Chapter 1: Puzzle of Ancient
/blah blah/ yugi talking to yami
blah blahyami talking to yugi
The last day of school finally arrived. The seniors had decided as an end of school treat to trash the school (Not a remotely bad idea.). Toilet paper was everywhere as the kids fought to get out before the teachers snagged them. Some people were having a hard time. Bakura was jammed in the side entrance by his fan club (not really his fan club but a band of Bakura mooning girls). Miho got trapped when Tristan once again tried his very best (which wasn't very good) to play her over. Joey got in another fight just outside the schoolyard where the professors couldn't get to him. Seto Kaiba, however, just walked arrogantly past everyone else and got into his car. Yugi and Tea were probably the only teens unoccupied. Then again, Yugi was so small no one noticed him anyway and Tea was too dangerous to mess with.
First they rescued Bakura from being forced to write his signature with lipstick. Then Tea pulled Tristan from Miho by his ear (Tristan: "Owowowowow! Hey! I was really getting to her! Lemmego, get off me, you delinquents!" Tea: "Wow, you learned a new word! Forget it, Tristan, she's never going to like you, you're a fat ugly idiot to her then again, you are to me, too." ) Bakura and Yugi laughed. Finally they wrestled Joey out of the fight (Actually Tristan helped Joey kick the living daylights out of the enemy and then they got out of the fight while Yugi and the rest watched).
"
K!" Joey said through cracked and bleeding lips as they walked down the street. "Gramps' shop now, right?"
"Yup," Yugi replied. "You've never seen it before Bakura?!?"
Bakura's scream tore through the air. Running toward the voice, they saw him lying on the ground, bruised and terribly beaten up. He wasn't moving. Yugi checked his pulse and felt it beat weakly. White-faced, he yelled, "Somebody call an ambulance! Now!"
Seto Kaiba sat in the backseat of his car, running math problems and stock market predictions in his head. He felt the car pull over and looked out the window to see an ambulance speed by. Was it just his eyes or did he just notice Yugi and Joey in the window? He had of course seen Joey kick butt outside the schoolyard (or the other way around), but then that would mean he would be lying on the stretcher. He sighed. Whether he liked it or not, Kaiba was indebted to Yugi for saving his skin and Mokuba's when Pegasus stole their souls.
"Change of plans. Follow that ambulance," he told the driver.
"Yes, Mr. Kaiba."
Yugi sat shaking on a bench while Joey laid a comforting hand around his shoulders. The doctor stepped out of the intensive care unit, grim-faced.
"This will be hard," he said. "This fellow's got it off pretty bad. He took direct blows to the head. The skull cracked. From the X-rays we believe several splinters of the bone are in his brain. It's a surprise he's even alive this long. Do you know what happened to him?"
Shuddering violently, Yugi shook his head. Joey, Tea, and Tristan did the same.
"Care to explain what happened?"
As Joey launched into explanation, Yugi cut himself off from his best friend's words and directed his attention to his Millennium Puzzle.
/Yami? /yes, young one?
/Yami, you heard everything. What's going on? /
I do not yet know. Does he still have his Ring? The Eye? In the name of Amon-Ra, if those are missing, hell will erupt.
/shoot! I never thought about that. But/
but what, child?
/will he survive? He is so close to death already. He's my friend! /
That remains to be seen, Yugi. I am a Pharaoh, not a God.
/I wish you were. /
even so, it will not change the situation. If I were a God I would not speak to you. Keep your faith, little one! Not in the cards, not this time, but in yourself and Bakura's will to live. I must contemplate this. Search for the Items!
Yugi snapped to attention early enough to hear the doctor comment, "There might be a way. An operation, very expensive, about $10,000, could save him, but only if we work quickly. And even then he might not survive. If he does, God willing, he'll be crippled for life. What do you say?"
Joey met Yugi's gaze of helplessness and confessed softly, "I'm sorry Yug, I spent all my money on Serenity's eye surgery. I'm really sorry, bud."
Tea's eyes watered. "I-I'm calling his dad in England to let him know¦" she choked, stumbling toward the payphone, silent tears streaking down her face. After a meaningful glare from Tristan, Joey and Tristan followed her, leaving Yugi alone with the doc. Again he probed inside him, for Yami, but found the doors shut in his face as the spirit thought deeply. He touched his face, and to his surprise felt wetness there. How could he cry without noticing?
A sudden voice behind him startled Yugi into lifting his head.
"I believe I can help," said Seto Kaiba.
Yugi whirled around. "Kaiba?" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
"To repay a debt," he replied shortly. Yugi knew what he meant. Shifting his attention to the doctor he asked, "How much for the operation?"
"$10,000, Mr. Kaiba. It's a hell of a lot of money, if you ask me." The doctor subsided under Kaiba's steel-hard glare. Scribbling in his checkbook, the President of KaibaCorp ripped out the check and thrust it under the doctor's nose. The medic frowned. "That's only $2,000."
Kaiba's eyes narrowed. "I have health insurance. Very good health insurance."
The doctor quailed and nodded. Snatching the check with trembling hands, he hurried into the room where Bakura hung between the balance of life and death. Nodding with satisfaction, Kaiba turned his deep blue eyes to Yugi.
"Who is it this time? The old man again?" it was surprising how a cold arrogant man could change his voice to mild respect in an instant.
Yugi shook his head. "Bakura," he whispered.
"Bakura? Not that exchange kid who came in the beginning of the year?"
Yugi nodded.
"Yugi," (it wasn't a question) "I don't believe I'll ever be able to fully repay you. I don't like being in debt. I hardly ever have. What should I do?"
"What you just did," Yugi said in a hollow voice. It was so uncomfortable giving Kaiba advice, like he was equal. He was always superior over him before.
Just then Tea, Joey, and Tristan walked in.
"His dad is coming as soon as he can. I don't-," Tristan started.
"Kaiba?" Joey shouted.
Far from the respect he had been showing Yugi, Kaiba stared coldly at Joey and said, "So, the slobbering dueling monkey can't bear to see the man who defeated him like the whimpering dog he is."
Joey growled. "We'll see who's whimperin', Kaiba, when I bash the little brains you got!"
"Don't waste your breath. I could drop you where you stand with a twitch of my leg-,"
"Shut up!" Tea yelled through trickling tears. "This is about Bakura, not some stupid grudge! Shut-the-hell-up!"
Joey and Kaiba backed off with piercing glares. They didn't notice that while they were busy, Yugi had slipped inside Bakura's room and was sitting by his bed. Doctors swarmed around him, using weird tools and instruments to try and save his life. Through the tangle of arms and legs, Yugi searched for the Ring. They hadn't put him in one of those long shirts, and everything he originally had was still on him. Try as he might, he couldn't find it. Squeezing unnoticed through the mass of doctors, Yugi stuck his hand in Bakura's pockets, feeling for the Eye. It wasn't there either. He also realized his Duel Monsters deck was gone.
/Yami, wake up. /
What?
/he doesn't have them. Or his deck. I'm sure. /
shoot!!
/you know what that means, right? /
Pegasus
/what does he want now? /
the same things as before.
/wha the Items!/
release me. Now
/but/
what?
/I want to stay with Bakura/
you will. Don't worry
/good/
Yugi backed into a corner as Yami Yugi emerged. This time, as he struggled to get near Bakura, the doctors noticed him and shooed him out.
/see? Being a midget has its advantages. /
oh, shut the hell up
/nasty little drill sergeant, aren't you? /
Pharaoh, yes. Drill sergeant-methinks not in this millennium. Or any
Tea and Tristan jumped in surprise as Yami Yugi came back into the hall. Kaiba was leaning unconcerned on the wall as Joey asked, "Hey man, where you been?"
He sighed and leaned against the wall. "His Millennium Items are gone, I just checked, and now who knows what is going to happen. We have to find them."
Kaiba's eyes flashed. He pushed himself off the wall and said calmly despite his steel-clipped face, "Well, if that Eye is out again I'd better get Mokuba. Goodbye."
As he passed Joey, he muttered, "Dog."
Joey, pissed, made furious motions toward Kaiba. Tea caught his shoulder. Knowing, somehow, just knowing, Yami stuffed Yugi around in the soul room just as Joey's eyes met Tea's and they stared at each other with a kind of longing that would torment Yugi for months.
/ow. What did u do that for, Yami? /
grown-up stuff.
Yugi's mind voice was becoming irritated
/oh, just cause I'm smaller, less adapted to "real stuff", I'm being stuffed in the soul room? I hate this! Bakura's gonna die, the Items are gone, and I can't even try to see what's happening. Pharaoh-the day you act like a pharaoh is when you stop thinking about some Items and save Bakura before he's gone. idiot/
Yami didn't like it when his friend didn't trust him. He loved Yugi the way a father might love a son, and he would do anything to protect him. And yet, he knew Yugi needed to try out his own wings. He sighed inwardly. Ancient Egyptian proverb-the only way to protect something is to let it free. However, he let the Tea-Joey thing drop.
Yugi, don't let this go to your head. But, understand, if we're too late to stop whoever's doing this, then Bakura will die anyway, and everyone else with him, only dark powers can come when someone steals Items.
Yugi was still angry, but he knew Yami Yugi was too dignified to admit to a suggestion without a good reason. A good reason
/if you don't save him, make him right all the way, then it'll probably be too late to stop whoever has them/
what are you getting at?
/only Bakura knows who attacked him, right?/
ah. But didn't we agree it was Pegasus?
/no, we assumed. Don't ever assume./
lesson learned. But we cannot save Bakura, we don't know how
Then he saw Yugi's mental face set oddly tight, and cried
no, Yugi! Stop!
/you don't even know what I'm gonna do/
what ever it is, I sense its not good! Stop!
he felt the Millennium Puzzle grow hot. Unbearably hot. He raised the Millennium Puzzle to his face and watched as something that looked like neither water nor air well in the small groove of the iris of the Eye of Anubis. Like a tear threatening to fall.