Noot noot

Yami had stopped walking some time ago. It had taken a good while and some pleading from Yugi until he had pushed aside his pride and admitted that walking was doing them both more harm than good. His body was still screaming at him in protest of the abuse it had been put through.

As such, he had sat down on the ground at a nearby deserted park; deserted, because any normal human being was probably inside during this dreadful heat; and tried to retain what dignity he had left.

He carefully shifted his legs, trying to find a position that wouldn't hurt as much. That proved to be much harder than he expected.

With a grimace, he swept his hair to the side and tried his best to ignore the sweat dripping down his forehead. As much as he had tried to ignore it, he had made a horrible decision by keeping to his usual leather attire when coming to England. And why had he thought that wearing gold jewellery was a good idea?

It would actually be pretty ironic, he mused, if after all the danger that they had faced, it would be a heat-stroke that killed them. Yami had to muffle a snort, not wanting to make his broken bones worse. He also carefully kept the thought from Yugi. They could laugh about it later, when they were out of danger. They had to keep focus. Which was much easier said than done, really.

He still kept a watchful eye on the Shadows around him, however. It wouldn't do to expose himself to any innocent bystanders or draw the Shadows' attention to any potential victims while they were still restlessly flickering around him, looking to relieve their agitation.

'You said you're at a park?' Yugi's thoughts filtered in.

'Yeah.' Yami squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated, pushing an image across the link. Yugi sent back a wave of gratefulness and affection.

'Good.' Came a hum. 'I think I'm not far off anymore. I can sort of see some of the buildings from here. Are you doing alright?'

Yami gave a sigh of relief. 'Whatever magical presence was responsible for this, I'm at least glad we weren't dropped off at different sides of the country.' That would have been bad. And not just for them. 'And I'm alive, which is really all I can say for now.'

'Hmm.' Yugi acknowledged unhappily. 'Awfully convenient though, isn't it? The us being in the same place thing, I mean.' Yugi asked.

'I'll take 'convenient' for now and deal with all the other shit later.' Yami said.

Yugi's voice sounded tired in their shared minds. 'What makes you think there's more to come?' He asked with a yawn.

Yami frowned in concern. As bad off as he was, at least it was easier to stay awake thanks to the pain. What Yugi had was most definitely a concussion. He could feel the exhaustion weighing down heavily upon them. He had to keep him distracted and talking.

'Yugi, it's us. There's always more to deal with.' He smiled at the mental snort he received.

'Yeah, okay you got a point.' Yugi said, agreeably.

Yami sniffed. 'Of course I do, it's me.'

He could feel the mental eye-roll directed at him and huffed out a laugh, before giving another wince.

'So modest.' Yugi teased.

He was about to reply, when he looked up at the far end of the park. His lips parted to give a quiet exhale. 'I think I see you!'

The figure in distance lifted his head and scanned the land before him, squinting in the relative darkness. His felt a wave of relief wash over their mind link as Yugi's eyes found his and gave a small and exhausted, but honest smile.

Yami had given up on trying to stand for now, instead just taking in his partner's appearance as he approached. His eyes narrowed and he growled lowly, taking in all the details.

Yugi looked even worse than he had sounded, his hair haphazard, jacked ripped in places and dirty. Dried blood had left a trail from his forehead, running down to his chin and messing up the kohl. He had bags under his eyes and was swaying with every step he took. The only reason he was still upright was probably because of the Shadows who were propping him up from the sides. He looked like death warmed over.

Yami glowered at the sky. Whoever had done this to Yugi would pay. In a way that would leave them needing more than professional help. Unless that help included a professional mortician.

Because he would kill them.

He felt a mental poke, accompanied by dry amusement. 'Sleep first, murder later, Yami.'

By now Yugi was in a hearing-distance from him. Yami called upon the Shadows around him and they responded willingly enough, allowing him to prop himself up. However, even that put a considerable strain on his leftover power reserves and left him panting and and scowling. The last time he had been this low on power had been.. never. Yes, he had his fair share of near-death experiences, but never had he felt as helpless as he did right now.

Which looped him back to the constant burning question he had been asking since he woke up. What, by the gods, had happened?

He was forced to leave that question for later as Yugi stumbled the last few steps, reaching out towards him and Yami caught him easily; not falling over only because he had leaned against a tree; and pulled him close, despite the fact that his ribs were screaming at him in protest.

He let the Shadows lower them on the ground, already feeling much calmer now that they were back together. Even the Shadows quieted, content to let them recover while looking out for their surroundings.

"Yugi." He lifted his hand and gently brushed his knuckles against his partner's cheek, following the path of dried blood.

He also took the opportunity to examine the source of it. The cut rested right above Yugi's left brow, and went up in an uneven line until it disappeared in his hair. He could also see Shadow tendrils still clinging to it and realized that they had been trying to mend it. It wasn't perfect and it would scar, but at least it wasn't bleeding anymore.

"Mmm, Yami. Wake me up sometime next year. October sound good, yeah?" Yugi muttered, leaning into his touch, his hazy eyes slipping closed.

Yami lowered his head and let his cheek press against his partner's hair, holding him tighter.

"We can definitely do that." He promised. "But first, we really need to heal ourselves. And I can't do it alone right now." He said, frustration evident in his voice. Was this how normal people felt in these situations? Having to wait until someone showed up to help them and having to helplessly watch as they could do nothing to help themselves.

Yugi didn't object verbally. But he did give a mental groan as he sat up and chuckled miserably. "I haven't felt this bad since that time we decided to stay up for that charity livestream event and didn't sleep for 72 hours."

"At least that time we didn't suffer from any physical injuries, though."

"Touché." Yugi fished his deck out of the holster and pulled out a card without even looking at it. He held one of the ends toward Yami, who grasped it. Together, they closed their eyes and focused what little magical energy they had left in them to summon their friend.

In a shimmer of light, a woman with light blue skin, clad in green robes appeared before them. She gasped at the sight in front of her. Immediately kneeling, she stretched out her arms before them and closed her eyes, muttering in a melodic language that sounded like a song.

From her hands a light flashed and seemed to sink into their bodies, weaving through them, mending and fixing whatever injuries it could find. A small eternity later, which was probably just a couple of minutes but felt that much longer due to the energy drain, she was done, and the light receded.

Both Yami and Yugi leaned back, utterly exhausted, but now it had more to do with the mental strain and magical exhaustion, their physical injuries having been taken care of.

'Thank you.' They both sent, sincerity colouring their thoughts. The Mystical Elf bowed deeply before them and disappeared.

They both took a minute, enjoying the sensation of breathing freely without pain accompanying their every exhale.

Their thoughts, no longer clouded by pain and a shared concussion, began to align. It was then that Yugi suddenly stiffened in Yami's hold. He sent a questioning mental nudge in return.

"Seto is going to kill us." Yugi whispered. "It's been hours since we talked to him."

"Shit." Was Yami's eloquent contribution. That summed it up pretty nicely, in his opinion. However, neither made a move to grab the phone yet.

"Yami," Yugi started hesitantly, after a moment of silence. "I.. remember us calling Seto..but not the reason why.. or anything after that."

Yami was quiet for a minute.

"Ah. And there's the other shit." He finally sighed.

"Huh?" Yugi twisted his head, lifting it from Yami's chest, where he had collapsed after the healing, to peer into his eyes questioningly. Yami silently mourned the sudden lack of weight.

He twisted his neck to the side and released a sigh when it gave a satisfying crack. "Remember when I said earlier that we would deal with 'other shit' later? Well, here it is. I don't remember anything either."

"Oh." Yugi simply stated. He leaned back against Yami. "We should probably call Seto."

"You're probably right." Yami used his right hand to dig around his pockets, his left carefully supporting Yugi's side to make sure he wouldn't fall off. He let out a silent cheer when his efforts were rewarded and the phone hadn't been damaged in any way. Not that he had thought it would have been, Kaiba wouldn't stand for that sort of sub-par technology. This phone would likely survive the apocalypse.

He unlocked the phone and immediately hissed out a curse as the screen blinded him. Hurriedly he turned the brightness as low as it would go, before going to the call logs and dialling Kaiba's number.

After a couple of seconds the call disconnected itself. Yami stared at the phone in confusion. His eyes flickered to the little bars indicating the signal strength and frowned when he saw they were completely non-existent.

He tried again, with the same success. Then he tried calling Jou. Anzu. Honda. The Game shop. Duke.

All had the same outcome.

"Yami? What's wrong?" Yugi asked, and he just now noticed how his left hand was clenching at Yugi's jacket.

He released his death grip and smoothed the fabric down. "I can't call anyone." Another glance at the phone told him he had missed another significant thing. "There's no signal. And no internet connection. It's like it can't connect to anything."

Blinking rapidly, Yugi stared at him with wide eyes. "But that shouldn't even be possible!" He exclaimed, before nervously glancing around and lowering his voice. "Seto's phones are the best in the world. And since this was a personal.. ahh.. gift from him, there's pretty much nothing that in existence that could hinder it's functions."

Yami shook his head slowly, his eyes flickering to Yugi's. "I don't know, partner." He glanced around the park, suddenly feeling extremely uncomfortable and unwilling to stay here. "We better go." He advised. "We can find a hotel, rent a room and sleep to regain our strength. There's no way we can pull off a Shadow travel to the other side of the globe right now. We can worry about that in the morning."

Yugi worried his lip, but gave a reluctant nod, seeing the plan as a necessary one.

They stood up, or more like wobbled and barely resisted falling over, and slung their arms around each others' shoulders to provide some support. Together they stumbled to the side of the park where they could see some of the street lights flickering.

Yami gave a side-glance to his partner who looked like he would fall asleep on his feet any minute now. He would have happily carried him, but right now he could barely stand upright himself.

He shivered, the night air suddenly pressing down upon him and giving him goosebumps. Was that a side effect of the magical exhaustion or something else? Pressing closer to Yugi, he became aware that his partner was also shivering and his breath was leaving his lips and forming condensation in the air.

Okay. That was definitely not normal. It had been oppressively hot just a minute ago. The sudden chill felt foreboding and unnatural.

"Partner." He whispered, eyes darting around the place. "Fuck." He cursed uncharacteristically, spotting two figures in front of him, not far from where he was standing. Oh, he did not want to deal with more trouble right now.

"Mmpf." Yugi mumbled, leaning heavily into his side, his eyes completely closed. His breaths were even more visible now and they were short and shallow.

Yami could feel why. There was a foreign presence pressing down on their minds, trying to trespass into their hearts, trying to pull out their emotions: fear, bad memories and generally oppressing anything positive. Not that there was much positive about this situation to begin with.

He did what he could, slamming the doors of their soul rooms shut and bolting them for extra measure of protection. That didn't seem to be helping however, as something that looked like black sludge was pressing against the cracks around their doors and trying to seep in.

"Wha...?" He snarled and his eyes blazed as he used the Shadows to grab onto the sludge and forcibly pull it out from their minds, ripping it apart.

There was a strange, strangled shriek, which forced him to turn his attention back to the outside world.

His eyes opened; when had he closed them?; and he came face to face with a being that wouldn't belong even in the Shadow realm. It looked like something out of nightmares. A tall, gaunt figure floated over him, it's very aura reeking of death and misery. It floated towards them and reached out with it's skeletal hand, almost coming in contact with Yugi's shoulder.

Yami bared his teeth.

"You will not touch him." He spat menacingly, glaring hatefully at the abomination in front of him. Distantly, he heard one of the people he had seen before call out to him, but couldn't make out the words. To be honest, he had forgotten that they were even here. They were in for a show then, he thought grimly. There might be a hell to pay later for using his powers in front of non-Shadow users, but right now, he didn't and couldn't afford to care.

He dove deep into his soul and gathered the last renaming scarps of his reserves, firmly grasping the Shadows and pulling them closer and closer towards him.

The creature was just millimetres from Yugi as he released his tight hold onto the Shadows and watched with wicked satisfaction, able to feel the Shadows' combined emotions, as they gleefully and mercilessly launched themselves at the thing, crashing into it and tearing it into pieces, leaving nothing behind.

He gave a choked laugh and basked in the feeling of extreme vicious righteousness, only realising that he had fallen to his knees when he felt the impact of the fall.

With the utmost care, he lowered Yugi on the ground, before his body completely gave out and he collapsed next to him.

'Oh, it's warm again..' Was his last coherent thought, before he lost consciousness for the second time that night.

Somewhere, Kaiba was probably laughing at him.

A/N yay. New chapter. We're actually getting harry's pov next time. Stay tuned.