Author's Note: I'm sorry for the superly long update. Really.

Crowds parted before him like water before the prow of a ship. People couldn't seem to be able to get out of his way fast enough, scrambling to the sides of his path and trembling in fear of the death that blazed in this archangel's eyes. Yami took no notice of them, his goal was singular and he moved toward it without regard to anyone else. He found them standing before the entryway to the park, conversing with Kaiba in hushed tones.

Obviously they were trying to get him to increase the security around the area, but Kaiba was shaking his head in denial, the security was fine. Yami felt none of his usual anger rise up when he saw his arch-nemesis, he felt nothing at all. He simply continued forward to approach them.

Joey raised his fist in front of Kaiba's face, making an angry retort, and pointed in the direction Yami had come from. His harsh words reached his ears a moment later.

"This is serious! There is someone in the park Kaiba, and we think he might be after Yugi!" Joey stared at him, trying to intimidate him. But as Kaiba stood a full head taller than all of them, the tactic did not work too well.

He smirked, and took a sip of his glass. "Well then he shouldn't have-" Kaiba began, but the rest of his sentence was lost as he happened to look over their heads to see the dark figure approaching them.

The others whirled around at his dumbfounded expression, and time seemed to freeze again. Kaiba's glass slipped through his fingers to shatter on the hard ground, but no one took notice. They were all staring at Yami, and more specifically, the figure he cradled in his arms with infinite tenderness.

He met their stunned eyes alternately, ending with Kaiba. For the span of a heartbeat no one said a word, and then time returned to normal and everyone reacted at once. Tea screamed and stepped back, unable to process what was going on. Tristan moved not at all, he just stared at Yugi with an unreadable expression on his face and tears in his eyes. His jaw was set in a hard line.

Only Joey found the courage to move forward, locking his brown eyes with Yami's. A wordless question passed between them. Yami nodded solemnly, and at Joey's heart-broken and torn expression, a touch of his old self came back to him. He found the strength to whisper, in a voice that threatened to break any second.

"I'm sorry Joey, I was too late. Yugi is gone."

A thousand emotions spun across his face at once. Anger, sorrow, denial, rage, guilt, love, despair, all of these and more made Joey's eyes water with tears. He held out his hand and touched Yugi's pale face, choking back a sob when he felt how cold he was. Yami sympathized completely, and for a moment, he was able to push away the growing darkness and suffer with his friend.

The absence of his motivation made him feel weak, vulnerable, but he willingly paid the price to share one last humanly emotional moment with all of his friends. Eventually the others made their way over, tears flowing down their faces and mixing still with the steady drizzle. Only Kaiba stayed back, unable to accept that what he saw was real, and those 'fairy-tales' people had been giving him for years were actually true.

Joey wordlessly held out his arms, and Yami handed Yugi over without a moment's hesitation. Joey shared nearly as strong a bond with Yugi as Yami did, and so he knew how much this must hurt. Joey held him close and Tea and Tristan put their arms around him too, sobbing together and lamenting their loss. Yami stood just behind them, shaking with the effort of containing his poisonous feelings.

Then, Kaiba finally lost it. "Pull yourselves together! This is obviously some sort of trick! He's using some kind of doll or a robot to fool you all, watch!" And with that, he started toward Joey threateningly, intending to grab Yugi and prove that this was all fake. He made it about half a step before Yami lost control again.

In a single fluid movement, Yami snapped the dagger out and whipped it forward, pointing it toward Kaiba. He froze, looking at Yami in amazement.

"Take another step Kaiba and you will pay the price." Yami said softly, shaking hard. An aura of darkness enveloped his form subtly, and Kaiba felt himself shuddering at the sheer hatred burning in Yami's eyes. He retreated with a hard expression.

Yami could feel his soul freezing over again, and he coolly placed the knife back in his belt. His voice was flat and expressionless as he moved back to Joey.

"I'm taking him home."

Grandpa was lounging on the couch watching T.V, when he heard the soft chime of the door's bell clinging. About time those youngsters got back. He grumbled to himself.

"Yugi?" He called. "What took you so long?" He turned to the open doorway to see a man cloaked in shadows stretching his hand out toward him. Red-violet eyes stared at him, and suddenly he felt his own eyes grow tired and heavy. Seconds later he dropped to the couch, snoring loudly, and Yami slipped upstairs.

Yami lay Yugi down on his bed and tucked the covers up to his chin. Then he paused, fighting again to hold back the tears that needed to be cried.

He felt like he had been violently thrust into a conflict which could have no winner. Yugi: his best friend, his soul companion, his brother... was gone. Taken from him with one thrust of a cold blade. And worse, there was some sort of ulterior motive buried behind this series of events that most would pass off as no more than a freakish coincidence. Somehow there was a purpose to all of this, for whoever stuck the fatal blow must have been responsible for the fact that Yami had gained a body to call his own as well. Most likely trying to weaken him, for other people had tried and failed to stop the Pharaoh by targeting his friends before. But this was different, Yugi's loss hurt him in ways that could never be fully explained... or healed.

They were two halves of the same coin. Light and shadow, Yami and Hikari. Without one, the other would be incomplete. Yami knew that without Yugi, those dark powers that had been buried within him for so long would seek to rise up and destroy him. Without Yugi's light to balance his buried evil, Yami feared most of all that he would become a black and twisted shell of his former self, and he would bring more harm to those close to him.

That line of thinking brought Marik to his mind abruptly. Marik had struggled against a darker side for a long while, but had eventually gotten rid of it by fighting as hard as he could. But Marik was not alone then, and despite the fact that Yami was surrounded by friends that loved him just as much as they loved Yugi, Yami had never felt so alone in his entire life. It was as though there was a gaping hole in his heart that was slowly consuming him, piece by painful piece.

He stood shaking at the foot of the bed, trying so hard to cry; to let loose the sadness within him and perhaps begin the long process of healing. But he could not find the strength, and his trembling lips thinned into a hard and grim line. He bottled away his emotions, used them to fuel the newfound goal he held within himself. He needed to find Yugi's killer, needed to resolve this hatred that burned within him. And he figured that he knew exactly where to begin looking.

He opened the window to expose the night sky, and slipped out onto the roof agilely. The rain had stopped for now, leaving everything cold and fresh, which Yami found ironically fitting, considering the situation.

Leaping down the building with speed and grace, he disappeared into the night to begin his quest.

A/N: And now it begins!