Chapter 10: - The Man in White
"That green haired prick!" Jou cussed, shaking in barely suppressed rage, "I can't believe he tried to steal Yuge's Blue Eyes card! I knew there was something wrong with him, I mean look at the hair! No-one has hair that weird!"
"Jonouchi?" Anzu asked, pointing at Oneesan behind her back as Honda tried to ignore the weird conversation. The spirit of the Puzzle, who had managed to catch up to the others at the shoe lockers as they'd hung around to wait for Yugi, was glowering at Jou, who backed off a little. Though he was beginning to get used to her, he was fully aware anything that could be misconstrued as an insult to her 'Imoto-chan' was grounds for a Shadow Game in her mind. The comment about weird hair certainly fit that mould.
"At least hair comes in red, black and blonde," Jou tried to retract his statement hurriedly, "Admittedly not all at the same time but..."
Apparently those were either the right words or Oneesan decided to let it slide for now as Yugi blinked at him innocently, looking a little confused. "Jou?"
"Doesn't matter." He responded, "Now if you don't mind, I'm going to clean Kaiba's clocks."
"I'm not sure you'll be able to." Yugi looked a little worried as she glanced back in the direction Oneesan had come from, "I think Oneesan Challenged him."
"You think?" Jou asked, trying to ignore the way Anzu tensed up and Honda scowled slightly. If Kaiba had been being an ass, he deserved whatever he had gotten.
"Well he slapped me and now I'm here, so yes, I think Oneesan Challenged him." Yugi sighed. "And before you ask, I was asleep through the whole thing, so I have no clue what she did. You'll have to ask her the next time someone decides it's a good idea to set her off."
Anzu pursed her lips at the sad note to Yugi's voice and wondered what Oneesan's Challenges were doing to her friend. She knew Yugi rather well and was fully aware that her friend didn't like the thought of people getting hurt because of her. That Oneesan was defending Yugi was both good for the teenager and bad. The spirit's actions were hurting Yugi as much as helping.
"So, where's this place we're supposed to be going?" She wasn't the only one who noted Yugi's mood. Honda abruptly changed the subject, wondering if Yugi was as freaked out by the mess she was in as he was.
"The Junky Scorpion." Jou answered as they started plodding down the road, "It's a shoe shop."
"Wait," Honda grimaced, "We're heading halfway across town for a pair of shoes?"
"Not just any pair of shoes." Jou scolded Honda, "I'm getting a pair of Air Muscles. They're like, the best trainers ever."
"Jonouchi, I'd expect something like this from Anzu or Yugi." Honda tutted, trying to ignore the outraged glare that Anzu shot his way, "Not you. Besides I thought you were trying to be careful with your wages."
"Yeah, for this!" Jou crowed, "I've been after a new set of trainers for weeks. These," He pointed to the ones on his feet, "Have holes in the size of China. If I'm gunna get a new set, I at least want a good pair."
"As much as I'd love to stick around and find out just how much money you're going to waste on a pair of shoes that are going to fall apart within a month," Anzu sighed, well aware that it was generally the rule that the more money you spent on a pair of shoes the faster they gave up the ghost, "I have dance practice. See you all tomorrow."
With that Anzu darted off the direction of the studio. Yugi watched her go unable to help but feel guilty, wondering if part of the reason she'd been fired from Burger World had been because of Oneesan's actions. The official excuse had been because she didn't have a work permit but it wasn't unusual for companies to hire students without them. Most liked doing it because it meant that they could pay them less money than other workers.
She'd tried offering Anzu some money towards the lessons but Anzu had been unwilling to take it. Apparently her parents had been furious when they'd found out why she'd been working in Burger World during the incident, but they'd come to an agreement. She kept her grades up and they agreed to fund her dance classes until she managed to find another job. They weren't happy about it, but they had eventually come up with the plan after speaking with Anzu's friends.
Apparently someone had told her parents that Anzu had not only been managing to do well in her dance classes and keep up with her school work, but push up the grade average of her friends too and provided evidence.
Jonouchi had looked rather smug when Anzu, who had been a little shell-shocked at the time, had informed them of that little fact leading Yugi to believe that it was Jou who had done so, even though the two of them got on like cats and dogs.
"At least tell me it's not that much further." Honda grimaced.
"Twenty minutes, tops." Jou promised, leading them down an alleyway, "All the fans of this sort of thing use this place." Honda just rolled his eyes at his friend and followed, keeping an eye out. He wasn't sure of the territory around here and with their track record he wouldn't have been surprised if they were jumped on their way to store.
Surprisingly they managed to get to the Junky Scorpion without anything going wrong. The moment they stepped through the door Jou honed in on the trainers in question gushing over them as if they were rare jewels, rather than a pair of trainers. At least until the shop owner snatched them away.
"These aren't for sale." The man snorted, "They're rare and probably well out of your price range."
"Come on, you have to sell them to me." Jou was practically salivating over the pair, "I came a long way to find this shop."
"There're more people who want these than stars in the sky." The shop owner snorted, "People'll pay anything to get what they want." Yugi was reminded of Kaiba at that and she couldn't help but wonder if he was okay. Her mind snapped back to the conversation at hand, just in time to hear the Shop Keeper challenge Jou to a 'game.'
"I've put a scorpion in these trainers." The man was saying, "If you're brave enough to put them on, I'll sell them to you."
"Jou..." Yugi murmured, worried, as Jou accepted, seizing the trainers from the man and slamming them onto his feet.
"Ha! A brave one." The shop keeper smirked, "I didn't really put a scorpion in there, I wouldn't risk damaging the Air Muscle's like that. After all there's only a limited number of these out there."
"Then ring them up," Jou crowed, "Cause they're mine."
They cost Jou just over half of a month's wages but the moment they'd been paid for on they went. Jou proceeded to spend five minutes staring at them happily then skipped along the road home, pleased as punch.
Honda refused to walk with him and Yugi couldn't keep up, so the two of them hung back. Not that the pair knew what to say to each other. Honda still didn't want to believe the whole 'Yugi's possessed by a ghost' thing and Yugi didn't want to run the risk of pushing him away.
Then some guys leapt out of the nearest alleyway, she was pushed into a wall by Honda as he tried to protect her and the next thing she knew, Jou was hurriedly escorting her away from the Junky Scorpion muttering something about finding a way to enter the Puzzle and slapping Oneesan upside the head for being reckless.
"Jou?" Yugi asked, worried by her friend's ranting.
"Nothing. It's nothing." Jou looked furious however, telling her that he was lying. "I just need to have words with Oneesan when she wakes up next."
Yugi's mind went 'eep' at that and the girl swiftly decided that she didn't want to know. Shielding her Puzzle from Jou the rest of the way home, just in case he decided he wanted to smash it for whatever Oneesan had done, she did note that Jou's trainers had a hole in.
Was that why he was so ticked at her Other Self? Had her game damaged his ridiculously expensive trainers?
Then she remembered she didn't want to know what Oneesan got up to when she was in control of their body and tried to focus on something else.
She was quite happily distracted by making a game of watching the cars go past and guessing what colours would go past next, something that she was surprisingly good at, when an ambulance swept past, sirens blazing. Jou let out a relieved sigh as it turned the corner towards the Junky Scorpion, seriously concerning Yugi, and all other thoughts fled from her mind as she realised she needed to speak to Oneesan as soon as possible.
As much as she didn't want to know what her Other Self got up to, she couldn't let the spirit of the Puzzle continue to hurt people. It wasn't right.
Her mood didn't improve when she got home. They were late enough back as it was and when her Grandpa had seen the bruise that had come up on her cheek from the fight she didn't remember, he'd grounded her effective immediately and sent her to her room while he had words with Jonouchi.
While Sugoroku informed Jou in no uncertain terms that he was not to drag Yugi into his brawls again, Yugi tried everything she could think of to wake Oneesan up, only to get no reply even after she'd downed her pain meds and attempted to poke her via written messages.
Finally giving up when the drowsy stage wore off, Yugi picked up her digital pet and let out a soft sigh when she realised that putting it into sleep mode hadn't prevented the inevitable flow of time from claiming the digital creature's life when its twenty one days was over. She loved looking after the pets and it was always a wrench when she had to reset the thing and start again.
Poking the reset button with a pen she had lying on her desk she carefully entered the pet's new name into the system and answered a few questions. She hadn't had the same questions twice yet and yet every time she'd restarted the game she'd had a very similar monster. She guessed it was to do with how she raised it and how often she played with it, but she couldn't help but be amused by the fact the last monster she'd raised had looked a lot like her.
Slumping back onto her bed as the egg on screen wobbled for a couple of seconds before depositing a tiny black blob on screen that immediately demanded food and water. Letting out an amused sigh as she swiftly flicked through the menus and did as the pet demanded, wondering if she'd forever be at the creature's beck and call and if her Grandpa would let her get a real pet one day.
A knock at the door interrupted her third round of the guessing game with her little blob of a pet and wincing in advance of what was certain to be an impressive lecture, she set the creature into sleep mode and opened her door.
"Yugi, we need to talk." Sugoroku informed her as she stepped aside to allow him access.
"Ojiisan..." Yugi trailed off, unsure of what he wanted to say and frightened that he would want her to stay away from her friends.
"Jonouchi told me what happened." Yugi tried not to look too worried about that as Sugoroku sat on her bed and gestured for her to join him. She joined him, hoping he wouldn't ask for her side of the story since didn't know what had happened herself, just that whatever Oneesan had done had ticked Jonouchi off rather badly. "It was really brave of you to stand up for your friends but..."
"Ojiisan?" Yugi asked, her voice soft.
Her grandpa let out a heavy sigh, "I'm not going to ask you to stay away from your friends, Yugi, that wouldn't be fair. I am going to ask, however, that you be a bit more careful in the future. They're not always going to be there to look out for you and..." Sugoroku's eyes flickered to Yugi's Puzzle and her hand instinctively moved to cover it, not that she was aware she was doing it until he caught her hand. "You'd tell me if something happened, wouldn't you?" The elderly gamer asked, his concern for his Granddaughter obvious.
"Of course." Yugi nodded instantly before guilt coursed through her about the fact she was hiding Oneesan from him. She just didn't know how he'd react to the fact his granddaughter regularly got possessed by a spirit who lived in the ancient artefact he'd given her.
The games master gave her a sharp look, knowing that she was lying about something, but not sure what. "Yugi..."
"I... Ojiisan..." Yugi trailed off. She didn't know how to tell him but at the same time she knew that she'd have to do so eventually.
"When you're ready, Yugi." Sugoroku patted her on the head, got up slowly, creaking slightly as he did so, then paused and looked at her again, "If you're going to grow your hair out, you might want to get a hair band because well..." He chuckled slightly, "You should look in the mirror."
With that he exited the room. Confused, Yugi checked her bedroom mirror only to grimace as she realised what he was talking about. With her hair growing out she looked an awful lot like she had a multicoloured starfish attached to her head. Normally she'd have had it cut by now, but with everything that had been going on, she'd forgotten.
She probably should get it cut again but she wasn't sure it was a good idea. If her hair had been longer, she might not have been mistaken for a boy for as long as she had and Anzu had always said that she'd look better with longer hair. Perhaps, now she wasn't hiding anymore, she should finally take her up on that advice, even if that meant having to put up with having a starfish for a hairdo until her hair was long enough that the weight made it fall out of that shape.
Until then... She hunted through the pot next to her mirror, hoping to find an elastic hair band only to find that she had a grand total of one scrunchie that was rather old and didn't stretch very well any more.
"Anzu's going to drag me shopping." Yugi groaned as she returned to her bed and her pet only to jump a mile when Sugoroku re-entered the room rather suddenly.
"Oh Yugi, I almost forgot." Her grandpa sounded almost excited. "You don't have anything planned for tomorrow afternoon do you?"
Yugi shook her head. Saturday afternoon was one of the busy times for the shop, so her only plan had been to help in the shop. Obviously that was about to change.
"Good. I'd like to introduce you to an old friend of mine, a Professor Yoshimori, he's an Egyptologist. He's the one who dug up the exhibit that's opening up tomorrow at the Domino Museum and I promised we'd go along."
"Egyptologist?" Yugi asked, curiosity peaked. She couldn't help but wonder if he'd seen her go through the Egyptology textbooks and old journals that he'd kept from his digs, looking for something that could help Oneesan.
Sugoroku nodded, "We'll meet here, tomorrow at two and walk over together. Feel free to bring your friends."
"I thought I was grounded?" Yugi asked, confused.
"Not for this. This is educational, not games." Sugoroku tutted at her, amused. "I'll leave you to get on with your homework." He gestured to her desk, where her bag laid open with her school books spilling out.
"Ojiisan..." Yugi groaned as her Grandpa closed the door behind him, half jokingly sulking. Moving over and settling properly, dropping the pet on the wooden surface as she did so, she sighed as she pulled out the essay she was supposed be working on. It wasn't going to be easy, she'd been putting it off for a couple of days for the simple reason that the assignment had been set the morning Oneesan had sat through class for her so she had absolutely no clue what the teacher had gone on about during that lesson.
Still she had to at least try.
LINE_RECOGNITION_HAS_GONE_AGAIN
The following morning she woke up in bed. Considering that she was pretty certain that she'd fallen asleep at her desk while trying to do her homework it took her a moment to realise that someone had moved her from the desk chair to the bed.
Trying not to think about the fact that she'd fallen asleep after writing a grand total of one sentence, she yawned, stretched and got up, moving over to the desk to hurriedly scrawl something she could hand in, only to find that there was an essay there ready and waiting for her.
She stared at it in complete sleepy confusion, trying to work out if she'd written a lot more than she'd realised or if, in fact, she'd written it in her sleep. It had to be her handiwork, it was her handwriting. Unless... No it was silly. Why would an Ancient Egyptian spirit do her homework for her?
Oneesan was probably the one who had settled her body in bed once she'd finished too, a fact that relieved and embarrassed Yugi slightly. She didn't want Oneesan to think she couldn't look after them both and falling asleep at her desk wasn't a good thing.
Yawning again, tired and wanting nothing more than to curl back up in bed and sleep for a week, she collected everything she'd need for class, including the essay that had been assigned the same morning that Oneesan had Challenged Chono-Sensei, before getting changed or at least trying to.
She froze up as she took in a piece of clothing she hadn't owned before. A leather vest like top that looked like it was as much about protecting her torso as it was about showing off her assets.
"Where?" She murmured, checking the tag on it and freezing in horror as she realised that it had come from the costume shop four blocks over, the expensive one that specialised in LARP armour and cosplay. There was no way she'd have been able to afford something like this without saving up for at least a couple of months, maybe more. Had Oneesan stolen it for her?
Checking the bag it was contained in further, she found a receipt, telling her no, Oneesan hadn't stolen it from the shop, she had in fact purchased it last night at such a time that she had to have just managed to catch the store owner before they'd shut up for the night. Yugi quickly checked her purse, wondering if somehow she'd magically spawned money in it overnight, only to find that none of her cash was missing.
Confusion really set in after that little revelation. How had Oneesan afforded the top?
Swiftly working out that she could hide the top under her school shirt she put it on, knowing somehow that Oneesan had bought it as a present for her, just glad that it wasn't a PE day. Her face went bright red with embarrassment as she imagined the reactions of her other classmates if they caught her wearing leather.
Switching her virtual pet to silent and slipping it into her trouser pocket, she headed into the kitchen in time to see Jou getting lambasted by Sugoroku for hovering around the toaster while it was still cooking.
"The toast will pop when the toast pops. Now stop hovering and get some plates out." Her grandpa grouched at the teen who grinned at him, highly amused, before following orders.
"Morning." Yugi nodded to both of them, noting that the piggy bank that had been on the shelf yesterday was now on the kitchen side with the rubber stopper removed. Her grandpa had been putting money in it once a week for the last couple of month, ever since just after she'd completed the Puzzle in fact and she had no idea what he was saving for but suddenly she understood where the money for her top had come from. "Uhhh, Ojiisan?" She asked, pointing at it.
"Oh don't worry about it." Sugoroku waved it off, "It's gone where it's supposed to."
Jou looked curious at the confusion on Yugi's face but he didn't get a chance to ask about it before the toast popped and a plate of food was shoved under his nose and by the time they'd finished eating it was time for them to run to school.
Other than handing in Oneesan's essay and trying not to feel like she was committing some horrendous act of plagiarism, and feeding and playing with her pet (in silent mode) under the table out of sight of the teachers, the day passed quietly though Oneesan still hadn't responded to any of Yugi's written messages causing the teenager concern.
Had something happened to the spirit during her last Challenge? Or was she just hiding from Jou?
That concern for her other self didn't really disappear, though the exhibit certainly pushed it to one side. She couldn't help but be drawn into the show, enjoying getting to see the first reveal of a dig whose artefacts had never been on display before. Yugi was a little uncomfortable about the whole thing though. The moment she'd been introduced to her Grandpa's friend he'd asked her a huge favour.
That favour had been to allow him to put the Puzzle on display until closing.
Yugi had felt awkward handing it over but everyone had encouraged it, stating that it would be awesome to see the Millennium Item on display, so she had done so but kept an eye on the golden artefact the entire time.
Midway through the afternoon Yugi paused in front of the glass cabinet containing the sarcophagus and mummy of the Pharaoh that had been excavated during the dig. Part of her was excited to see it. Another part of her, however, remembered everything she'd read about regarding the Egyptian afterlife and disliked the fact that the Pharaoh before her had been ripped out of his tomb and brought across the world to be shown off like a prize horse was displayed at the market.
Pausing to consider the vehemence of her feelings she realised that she wasn't the only one affected by the King's plight. A man, Egyptian by the looks of him was in tears as he beheld the Pharaoh.
"Are you alright?" She asked gently.
The man turned to look at her allowing the teen to look at him properly. He was in a white robe, had a turban wrapped around his head, a giant golden key hanging from a rope around his neck and a golden set of scales in hand.
"These are not my tears." The man said by way of explanation as he looked her over, something crossing his features as he considered her carefully, "This man, his body has become a doll of dust but but he is still the Eternal Pharaoh, his soul lives on with his name but even the Eternal Sleep is denied him. The cry of his soul becomes the tears that run down my cheeks."
Yugi wished she had the Puzzle with her as her hand instinctively moved to it for comfort only for her to remember that she'd put it on display like her Grandpa's friend had asked her to. Then she realised something, the golden scales the man was carrying had the same eye symbol on it as her Millennium Puzzle.
She paused momentarily then opened her mouth to ask the myriad of questions that were running through her head, only for the man to ruffle her hair.
"Heh." The man said, smiling slightly, "You're a nice little boy."
'Nice little boy?' She was in high school! For some odd reason it really ticked her off that he'd called her that and though she hadn't fought with her classmates over it, it seemed really important for her to correct him. However she didn't get a chance as her friends called her over.
"Hey Yuge! They've got your Puzzle on display." Jou's voice caught her attention and by the time it had snapped back to the man he had disappeared.
Looking around, trying to spot the man, she made her way over to the case where her Puzzle hung by its rope from a hook in the top of the glass box. They took a group photo then Yugi was practically dragged to the museum's cafe in order to grab a bite to eat while they waited for the museum to close.
When the museum finally started to close down, Yugi darted down to the Egyptian display to collect her Puzzle only to find that it was missing from the display case. That was fine, she rationalised, they had obviously already taken it out in preparation to return to her. She'd just have to find the Professor and then she could have it back.
It wasn't the Professor she ran into first though, it was the Egyptian.
"Excuse me sir, have you seen a brown haired man, so tall," She gestured, "Japanese, was probably carrying my Puzzle, he promised to give it back. It's shaped like this?" She made the shape with her hands only to back up slightly as the man approached her, holding the golden key in one hand and pointing it at her head.
Before she could bolt, he'd tapped it to her forehead and the world had spun out from underneath her.
LINE_RECOGNITION_HAS_GONE_AGAIN
Shadi had come to the Domino Museum in Japan for one reason and one reason only, to punish the men who had trespassed on the tomb of a Pharaoh and pulled one of the Eternal Pharaohs from their well deserved rest, so to find the Millennium Puzzle on display in its completed form was shocking to say the least. It hadn't been completed in thousands of years. Had someone from the local area completed it and handed it into the museum? Or had they stolen it like they had stolen everything from the Pharaoh's tomb, including his vessel?
When it had been removed from the display case, he had followed the man who had taken it, knowing just from just the way the man was moving, furtive and secretive, as if he didn't want to be caught, that he wasn't the one who had completed the Ancient task of rebuilding the shattered Pendant.
He had punished the man who had sought to sell the most important treasure out of everything he had in his Ra accursed display, never knowing that it and its holder were what would make the difference between the end of the world and the continued existence of the human race. Now, as he made his way out of the museum he wondered if he should search the local area and see if the one who had completed the Puzzle was in fact a local. He hoped so, it would be easier than hunting the entire world in order to return the Puzzle to its rightful holder.
He hadn't thought about it for a moment when he'd spotted the child from earlier heading in his direction, not until he had stopped him to ask a question and Shadi had, quite embarrassingly, realised that he'd been speaking to a girl, not a boy. That wasn't what had thrown him though. Her question as to the location of 'her Puzzle' had been what had done that.
Obviously something was wrong here. The girl had to have received the Puzzle from a brother or the like. It couldn't have been her who had put it together. He would just have to get the information from her mind and then, if it was necessary, wipe the information from the girl's mind.
Raising his Millennium Key and pointing it at the girl's forehead she showed some survival instinct by backing off a couple of steps, obviously wary but he couldn't let her escape and he tapped the key on the girl's head and twisted, unlocking the young one's mind.
What he saw on the other side surprised him. The girl had two doors in her mind.
That wasn't normal. Two doors indicated two minds in one body, possibly caused by possession or schizophrenia. He needed to find out what was in the minds of both and whether he would need to wipe both clean when this was all over.
He started with the less dangerous looking door, the wooden one with the bright glow that spilled out into the dark corridor that led to a room full of games and toys.
He stepped through the open door, into the plain walled, brightly lit room beyond. It was a child's play room and Shadi would have dismissed the girl there and then as someone of a simple mind, except the games that were being played were of an intellectual nature.
Even as he stepped around the puzzles being completed from the outside in, half finished card games and the one chess game that looked half finished, he was working out how to rearrange all of it so that she didn't lose her intelligence but didn't remember anything about the Puzzle either...
"Get out!"
Shadi turned around to face the speaker, surprised that the girl whose room this was had enough confidence to order him out of her room, only to find that he wasn't speaking to the girl. At least not alone.
There were two of them. One short with innocent features and wide amethyst eyes, and one taller, but still short by the standards of most, with sharp ruby eyes and a wary expression. Both of them had the same sort of build, both with the same shortish black hair which was red at the tips and blonde, grown out, fringes.
The taller of the two kept the shorter pressed to her side, keeping her close, as if she didn't want Shadi to get his hands on her, as she stepped into the room, glowering at him as she did so.
"Get out now. You don't belong here."
"Who are you?" Shadi asked, confused as to how there were two versions of what was obviously the same person standing before him. The girl's room showed no signs of a fractured spirit and that was what it would take unless...
"I told you to get out. I will not allow any harm to come to Imoto-Chan." The arm around the smaller girl tightened slightly and though the little one gave the older a slightly confused look she didn't wriggle free. "If you won't leave willingly, I will make you."
"Your sister is in possession of something that doesn't belong to her. The Puzzle must go to its destined place."
"The Puzzle is hers." The taller said, glowering at him, "She completed it. No one else."
Shadi's eyes widened and he considered the small girl who looked semi-insulted that he'd accuse her of stealing and semi-confused as to what was going on.
"If it's the Puzzle's powers you're after, you want my room." The taller said, "Not hers, but be warned, the last man who tried to take the Puzzle, well..." She didn't add anymore but her tone told him quite enough. The older girl had dealt with the issue mercilessly.
"You completed the Puzzle?" Shadi decided to, not ignore the threat from the older girl, but put it aside for a moment in order to question the younger, "On your own? You had no help?"
"It took me eight years, but I completed it." The shorter one nodded, "The only help I had was when someone returned a piece of the Puzzle to me."
"And who had it before you? A boyfriend?" Shadi asked, wondering if she'd completed it on someone else's behalf, or whether the true holder had given it to her as a present.
"She's no thief if that's what you're suggesting..." The older girl's tone turned more hostile.
"My Grandfather gave it to me." The smaller shook her head, "I don't..." The room's lights darkened slightly as dark memories flickered across the girl's mind, but brightened again when the taller murmured something reassuring to the smaller.
"I challenge you to a game." The taller scowled at Shadi, hating those memories and wishing she'd been able to do something about the thugs, "If you find the true room of my soul, you win and I will go with you."
"But..." The smaller started to protest but trailed off when the taller gave her a reassuring smile.
"Of course when you lose, you'll have to leave our rooms and never return." The taller continued, losing the smile the moment she turned back to Shadi. Obviously he'd made a bad impression. "I'll even stay out of your way, I'll wait in my true room." Then, if it was possible, her scowl deepened, "However if you damage even one hair on Imoto-Chan's head I'll send you to the deepest, darkest part of the Shadow Realm for all eternity, and believe me, I know something of what a few thousand years in the dark feels like."
"I'll play." Shadi could sense her power and didn't doubt the taller girl could do what she threatened, plus he was too intrigued by her to decline, "I feel it's only fair to warn you, however, that once I'm in the true room of your soul, I'll be able to change it in any way I like. I could even turn you against your sister..."
The small girl tensed up and looked at the taller with a concerned look. The older however, looked unconcerned, as she hid the anger at the thought that he would use her against the light that had freed her from the darkness, "You'll have to find my room first."
"Then by all means, lead the way and let the game begin."