Umbrae: ((watches her inbox fill with reviews)) YAY! I'm so happy everyone seems to have discovered that the sequel has been posted. Though, perhaps I should be worried. Does this mean I'm being stalked?

Bakura: Erm… no? ((innocent look))

Umbrae: Hmmm… oh well. Bring on the paparazzi. I will dazzle them with the mace I got for Christmas! FEAR THE MACE!!

Ryou: You got Mace for Christmas?

Umbrae: College campuses are dangerous for innocent little girls.

Bakura: You are hardly innocent.

Ryou: BAKURA?!

Bakura: She gets amusement from killing people off! That's hardly a trait belonging to a childlike individual.

Umbrae: Be careful, Bakura. Normally, I'd tell you that I'll write you into a book and kill you off if you don't behave but, seeing as you're already in a book…

Bakura: Bite me, Wolfie.

Umbrae: Is that a retort, or a request?

Ryou: MINE!

Umbrae: Yeesh, Ryou. Don't suffocate him. Anyway, thank you all for the reviews for the last chapter – responses to them can be found after the chapter. Please enjoy and, as always…

Live long. Live well. Write.

Light Summons

II

It had been a few days since school had started, and Yami had grown very distant. Since they each had their own bodies, they could easily talk face-to-face, rather through the mind link or in their Soul Rooms, and although Yugi loved being around Yami physically, he missed the visits to each others Soul Rooms. He missed the way that they had been so close when they shared a body, and this sudden distancing was beginning to terrify the small boy.

So Yami being so close-mouthed around him was icing on a very bitter cake.

It had all started when Yugi had locked eyes with that strange girl in the classroom. Yugi hadn't met her eyes since that moment, but nor had she spoken to him or Yami in any manner. There was something that Yami wasn't saying, though, and it had Yugi worried. Something about that girl, and the name she went by.

They had both reacted to the name Sagira, but Yugi was certain that he had never heard it before in his life. Yami apparently had, however, and whatever meaning the name had to him, it had shocked him deeply.

Deeply enough that he had closed himself off almost entirely from Yugi.

That was why, instead of going home right after school with a rather anti-social Yami, Yugi had opted to take a walk to the hospital to visit Bakura and Ryou. He had their homework with him, to give him a reason to be let into the hospital by the nurses (who were still very unhappy about the incident with "the dog named Joey"), but he really wanted to talk to Bakura.

He hoped Bakura would be willing to talk to him. Although he was far nicer and easier to get along with than he had been previous to their adventure in the Shadow Realm, Bakura was still very much a loner. The only people who were able to get really close to him were Ryou, for obvious reasons, and, strangely enough, Tristan.

Speak of the devil, Yugi thought, as he spotted the spiky-haired brunette through the doorway. Tristan was sitting on a chair by the bed, strumming his guitar with a pensive look on his face. Ryou was sitting on the bed with Bakura and it looked as though the three had been in a conversation, but Tristan had just floated off at some point.

Artists, Yugi mused, shaking his head with a smile. His mother had been the same way.

"Good afternoon, Yugi," Ryou greeted, omniscient and polite as always.

Yugi smiled, stepping through the doorway and into view. "Hi, Ryou," he replied with a grin, "Bakura, Tristan."

Bakura grunted lightly in response and Tristan waved absentmindedly. Yugi mentally shrugged. He really hadn't expected anything different.

"How was school, Yugi?" Ryou asked, seemingly the only one up for a conversation.

"It was okay," Yugi admitted, "but I'm having some trouble with English this year. I wish Joey could come to class." Ryou tilted his head to the side, a curious expression on his face. Yugi had a feeling he already knew why Yugi wished this, but was humoring him. He mentally thanked the albino for not being an egotistical, narcissistic fruit loop, and added, "Our teacher has a really strange American accent, and it's hard to catch what he's saying."

Ryou laughed at this. "Yes, Joey would be able to tell better than the rest of us. I sometimes wonder why he moved to Japan."

"Probably to get away from everyone who speaks in that horrible accent he still holds onto," Bakura mumbled darkly.

Yugi grinned, able to perfectly recall Joey's idiosyncratic Brooklyn flair. "I like Joey's accent," he admitted, "it's unique. Definitely a Joey-thing."

Tristan chuckled, strumming a couple strings. "Yes, definitely Joey," he added with a smirk, back from whatever musical land he had mentally floated off to. "I think he moved here with his parents after Serenity was born," he admitted. "His mom was born in America, but lived in Japan with her aunt and uncle, I think. She met Joey's dad when they were visiting some relatives in America, and I think she just liked it here better." He strummed a few more strings and came out with a rather catchy tune. Smiling, he removed the pencil from behind his ear and wrote a few notes down on the pad on his knee.

"That explains it, I guess," Bakura growled.

"Ignore him," Ryou suggested to Yugi. "He's just mad because they won't let him leave the hospital until tomorrow."

Yugi raised his handful of books. "Well, that'll give you time to do the homework, then." He smiled shyly at Bakura's less-than-potent glare. "Umm… Bakura," he said after a moment's hesitation, "I was hoping I could… ask you something."

Tristan paused his strumming, looking at Yugi curiously, and Ryou leaned back against the wall with a smile on his face. Bakura studied the boy before him thoughtfully. "What?" he asked, but it was less ferocious than it could have been.

"Well," Yugi began hesitantly, "do you know anything about a girl named… Sagira?"

Bakura twitched at the name, his eyes widening a minuscule amount. Yugi wouldn't have caught it if he hadn't been watching the tomb robber, but he had noticed the movement. His violet eyes locked with Bakura's grey orbs and he silently begged the tomb raider to tell him… tell him what he knew… what Yugi needed to know.

"Have you talked to the pharaoh about this?" he demanded, answering the desperate question with another, less-desirable one.

Yugi sighed, lowering his gaze to the floor. "He won't talk to me," he muttered. "He's so… distant. It… it scares me," he admitted, his shoulders slumping. "I feel like we're falling apart and I don't know what to do." His eyelids drooped half-closed, as Yugi fell back into an all-too-familiar stance; one that he had held back before he completed the Millennium Puzzle. Tristan, who had been sitting quietly in the chair, sat up straight at the movement. He recognized the position. It was one of submissiveness; the one that Yugi had held back before he and Joey stopped being such royal asses to the poor kid. He'd seen the stance a thousand times, recognize it anywhere, and hate himself every time he recalled seeing Yugi in that position, knowing he had gone for years only causing the boy more pain.

Right now, he was mentally kicking himself repeatedly in the head.

"I just… I miss the way things used to be," Yugi continued, his voice breaking. He silently cursed himself for being so weak. He had been trying to keep this from getting to him, but nearly a full week of Yami almost refusing to talk to him had just about shattered Yugi, and he couldn't contain it anymore. Things had never been this bad before. Yami had never willingly refused to speak to him. This was almost the equivalent of the ordeal with the Seal of Oricalchos, when Yugi's soul had been taken away and he was separated from Yami. There had been silence then, but it was worse now because, now, it was by Yami's choice.

Hot tears slipped down his cheeks, burning angrily as they traced his pale flesh. "Doesn't he want to be my yami anymore, now that he's… separate?" he pleaded brokenly.

"Oh, Yugi," Ryou whispered, coming over to Yugi's side and wrapping the small boy in a hug. Yugi buried his face in Ryou's shirt and sobbed. "Of course he still wants to be your yami. He'll never stop wanting that. Yami loves you very much. He's just… dealing with something at the moment."

Tristan frowned, barely restraining a growl. He couldn't hope to understand the connection that Yugi shared with Yami, but he knew they were close. Now that he had stopped being such a dickhead, he was also pleasantly aware of what true friendship was, and he wouldn't give that up for anything in the world. He couldn't understand how Yami could think to cast Yugi aside so easily. Didn't he see how much pain he was causing the poor kid?

"But what?" Yugi begged, giving a meager voice to Tristan's raging thoughts. "What could be bothering him so much that he won't even tell me? I love him so much, Ryou. I just want to help him, but he won't let me in. Why… why won't he let me in?"

Ryou still held Yugi close, as he looked over at Bakura sitting on the bed. The white-haired tomb robber had been watching the proceedings with eternally-calculative grey eyes, but he hadn't thought that he was the one meant to reveal the answers to Yugi's blazing questions. From the look on Ryou's face, the albino didn't feel the same way.

"It's not my secret," he muttered through the mind-link, continuing a previously-unspoken argument. "This is the pharaoh's burden."

"You hold the secret as well as Yami, and right now, he can't bring himself to tell anyone. I think we're going to need to know, in order to help him," Ryou replied calmly, his soft crimson eyes locked with Bakura's.

"You already know," the tomb robber retorted childishly, weakly demanding that someone else take the responsibility from him. It was a futile argument and he knew it, but it wasn't in his nature not to fight.

"Bakura…" Ryou reprimanded loosely. He didn't like acting like he knew everything, and truthfully, he didn't know a great deal, unless he looked. Of course, he had looked in on this, the moment that he felt the tension between Yugi and Yami. Bakura had felt it first, actually, being more prone to hold the darkness of their balance. Still, he was merely a channel to these powers. Bakura knew because he had lived it. "Tell him, Bakura," he said, his voice sounding weary with the weight of the knowledge that he held, "he needs to know."

Bakura sighed softly, his eyes closing as he surrendered to Ryou's wishes. He drew a breath, seeming to think on the precise way to answer. "Sagira is… was… Yami's sister," he admitted with a soft growl, clearly not pleased by the memory that came to mind, or his duty to relive and reveal it. "She is the cause of one of the bloodiest massacres in Egypt."


Umbrae: Well, that sounds decidedly unpleasant.

Bakura: So there's a psychopathic three thousand year old Egyptian princess going to Domino High School?

Umbrae: Maybe.

Bakura: Hell. I refuse to attend.

Umbrae: Don't worry, Bakura. You won't have to.

Bakura: Thank Ra. Wait a second – why?!

Umbrae: Review responses!!

Jisa: Thanks! I'm glad you like it and I hope you enjoyed this chapter, as well!

YugiYamiFanGirl: Some answers lead to yet more questions… lol. I'm glad you like it so far and I hope this chapter was just as enjoyable.

SilverDragon-Purity: ^^ I already sent you the answer to your question, but in reiteration, a Mary-Sue (or the male equivalent, Gary-Stu) is your stereotypical pretty-perfect OC who almost always gets into trouble, needs to be rescued, and ends up marrying the main character. A "author puts herself into fic" gone wrong. Anyways, I updated and I hope you enjoyed it! ^^

Happinessxandxrainbows: Female villains are rare, though I tend to have a number of them in my novels. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be pleased with what I have in store for everyone (to a point, at least – it is drama). Oh, and Rebecca is still evil, and so is her possessed teddy bear of doom (YuGiOh! Abridged – my no own nor create. Sob with me children; sob with me).

Gothabie283: I'm glad you're excited and I hope you liked the chapter!

Umbrae: Thank you everyone for your lovely reviews! They make me so happy and I feel so loved. ^^ I hope you enjoyed the chapter and will grace me again with your cherished opinions. I'll have the next chapter up soon enough. I just have to type it up and send it out to my lovely, lovely, super-amazing beta, Wolf Flash, whose stuff you should go read. Now. Greater Than a Pharaoh, Lesser Than a Slave is brilliant, I tell you! A work of art! I am blinded by its utter beauty and it causes me to weep.

Anyways, I'll see you again next chapter and, as always…

Live long. Live well. Write. Read. Dream.