Chapter 14: - King of Thieves
Tea was in the hospital.
They hadn't known anything was wrong until they'd gotten into school the morning after dealing with The SHADOW card, only to find that Tea was out sick.
Concerned for their friend, they'd rang Tea's house after school and had been informed by a rather tearful and scared sounding Mrs Gardener that Tea was very sick and no they couldn't speak with her right now. Yugi's mother, who had taken the phone from Yugi when she'd seen how worried her son was, had gotten more details out of the woman, finding out that Tea was in Tomoeda's major hospital and was in a coma for no reason the Doctors could find.
Nor was she the only child in Tomoeda to have fallen into such a state in the last week.
When Yugi heard the word 'coma' he had paled, worried that the man who'd attacked Li's family had caught up to them, considering that Tea had been perfectly well when she'd left their house last night.
Then a thought he didn't really like occurred to him.
He knew that he and Yami hadn't done anything to anyone, well they had played a couple of Shadow Games in self-defence but they hadn't put anyone in a coma, however there was another in Domino with the powers of a Millennium Item at their disposal.
Not that he wanted to think that Bakura was to blame for Tea's condition…
He wasn't sure what to think. He couldn't work out why someone would attack someone who had done nothing but be friendly towards them and Bakura had seemed nice enough today in class, if a little nervous.
It couldn't be Bakura, surely…
But what if it was?
Yugi waited until his mother was distracted and Joey was helping her in the kitchen. Then he slipped out the front door.
He needed to talk to the other Millennium Item wielder.
LINE_RECOGNITION_HAS_GONE_AGAIN
Yugi wasn't the only one contemplating the other magic users in Tomoeda. Sakura was divining using the Clow Cards at Kero's advice, mixing the cards with her left hand, before putting them back in a pile, then cutting the stack of magically charged cards into three piles, before stacking them again in any order.
It seemed complicated but Sakura followed the instructions, drawing cards from the top of the deck and placing them in a set order, first one at the top, then one on either side of that, until she had a diamond shape that consisted of nine cards in front of her.
"Cards created by Clow, reply to my query." At Kero's instruction, she closed her eyes and spoke. "Show before me the true guise of the one who threatens my friends."
She felt energy wrap around her and sensed the power of the Clow Cards on the desk grow for a few moments. Then the moment passed and she flipped the top card.
The WINDY was revealed.
Kero scowled.
"Kero?" Sakura asked nervously.
"WINDY represents information." Kero replied, "It means that your adversary knows about you and quite possibly your friends as well."
Sakura gulped slightly. This wasn't good news considering that almost every mage they'd met so far had known more about magic then they did and if this new adversary did know about them and their powers, they'd know that they had little to no training.
Next she flipped over the three cards in the middle row, the cards which would represent what kind of adversary they were facing.
Sakura was almost completely unsurprised to see SHADOW when she flipped the first card. Though she knew she shouldn't read it so directly, it was almost impossible not to assume that the one who'd attacked Tea was a Shadow Mage, not with what they knew about those who wielded Millennium Items and weren't Yugi, especially considering that they'd captured SHADOW within Yugi's home.
The next one was RAIN and the last of the three LIBRA.
Kero didn't wait to tell her the translation of those three, only urged Sakura to flip over the bottom card which would tell her what their adversary was after.
It was The GLOW.
"GLOW?" Sakura asked, confused for a moment or two, then a memory crossed her mind.
"You're the Light," Yami said with a low bow.
"I'm The LIGHT?" Yugi asked confused.
Yami shook his head, "Not 'The LIGHT'. The Light, the Sun… Hikari…"
"Yugi!" Sakura squeaked, quickly pulling her cards together in a pile and shoving them in her pocket before attempting to ring her friend. When she didn't get an answer on Yugi's mobile, she rang the home phone and got a rather irritated Mutou Kaiya who had thought that her son had slipped out of the house in order to go help her and demanded to know what was going on.
Sakura considered not telling the woman, who'd been treating each of Yugi's friends like her own children, what was wrong. It wouldn't be fair to worry her but at the same time Kaiya had always been fair with them, as long as they had told her everything and Sakura didn't really want to get Yugi grounded again…
So Sakura explained that Yugi had probably gone to speak to a friend of theirs who also held a Millennium Item. Kaiya knew about Bakura, Yugi and Joey had told her about him and she'd extended an invitation to the white haired boy, though it had yet to be accepted and, though she was annoyed that her son had left the house without telling her, it was very like Yugi to want to check on his friends.
When Sakura mentioned that she was concerned about Yugi being out on his own with everything that was going on, Kaiya suggested that it would be safer to go in a group and she'd be happy to chaperone if she waited ten or fifteen minutes for them to get to Sakura's house.
Toya, upon hearing that Kaiya was coming over, suggested that, since he had little to do this evening, escorted Sakura over and played chaperone, since, with the help of the Clow Cards they could get to the Mutou house much faster than Kaiya and Joey could get to the Kinomoto residence.
Kaiya, trusting Toya since he'd saved her son's life, agreed with this plan and when the pair arrived seven minutes later, Joey was ready to go.
"Do you know where Bakura might be?" Kaiya asked as the three prepared to leave.
Sakura, who had been having trouble sensing anything until a few minutes ago when the Shadows that had been swamping Tomoeda for the last few days had suddenly converged on one point, nodded, worried that, if anything, they were going to be too late to help Yugi.
Not that she didn't have faith in her friend, but Bakura had had his Millennium Item longer than Yugi had and Yugi's experience with magic since he'd completed the Puzzle basically consisted of learning meditation and Yami making it up as he went along.
"Be careful, alright?" Kaiya asked the trio.
"Don't worry Mutou-San." Toya reassured her, "I'll keep an eye on them."
"Thank you Toya."
Toya and Joey, led by Sakura, left to find Yugi.
LINE_RECOGNITION_HAS_GONE_AGAIN
Yami was fuming.
It hadn't been hard to trace Bakura, mostly because the other item wielder hadn't been trying to hide his magic and, if the Pharaoh was right, Bakura had been trying to draw out the owner of the Millennium Puzzle.
That wasn't what had Yami ticked though. What had him ticked was the way that not only had Bakura admitted to challenging and defeating both Li, who Yami had wanted to Game for days now and had only held off because he'd been too tired to deal with him, and Tea, who Bakura had had no right to challenge and Yami would make him pay for what he'd done to her, in Shadow Games, but the fact that Bakura hadn't given them a fair warning about the fact he was challenging them and had set the game in motion before they'd had a chance to accept or decline the challenge.
The game they pair of them had been challenged at was a modified form of Hare and Hounds, a strategic game where, normally, the aim, if you were the hare, was to get past the hounds while the hounds did their best to stop you. That was on the board game version.
In the Shadow Game version, the part of the hounds were played by three rather large, vicious looking brown furred dogs with glowing red eyes, huge white horns growing out of their heads, sharp claws and razor sharp teeth, who appeared to be more than willing to attempt to take a bite out of the piece that represented the hare, while Yami had the, supposedly, easy task of getting the hare past the hounds. It didn't matter which square the hare was on at the time, as long as there were no hounds on its left hand side.
However Bakura had been fully aware of the fact that Yugi was possessed and had made sure to do something about it.
Yugi had been in control when the magic had rushed at them and, though Yami had tried to take control before anything could happen, had had his soul ripped from his body and dragged onto the board, only to be dumped, in spirit form, on the tile that the hare was supposed to start on.
When Bakura had started gloating, Yugi had realised that the Bakura they were facing and the Bakura who was their classmate were two completely different people.
Ba-Khu-Ra, who was more than willing to go by his host's surname, since it was so close to his own name had been amused when he'd found out one of the other Millennium Spirits had survived from the girl that he'd gamed last night and, while he fumed over the fact that the red eyed body snatcher in front of him was one who had profited from the destruction of his village, he couldn't help but find it amusing that the other spirit, who was so very protective of his young host, didn't know his own name.
Ba-Khu-Ra remembered the spirit in front of him, there was no way he could not. The man in front him of was, after all, the very Pharaoh who had killed him so many years ago, however the Thief King Ba-Khu-Ra, had never known the name of the spirit of the Millennium Puzzle, he had only ever known him as 'Pharaoh'.
And considering that he believed that the son inherited the sins of his father it was fitting, in the Thief King's mind at least, that the son of the Pharaoh who had permitted the mass sacrifice of his village had suffered the worst punishment that those of his time could imagine.
If a spirit had no name, it could not enter the afterlife and would be doomed to walk the Earth as a nameless spirit for eternity.
Just as the spirit of the Pharaoh would return to doing once Ba-Khu-Ra's hounds destroyed the soul of the Pharaoh's host and the Thief King claimed the Millennium Puzzle.
However, if he wanted to be able to use the Millennium Puzzle's powers, he had to get on with this game, for the only way to force a Millennium Item to recognise a new owner was for the old one to die, or for the old holder to lose a battle in which the item in question was the prize.
And as it stood the Pharaoh's host, who had taken the place of the hare in the game going on below them, was out numbered but not out matched as Ba-Khu-Ra's hounds could only destroy him if they managed to corner him and the Pharaoh, who was directing his 'aibou', acting as the opposing player, something that Ba-khu-Ra had planned for, was doing everything he could to ensure that his host had an exit at all times.
Not that it would matter soon. Ba-Khu-Ra had planned to fight the spirits of the other Millennium Items at some point and had researched games far in advance, in order to give him some form of advantage when he finally ran into the others, so he knew many tactics for this game that the other spirit didn't.
However the Pharaoh was a swift learner and his host wasn't any less tactically minded, and where, to begin with, Ba-Khu-Ra had had the advantage, provided by his advance knowledge, the Pharaoh's fury and the host's fear, the game was now a lot more evenly balanced and every move the Thief King made was being countered by the spirit that currently went by the name Yami.
It was currently 'Yami's' turn and the spirit was carefully considering the board.
From where Ba-Khu-Ra was sat he could see three ways of wining. He was certain that Yami was trying to protect his 'aibou' from two of them but had missed the third as the Pharaoh asked his host to move to the space down and to his left and the host nervously wobbled across the narrow beam between the square platform he was currently stood on and the octagon that was the space Yami wanted him to move to, nervous, but trusting the Pharaoh implicitly.
One of the Mad Dogs of Darkness Bakura had conjured in order to take the place of the hounds snapped at 'Yugi' as he passed, causing the boy to squeak, starting to take a step back and only avoiding putting his foot down on empty air and falling off of the board because Yami had snapped at him, causing the boy to jump, put his foot down safely and finish the move.
Then it was Ba-Khu-Ra's turn again.
Yami watched carefully as the spirit who had identified himself as the Thief King Ba-Khu-Ra, made his move.
The Pharaoh was on edge. This wasn't the first time Yugi had been involved in a Shadow Game for his life, the Game with Shadi would, quite possibly, have killed him if Yugi had lost, but it was the first time that Yami had played a Shadow Game that wasn't of his own creation and playing it for such high stakes concerned him.
Not because he didn't think he would win, Yami had every confidence in his ability to win at any game. No, the concern was over the fact he didn't trust Ba-Khu-Ra would keep his end of the bargain and release Tea and Li when he was defeated and the fact that, though Yugi was trying to hide it, he could sense that the Shadows were heavily draining his aibou's mental and magical energies.
Yami had done the best he could to shield his aibou from the pain and stress of being in the Shadow Realm, but while he could shield his aibou from some of it while they were separate like this, he couldn't stop all of it, and Yugi was young, inexperienced at surviving here, and the boy certainly wasn't used to being a spirit.
He'd had to watch as Yugi's mind had steadily grown more clouded as the game went on and the boy had gotten dizzier and dizzier, but there were only a few moves left to play now, Yami had seen what Ba-Khu-Ra was trying to pull and had planned around it, making, what appeared to be, a reckless and desperate move in order to lure out the hound that been hiding on far left of the board for the majority of the game.
He just hoped that Yugi could hold on that long and Ba-Khu-Ra would keep his word.
The Thief King gave an order and the hound that Yami had needed to move leapt off of the leftmost platform and onto the square directly across from his aibou, who glanced over to Yami, giving him a small, slightly nervous smile, trust radiating over the link.
That was another thing that helped Yami's confidence. Yugi, while nervous about the fact that he seemed to be coming down with the same sickness that had affected him when he'd summoned the Dark Magician, had every faith that the spirit of the Puzzle would get him out of this safely.
"It's your move, Yami." Ba-Khu-Ra said the last word as if it were a joke, causing the nameless Pharaoh's irritation to spike for a moment as, once again Yami wondered if the spirit in front of him had known his real name, before mentally shaking his head and focusing on the game before him, taking a moment to wonder if the Thief King honestly thought that he was fall for such an obvious trap as the one that was before him. He could send Yugi across one, and from there the next logical step was onto the goal platform.
Or it would have been had the hounds not been in the perfect position to corner Yugi on the next turn if Yami sent him that way, preventing Yami from making a move, both ending the game, and sealing his aibou's fate.
"I apologise Aibou," Yami said to the tired looking spirit, who gave him a confused look, "But I must ask you to go back the way you came."
Yugi nodded and carefully made his way back across the narrow beam, managing to avoid making the same mistake twice as irritation crossed Ba-Khu-Ra's features, which vanished quickly when Yami sensed his aibou's light falter and the boy sat down rather heavily.
"Aibou, are you alright?" Yami tried to keep his concern from reaching his voice but wasn't particularly successful at it. His fears weren't alleviated any when Yugi gave him a watery smile and tried to reassure him, but didn't get to his feet.
"You could surrender." Ba-Khu-Ra suggested with a small smirk, "I'll send your soul to the Shadow Realm," The Thief King gestured towards the nameless Pharaoh, "And your little host can go free. Of course I get to keep the others but..."
"No." Yugi forced himself to his feet as he heard Yami turning the offer over in his mind, half disbelieving the Thief King's words but concerned for his host. "I won't let you. They aren't yours to keep."
"Just make your move, Bakura." Yami growled, both praising his aibou's determination and cursing himself for letting the game drag on this long.
The Thief King, who had hoped that the nameless Pharaoh's concern for his little host would have made him sloppy, snapped out an order quickly and watched the hound in question follow it, preventing the spirit of the nameless Pharaoh's host from going back across the beam for a third time and gestured for Yami to continue.
It wasn't that he had anything against the boy. It wasn't the kid's fault that he'd gotten his hands on the Millennium Puzzle, any more then it was the fault of Ba-Khu-Ra's host that the Millennium Ring had fallen into his hands, and though he had wanted revenge on the Pharaoh that had killed him and any of the others from that time that had known and condoned of the massacre of Kul Elna, it seemed that fate had punished the Pharaoh for him.
He did, however, still need the other Millennium Items if he was going to stand a chance of making the other Millennium Spirits pay for their crimes.
He watched the Pharaoh's host move into the spot his hound had recently vacated and let out a curse in Egyptian that, if the other spirit had remembered the language, would have had him wincing, as he realised what he'd done.
Moving the hound that he had down a space had cleared a path for the Pharaoh's host to move to the left and, though he could have prevented the kid from reaching safety a turn ago, his hounds couldn't move backwards unlike the 'hare' and there was little he could do to stop the Pharaoh from winning the game.
"It's your move, Bakura." Yami commented idly, a smirk gracing his features.
Even without his memories, the Pharaoh was a smug, irritating git, Ba-Khu-Ra grouched as he considered the board, trying to think of a way that he could still win the game and coming up empty. Then he smirked.
There was a way he could claim the Puzzle without winning...
Yugi squeaked and ducked as the Mad Dog of Darkness that had been on the square above his leapt at him, causing the dog to go sailing over head and land on the very edge of the platform.
"Aibou!" Yami yelped as Yugi backed towards the edge, the dog growling at him, only to turn and run for the narrow ledge that would take him to the far left platform and win the game.
Yugi managed to get one foot on the ledge before the dog snapped at him, but it was enough as Yugi vanished from the field before the huge jaws could shut around him.
Yami sensed it the moment that Yugi was back in the body and he turned to Ba-Khu-Ra with a vicious snarl as the Shadows faded away.
"Yugi!"
The harsh eyes of the Thief King were gone, replaced by the much softer eyes of the Bakura, the boy who was in their class, for a moment at least, then the white haired boy collapsed. Yami turned around, confused, to find Sakura and Joey rushing over, along with Toya who caught the other Shadow wielder as he fell.
"Yami." Sakura nodded, concern obvious, "Are you alright?"
"I am fine." Yami nodded, worried about the condition of both his aibou and the Thief King's host and furious that Ba-Khu-Ra appeared to have vanished before he could fulfil his side of the bargain, not that Yami had expected any better of him.
"Did you win?" Joey asked, having seen the Shadows once before, when Yugi, or he supposed Yami, had played those bullies while Joey and Sakura had dealt with The FIGHT.
Yami nodded again, "I did, but..."
A very tired looking Yugi switched with the ancient spirit he shared his body with. "I need to make a phone call." He said, pulling his phone out of his pocket, blinking at it when he realised that it was switched off.
Joey snorted and took the phone from him when Yugi appeared to have forgotten how to turn it back on, though he couldn't know it was because Yugi was still feeling rather dizzy from the Shadow Game, and just as Joey was switching the phone on, Sakura's mobile rang.
"Moshi moshi?" Sakura asked as she quickly answered it. "Yukito-San?"
Yugi gave Joey a questioning look and Joey obliged. "Tsukishiro-San was at Sakura's house when Kinomoto-San and Sakura rushed out, after you wandered off. Kinomoto-San asked him to go to the hospital in case you showed up there."
"That's great." Sakura grinned as Yukito said something. There was another pause as she listened to something else, then she passed the phone to Toya, who had been trying to wake Bakura, and turned to her friends. "Tea's awake."
"He kept his word." Yugi looked relieved as he wavered on his feet, causing Joey to steady him.
"Careful, Yuge." Joey said, worried about his friend. "What do you mean? Did Bakura...?"
Yugi switched back out with Yami, who looked considerably steadier on his feet right then than Yugi was and shook his head, "Bakura didn't do anything. Ba-Khu-Ra, the Thief King, the spirit of the Millennium Ring, did."
"He's possessed too?" Toya asked, frowning as he put the phone down and scooped up the unconscious boy.
Yami nodded. "There's an ancient spirit in the Ring." He explained, "He's the one who's been dragging people into Shadow Games."
"Is he the one that set the game in motion tonight?" Toya asked, wondering if the boy's condition had something to do with the game.
Before Yami could answer, Bakura started awake and looked around at the group with wide, confused eyes. "What's going on?"
"Are you alright, Bakura?" Yugi took control and moved to the boy's side, concerned for the boy but wary that the Thief King might try again.
"Yugi?" Panic crept into the eleven year old's features, "You should stay away. It's not safe. He..." Bakura trailed off, not wanting to admit everything.
"It's alright." Yugi reassured him, "I already know and I think we've got a lot to talk about. You're not the only one who has a voice in their head."
Bakura blinked at him as Toya set the white haired boy down. "I'm... you... really? Then I'm not going mad?"
Yugi nodded as Joey and Sakura, warily, moved to his side, giving him backup in case he needed it. "No madder than the rest of us at least."
Toya snorted something about that shouldn't be reassuring and Sakura lambasted her brother for it.
"Come to my house." Yugi offered, unwilling and unable to blame Bakura for the actions of the spirit of the Ring, just as his friends didn't pin anything Yami did on him, "We can talk about it there. I promise we," Yugi's hand rested on the Millennium Puzzle, "Can handle your other spirit if he tries to cause trouble."
Yami, who was listening to the conversation in case he had to take over again, was less confident that Yugi would survive a second round quite so soon if they played the same game, but didn't say anything as the other item holder made up his mind about something.
"I don't know..." Bakura didn't want to risk his friends' safety, since he was certain that the spirit of his Ring would try again considering the collection of figurines that he had for his Monster World RPG that had the souls of former friends sealed inside.
But then if Yugi had a voice in his head too, and the other voice was willing to help Yugi rather than cause trouble for Yugi's friends... "Mutou-San... I need you to look at something for me. At my house."
"What's that?" Bakura could see the wariness given off by Sakura and Joey; two of his new friends who he was certain would want to stop being friends with him after everything that the voice had done over the last week or so, as Yugi asked the question.
"I think Voice has attacked other people." Bakura explained, trying not to wince as he did so, knowing that, once the others had seen the collection, they would never want to hang around with him again. He didn't want that, but could and would deal with that as long as the others that the Voice had trapped were set free. "And I don't know how to help them."
"Don't worry." Yugi reassured the white haired boy, "I promise we'll work it out together, ok?"
Bakura was surprised after, he assumed, Voice had tried to attack Yugi, that Yugi still wanted to be friends with him. Still, even if Yugi would turn away, as Ryou was convinced he would, after seeing the collection of souls that the other spirit had gathered, just the thought of having friends that could stand up to Voice, even if it was just for a short time, was nice.
"Thank you, Mutou-San."
"Call me Yugi."
They hadn't known anything was wrong until they'd gotten into school the morning after dealing with The SHADOW card, only to find that Tea was out sick.
Concerned for their friend, they'd rang Tea's house after school and had been informed by a rather tearful and scared sounding Mrs Gardener that Tea was very sick and no they couldn't speak with her right now. Yugi's mother, who had taken the phone from Yugi when she'd seen how worried her son was, had gotten more details out of the woman, finding out that Tea was in Tomoeda's major hospital and was in a coma for no reason the Doctors could find.
Nor was she the only child in Tomoeda to have fallen into such a state in the last week.
When Yugi heard the word 'coma' he had paled, worried that the man who'd attacked Li's family had caught up to them, considering that Tea had been perfectly well when she'd left their house last night.
Then a thought he didn't really like occurred to him.
He knew that he and Yami hadn't done anything to anyone, well they had played a couple of Shadow Games in self-defence but they hadn't put anyone in a coma, however there was another in Domino with the powers of a Millennium Item at their disposal.
Not that he wanted to think that Bakura was to blame for Tea's condition…
He wasn't sure what to think. He couldn't work out why someone would attack someone who had done nothing but be friendly towards them and Bakura had seemed nice enough today in class, if a little nervous.
It couldn't be Bakura, surely…
But what if it was?
Yugi waited until his mother was distracted and Joey was helping her in the kitchen. Then he slipped out the front door.
He needed to talk to the other Millennium Item wielder.
LINE_RECOGNITION_HAS_GONE_AGAIN
Yugi wasn't the only one contemplating the other magic users in Tomoeda. Sakura was divining using the Clow Cards at Kero's advice, mixing the cards with her left hand, before putting them back in a pile, then cutting the stack of magically charged cards into three piles, before stacking them again in any order.
It seemed complicated but Sakura followed the instructions, drawing cards from the top of the deck and placing them in a set order, first one at the top, then one on either side of that, until she had a diamond shape that consisted of nine cards in front of her.
"Cards created by Clow, reply to my query." At Kero's instruction, she closed her eyes and spoke. "Show before me the true guise of the one who threatens my friends."
She felt energy wrap around her and sensed the power of the Clow Cards on the desk grow for a few moments. Then the moment passed and she flipped the top card.
The WINDY was revealed.
Kero scowled.
"Kero?" Sakura asked nervously.
"WINDY represents information." Kero replied, "It means that your adversary knows about you and quite possibly your friends as well."
Sakura gulped slightly. This wasn't good news considering that almost every mage they'd met so far had known more about magic then they did and if this new adversary did know about them and their powers, they'd know that they had little to no training.
Next she flipped over the three cards in the middle row, the cards which would represent what kind of adversary they were facing.
Sakura was almost completely unsurprised to see SHADOW when she flipped the first card. Though she knew she shouldn't read it so directly, it was almost impossible not to assume that the one who'd attacked Tea was a Shadow Mage, not with what they knew about those who wielded Millennium Items and weren't Yugi, especially considering that they'd captured SHADOW within Yugi's home.
The next one was RAIN and the last of the three LIBRA.
Kero didn't wait to tell her the translation of those three, only urged Sakura to flip over the bottom card which would tell her what their adversary was after.
It was The GLOW.
"GLOW?" Sakura asked, confused for a moment or two, then a memory crossed her mind.
"You're the Light," Yami said with a low bow.
"I'm The LIGHT?" Yugi asked confused.
Yami shook his head, "Not 'The LIGHT'. The Light, the Sun… Hikari…"
"Yugi!" Sakura squeaked, quickly pulling her cards together in a pile and shoving them in her pocket before attempting to ring her friend. When she didn't get an answer on Yugi's mobile, she rang the home phone and got a rather irritated Mutou Kaiya who had thought that her son had slipped out of the house in order to go help her and demanded to know what was going on.
Sakura considered not telling the woman, who'd been treating each of Yugi's friends like her own children, what was wrong. It wouldn't be fair to worry her but at the same time Kaiya had always been fair with them, as long as they had told her everything and Sakura didn't really want to get Yugi grounded again…
So Sakura explained that Yugi had probably gone to speak to a friend of theirs who also held a Millennium Item. Kaiya knew about Bakura, Yugi and Joey had told her about him and she'd extended an invitation to the white haired boy, though it had yet to be accepted and, though she was annoyed that her son had left the house without telling her, it was very like Yugi to want to check on his friends.
When Sakura mentioned that she was concerned about Yugi being out on his own with everything that was going on, Kaiya suggested that it would be safer to go in a group and she'd be happy to chaperone if she waited ten or fifteen minutes for them to get to Sakura's house.
Toya, upon hearing that Kaiya was coming over, suggested that, since he had little to do this evening, escorted Sakura over and played chaperone, since, with the help of the Clow Cards they could get to the Mutou house much faster than Kaiya and Joey could get to the Kinomoto residence.
Kaiya, trusting Toya since he'd saved her son's life, agreed with this plan and when the pair arrived seven minutes later, Joey was ready to go.
"Do you know where Bakura might be?" Kaiya asked as the three prepared to leave.
Sakura, who had been having trouble sensing anything until a few minutes ago when the Shadows that had been swamping Tomoeda for the last few days had suddenly converged on one point, nodded, worried that, if anything, they were going to be too late to help Yugi.
Not that she didn't have faith in her friend, but Bakura had had his Millennium Item longer than Yugi had and Yugi's experience with magic since he'd completed the Puzzle basically consisted of learning meditation and Yami making it up as he went along.
"Be careful, alright?" Kaiya asked the trio.
"Don't worry Mutou-San." Toya reassured her, "I'll keep an eye on them."
"Thank you Toya."
Toya and Joey, led by Sakura, left to find Yugi.
LINE_RECOGNITION_HAS_GONE_AGAIN
Yami was fuming.
It hadn't been hard to trace Bakura, mostly because the other item wielder hadn't been trying to hide his magic and, if the Pharaoh was right, Bakura had been trying to draw out the owner of the Millennium Puzzle.
That wasn't what had Yami ticked though. What had him ticked was the way that not only had Bakura admitted to challenging and defeating both Li, who Yami had wanted to Game for days now and had only held off because he'd been too tired to deal with him, and Tea, who Bakura had had no right to challenge and Yami would make him pay for what he'd done to her, in Shadow Games, but the fact that Bakura hadn't given them a fair warning about the fact he was challenging them and had set the game in motion before they'd had a chance to accept or decline the challenge.
The game they pair of them had been challenged at was a modified form of Hare and Hounds, a strategic game where, normally, the aim, if you were the hare, was to get past the hounds while the hounds did their best to stop you. That was on the board game version.
In the Shadow Game version, the part of the hounds were played by three rather large, vicious looking brown furred dogs with glowing red eyes, huge white horns growing out of their heads, sharp claws and razor sharp teeth, who appeared to be more than willing to attempt to take a bite out of the piece that represented the hare, while Yami had the, supposedly, easy task of getting the hare past the hounds. It didn't matter which square the hare was on at the time, as long as there were no hounds on its left hand side.
However Bakura had been fully aware of the fact that Yugi was possessed and had made sure to do something about it.
Yugi had been in control when the magic had rushed at them and, though Yami had tried to take control before anything could happen, had had his soul ripped from his body and dragged onto the board, only to be dumped, in spirit form, on the tile that the hare was supposed to start on.
When Bakura had started gloating, Yugi had realised that the Bakura they were facing and the Bakura who was their classmate were two completely different people.
Ba-Khu-Ra, who was more than willing to go by his host's surname, since it was so close to his own name had been amused when he'd found out one of the other Millennium Spirits had survived from the girl that he'd gamed last night and, while he fumed over the fact that the red eyed body snatcher in front of him was one who had profited from the destruction of his village, he couldn't help but find it amusing that the other spirit, who was so very protective of his young host, didn't know his own name.
Ba-Khu-Ra remembered the spirit in front of him, there was no way he could not. The man in front him of was, after all, the very Pharaoh who had killed him so many years ago, however the Thief King Ba-Khu-Ra, had never known the name of the spirit of the Millennium Puzzle, he had only ever known him as 'Pharaoh'.
And considering that he believed that the son inherited the sins of his father it was fitting, in the Thief King's mind at least, that the son of the Pharaoh who had permitted the mass sacrifice of his village had suffered the worst punishment that those of his time could imagine.
If a spirit had no name, it could not enter the afterlife and would be doomed to walk the Earth as a nameless spirit for eternity.
Just as the spirit of the Pharaoh would return to doing once Ba-Khu-Ra's hounds destroyed the soul of the Pharaoh's host and the Thief King claimed the Millennium Puzzle.
However, if he wanted to be able to use the Millennium Puzzle's powers, he had to get on with this game, for the only way to force a Millennium Item to recognise a new owner was for the old one to die, or for the old holder to lose a battle in which the item in question was the prize.
And as it stood the Pharaoh's host, who had taken the place of the hare in the game going on below them, was out numbered but not out matched as Ba-Khu-Ra's hounds could only destroy him if they managed to corner him and the Pharaoh, who was directing his 'aibou', acting as the opposing player, something that Ba-khu-Ra had planned for, was doing everything he could to ensure that his host had an exit at all times.
Not that it would matter soon. Ba-Khu-Ra had planned to fight the spirits of the other Millennium Items at some point and had researched games far in advance, in order to give him some form of advantage when he finally ran into the others, so he knew many tactics for this game that the other spirit didn't.
However the Pharaoh was a swift learner and his host wasn't any less tactically minded, and where, to begin with, Ba-Khu-Ra had had the advantage, provided by his advance knowledge, the Pharaoh's fury and the host's fear, the game was now a lot more evenly balanced and every move the Thief King made was being countered by the spirit that currently went by the name Yami.
It was currently 'Yami's' turn and the spirit was carefully considering the board.
From where Ba-Khu-Ra was sat he could see three ways of wining. He was certain that Yami was trying to protect his 'aibou' from two of them but had missed the third as the Pharaoh asked his host to move to the space down and to his left and the host nervously wobbled across the narrow beam between the square platform he was currently stood on and the octagon that was the space Yami wanted him to move to, nervous, but trusting the Pharaoh implicitly.
One of the Mad Dogs of Darkness Bakura had conjured in order to take the place of the hounds snapped at 'Yugi' as he passed, causing the boy to squeak, starting to take a step back and only avoiding putting his foot down on empty air and falling off of the board because Yami had snapped at him, causing the boy to jump, put his foot down safely and finish the move.
Then it was Ba-Khu-Ra's turn again.
Yami watched carefully as the spirit who had identified himself as the Thief King Ba-Khu-Ra, made his move.
The Pharaoh was on edge. This wasn't the first time Yugi had been involved in a Shadow Game for his life, the Game with Shadi would, quite possibly, have killed him if Yugi had lost, but it was the first time that Yami had played a Shadow Game that wasn't of his own creation and playing it for such high stakes concerned him.
Not because he didn't think he would win, Yami had every confidence in his ability to win at any game. No, the concern was over the fact he didn't trust Ba-Khu-Ra would keep his end of the bargain and release Tea and Li when he was defeated and the fact that, though Yugi was trying to hide it, he could sense that the Shadows were heavily draining his aibou's mental and magical energies.
Yami had done the best he could to shield his aibou from the pain and stress of being in the Shadow Realm, but while he could shield his aibou from some of it while they were separate like this, he couldn't stop all of it, and Yugi was young, inexperienced at surviving here, and the boy certainly wasn't used to being a spirit.
He'd had to watch as Yugi's mind had steadily grown more clouded as the game went on and the boy had gotten dizzier and dizzier, but there were only a few moves left to play now, Yami had seen what Ba-Khu-Ra was trying to pull and had planned around it, making, what appeared to be, a reckless and desperate move in order to lure out the hound that been hiding on far left of the board for the majority of the game.
He just hoped that Yugi could hold on that long and Ba-Khu-Ra would keep his word.
The Thief King gave an order and the hound that Yami had needed to move leapt off of the leftmost platform and onto the square directly across from his aibou, who glanced over to Yami, giving him a small, slightly nervous smile, trust radiating over the link.
That was another thing that helped Yami's confidence. Yugi, while nervous about the fact that he seemed to be coming down with the same sickness that had affected him when he'd summoned the Dark Magician, had every faith that the spirit of the Puzzle would get him out of this safely.
"It's your move, Yami." Ba-Khu-Ra said the last word as if it were a joke, causing the nameless Pharaoh's irritation to spike for a moment as, once again Yami wondered if the spirit in front of him had known his real name, before mentally shaking his head and focusing on the game before him, taking a moment to wonder if the Thief King honestly thought that he was fall for such an obvious trap as the one that was before him. He could send Yugi across one, and from there the next logical step was onto the goal platform.
Or it would have been had the hounds not been in the perfect position to corner Yugi on the next turn if Yami sent him that way, preventing Yami from making a move, both ending the game, and sealing his aibou's fate.
"I apologise Aibou," Yami said to the tired looking spirit, who gave him a confused look, "But I must ask you to go back the way you came."
Yugi nodded and carefully made his way back across the narrow beam, managing to avoid making the same mistake twice as irritation crossed Ba-Khu-Ra's features, which vanished quickly when Yami sensed his aibou's light falter and the boy sat down rather heavily.
"Aibou, are you alright?" Yami tried to keep his concern from reaching his voice but wasn't particularly successful at it. His fears weren't alleviated any when Yugi gave him a watery smile and tried to reassure him, but didn't get to his feet.
"You could surrender." Ba-Khu-Ra suggested with a small smirk, "I'll send your soul to the Shadow Realm," The Thief King gestured towards the nameless Pharaoh, "And your little host can go free. Of course I get to keep the others but..."
"No." Yugi forced himself to his feet as he heard Yami turning the offer over in his mind, half disbelieving the Thief King's words but concerned for his host. "I won't let you. They aren't yours to keep."
"Just make your move, Bakura." Yami growled, both praising his aibou's determination and cursing himself for letting the game drag on this long.
The Thief King, who had hoped that the nameless Pharaoh's concern for his little host would have made him sloppy, snapped out an order quickly and watched the hound in question follow it, preventing the spirit of the nameless Pharaoh's host from going back across the beam for a third time and gestured for Yami to continue.
It wasn't that he had anything against the boy. It wasn't the kid's fault that he'd gotten his hands on the Millennium Puzzle, any more then it was the fault of Ba-Khu-Ra's host that the Millennium Ring had fallen into his hands, and though he had wanted revenge on the Pharaoh that had killed him and any of the others from that time that had known and condoned of the massacre of Kul Elna, it seemed that fate had punished the Pharaoh for him.
He did, however, still need the other Millennium Items if he was going to stand a chance of making the other Millennium Spirits pay for their crimes.
He watched the Pharaoh's host move into the spot his hound had recently vacated and let out a curse in Egyptian that, if the other spirit had remembered the language, would have had him wincing, as he realised what he'd done.
Moving the hound that he had down a space had cleared a path for the Pharaoh's host to move to the left and, though he could have prevented the kid from reaching safety a turn ago, his hounds couldn't move backwards unlike the 'hare' and there was little he could do to stop the Pharaoh from winning the game.
"It's your move, Bakura." Yami commented idly, a smirk gracing his features.
Even without his memories, the Pharaoh was a smug, irritating git, Ba-Khu-Ra grouched as he considered the board, trying to think of a way that he could still win the game and coming up empty. Then he smirked.
There was a way he could claim the Puzzle without winning...
Yugi squeaked and ducked as the Mad Dog of Darkness that had been on the square above his leapt at him, causing the dog to go sailing over head and land on the very edge of the platform.
"Aibou!" Yami yelped as Yugi backed towards the edge, the dog growling at him, only to turn and run for the narrow ledge that would take him to the far left platform and win the game.
Yugi managed to get one foot on the ledge before the dog snapped at him, but it was enough as Yugi vanished from the field before the huge jaws could shut around him.
Yami sensed it the moment that Yugi was back in the body and he turned to Ba-Khu-Ra with a vicious snarl as the Shadows faded away.
"Yugi!"
The harsh eyes of the Thief King were gone, replaced by the much softer eyes of the Bakura, the boy who was in their class, for a moment at least, then the white haired boy collapsed. Yami turned around, confused, to find Sakura and Joey rushing over, along with Toya who caught the other Shadow wielder as he fell.
"Yami." Sakura nodded, concern obvious, "Are you alright?"
"I am fine." Yami nodded, worried about the condition of both his aibou and the Thief King's host and furious that Ba-Khu-Ra appeared to have vanished before he could fulfil his side of the bargain, not that Yami had expected any better of him.
"Did you win?" Joey asked, having seen the Shadows once before, when Yugi, or he supposed Yami, had played those bullies while Joey and Sakura had dealt with The FIGHT.
Yami nodded again, "I did, but..."
A very tired looking Yugi switched with the ancient spirit he shared his body with. "I need to make a phone call." He said, pulling his phone out of his pocket, blinking at it when he realised that it was switched off.
Joey snorted and took the phone from him when Yugi appeared to have forgotten how to turn it back on, though he couldn't know it was because Yugi was still feeling rather dizzy from the Shadow Game, and just as Joey was switching the phone on, Sakura's mobile rang.
"Moshi moshi?" Sakura asked as she quickly answered it. "Yukito-San?"
Yugi gave Joey a questioning look and Joey obliged. "Tsukishiro-San was at Sakura's house when Kinomoto-San and Sakura rushed out, after you wandered off. Kinomoto-San asked him to go to the hospital in case you showed up there."
"That's great." Sakura grinned as Yukito said something. There was another pause as she listened to something else, then she passed the phone to Toya, who had been trying to wake Bakura, and turned to her friends. "Tea's awake."
"He kept his word." Yugi looked relieved as he wavered on his feet, causing Joey to steady him.
"Careful, Yuge." Joey said, worried about his friend. "What do you mean? Did Bakura...?"
Yugi switched back out with Yami, who looked considerably steadier on his feet right then than Yugi was and shook his head, "Bakura didn't do anything. Ba-Khu-Ra, the Thief King, the spirit of the Millennium Ring, did."
"He's possessed too?" Toya asked, frowning as he put the phone down and scooped up the unconscious boy.
Yami nodded. "There's an ancient spirit in the Ring." He explained, "He's the one who's been dragging people into Shadow Games."
"Is he the one that set the game in motion tonight?" Toya asked, wondering if the boy's condition had something to do with the game.
Before Yami could answer, Bakura started awake and looked around at the group with wide, confused eyes. "What's going on?"
"Are you alright, Bakura?" Yugi took control and moved to the boy's side, concerned for the boy but wary that the Thief King might try again.
"Yugi?" Panic crept into the eleven year old's features, "You should stay away. It's not safe. He..." Bakura trailed off, not wanting to admit everything.
"It's alright." Yugi reassured him, "I already know and I think we've got a lot to talk about. You're not the only one who has a voice in their head."
Bakura blinked at him as Toya set the white haired boy down. "I'm... you... really? Then I'm not going mad?"
Yugi nodded as Joey and Sakura, warily, moved to his side, giving him backup in case he needed it. "No madder than the rest of us at least."
Toya snorted something about that shouldn't be reassuring and Sakura lambasted her brother for it.
"Come to my house." Yugi offered, unwilling and unable to blame Bakura for the actions of the spirit of the Ring, just as his friends didn't pin anything Yami did on him, "We can talk about it there. I promise we," Yugi's hand rested on the Millennium Puzzle, "Can handle your other spirit if he tries to cause trouble."
Yami, who was listening to the conversation in case he had to take over again, was less confident that Yugi would survive a second round quite so soon if they played the same game, but didn't say anything as the other item holder made up his mind about something.
"I don't know..." Bakura didn't want to risk his friends' safety, since he was certain that the spirit of his Ring would try again considering the collection of figurines that he had for his Monster World RPG that had the souls of former friends sealed inside.
But then if Yugi had a voice in his head too, and the other voice was willing to help Yugi rather than cause trouble for Yugi's friends... "Mutou-San... I need you to look at something for me. At my house."
"What's that?" Bakura could see the wariness given off by Sakura and Joey; two of his new friends who he was certain would want to stop being friends with him after everything that the voice had done over the last week or so, as Yugi asked the question.
"I think Voice has attacked other people." Bakura explained, trying not to wince as he did so, knowing that, once the others had seen the collection, they would never want to hang around with him again. He didn't want that, but could and would deal with that as long as the others that the Voice had trapped were set free. "And I don't know how to help them."
"Don't worry." Yugi reassured the white haired boy, "I promise we'll work it out together, ok?"
Bakura was surprised after, he assumed, Voice had tried to attack Yugi, that Yugi still wanted to be friends with him. Still, even if Yugi would turn away, as Ryou was convinced he would, after seeing the collection of souls that the other spirit had gathered, just the thought of having friends that could stand up to Voice, even if it was just for a short time, was nice.
"Thank you, Mutou-San."
"Call me Yugi."