck."
"What did you say?" Yami snarled.
"You heard me." Seto replied, completely unconcerned that he had a rather angry Pharaoh in front of him. "You're no challenge without your trump card."
"You're on." Yami glowered, "Any time, any place."
"Hotel courtyard, when we drop you off."
"All right." Yami nodded, "I'm not going to lose."
"And you're not allowed to use Yugi's deck." Seto warned.
"I don't need to borrow a deck to defeat you without the Dark Magician, Kaiba."
Seto just smirked in response to Yami's growl. He knew he was pushing all the right buttons, because Yami was more prone to reverting to using surnames when people wound him up.
"You were going to explain why the two of you used the same deck and how that's both your card." Serenity mentioned quietly, breaking the mood that was hovering around. "Because that was your card, long before it was Yami's." She gave Yugi a confused look.
"We were going to swap stories." Yugi nodded, looking around and glad that the doctors had vanished for the time being.
"Can I go first?" Serenity asked, pulling her deck out of her bag and taking her Extras deck out of her deck box, passing around Fae's card.
"Go ahead. You said she chose you?"
"Her name's Fae, she an Ancient Fairy Dragon," Serenity nodded, watching the card as it went from person to person, "Apparently she fought a great battle hundreds of years ago, somewhere around the time of the Incas and while the others escaped, she was trapped in the Monster World by the bad guys."
"Wow," Joey passed the card on to Yugi, who took it carefully. "So how'd you end up with her loyalty? Don't tell me you've got your own bad guys to contend with."
Serenity giggled as Yugi and Yami's heads turned towards her, concern obvious. "No, I'm just a temporary partner; I'm not really the one she's waiting for."
"What do you mean?" Yami asked as Yugi passed him Ancient Fairy Dragon's card.
"Well, Fae and I have come to an agreement." Serenity said, smiling slightly, "She'll work with me for a while, so she isn't stuck in the Monster World, bored out of her mind, and if her real partner, the one she's waiting for, appears, I've promised to let her go so she can team up with her true partner and save the world again."
"Save the world again?" Yugi asked.
"Another villain group?" Yami scowled.
"Fae doesn't think the bad guys will be back in my life time." Serenity tried to reassure them, "It's not something we should have to worry about."
"Still…" Yugi sighed and passed the card onto Ombre.
"Well, here's one piece of good news, Yuge." Joey said, thinking. "This means that it's not only you who has trouble with idiots."
"He has a point." Ombre gave the card back to Serenity. "This means that there's a lot more dangers out there that are related to duelling then just our problems."
"Why don't I feel reassured by this?" Yami growled.
Serenity giggled again, as Ombre sighed and Joey shook his head, amused.
"How did you meet her?"
"I was in the hospital wing after an accident in potions and I thought the potion that Dr. Ling gave me had been tainted, as I had odd dreams." Serenity smiled softly, remembering the dreams and everyone she had befriended in them, "It wasn't until my friends went through my extras deck that I realised that I had an extra card."
"You mean she just appeared in your extras deck?" Joey asked, concerned.
"I didn't think I'd seen an Ancient Fairy Dragon before." Seto frowned slightly, chalking this up to 'insane things happen when magic is involved' when Serenity nodded. He had spent more then a few moments just staring at the card, remembering the full size dragon that had fought beside them, trying to think if he'd seen it before.
"Does this mean she wouldn't work on a Duel Disk?" Yugi frowned.
"It wouldn't be hard to program the Duel Disks to accept her." Seto waved it off, as if it didn't constitute two or three days of 3D modelling and programming and sending out a broadcast signal to update the Duel Disks already in circulation, with the new data, already thinking about it and wondering if there were other monsters who just appeared in people's decks and how they used them…
Yugi looked thoughtful, making Seto wonder what he was thinking about, but he passed the card back to Joey, who had reached for it before it could reach Serenity, nodding approvingly as he read it again, "Her effect is awesome. I hope you've put some field cards in your deck to compliment her."
"Mountain, The Sanctuary in the Sky and Holy Sanctuary." Serenity nodded.
Those three field cards told Seto everything he needed to know about her deck. Dragons, fairies and light. Probably light Syncro's, it was unlikely that 'Fae' would be the only Syncro in her deck. It wasn't good for strategy to rely on one monster.
"Cool." Joey handed the card back and Serenity slipped it into her deck box before looking at Yugi.
"So what about you?" She asked, "What is it with you and Yami?"
Yugi nodded, surprisingly nervous about telling her, considering that everyone they had told so far hadn't been too put off. "This is going to seem a little far fetched to start with, but all of it is true. Ok?"
"Alright…"
"You remember what I told you at Christmas? About Yami and Ombre's magic being linked to their items?"
"Uh huh." Serenity nodded.
"That's not quite the full story."
"No?" Serenity looked surprised.
"No. Sorry." Yugi shook his head.
"What is?" She asked, both concerned and interested.
Yugi paused, taking a deep breath. "Yami and I am the same person." Yugi explained nervously, "Two halves of the same soul."
"What do you mean?" She asked, confused.
"Yami was a Pharaoh five thousand years ago," Yugi looked at his partner, causing Serenity to do the same. The Pharaoh nodded and Yugi continued. "There was this huge evil that attacked Egypt, and Yami sealed his soul and gave up his memories in order to seal the evil away too, but for some reason only half of his soul was sealed into the Puzzle. The other half went on to reincarnate and well..." He gestured himself with a sheepish smile. "I freed Yami when I completed the Puzzle, and we've looked after each other ever since."
"But if it was you who reincarnated, how did Yami get his own body?"
"For a long time we shared one." Yugi explained, "Yami possessed me whenever he needed to be out an about. I never minded, still wouldn't, but there was an accident back in our first year and when the magic from the Millennium Items, the magic of the Orb of Light which Ombre holds and a burst of Wand magic mixed together and gave Yami, Bakura and Ombre their own bodies."
"Constructs." Serenity's eyes widened, "Your bodies are magical constructs?" She asked Yami and Ombre.
Ombre nodded.
"I've never heard someone splitting their soul before." Serenity frowned, she looked at Ombre, "Was Kari half of your soul too?"
"No." Ombre shook her head. "Kari became whole when her twin died which is what allowed her to free me from the Orb of Light."
"Do you know any of your history?"
"I was a Princess, from a country bordering Egypt, during Yami's reign, other then that, not much." It wasn't a really a lie, she didn't know her personal history, she was still unsure which of the twin Princesses she had been.
Serenity fell silent, looking like she was lost in thought. They let her think things over. There was so much more to the tale then they'd told her, but she'd ask for more information when she was ready.
"I wonder if Boh knows Fae." Yugi wondered out loud. "He gets to know everyone eventually."
"It's a possibility." Joey smiled slightly.
"He's probably annoyed her at some point in his life." Seto commented.
"Not everyone gets as irritated at Boh as you do." Yami smirked.
Seto just glowered, making Yugi and Joey laugh as the Muggle doctor came round and checked them over.
"Mr Kaiba, can I have a word?" The one Muggle doctor he had brought with him asked, nodding towards the tent's exit.
"Certainly."
"And you're all supposed to be resting." The doctor glowered at the others, who settled onto beds and grinned sheepishly.
Once they were settled to his liking, he left the tent and turned to Seto, who was waiting semi-patiently.
"Yes?"
"There are no signs of complications, everyone's wounds have healed to my satisfaction and other then the fact I'm of the professional opinion that they should stay in the tent overnight, I believe they'll be ready to leave."
"You're certain?"
"As much as I can be, considering that the greater majority of their treatment was done using magical methods."
Seto snorted, understanding.
"I would be highly appreciative of a few consultations with your magical healers. I noted a few practises don't require magic, only access to magical items, and which sped up healing exponentially."
"That can be arranged." Seto nodded.
"Thank you Sir." The Doctor re-entered the tent and Seto smiled slightly when he heard the Doctor bellow, "If you don't rest, I'll send everyone else on holiday and make you stay here another week!" Making Seto wonder who exactly the doctor had been shouting at.
Things were going to get interesting, but he had to wonder what was going to change because of what was planned for the future.
"Seto?" Mokuba asked, poking his head out of the tent. "Come and rest."
"I'm ok, Mokie." Seto turned and gave him a small smile, allowing Mokuba to drag him into the tent. Whatever would happen would happen and as long as he kept close tabs on his family, he would know what was happening and be able to help.
And he was Seto Kaiba.
He would be able to handle anything that was thrown at him.
The light died down, the attack over.
Yami, still flash blinded, forced himself to his feet, unable to sense Yugi through the weird energy that was flowing in the area now, "Yugi!"
"I'm ok."
Yami blinked until his vision was clear. Yugi was still in front of him, conscious and still in one piece, one arm outstretched, the last sparks of the attack dying in his hand, but that wasn't what rendered Yami speechless, it was Yugi's armour and the white light that danced around his hikari that did that.
"What…?" He heard Serenity gasp.
"He's merged with our dragons…all of our dragons…" Joey stared.
Yami took in the whitish blue and black torso armour and wings, the blue gauntlets and grieves with the lace like white pattern, the dragon head capsule launcher which looked surprisingly like Curse of Dragon…
Yami felt the young man's relief that the others were still here, and his amusement at Yami's shock, then felt Yugi's emotions turn to anger at Alexandros the Great, anger that burnt hot and bright. If Hermione was there, she would have likened it to the flames you get from magnesium, it would burn out quickly, but it was incredibly dangerous.
"No, this…can't be happening!" Alexandros protested.
"Don't attack them again." Yugi's tone stunned everyone, the power behind the single sentence obvious, with only a hint of the anger he was feeling escaping.
Alexandros had pushed Yugi too far, tried to wipe out his friends and family, and with his new armour, Yugi had the power to stop him from trying again.
Still, even in the mood he was in, he would give the Roman King a chance to back down, to admit defeat, or even allow a one on one battle, instead of involving his friends.
"Why not?" Alexandros didn't take the warning and fired again.
Yugi didn't respond other then to block the attack easily, as he had the last one.
'Maybe it's time…' The thought crossed Yami's mind as he watched Yugi shrug off the attack as if it was nothing.
"This can't be!" Alexandros bellowed as Yugi took off, confused and angry by this sudden turn around. He had been in control of the battle! He should have won! How? How had Prince Yugi turned it around like this? "How can you survive my mightiest attack without a scratch?" He demanded.
"Using the Armour of Unity." Yugi explained, tone heated, anger still burning brightly and reflected in the movement of the light that surrounded him. "I wouldn't have survived had my friends not helped me."
Anger died down slightly, and for a couple of moments Yugi gained a small, sad smile, as he looked at those who followed Alexandros. "I have to end this; I can't let you hurt anyone else. Not even your own people." He said, before turning back to look at Reshef and the person merged with the massive monster. "It's over, Alexandros."
"You can't do this to me! I am the true king!" Alexandros launched the fists of Reshef.
Yugi almost vanished in the glow that surrounded him, which formed a dragon, flying straight through the fists, which exploded upon contact, leaving Alexandros completely defenceless.
Yami thought, over the link, he heard Yugi call, "Dragonforce Attack!"
Then Reshef exploded, Alexandros's screams were heard and the world went incredibly bright and once again they were all blinded.
When the light died, they were floating in the night sky again.
"What's going on?" Serenity asked.
Yami floated over to Yugi, who smiled slightly, relieved by the fact everyone was ok, "We won." Yami told her, "But there might be something else we need to do."
Shadi appeared him front of them. "Your final test is complete. The battle to decide who is more worthy of the power to control mankind is over. King Alexandros chose to sacrifice his allies in order to gain strength, while Prince Yugi sought to protect his allies, even at the cost of his victory, this difference is what decided their fates." Shadi's eyes flickered to the pair and Yami tensed up, wondering why they hadn't been set free if the final test was over. "Prince Yugi has proven that he has what is necessary to rule wisely and fairly as the True King." A ball of energy floated above Shadi's palm. "This belongs to you," Shadi offered it to Yugi, "Simply put, it contains the power necessary to rule the entire world."
"Thank you Shadi," Yugi replied, still, just wanting to take his friends and leave, "But I don't want it, I don't have any use for it."
"I realise that," Shadi looked amused, for some odd reason, "The paradox of the true king is that he who is worthy of the power to unite mankind, can do so without it." Shadi vanished and once again they were all blinded.
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"Seto, Seto wake up."
The panic in Mokuba's voice woke Seto faster then any spell could of, forcing the exhausted and injured CEO to sit up quickly, if only to try and find the danger to his brother and stop it being one.
When there was no one else in the room, just the unconscious forms of everyone who had actually been living during that final battle, including Alexander Brisbane, Seto turned to his brother with a slight frown, "Are you alright Mokie?" He asked.
He would have checked, just to reassure himself, but Mokuba had glomped him before he could do so, causing Seto to wince but manage to avoid actually making any noise as his little brother squeezed his, possibly bruised, ribs a little too hard. "Mokie?"
"I thought… Shadi said…"
"Shadi?" Seto scowled as Joey started moving. By the time Joey had reassured himself of his sister's safety, Solomon was up and checking Yugi and Yami over. "Did he hurt you?"
"No," Mokuba shook his head, "But the entire B Party had to be taken down to Ground Control, I don't know what he did, but they're all unconscious…"
Yugi groaned, sitting up and looking like he'd been dragged through a hedge backwards, forwards, sideways, upside down and a few other ways that Seto didn't care to think about right now, and had to be assured of his friends' safety before he would turn and converse with the ghost of Alexander the Great, who now appeared much saner then he had during the battle, and actually had a conversation with Yami without trying to kill him.
Seto watched for a moment as both the conversing ancients, Yami and Alexandros, seemed to gain an Ancient Egyptian look, Yami's tan deepening, the image of Egyptian clothes settling, seeming to cause the normal clothes Yami was wearing to vanish, while Alexandros's Roman clothes faded and fancy Egyptian ones took their place.
The difference in styles was startling, but it was more then obvious that both had been Pharaohs…
The change was there for just a moment and Yugi and Yami seemed oblivious, so maybe it was just him seeing things but…
"And a member of party A is missing in that map room…" Mokuba continued as King Alexandros and his vassals faded away.
Serenity, who had been checking Dr Brisbane over with Ombre's help, groaned. "Does this mean someone has to go into the game and get them?"
"I'll do it." Yugi said, or started to…
"No you will not." Seto snarled at him. "I'm going to deal with this 'Shadi' character and make him undo whatever he did to my people, and then I'm going in there and getting him out."
"But Seto…" Yugi started protesting.
"You need to see a healer." Seto glowered at him.
"I'm fine!" Yugi continued protesting, though there wasn't a single person there who believed him.
Serenity cast a diagnostic spell on Yugi, who lit up like a Christmas tree in many different colours. "How are you even conscious?" She demanded, staring at the lights.
"Someone takes after their dark side and other link partner too much." Joey snorted.
"We have healers." Mokuba told them, wondering what all the lights meant. "We brought some with us, just in case."
"I'm coming with you." Yugi told Seto.
"You can't come with me now, you're a liability." Seto told him.
"You can't go in alone."
"He won't. I'm not too bad off." Joey said, looking at Seto, "If Rich Boy doesn't object, I'll go back in with him. At least I know what we have to do."
"You are all going to the healers first." Serenity growled. "Including you Kaiba."
"I have…"
"Healer. Now."
Yami helped Yugi to his feet, the hikari leaning heavily on his dark half as they headed down. Seto, and of course Mokuba, who was now refusing to leave his brother's side, went down to the map room, where A Group and D Group who had been trying to work out where the missing member had gone, were now trying to work out where the missing member had come from, since they had come back looking like they'd been run over by a bull and by all accounts that wasn't far off, apparently he'd been chased by a Battle Ox for the last few hours… except he hadn't been gone hours… and told them to pack up and go, because they were leaving.
Once out and safely at Ground Control, Yugi, unable to fight it any longer, finally passed out. Seto, knowing how tired and injured Yami and Joey were, would have carried him the rest of the way to the medical tent, but within a few seconds of Yugi collapsing, they were swarmed by Healers, who insisted on shooing away everyone until they had treated their patients.
Within the medical tent, where the healers worked quickly and efficiently, and which had had a silencing charm cast on it as well as several others, to make the working space bigger, to prevent disruption from the outside world and to protect those inside, no one was aware of the fact that the pyramid had collapsed until a fully healed Seto Kaiba was called outside by Roland to have this fact pointed out to him.
Inside the tent the Mediwitches and the Doctor were busy treating their patients, giving potions, casting spells, Serenity, who had escaped the worst of the fighting, other then when she'd been hit out of the sky, and even then Fae had taken the worst of the damage, giving them a hand, helping out as a Mediwitch treated what she could with spells and potions, then the Doctor took a look and finished it off with whatever Muggle medicine or treatments were necessary.
"How is he?" Yami asked Serenity, who had stopped for a moment, waiting for the next bit of advice or the next thing she needed to do, concerned after Serenity's outburst by the door.
"Yugi'll be ok," Serenity reassured him, looking down at the other end of the tent, where the Doctor and a Mediwitch were fussing over a completely unconscious Yugi, "I don't know how he kept going so long, but if he hadn't…"
Yami knew what she meant. Joey had joked that Yugi was too much like him and Harry, but Yami had been able to sense just how much pain Yugi had been in by the end, hell it had hit that level where he had been feeling part of it himself, and still his hikari kept going, through the worst of what the game could throw at him.
He had defeated a Five God Dragon with relative ease…
"Are you feeling alright?" Serenity asked, checking his temperature.
"I will do." Yami said, not taking his eyes off of his hikari.
"I swear he's going to be okay." Serenity promised, then turned to scold her brother who had been trying to get out of bed.
Yami just sat there for a while, watching the Healers work as Joey explained what had happened to Mokuba.
There was no sense of victory. Oh he felt pride at his hikari's accomplishments, of course, but… Yami couldn't help but feel like all he had actually done to help his hikari was play at being a rechargeable battery.
Mokuba's phone rang.
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Sirius knew something had happened the moment that Wolf had turned towards the east, and Harry had gained a small grin. He wasn't one hundred percent sure if it was because of what he had drawn, or if it was because of something else, especially when Harry schooled himself back into game mode a moment later.
Sirius didn't understand everything, but he did understand the game better now then he had when he'd watched Harry, Yugi and Yami play against each other before they'd gone their separate ways for the holidays and when Harry finished the match with a combination of his Winged Wolf Pack and Phoenix Heart, he would have offered a congratulations, knowing the turn around for what it had been, except Harry seemed happier then now then he had been for a while.
"Harry?" Sirius asked, as they moved towards the boards to find out who Harry would be fighting next and where and Dudley turned back to his portable games console, bored now he didn't have the match to distract him.
"They're back." Harry's reply was breathless and delivered with a grin.
Sirius got it immediately. "Back? You're sure?"
"Of course I'm sure!" Harry quickly looked around, decided that there was no one in hearing range and continued, "It's them, I know it's them…I can sense them again!"
"You thought you sensed them before your match started, then they were gone again." Sirius warned.
"I know, I know." Harry waved him off, his good mood wavering.
"Can't you just phone a Kaiba?" Dudley asked, looking up from his ever so fascinating game for a few milliseconds. "And find out?"
A split second later Harry had his phone out and had dialled the number for Mokuba Kaiba.
It was on speed dial, so it took a grand total of the press of two buttons.
"Pick up, pick up, pick up…" Harry muttered as it rang.
Sirius watched his Godson as he moved across to the railings surrounding the pond, talking in rapid Japanese to someone on the other end of the phone.
Sirius had to admit that he didn't like it. It wasn't right for someone who wasn't a twin to be bound to the mind of another, and Harry had changed so much over the last year, since the year he'd hung around the Hogwarts grounds as a dog that Sirius wasn't sure how well he knew this boy.
In all fairness he hadn't had the chance to get to know Harry properly before the link, but Sirius was fed up of knowing that he couldn't compete with the other two link partners, knowing that Harry would have up and left had Sirius not come to an agreement with him about how long to wait…
And now, watching the relief that was obviously coursing through his Godson as Harry nodded and uh huhed and 'at least they're back and safe'ed his way through the conversation, promising to phone a little later so whoever he was talking to could get themselves checked over, he couldn't help feeling bitter that he would never have the relationship that he would have wanted had Wormtail not betrayed the Potters, with his Godson.
Harry put the phone back in his pocket and sat down on a nearby bench, turning to watch the screen, letting out a relieved sigh.
"Well?" Dudley poked Harry and backed off when Wolf growled lightly.
"They're back, they passed through the real world to get to the last battle, but they're back for real now. They just need some medical attention."
"Good." With that Dudley lost interest in the conversation, amusing Harry.
"What's wrong?" Sirius asked when Harry looked thoughtful for a while, wondering if it was just the tournament, or whether there had been some news Harry hadn't shared with them.
"Nothing, it's just…" Harry sighed, a small frown crossing his features for a moment or two before disappearing.
"What?" Sirius asked.
"Yugi saved the world."
"I thought that wasn't unusual?" Dudley looked up for the grand total of half a second.
"Yami saving the world isn't unusual;" Harry explained, "But it was Yugi who saved it, and Yami's claiming that he didn't help Yugi at all."
"So?"
Harry shrugged, knowing Sirius wouldn't get it. Perhaps it wasn't as big a deal as he thought it was, but… something was going to change because of this, he just knew it.
He just wasn't sure what at this moment of time.
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Seto exited the medical tent a few hours later to find Yami looking at the ruins of the pyramid. He was surprised, considering Yugi was still inside and currently banned from leaving his bed for the next couple of days.
"Yami?"
Yami jumped and wheeled around to face him, causing Seto to be both concerned and curious at the same time.
It was very difficult to catch Yami by surprise. The teen was always on alert and completely aware of his surroundings. He was only ever caught off guard when he was completely lost in thought and that didn't happen very often. Even when important subjects came up, there was a part of Yami that was watching and analyzing everyone around him.
With Yugi in the medical tent, Seto would have thought that Yami would be in there, watching and guarding his partner, not out here, so lost in thought that just calling his name made him jump.
"What do you want?" There was a snap to Yami's tone that told Seto that it had been a rather important train of thoughts he had just caused to go diving off of a cliff.
Seto wasn't quite sure how to answer. If it had been Yugi, he could have just asked what had been on his mind, and Yugi probably would have given him a straight answer, but he and Yami had never really been on those sorts of terms.
Then again Yugi was that open with anyone who he considered a friend that he could trust with his secrets, which was pretty much everyone. No one betrayed Yugi, it was something to do with how Yugi was. There was something about him that stopped people from doing so, something that bonded groups together.
Unity… the armour he'd gained had been the Armour of Unity… maybe that was Yugi's gift…
"You looked completely out of it." Seto settled on saying, "I didn't want my biggest rival surviving that Shadow Game, only to kill himself by accidently falling over a cliff."
"It's nothing." Yami waved it off.
It was nothing. Yeah right, and Seto was in line to be the next Minister for Magic for England.
Seto snorted. "Nothing? Yugi takes over your bit, and you call that nothing?"
Yami's eyes darkened and a small frown told Seto he'd hit the nail on the head. "I didn't get a say in the matter."
"Why?" Seto asked.
Yami preferred to be at the head of the group, probably a left over from his days on the throne. Yami didn't like following someone else's orders, not even Yugi's. The fact it had been Yugi on point, automatically meant that Yami would have had some say in the matter. Things weren't adding up.
"The game chose him." Yami replied shortly.
"The Shadows wanted Yugi to save the world?"
"It was a test." Yami explained, "To find the True King."
Seto raised an eyebrow. "And that's not you."
"Obviously not." Yami replied. "Obviously the Shadows think Yugi's ready for the throne and I should move aside."
Seto shrugged. "Maybe the Shadows think you're getting too old."
Yami snorted. "Maybe. I am what, 5022?"
"5014." Seto replied, "You're Harry's age physically, remember?"
"Harry's fifteen." Yami replied.
"Your birthday's not till the end of the summer." Seto answered back.
Yami didn't retort.
For a moment there was silence then.
"He did a good job." Yami said, "He got us all out safely, won the game, beat Alexandros, who has thousands of years more experience then he does…" Yami shook his head, amused at himself, "I've been blind haven't I?"
"What?" Seto asked, though he had a feeling Yami was talking to himself, rather then him.
"Yugi doesn't need me anymore, does he?" Yami asked, "He's more then capable of looking after himself and the others."
Seto laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Yami looked deeply offended.
"Sorry." Seto smirked, "Maybe. But... Yugi? Capable of looking after himself?" Seto chuckled, "He might be able of looking after everyone else, but he fails epically at looking after himself."
Yami scowled at him.
"Who is the only one out of the lot of you who needs more then five hours with the doctors?" Seto pointed out and smirked when Yami had to concede that he had a point. "There's an easy answer to your problem. Move aside and let Yugi take over, but keep an eye on things in the background. He can look after the others, and you can look after him. Simple."
Yami snorted. "That easy, huh?"
"It's either that or keep sulking until you drive everyone crazy." Seto pointed out.
"I wasn't sulking." Yami growled.
"So what does Yugi want to do?"
"Yugi wants to help his friends out and go back to Hogwarts in September. He also wants Yami to chase what Yami wants and not worry about him all the time."
Yugi's voice in the doorway made the pair of them turn around.
"You're not supposed to be out of bed." Yami darted to Yugi's side.
"You were distressed." Yugi replied, "And the Doctors weren't looking."
"I'm fine." Yami replied, well aware Yugi was just proving Seto's point about Yugi looking after others and not caring for his own welfare. "Go back to bed."
"You're not fine." Yugi shook his head.
"More fine then you. Bed. Now."
Seto gave the two of them an amused look, then manhandled Yami into the tent, taking Yugi with them.
"Muto Yugi." Serenity growled the moment they were inside.
"Uhhh, sorry?" Yugi tried, wondering again if all healers took lessons on being scary.
"Bed." Serenity pointed.
"Going." Yugi surrendered.
'Yugi,' Yami waited until Yugi was settled in bed again, before initiating a conversation over the link, 'Would you mind if, when we get back to Domino…'
"You want to go to the museum." Yugi already knew what he was going to ask, having had expected it to come up at some point over the holiday. Yami had been firm while the Tablet of the Pharaoh had been out of his reach, but his resolve had been wavering the entire week before they had left, when it had been in Domino's museum.
'Yes…'
"What I said outside is the truth. If you want to chase your memories, I won't stop you."
'You don't mind?'
"You've been after getting all of your old memories back for years. You've held back on my account long enough. If you want to go, go."
'Thank you.'
Yugi smiled at him, "You don't need to thank me. Everything you've done has been to get to this point. It wasn't the battle against Great Evil which dragged you into Battle City."
Yugi sensed Yami's amusement and his smile broadened. When Yami had first met Isuzu, at the museum when he'd been on the date with Tea that Yugi had arranged for him, Isuzu had told him that there was a great evil on the way that would attempt to destroy the world and that it was his destiny to defeat it.
This he had accepted. There had to have been a reason that he'd sealed himself away, split himself into two as he had in order to return to life at some point in the future, perhaps this had been it.
But it was Isuzu's parting shot, the simple statement that if he entered the tournament, he would find the answers he sought out, the secrets behind his former identity… that was what had truly dragged him and Yugi into Battle City.
Mokuba's phone rang again, amusing everyone and causing Seto to have to stop himself from rolling his eyes. He was thoroughly sick of that ringtone by now.
"Hermione, hi." Mokuba said, shushing everyone.
"How many phone calls has he had since we've been gone?" Yugi whispered to Seto, having caught the CEO's momentary slip.
"He started it. The others made him promise to ring if something went wrong this summer." He stated, his tone sounding like as if it was a 'when' not an 'if', "Let's just say if I hear that ringtone one more time I might do something drastic with that phone." Seto's grumbling made Yugi laugh, Yami smirk, Serenity giggle, Ombre smile slightly and Joey snort in amusement.
"So… Seto…" Joey paused, "Our holiday…?"
Seto gave Joey an amused smirk. "I told the hotel you would be hiking in before I left Kaiba Corp." He answered, "It's only eight hundred and forty two kilometres from here."
"What?" Joey demanded, glowering. "You can't be serious!"
"He's not. We're taking you to the hotel once the doctors say you're ok to be released and coming to get you in the plane on the 29th" Mokuba waved it off, shushing them again. "When?" He asked into the phone.
"I feel like we're in the library." Yugi giggled at Yami, who snorted and nodded slightly.
Mokuba put the phone down and turned to the others, "Guess who's coming to Japan on the 29th?"
"She's not?" Ombre asked, eyes widening.
"Uh huh." Mokuba nodded, "Her parents have arranged a holiday to coincide with your return from India. Apparently they arranged it when she got worried when you lot disappeared. Again."
Joey watched as Yugi and Yami looked at each other. Yugi tilted his head questioningly. Yami shrugged. Yugi gave him a meaningful look, something along the lines of, 'you're sure?' and Yami nodded. Then they turned back to Mokuba who was telling them what Hermione had told him about the planned trip.
He didn't need to 'hear' what they said over the mind link, more often then not, when they didn't watch their physical body language. It was often possible to work out the basics of what they were saying from how they responded to each other. He'd get the details, if they were important, from Yuge later.
"Are they getting in before or after us?" Serenity asked.
"Actually around the same time," Mokuba had already worked it out in his head, "But Hermione will probably be jet lagged, England's nine hours behind us."
"Gives us a chance to unpack and tidy up a bit then." Ombre nodded.
Yugi was more worried about the fact that Hermione's parents could be expecting to run into a group of fourteen or fifteen year olds, rather then a bunch of early twenty year olds.
"So what do we do until the doctors release us?" Joey asked, bored already.
"Well I would duel you but… that reminds me." Yami headed for the exit.
"Yami." Yami paused when Seto called him.
"What?"
"Looking for this?" Seto held up Mahado's card.
"That's mine." Yami stalked towards him.
"I don't think you deserve it." Seto smirked, a teasing, deliberately irritating smirk, designed specifically to lure the Pharaoh into biting back, "If you were careless enough to lose it, perhaps I should keep it."
"Don't even think about it." Yami growled.
"That's our card." Yugi protested as Solomon watched warily. "Grandpa gave him to us to look after."
"Actually, if I remember it correctly Yuge," Joey intervened, also watching, "Gramps gave you that card to beat Rich Boy with."
"That's true." Yugi acknowledged. "Considering everything, I think the result of that duel was a good one."
Seto snorted, "You beat me with Exodia. It was a cheap win. You can't beat Exodia."
"We beat Exodia." Yami reminded him.
"And you beat Exodia Necross." Yugi reminded Seto.
Seto waved it off.
"Card?" Yami held out a hand.
"Play me for it." Seto replied, smirk back.
"I won't duel you for my card." Yami growled. "Give it back."
Seto paused, as if he was seriously considering not giving it back. The tossed it to Yami. "You're not worth my time without him in your deck."
"What did you say?" Yami snarled.
"You heard me." Seto replied, completely unconcerned that he had a rather angry Pharaoh in front of him. "You're no challenge without your trump card."
"You're on." Yami glowered, "Any time, any place."
"Hotel courtyard, when we drop you off."
"All right." Yami nodded, "I'm not going to lose."
"And you're not allowed to use Yugi's deck." Seto warned.
"I don't need to borrow a deck to defeat you without the Dark Magician, Kaiba."
Seto just smirked in response to Yami's growl. He knew he was pushing all the right buttons, because Yami was more prone to reverting to using surnames when people wound him up.
"You were going to explain why the two of you used the same deck and how that's both your card." Serenity mentioned quietly, breaking the mood that was hovering around. "Because that was your card, long before it was Yami's." She gave Yugi a confused look.
"We were going to swap stories." Yugi nodded, looking around and glad that the doctors had vanished for the time being.
"Can I go first?" Serenity asked, pulling her deck out of her bag and taking her Extras deck out of her deck box, passing around Fae's card.
"Go ahead. You said she chose you?"
"Her name's Fae, she an Ancient Fairy Dragon," Serenity nodded, watching the card as it went from person to person, "Apparently she fought a great battle hundreds of years ago, somewhere around the time of the Incas and while the others escaped, she was trapped in the Monster World by the bad guys."
"Wow," Joey passed the card on to Yugi, who took it carefully. "So how'd you end up with her loyalty? Don't tell me you've got your own bad guys to contend with."
Serenity giggled as Yugi and Yami's heads turned towards her, concern obvious. "No, I'm just a temporary partner; I'm not really the one she's waiting for."
"What do you mean?" Yami asked as Yugi passed him Ancient Fairy Dragon's card.
"Well, Fae and I have come to an agreement." Serenity said, smiling slightly, "She'll work with me for a while, so she isn't stuck in the Monster World, bored out of her mind, and if her real partner, the one she's waiting for, appears, I've promised to let her go so she can team up with her true partner and save the world again."
"Save the world again?" Yugi asked.
"Another villain group?" Yami scowled.
"Fae doesn't think the bad guys will be back in my life time." Serenity tried to reassure them, "It's not something we should have to worry about."
"Still…" Yugi sighed and passed the card onto Ombre.
"Well, here's one piece of good news, Yuge." Joey said, thinking. "This means that it's not only you who has trouble with idiots."
"He has a point." Ombre gave the card back to Serenity. "This means that there's a lot more dangers out there that are related to duelling then just our problems."
"Why don't I feel reassured by this?" Yami growled.
Serenity giggled again, as Ombre sighed and Joey shook his head, amused.
"How did you meet her?"
"I was in the hospital wing after an accident in potions and I thought the potion that Dr. Ling gave me had been tainted, as I had odd dreams." Serenity smiled softly, remembering the dreams and everyone she had befriended in them, "It wasn't until my friends went through my extras deck that I realised that I had an extra card."
"You mean she just appeared in your extras deck?" Joey asked, concerned.
"I didn't think I'd seen an Ancient Fairy Dragon before." Seto frowned slightly, chalking this up to 'insane things happen when magic is involved' when Serenity nodded. He had spent more then a few moments just staring at the card, remembering the full size dragon that had fought beside them, trying to think if he'd seen it before.
"Does this mean she wouldn't work on a Duel Disk?" Yugi frowned.
"It wouldn't be hard to program the Duel Disks to accept her." Seto waved it off, as if it didn't constitute two or three days of 3D modelling and programming and sending out a broadcast signal to update the Duel Disks already in circulation, with the new data, already thinking about it and wondering if there were other monsters who just appeared in people's decks and how they used them…
Yugi looked thoughtful, making Seto wonder what he was thinking about, but he passed the card back to Joey, who had reached for it before it could reach Serenity, nodding approvingly as he read it again, "Her effect is awesome. I hope you've put some field cards in your deck to compliment her."
"Mountain, The Sanctuary in the Sky and Holy Sanctuary." Serenity nodded.
Those three field cards told Seto everything he needed to know about her deck. Dragons, fairies and light. Probably light Syncro's, it was unlikely that 'Fae' would be the only Syncro in her deck. It wasn't good for strategy to rely on one monster.
"Cool." Joey handed the card back and Serenity slipped it into her deck box before looking at Yugi.
"So what about you?" She asked, "What is it with you and Yami?"
Yugi nodded, surprisingly nervous about telling her, considering that everyone they had told so far hadn't been too put off. "This is going to seem a little far fetched to start with, but all of it is true. Ok?"
"Alright…"
"You remember what I told you at Christmas? About Yami and Ombre's magic being linked to their items?"
"Uh huh." Serenity nodded.
"That's not quite the full story."
"No?" Serenity looked surprised.
"No. Sorry." Yugi shook his head.
"What is?" She asked, both concerned and interested.
Yugi paused, taking a deep breath. "Yami and I am the same person." Yugi explained nervously, "Two halves of the same soul."
"What do you mean?" She asked, confused.
"Yami was a Pharaoh five thousand years ago," Yugi looked at his partner, causing Serenity to do the same. The Pharaoh nodded and Yugi continued. "There was this huge evil that attacked Egypt, and Yami sealed his soul and gave up his memories in order to seal the evil away too, but for some reason only half of his soul was sealed into the Puzzle. The other half went on to reincarnate and well..." He gestured himself with a sheepish smile. "I freed Yami when I completed the Puzzle, and we've looked after each other ever since."
"But if it was you who reincarnated, how did Yami get his own body?"
"For a long time we shared one." Yugi explained, "Yami possessed me whenever he needed to be out an about. I never minded, still wouldn't, but there was an accident back in our first year and when the magic from the Millennium Items, the magic of the Orb of Light which Ombre holds and a burst of Wand magic mixed together and gave Yami, Bakura and Ombre their own bodies."
"Constructs." Serenity's eyes widened, "Your bodies are magical constructs?" She asked Yami and Ombre.
Ombre nodded.
"I've never heard someone splitting their soul before." Serenity frowned, she looked at Ombre, "Was Kari half of your soul too?"
"No." Ombre shook her head. "Kari became whole when her twin died which is what allowed her to free me from the Orb of Light."
"Do you know any of your history?"
"I was a Princess, from a country bordering Egypt, during Yami's reign, other then that, not much." It wasn't a really a lie, she didn't know her personal history, she was still unsure which of the twin Princesses she had been.
Serenity fell silent, looking like she was lost in thought. They let her think things over. There was so much more to the tale then they'd told her, but she'd ask for more information when she was ready.
"I wonder if Boh knows Fae." Yugi wondered out loud. "He gets to know everyone eventually."
"It's a possibility." Joey smiled slightly.
"He's probably annoyed her at some point in his life." Seto commented.
"Not everyone gets as irritated at Boh as you do." Yami smirked.
Seto just glowered, making Yugi and Joey laugh as the Muggle doctor came round and checked them over.
"Mr Kaiba, can I have a word?" The one Muggle doctor he had brought with him asked, nodding towards the tent's exit.
"Certainly."
"And you're all supposed to be resting." The doctor glowered at the others, who settled onto beds and grinned sheepishly.
Once they were settled to his liking, he left the tent and turned to Seto, who was waiting semi-patiently.
"Yes?"
"There are no signs of complications, everyone's wounds have healed to my satisfaction and other then the fact I'm of the professional opinion that they should stay in the tent overnight, I believe they'll be ready to leave."
"You're certain?"
"As much as I can be, considering that the greater majority of their treatment was done using magical methods."
Seto snorted, understanding.
"I would be highly appreciative of a few consultations with your magical healers. I noted a few practises don't require magic, only access to magical items, and which sped up healing exponentially."
"That can be arranged." Seto nodded.
"Thank you Sir." The Doctor re-entered the tent and Seto smiled slightly when he heard the Doctor bellow, "If you don't rest, I'll send everyone else on holiday and make you stay here another week!" Making Seto wonder who exactly the doctor had been shouting at.
Things were going to get interesting, but he had to wonder what was going to change because of what was planned for the future.
"Seto?" Mokuba asked, poking his head out of the tent. "Come and rest."
"I'm ok, Mokie." Seto turned and gave him a small smile, allowing Mokuba to drag him into the tent. Whatever would happen would happen and as long as he kept close tabs on his family, he would know what was happening and be able to help.
And he was Seto Kaiba.
He would be able to handle anything that was thrown at him.