Chapter 7: - Trouble Ahoy
"Mutou Yugi!" Serenity growled as she tended to the swelling on Yugi's head, a memento from the time Obelisk had punched him into the wall. "I told you getting clobbered by a God Monster was a bad idea!"
Yugi smiled softly, more than used to his friends ranting at him when he got hurt. "It was necessary," he shrugged, "and it certainly got the crowds going."
Atem, who had forgone heading straight out to challenge people in order to ensure Obelisk had not seriously injured his hikari, just watched Yugi carefully. Yugi had had a face down card when Obelisk struck. If it had been anyone else he would not be suspicious, but he knew Yugi better than that. He was certain, if Yugi had wanted, he could have blocked or even dodged that blow.
Had Yugi really thrown the duel, and if so why?
"I thought the idea was to prove that Duel Monsters summoned using Duel Disks weren't dangerous," Akane growled as she and Lotus covered the door. "I mean getting hurt seems a little counterproductive to be honest."
Yugi looked sheepish at that but it was Atem who answered her, "No one seemed to be too worried about it by that point. I think they were too busy wondering why no one else had come up with the combos Yugi used to take down Ra and Osiri...Slifer before now." Atem grimaced as he corrected himself.
"Besides, everyone knows when it comes to duelling using holograms, someone is going to get knocked on their butt," Lotus allowed. "If someone didn't, it would look suspicious."
"Knocked on his butt's fine, knocked across the stadium however..." Serenity glared at Yugi, who at least had the grace to look sorry.
"Hadn't you better get going?" Akane asked Atem. "I mean all the duels will be starting soon."
"I'll be going shortly, I just need a word with Yugi first. Privately," Atem's tone made Yugi flinch. He had known Atem was ticked off from the moment that he had worked out what Yugi had done, but had not quite realised quite how much until his dark half had spoken. Atem was, after all, rather good at keeping his emotions locked away from his link partners.
"We'll be right outside," Serenity spoke first, noting the tension between the two guys.
"Not leaving," Akane shook her head when Serenity tried to usher her and Lotus out of the room. "We're supposed to be guarding Yugi."
Atem scowled. He wanted to have words with Yugi but he refused to engage in such an important discussion while there were people watching. If Yugi had thrown the Duel, as he was half worried was the case, then he did not want anyone else around when he admitted it.
Still, if they would not leave them alone for long he had another way of dealing with the problem.
Tugging on the bond that linked him to Yugi, he dragged both himself and his hikari into the corridor between their soul rooms. He was not happy to find Yugi was avoiding looking at him when the hikari realised where they were.
"You did throw the match, didn't you?" Atem's growl caused Yugi to wince.
"I..." Yugi's shoulders sank as he trailed off. It was all the confirmation Atem needed. Then he took a closer look at Yugi, realising the guilt his hikari was radiating was too great for the residue of merely a single game.
"How many for how long?"
"W...What?" Yugi gasped. "What do you? I..."
Atem's scowl deepened as Yugi stopped midsentence. Yugi had never lied to him. Obviously that was not about to change. He was not sure he was happy about it. On the one hand if Yugi told him the truth he would know, for certain, if the victories over the years had really been victories or whether Yugi had been handing him the wins. On the other he was not sure he wanted to know if Yugi had been letting him win for a long time...
"Well?"
"It's... I'm sorry," mumbled Yugi. Not a good start. "It's not been every duel. I promise. It's just..."
Atem let him gather his thoughts, holding his temper in check. It did not matter how long they took in the corridors, it would seem like milliseconds in the real world. That was the beauty of interacting mind to mind.
"You earned the King of Games title yourself," Yugi told him, hoping to appease his dark half with that, "I never threw that first official duel between us, you just crushed me."
Atem's memory of the Duel was a little different. It had indeed looked like he were beating Yugi with ease, while in all honesty it was everything he could do to avoid getting hit by one of the multiple turnabouts he knew his hikari was capable of. Still he said nothing, letting Yugi talk it out.
"I didn't start throwing the duels 'til after I'd worked out a way to stop all three of the God Monsters and that took me a while. Once I knew I could handle them, I managed to work out a way around the rest of your deck but there was no way that I could use it."
"Why?" Atem's scowl turned into a look of honest confusion at Yugi's words.
"Wasn't safe," Yugi's statement was honest truth and Atem knew it, "we had to stay almost unbeatable. You know as well as I do that the moment it looked like we could be beaten with cards you could get from any booster pack, the bad guys would start using the combos I used to beat you to steal souls, or Millennium Items, or..."
Yugi trailed off but Atem knew what he was getting at and it cooled his temper somewhat. It was a well known fact that any time they played a card it was recorded. There was page after page online listing their decks and what they had played so people could emulate them, hoping to share the same success with a copy of their deck as Yugi or Atem would. If Yugi pulled something off that defeated the God Monsters, others would surely try and use the same tactics.
That was not the full story though. Atem could sense Yugi was still hiding something from him. Part of him wanted to leave it alone but he was still much too cross to drop it.
"So what's the rest of it?" the Pharaoh asked his heir, pride piqued by the fact that Yugi had been holding back for at least two years, if not longer.
The modern-born Mutou's look of panic caused Atem to do a double take. Yugi was frightened of telling him?
"Yugi, I just want to know your reasons, I won't judge you for them," Atem tried to be reassuring, realising that this was much more important than his grievances.
He watched as Yugi built up the courage to speak, wondering where the bright, brave, confident, calm hikari he knew and loved as a brother had gone and who had replaced him with this nervous, terrified scrap of a young man and mentally kicked himself for reducing Yugi to this. He was so busy kicking himself in fact that he nearly missed Yugi's whispered answer.
"I don't want to be stronger than you."
Atem's entire train of thought crashed and burned at those words and he stared at his hikari, completely uncomprehending. Of anything he could have expected, that had never been it.
Yugi's slight chuckle snapped him out of his stunned state and he tilted his head curiously at the young man, wondering what was suddenly so funny.
"I'm sorry, Ya...Atem, but I didn't expect to break you," Yugi corrected himself, making the Pharaoh wince slightly. Having his name back was a blessing, yes, but it felt unnatural for Yugi to call him by it and not only because it had been Yugi's name in the past too. Everything they had been through together over the last decade had been as Yugi and Yami, not Yugi and Atem and he really did prefer the name he had taken on when he had been a lost and lonely spirit over his Egyptian one.
Atem was the name of the Father of the Gods, it was also a girl's name depending on how you pronounced it while Yami was the name Yugi had given him when they'd first really started working together, the name that he had lived by for the last decade.
Yami was who he wanted to remain to his hikari. Not Atem, the Pharaoh of Egypt who had given his life to save his country, but Yami, Yugi's guardian, brother and friend.
"What did you expect?" Atem asked, still curious.
Yugi's amusement fled and he looked away again, seeming to find the floor much more interesting than Yami's face.
"I don't know. You to be mad?" Yugi's comment was more like a question. "You're always pushing me to be my best, I figured that you'd be furious if you knew I was holding back. And I was right."
Atem could not deny it. He had been fuming when he realised the truth, but he was not cross with Yugi for not wanting to surpass him. Confused by, yes, but not cross.
"Yugi?" he asked, wanting to pull the conversation back to, in his opinion, its most important point. "Why don't you want to be stronger than me?"
Yugi hesitated before answering, formulating his answer carefully.
"The truth, Yugi, not what you think I want to hear."
Yugi's cringe was enough to tell the Pharaoh that he had hit the nail on the head.
"You'll leave."
Yami stopped dead for a moment, then his eyes widened as he remembered his own words from oh so long ago. He never imagined that Yugi was awake when he had that conversation with Joey. Their friend had finally worked up the courage to ask Yami if he planned on sticking around forever now he had his own body and Atem had told him the truth. He would stick around until Yugi no longer needed him and then he would leave.
"I'd been working on a way to defeat the Gods for a long time before that," Yugi informed him. "Ever since we got them, in case they were stolen from us or someone used Exchange, and I'd worked out that evening how to do it."
"And then I said that..." Atem understood. Not just where the reasoning had come from but just how long Yugi had been keeping the secret for. That conversation had been back during their second year at Hogwarts, almost three years ago now. It was then something inside the Pharaoh clicked into place and the anger rose again as he realised he had been holding back on getting his memories because Yugi had needed him, only for his hikari to have been holding back the entire time. "You've been throwing every duel we've fought for the last three years?"
"Not every duel!" Yugi shook his head violently. "I promise that it's not been every duel. I just..."
"If you'd just asked, I would have stayed, Yugi!" Atem snarled. "If you had told me you didn't want me to go, I would have done what I've done now, had the tablet brought to Japan! But what you did, making me believe you still needed me? That's not fair!"
"I do need you!" Yugi's words were more a pleading sob than a shout. "I need you here with me. Not as Pharaoh but as my friend. Without your support I... I don't know what I'd do."
"Then why did you lie to me?" Atem's tone caused Yugi's trembling to increase. "Why didn't you trust me enough to share all of this with me?"
"Because I was scared!" Yugi finally snapped, anger and fear and misery all piled into those words. "Because I was frightened you'd hate me for not being able to let go! Because I knew what I was doing wasn't fair but you seemed happy to be the strongest out the two of us! Because you liked being able to use the excuse that I wasn't strong enough on my own to avoid going to Egypt!"
Silence fell between the two like a heavy curtain as Yugi looked away and Atem stared at him, unsure how to respond. Yugi was correct in that he had been happier when he thought he was the stronger of the two of them and he had enjoyed not having to come up with another excuse to avoid Egypt like the plague.
He could never hate Yugi though, no matter how upset he got. Where the young man had gotten that idea from, Atem would never know. In all the years they had been partners, Atem had never once hated Yugi for anything. Envied maybe, got frustrated at certainly, but never hated.
Moving across the corridor swiftly, not giving Yugi time to back off, he wrapped his arms around his closest friend, brother and hikari in a hug. He mentally growled at himself when he felt Yugi flinch momentarily, only for that anger to vanish when Yugi burst into tears, clinging to his dark half as the emotions that Yugi had tried to bury for months suddenly flooded to the surface.
He had expected this, they had been through too much in the last couple of months and Yugi had been at the brunt of all of it. They had lost Kari, nearly Harry too, then there had been the capsule monsters fiasco, where Yugi, who hated fighting, had had to physically go toe-to-toe with not only the local monstrosities, but his possessed best friend and the dark ghost of King Alexander the Great, who had been trying his best to not only kill him, but murder his family and friends right in front of his eyes.
That was not even stepping into the quagmire of what had happened in the Memory World, where Yugi had survived a murder attempt, defeated (and by extension killed in self defence) his long-term enemy, Bakura, brought Atem back from the other side and then had fourteen years worth of memories from the teen he had been five thousand years ago dumped on him, including the horrid memories of the truth behind the Millennium Items.
Atem knew it would be wrong to forget, but he wanted to and he could imagine that it was killing Yugi to know what he wore around his neck. That the Puzzle was made of not only the enchanted gold they thought it had been, but had the blood and souls of almost a hundred unwilling victims mixed in.
He felt Yugi shiver in his arms as his thoughts slipped across the link. Trying to settle his mind so Yugi did not feel his own distress, he tried to read the torrent of thoughts and emotions swirling through Yugi's mind to see if there was any way he could help his light through the outpouring of pent up feelings.
Grief, guilt and a rare twist of rage crashed over him as he sifted through the miasma of feelings, and it took a great deal of effort to be able to separate those emotions and work out their causes. The grief would fade over time, there was nothing Atem could do for it. Kari had been a good friend of Yugi's and her death had hit him hard.
The guilt was complicated, stemming from several sources, but before Atem could work through them, Yugi had started calming down and returning the hug. "I'm sorry..." Atem tensed up at Yugi's soft, embarrassed murmur only to relax again as he tried to pull back.
"It's okay," Atem told his hikari, reassurance in his tone, tightening his grip for just a moment before letting Yugi move away. "I'm sorry for shouting at you."
"I think we both needed it," Yugi sighed, a tiny smile gracing his features, the first real one for a while. "I just..." Atem could tell Yugi did not want to be drawn back into the conversation they were having before Yugi's meltdown and, if he was honest, neither did Atem.
"If you don't want to wear the Puzzle, I can take it," Atem offered, knowing that Yugi could not stand to think about what had created the item he had been so reliant on for close to a decade, that he still partly believed had been the reason his life had done the one-eighty it had.
"No," Yugi shook his head, "I've carried it this long." Again he looked at the floor. "It's not right, what happened. Bakura was right to be furious but if we don't hold them they could fall into the wrong hands and..." Yugi shuddered slightly as memories of Marik danced through his mind. "I don't want..." His voice trailed off, changing what he was going to say and looked Atem in the eye as he did so, his stance shifting into one that warned the other boy that he was faced with Yugi at his most stubborn. "It's my responsibility. I'll look after it. I have to."
"All right," Atem nodded, "but if you need to..."
"I know," Yugi gave him an understanding nod, knowing Atem was just looking out for him, "now, we should get going. The tournament's probably already started without us."
"I'll see you in the finals," Atem nodded, letting Yugi change the subject. "Good luck and watch yourself." The Pharaoh had not forgotten Harry's warning about the threat that had been issued. "We'll talk later?"
"I have Akane and Lotus looking after me, I'll be fine. You're the one that has to be careful," Yugi nodded. He had not forgotten either, and was much more worried about Atem and his friends than his own safety.
"Aren't I always?" Atem teased, rousing a light chuckle and a roll of Yugi's eyes. "Come on," he said, offering his hand. Yugi squeezed it tightly for a moment. "If we don't go now, we won't get our prize cards in time."
"Ready when you are."
LINE_RECOGNITION_HAS_GONE_AGAIN
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was normally devoid of students during the summer holidays, a bastion of peace and quiet. The halls were empty, the house elves underworked and the teaching staff, what little remained once the teaching year was over rather than going on holiday, all free to work on their own projects.
Instead there were people staying in the dormitories, split up by their children's school houses, too frightened to return to homes that had been invaded by the darkness of Shadowmorn, all of them relying on Hogwarts's legend of being the 'safest place in Britain.'
Which was why Professor Dumbledore was spending what would normally be a quiet meal in his office sat at the staff table along with McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout and Hagrid while watching parents and children try to interact. It was interesting to see how the friendships and rivalries of the parents had survived past childhood, through a war and to the modern day. Long after they thought they had grown out of such childishness, they still bickered and argued and played pranks and formed the gangs of their past.
Watching the parents made him wish briefly for the could-have-beens. It would have been good to have seen what the Marauders had turned out like, if Lily had managed to domesticate James as she had sworn to do, if Sirius had ever grown up, if Remus had ever managed to find someone despite his 'furry little problem.' Still, there was not much point to dwelling on the past that never was. One could not change what had happened without a Time-Turner, and there were none of those in existence that could turn back years rather than hours.
The Slytherin table was almost empty. Dumbledore was not surprised. Those who had fled to Hogwarts from the snake's house were those who were outcasts within their own dorms. Those who had actually been sorted into that house because they fit the stereotypes of Slytherin, rather than those who had 'chosen' to be sorted there because of their familial ties to the house, or their desire to be seen as a 'Dark Wizard.'
What was a surprise, however, was to see the way that those students were not left on their own. Some of those they had fought besides during Shadowmorn had slowly made their way over to the snake's table. It had started with one little Hufflepuff soon-to-be second year and had gone on from there, though most stayed with family and he somehow doubted that the Gryffindors were ever going to admit that not all Slytherins were bad.
The Gryffindor table for the most part were ignoring the Slytherin table. They were not the greatest in number amongst those who had stayed at the school, most having either stayed to defend themselves at home or braved the dangers of returning to their lives outside. In spite of this, they were proud of the fact that Gryffindors had been the first to summon in defence of the school and among the children there was a subtle esteem that the Mutous, who were supposedly the ones responsible for saving them all, were members of their house.
The Hufflepuff table had a large gap in the adult-to-child ratio since a lot of their children had spread out amongst the other houses, some to the lonely Slytherins (who were pretending not to care that they were being ostracised), some over to the aloof Ravenclaws (who were either pretending they had known what was going on the whole time or were doing everything in their power to find out) and a few to the Gryffindor table, (where they were being regaled by details about the battle that they had probably heard several times over).
Meanwhile, the Ravenclaw table was the fullest, mostly because those at that table wanted to know the exact details of what had happened and what was going on, and believed that the Hogwarts library, one of the best magical libraries (or at least one of the biggest freely available) in Britain at that moment, had the answers they sought. Not that it had anything on Shadowmorn, nor anything that would have any sort of details about a brand of magic that had all but died out over five thousand years ago, but they felt better looking none the less.
Still it kept the house elves happy to have people around the castle. Normally they had to be lent out over the summer, as slowly but surely the house elves ran out of things to do, grew bored and started squabbling over jobs. This summer, however, it looked like there would be plenty for them to do as children fell back into the bad habits they developed over the school year and parents backslid into those same patterns.
"Professor Dumblydore?" a house elf popped in, causing Minerva to jump and scowl at the little creature as Dumbledore looked its way and realised that this was Dobby, the house elf whom Miss Granger had infected with her weird idea for wages for creatures that enjoyed their job and complained if you tried to offer them restitution. "Professor Greasy-bat has returned and wants to see you."
Wondering where Dobby had picked that up from and whether he was foolish enough to say that in front of Snape, which was unlikely considering the elf in question was still amongst the living, Dumbledore excused himself from the Great Hall and the meal. He was not that hungry anyway and it was obviously important if Snape was not willing to wait until after dinner. Normally when he returned from a meeting with Voldemort and his Death Eaters, his spy needed a stiff drink before he felt ready to report what had happened. Dumbledore could not help but wonder if the man had even forgone that.
It did not take him long to get to his office where Snape was pacing irritably. "What is it, my boy?" Dumbledore asked, trying to calm the man down before his magic escaped his grasp. Even adults could have incidents of accidental magic when emotions were running high after all and Dumbledore quite liked his office in one piece.
"I do hope you're prepared for another war," Snape hissed irritably, "because the Dark Lord's about to do something that'll bring down at least one country on our heads if not more."
"If the ICOW aren't overly concerned about what Voldemort," Dumbledore ignored the flinch, "is doing within the borders of the UK, I doubt whatever he has planned now will cause any more of an issue."
"Professor, where is Potter right now?" Snape pointed out, wanting the man to understand what the Dark Lord's plans really were.
"Japa…" Dumbledore grimaced as he took in the implications of Snape's question. "He has to be aware that attacking the boy while he's in a country that has openly given him sanctuary is a bad idea."
"I can't tell you what's going through the Dark Lord's head right now because he's changed drastically in the last few days and I didn't understand him very well before," Snape snorted. "It's almost like that blasted incident with the Shadows stole away any semblance of sanity he had remaining. A lot of the less loyal Death Eaters are beginning to consider fleeing the cause. Not that that would do anything but get them killed. The Dark Lord is more merciful to his enemies than he is to traitors."
"And his enemies receive almost none at all," Dumbledore nodded in understanding, internally frowning as he thought about every implication. The situation could be more dire than Snape knew. Japan had a much larger magical population than England did due to the lack of strict laws on magical creatures that the British Government had. While the English wizarding community was used to fighting other wizards (and even that was a small section of the populace) the Japanese magical community did not consist solely of wizards. There were animal spirits, magical creatures, demons and so-called Gods, not to mention the priests, the mikos and every other magical person within the country. They all worked together to keep a balance between the different groups and between the magicals and the muggles.
Poking one group and bringing the wrath of one group down on the heads of the English wizarding community was likely to incur the wrath of the others as they defended the balance of the treaty between the groups and protected their homeland. After all, if one country thought they could get away with attacking their territory, what would stop others from trying?
"Headmaster?" Snape asked, wondering what was going through the respected old wizard's mind since, unlike his students, he could not just read his mind and find out.
"Nothing to concern you," Dumbledore waved him off, "but I believe I need to have a word with the Weasleys."
LINE_RECOGNITION_HAS_GONE_AGAIN
"Why do I have to follow you around?" Draco grouched as he followed Harry around Kaiba Land Asia. "I could have stayed at the mansion."
"No you couldn't," Harry sighed, about as happy to have Malfoy following him as the blonde was to be stuck in a muggle-infested area with his enemy. "Seto said that you weren't allowed in his house. Not without someone watching you at all times at least and since there isn't anyone in the house he trusts, I'm stuck with you."
"But…" Wolf's snarl caused Draco to trail off. The huge, golden furred creature trusted the Slytherin Pure-Blood about as far as he could throw him. He was more than happy to escort his Duellist around the grounds of the theme park, he would have done that even if the Pharaoh had not asked him to look out for Harry while the tournament was going on. He did not see, however, why the pair of them had to put up with the brat that had been assigned to them.
"The Game Shop's too full to take anyone else in and it would look really weird if the Kings of Games started hanging around with someone whose surname is Malfoy after they were nearly killed by someone with the same name. Especially as no one has ever seen you around the Duelling Circuit before," Harry snorted, "and since I'm the newbie around here, no one knows who I'm friends with, so it makes a little more sense to have you with me and no one will ask who you are because I'm not famous enough to warrant my friends being badgered."
"We are not friends," Draco snarled, pissed as hell at the implication they were.
"I could tell everyone that you're not my friend," Harry pointed out as he scanned the crowds for anyone wearing a Duel Disk so he could challenge them, "then they'd want to know why you've been following me all day and I'd have to tell them that the Kings of Games have asked me to keep an eye on you because you come from England like me, are Shadow-Touched and threatened to cause no end of trouble. I'm sure you'd get suitable accommodation then. Like in a magical prison cell."
Draco shut up. He was fully aware that right now that the name of Malfoy was worth less than mud. Between his father's attempted assassination of a very rich and influential Japanese businessman and Bakura almost succeeding at destroying the world, if he dared to inform anyone that he was a Malfoy there was a possibility he could get lynched just for association alone.
If he was honest he preferred being stuck with Potter to having to put up with Wheeler or Granger. Wheeler would have spent the entire day glowering at him while Granger would have ignored him as best as possible while focusing on helping Mokuba keep everything running smoothly by helping him keep an eye on the computer system.
Anything to do with muggle technology would have gone right over his head and he refused to look foolish in front of the two mudbloods, one of whom had been in the process of learning what she needed to be able to do when he and Harry had left the Duel Dome in the centre of the park.
At least Potter was trying to be civil, which was quite frankly a shock after Draco had challenged him to a Shadow Game when Bakura made the mistake of having him look after the Millennium Ring, and it had only been the intervention of the Pharaoh preventing Potter's soul from fading into the darkness forever. Not that Draco would admit that he had collapsed first and Bakura had had to take over from him.
The blonde Pure-Blood did not understand how he and Potter were bound to the Millennium Items. As far as he was aware they were only supposed to have one holder at any given time and yet the Ring had answered to his call and the Puzzle had responded to Potter. Bakura's theory was that Draco had apparently been 'adopted' by the Ring after the blood ritual to bind Draco's loyalty to him and that Potter had had a similar issue with the Puzzle because of how alike he and 'the Pharaoh's runt' were.
Not that it mattered any more. The Ring belonged to the Mutous now and Draco was stuck following the rules of a group of mudbloods and Blood Traitors that he could not stand because he literally had nowhere else to go.
Draco's stomach growled, causing the huge wolf at Potter's side to let out a wuffing sound a lot like a laugh and made Potter smile slightly and shake his head in amusement. "Come on Draco," Potter sighed, spotting a food stand that had a Duellist there already, "I see targets for both of us."
With that, Harry slipped into the crowd, swiftly disappearing amongst the muggles as he headed for the booth. Draco scowled as Wolf basically herded him in the direction his Duellist had gone. That was another thing he hated. Due to a lack of ability to get to his bank account, he had been given pocket money. Pocket money!
Still, for now he had to put up and shut up. There would come a time when things swung in his favour. Until then he had no choice but to deal with what life threw his way.
"Draco!" Potter's voice rose above the park's music and the ridiculously loud chatter of the muggles. "Keep up!"
LINE_RECOGNITION_HAS_GONE_AGAIN
"Shove over," Ginny barged Fred over as she reached for the Extendable Ear.
The children all knew that there was something major going on in the kitchen. All the adult members of the Order of the Phoenix had rushed into the building and gone straight in. Meanwhile, the children had basically been banned from entering the room. That suggested that there was something going on that the adults did not want the kids to know about. Another attack maybe, like the one on that muggle convention that had resulted in the deaths of almost five hundred non-wizards and the Order gaining backup in the form of a few Shadow-Touched members from a group who called themselves DuelDMU.
The lack of information for them was frustrating at best and bloody irritating at worst, which was why Ginny was glad for her inventive brothers and their Extendable Ear range which allowed them to listen in on what was being said even through closed doors.
"What's going on?" Ron demanded as he hovered around, getting annoyed when no one said anything. "Ginny!"
"Sorry…" Ginny handed it over to Ron who held the end to his ear just in time to hear…
"That isn't right!" the Leader of the DuelDMU lot was practically snarling. "We can't just wait here and do nothing! You saw what those 'Death Eaters' did to CardCon and you want to just let them launch another attack?"
"It isn't a matter of want, girl," Moody informed Dinah Lewis, a non-witch Shadow-Touched who was only allowed into the meetings because she was an adult and knew the most about the abilities of her friends and team-mates. "We cannot just invade another country and fight on their soil without going through the proper channels."
"Why not?" Sirius demanded, backing Dinah up. "The Death Eaters are."
"He's right," Ron did not recognise the voice of the woman speaking. He thought it might be Tonks but he was not entirely sure. "Why can't we do what this group was built to do? Defend people!"
"The Japanese Magical Culture is very different to ours." That was Dumbledore. "We cannot just walk into their country and their culture without being prepared and giving them a warning."
"Were you aware that our Duel Monsters can use the Shadows to walk across the world in an instant?" Dinah demanded. "Even if we can't fight right away we can get a message to the Pharaoh."
"I do not plan on letting them go without warning," Dumbledore informed her, "but we cannot invade Japanese territory without running the risk of shifting the delicate balance of their magical culture."
"But the Death Eaters…"
"You don't know what you're getting involved in, girl," Moody snarled at Dinah. "Let those who know about the magical world make the plans for dealing with the magical world."
"Fine!" Dinah snapped. "If you feel like bothering to let common sense dictate your actions, you know how to find me. I'm leaving."
With that, the kitchen door slammed open and the woman in question stalked out of the door, slamming it shut behind her.
"Excuse me," Ginny murmured to her brothers before darting down the stairs, hoping to catch the Duellist before she left the building. "Dinah!"
The infuriated leader of their Shadow-Touched allies turned to look at her sharply, glowering for a moment before realising it was not an adult who was calling. "Lady Weasley," the woman bowed momentarily before huffing and brushing brunette hair out of her eyes, "how can I be of help?"
Ginny frowned slightly, remembering the story of how the DuelDMU lot had not known who they could trust until their Duel Monsters had practically glomped Fred and George who had followed the older Order members. "It's just Ginny. I'm only a friend of the Court, not a member myself."
"The Duel Monsters disagree but go on," Dinah responded, curious as to what the teen wanted.
"Take us with you."
Dinah considered the young witch carefully. Before CardCon had been attacked she would have said that while there was magic involved in the game of Duel Monsters, she did not believe in the silly wand waving nonsense of most fantasy settings. Now she knew better than to discard the idea of wand magic and had a better idea of just how destructive it could be. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"I overheard the conversation in the kitchen. If you're going to Japan to help Yugi and the others, we want in," Ginny informed the Whyte Wonderland Duellist, whose Whyte Rabbit was suddenly clinging to the woman's leg, having appeared out of nowhere. Ginny was fully aware that she and her brother's were not the strongest of the group but she remembered the last few lines of Luna's most recent prophecy.
'Without Clan at hand and support from all,
Into Darkness this world shall fall.'
"You know you could go by yourselves," Dinah informed her, "just get your Duel Monsters to take you."
"I know," Ginny nodded, "but our parents made us promise not to go without backup and I believe that those who want to fight should be allowed to. Plus, if you take us with you, the Court will know which side you're on without question."
"Won't just telling them that work?" Dinah asked, amused.
"Yugi'll believe you. He trusts people easily like that. The others will have a harder time of it though. They've had too many people say 'we're here to help' and then try and kill them."
Dinah considered her for a moment longer then nodded. "I'll send the Cheshire Cat to you when we're ready to go. Be prepped to leave, we won't wait more than five minutes for you."
"I understand," Ginny nodded. "Thank you."
"Don't thank us until this is over," Dinah snorted, "I don't doubt this is going to get ugly…"
LINE_RECOGNITION_HAS_GONE_AGAIN
"Shockingly," Mokuba spoke as his hands flew over the keyboard of the theme park's Master Computer, "I do believe everything's running smoothly." He paused and swiftly rolled his computer chair across the room to the wooden table where Hermione was working on compiling some of her Clan History notes for the books she was working on and tapped it. "Touch wood of course."
"Please don't jinx it," the bushy haired brunette asked him, "I'd like to get through this tournament without my friends getting into trouble."
"I hate to tell you this, Hermione, but I'm not actually sure that's possible," Mokuba informed the girl, well aware that she was frustrated because she wanted to be competing with the others but was not considered 'well enough' by the healers. She had argued with them that Yugi had been in just as bad a state and he was allowed to compete. The comeback that had ended the argument was that Yugi had returned from the Shadow Game with at least some life energy left and had woken up on his own. She had basically died during the Shadow Game and needed Yugi's help to find her way back to her body. "I think in the last decade or so Yugi's been to around fifty or more tournaments and something weird has happened at almost every single one."
"You're joking," Hermione sounded incredulous.
"I wish," Mokuba grouched. "You have any idea how hard it is to plan for the sort of crazy Yugi attracts?"
"Try planning a study schedule around a trio of trouble magnets," Hermione pointed out. "You at least had the advantage of knowing roughly around when the crazy was going to come. I don't have that luxury."
Mokuba just let out an amused snort and shot back across the room, turning back to his job.
A bleeping noise distracted Hermione from her task and the girl shifted herself over to the console where had been working for a while before the tournament started. "Ummm, Mokuba?" she asked as she tried to work out the source of the noise.
"What is it?" he asked as he slid his chair across the room and typed in commands faster than Hermione could comprehend. "Ah, crap."
"What?" Hermione asked.
"Well…" Mokuba looked like he was thinking of the best way to explain it before he shrugged and replied with something relatively simple. "We're in trouble."
"I thought you said this booth was impenetrable," Hermione frowned, jumping and wheeling to look at the door as something heavy pounded on it.
"It's supposed to be," Mokuba agreed. "This booth has been designed to be resistant to mundane and wizarding methods of breaking in, in order to ensure security of the park's systems. One small problem…"
With that, the door buckled and was ripped away by a huge creature not unlike a minotaur of Greek myth, except with armour and a huge axe, which presently stepped through the doorway.
"It's not Duel Monster proof."
In an instant, Hermione was on her feet and reaching for her wand, moving between Mokuba and the intruder, or rather intruders as the Battle Ox was accompanied by its duellist, a man clad in black, flowing robes and a plain, white mask. There was another man as well, dressed in the same manner, and a woman wearing a white, linen, Egyptian-style dress and a golden mask that reminded Hermione worryingly of the death masks of the Pharaohs. Behind them were another pair of white masked men.
"High Priestess Hermione," the woman said, stepping away from the group that were quite obviously her bodyguards, "step aside."
"I don't think so," Hermione shook her head, unwilling to do so even if she had not been aware that Seto would have her guts for garters if she merely allowed them to kidnap his little brother, which was what was quite obviously going to happen. "Who are you?"
"My name, girl, is Mehit, I am the consort of Anhur and future immortal Queen of the World," the woman informed her, her tone conveying her hidden smirk. She called forth a Marauding Captain from her deck. "And you're in my way."