Chapter Four
True Night
Everyone was tense as they chose a path to try. Yami Bakura decided they should go with the one from the last round, since there hadn't been any booby traps for quite some time and then, only the statue. He would keep Bakura from picking it up this time, and hopefully they could stay alert for whatever else might come at them.
"This is such a dreary place," Bakura commented as they walked. "And . . . that's strange. I thought the sky of Dark Sanctuary was always red?"
"Hmm?" Yami Bakura looked to where Bakura was pointing. They had advanced quite far down the hall by now. At the other end was a window, through which a very gray and stormy sky was visible. Lightning flashed every now and then, although rain did not fall.
"Oh man, what now?" Tristan moaned. "Maybe now something's going wrong because you didn't keep up the masquerade!" He glared at Yami Bakura.
"Unless the window shatters and cuts us to pieces, it shouldn't be a problem," Yami Bakura retorted.
"It don't seem like there's any rooms down here, though," Joey said nervously. "Just this long hallway and the dead-end window. Maybe we should turn around and go back."
"It is kind of weird that there doesn't seem to be anything," Yugi said. "It could be a trick and there actually is a lot down here, hidden in wall panels or the floor. Or maybe it really is a dead-end path meant to throw us off-track."
They made it to the window without incident. Looking down, there was a long drop, with the ground hidden by dark clouds.
"That's weird too," Joey said. "I thought we were on the ground floor!"
"Apparently not," Yami Bakura grunted.
"I think we should turn around and go back, guys," Téa worried. "This is really creeping me out!"
They all turned around. The hall was visible for a while, but then faded into darkness.
"Okay," Joey said slowly. "What do you think that means?!"
"Maybe we'll see the lights again when we get closer to them," Tristan said. "Isn't that how some games' graphics are?"
"Yeah," Yugi said slowly. "Only it wasn't that way coming forward. Why would it be that way going back?"
"I knew we should've tried just staying put!" Tristan ranted. "Or sticking with the masquerade. Whatever's going wrong here, I'm sure you caused it!" He pointed at Yami Bakura, who growled.
"Don't blame this all on me!" he snapped. "Perhaps none of this would be happening if you and Joey hadn't made nuisances of yourselves regarding Bakura's private business!"
"They were just worried!" Téa protested.
"Well, we wouldn't have made nuisances of ourselves if you hadn't come back in the first place!" Tristan yelled.
"But Atem and Shadi sent him back!" Yugi cried over the din. "There had to be a good reason for it!"
"STOP!"
Everyone jumped a mile. Bakura was standing in front of them, fists clenched, eyes flashing. But when he had their attention, he sighed, his shoulders slumping.
"I suppose perhaps we're all at fault. I shouldn't have been so upset either. I know you were only worried about me. But it does hurt that you won't give Yami a fair chance when you gave them to Marik and the bikers."
"That's a good point, guys," Yugi said quietly.
Tristan looked away, glaring at the wall.
"Well, maybe if he'd give us good reason to trust him," Joey said.
"I've come to trust him. And he saved my life! Why isn't any of that good enough?!" Bakura walked over to Yami Bakura. "We're all stranded in this world, and while I don't know why, I do know we need to work together to get back out. How can we do that if we're always arguing and refusing to trust in each other?!"
". . . We can't," Téa said.
"So let's stick together and rally around each other," Bakura pleaded.
Joey finally nodded. "I'll give it a try."
"I just hope we won't end up needing to rely on Yami Bakura to get out," Tristan muttered.
"Tristan!" Téa frowned.
"Okay, okay." Tristan started forward. "Let's go."
They headed back down the hall. But as they did, they found they were walking into the darkness instead of the other candles lighting up again.
"This is just freaky," Téa moaned. "What's going on here?!"
"I have a bad feeling that we're walking into a bad ending," Yugi gulped.
"An ending?!" Bakura repeated, clearly bewildered. "What are you talking about, Yugi?!"
Yami Bakura gripped Bakura's hand. "Nevermind," he muttered. "It looks like now we know how much time we have to find our solution."
The darkness covered them all.
True Reality
Joey jumped a mile as thunder boomed outside the Game Shop. "Oh man, that's really creepy!"
"People died in horrible ways and it's being covered by the darkness that scares you?" Téa said in disbelief.
"All of it was awful!" Joey retorted. "I barely even remember it, just the bits and pieces I was getting back when Yugi called. I'm glad I don't remember everything!"
"And it sounds like we wasted a lot of that round just arguing about everything," Tristan frowned.
Atem nodded. "And there were other rounds that were spent trying desperately to find the way out of the Shadow Game without arguing about it, and time still ran out."
"So what happened?" Tristan asked. "It couldn't have really been that I was right all along and doing nothing was the solution."
"Hey, that was my idea first!" Joey interjected.
"No, that didn't work either," Atem agreed. "Eventually everyone was so worn-down that they tried that as well."
"Was there really so little time to look for it?" Bakura wondered. "It sounded like it couldn't have been more than thirty minutes or possibly an hour."
"As you all later learned, it wasn't that time had run out, it was that you went down a path you weren't supposed to go," Atem said. "That was an automatic bad ending."
"Oh my." Bakura shuddered. "And my forgetting everything each time it reset. . . . Did I ever learn the truth of why we were stranded there, that you were all trying desperately to save me?"
"Well," said Atem, "we're getting ahead of ourselves. I'll continue the tale."
True Night
No one was surprised when they found themselves back in the grand hall with Bakura asleep on the couch. They were all, however, upset and distressed.
"I'm still sure you must have caused that by giving up and agreeing that you're who Bakura thought you were," Tristan said to Yami Bakura.
"Then why didn't time reset immediately?" Yami Bakura shot back. "That demon was lying about that being a problem!"
"We don't know that!" Tristan insisted.
"And you don't know the truth of what you're saying either," Yami Bakura growled.
"I think Bakura was right that we're all to blame for being stranded here in general," Yugi said. "But as for what happened on the last round, I'm pretty sure we either ran out of time or we just walked down a bad path. Sometimes in puzzle games, if you make a wrong choice, it's an automatic Game Over."
"Oh great. It should have told us that before we walked all the way down there!" Joey cried, messing up his hair.
"Maybe it did," Yugi said. "Maybe that was why things looked so different out that window. It could have been a warning not to go that way."
Téa sighed. "Yami Marik sure went to a lot of trouble designing this place."
"Oh, for him it was no trouble at all," Yami Bakura growled. "I'm sure he enjoyed every moment of it."
"And the creep's probably watching us all right now!" Tristan ranted. "Sitting somewhere, laughing like the maniac he is, relishing every time we screw up and have to start over!"
Bakura started and woke up. ". . . Oh. What's going on?" He blinked up at everyone. "Did I miss something?"
"Do you feel like you missed something?" Yami Bakura grunted.
"Well, I don't know. . . ." Bakura sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the couch. "I know I must have, because everyone is dressed like Duel Monsters. Except me. That's odd." He looked up at Yami Bakura. "What's going on, Yami?"
Yami Bakura debated with himself before replying. "I am The Dark Ruler." He still didn't think Yami Marik was telling the truth about revealing their identities being a problem. But it did look like they couldn't do that without arguing among themselves, and he didn't want to waste any more time on that.
Bakura stared at him. "Well, I know you wouldn't be playing a trick like that on me, so you must be under a spell. All of you!" He stared at the others.
"I guess you could say that," Yugi said sheepishly.
"We need to get you out of here and back to your dimension," Yami Bakura said. "The key is somewhere in this castle."
"If I go back, all of you go back as well," Bakura retorted. "I won't leave without you!"
"First let's focus on finding out how to leave," Yugi said.
"Yeah," Joey nodded. "So if you're feeling up to it, let's go see what we can come up with."
"Alright." Bakura got off the couch. "Which way shall we go?"
"There are eight paths, and we've tried two of them," Yami Bakura said, assuming Bakura would think he meant that they were tried before Bakura woke up. "Let's try this one." He walked over to one of the untested paths.
The others followed.
"Man, this is such a freaky place," Joey quavered, staring at the skull designs on the walls and on the candle holders. "I don't wanna be here!"
"I wonder if any of these could be some kind of clue," Yugi mused, studying them. Finally he reached up, touching the nearest wall sconce. Nothing happened.
"If you're not careful, a poisoned dart could shoot out of one of them," Yami Bakura grunted.
"Then everyone stand to the side," Yugi said, doing likewise before touching another.
This time a panel in the wall creaked open, revealing another room beyond.
"This looks promising," Bakura said, going forward to peer inside.
"Be careful!" Yami Bakura snapped. He hurried over as well.
"It looks perfectly alright, Yami," Bakura said.
"Looks can be deceiving." Yami Bakura grabbed a candelabra and threw it into the secret room. It clattered on the stone floor and lay still.
"I guess we can go in then, right?" Téa hoped.
"We can try," Yugi said, although he still looked worried.
The group slowly advanced into the room, but Bakura stopped. "Wait! I wonder if we should try to prop the door open? We don't want to get stuck in here like we did in that cave at Duelist Kingdom."
"Oh, we sure don't," Téa moaned. "But what could we even use?"
"A table, maybe?" Bakura went over to a small black table and started pushing it towards the doorway. It fit inside just right, and he climbed over it to join the others.
"Alright!" Joey exclaimed. "Now, if the door tries to close, it'll get a mouthful of wood!"
"But what's in here anyway?" Yugi wondered. "It looks completely bare, except for this spiral staircase going up. . . ."
"Then I guess that's where we're going!" Joey said. "Onward, troops!"
Yami Bakura glowered at the stone steps as they slowly went up each twist and turn. Nothing was happening, but he had a foreboding persistent enough that he was worried. He would have to keep a close watch on Bakura.
Yugi was the first to arrive at the top. As soon as he stepped onto the floor, he let out a gasp.
"Oh no! What is it?!" Téa cried. She rushed up to join him, and also gasped. "No way!"
The others hurried up to join them. "What the heck is the problem?!" Joey exclaimed. But then he saw.
On the wall was a series of portraits, each depicting one of their past failures. The one closest to the stairs showed Yami Bakura collapsed with the axe in his back. The next depicted Joey impaled on a spear. The third showed Yami Bakura cradling Bakura's lifeless and poisoned body. The last featured all of them fading into the dark. Under each painting was engraved R.I.P.
"Okay, now that's just sick," Tristan snarled. "Just what we'd expect of that psycho!"
Yami Bakura swore under his breath.
"Whatever is wrong?" Bakura asked. Despite Yami Bakura's attempt to block his view, he soon saw. He gasped in stricken alarm. "Yami Marik put up all of these horrible pictures to scare us?!"
"Something like that," Tristan said, not about to admit that they had actually happened.
"That's outrageous!" Bakura exclaimed.
"It doesn't look like there's anything else to see up here," Téa said, "except that it looks like this hall could go on forever!"
Everyone was struck silent with horror at the thought. An infinite amount of pictures could be placed along the hall, in many rows, and on both sides. And how many would actually fill this hall before they were free?
"Yeah, let's go back down," Tristan said in disgust. "We don't need to stick around here."
The group quickly retreated. To their relief, the table was still holding the wall open. They climbed over it and back into the hall. Bakura pulled the table away, replacing it in the hall.
Yami Bakura quickly noticed that his hands were shaking. "Those paintings really shook you up, eh?"
Bakura shuddered. "Oh Yami, they were horrible! . . . Well, I didn't really understand the last one, but the others were clear enough. I don't think I'll ever be able to get those images out of my mind!"
Yami Bakura gave a weary sigh. Hopefully in future rounds, if there were any more, Bakura would not have to see that room. He didn't particularly care to see it again himself.
"Just concentrate on the here and now," he said. "Don't think about graphic paintings. They're only paintings. Just remember that. The one who trapped you in here just wanted to shake you up."
"Aren't you bothered?" Bakura frowned. "You were dead in one of them. And . . . you were holding me in another. . . ."
Yami Bakura looked away, glowering at the wall. "What do you think?"
Bakura stepped closer to him. "I think you were very badly bothered."
"Of course I was bothered," Yami Bakura snapped, still half-trying to keep up the illusion of being The Dark Ruler. "Those paintings were the work of a sick mind."
"And a sadistic one." Bakura swallowed hard. "Yami, why won't you admit to who you are? Why won't any of you admit it?"
"You already came up with a theory for that," Yami Bakura retorted. "Don't you still believe it?"
"Well, I don't know," Bakura said. "I'm really not sure I do. None of you act like you're under a spell; you all act like your usual selves! But if you're not under a spell, then the only other explanation is that for some reason you feel you have to pretend not to know who you are. I suppose that could be the work of Yami Marik. Maybe he told you you have to act like that as a rule of this Shadow Game. That's what this is, isn't it?"
Yami Bakura growled. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"I just have this feeling that I'm missing something," Bakura said with a sigh. "I only wish I knew what."
"Just focus on the here and now," Yami Bakura insisted. "We'll keep going down this hallway and maybe we'll find some other clues."
Bakura sighed again. "Alright, Yami."
"Hey, I've got an idea," Joey suddenly announced. "Let's go find the kitchen! Even if there's no clues, I always think better on a full stomach."
Téa facepalmed. "This isn't the time for a food break!"
"Food sounds pretty great to me right now too," Tristan said. "Maybe there'll even be some melons!"
"And then we can do our victory dance!" Joey hooted.
"Why not do it now?" Tristan countered. "For practice!"
Everybody stared when they draped their arms over each other's shoulders and started to dance down the hall and sing. "Can can, kick a little can can, show me who's the man man . . ."
Yami Bakura didn't often display utter shock, but he did now. "My shadow saw them do that in the Capsule Monsters world and I still don't believe it."
Bakura chuckled awkwardly and scratched his cheek. "Well, at least they're not letting this place get them down completely, I suppose. . . ." And then he started in realization. "Oh! Yami, you finally admitted to who you are!"
Yami Bakura growled. "Those dolts startled me so badly I wasn't thinking . . . although their actions already showed their identities. You're right that that demon imposed that rule on us and claimed something would go terribly wrong if we didn't follow through and pretend to be Duel Monsters. However, I'm not sure I believe him."
"Oh dear," Bakura worried.
"And hey, have either of you guys thought that going into the kitchen could be dangerous?!" Téa called after Joey and Tristan. "The food could be poisoned! Or maybe all the knives have been rigged to shishkabob intruders!"
The boys froze.
"Actually, no, we didn't think of that," Tristan admitted.
"So we'll just go in careful," Joey said.
"There's another problem," Yugi said. "We don't even know where the kitchen is!"
"Aww yeah." Joey frowned. "Seems like we would've run into it by now if it's down this way."
"Unless there's another secret passage leading there from here or something," Tristan suggested. He wasn't fully serious, but when he leaned on the wall and a panel swung open to send him inside, everyone jumped a mile.
"No way! For real?!" Joey ran over, but stumbled to a halt when Tristan gasped in pain.
"Yeah," Tristan mumbled, "but this . . . didn't lead to the kitchen." He straightened and staggered back into the hall, a knife caught in his ribcage in the one spot the armor over his upper torso didn't cover.
Bakura screamed. "Tristan!"
Yami Bakura swore. Tristan collapsed, bleeding heavily on the stone floor. Joey and Yugi immediately rushed to his aid, while Téa stood in horror.
"What do we do?!" she cried. "You're not supposed to remove the blade!"
"Well, it's not like we can call on the paramedics to do it!" Joey shot back. He pulled the knife out as Tristan choked back a cry.
Yugi bit his lip and tried to examine the wound. His hands shook. Before today, he had never seen such graphic injuries, and he really wasn't sure what to do now that he was looking at one. He felt like he was going to be sick.
Yami Bakura snarled and dropped to his knees next to the wounded boy. It was strange that they hadn't had a Game Over yet. Maybe only because Tristan was still alive. Or . . . was it because it wasn't a fatal wound and he could be saved?
He tore off part of his robe and pressed it against the cruel hole. Tristan started, staring at him with an expression that was a clear mix of fear, panic, and hatred. He struggled, trying to move away from him.
"Tristan, stop it!" Yami Bakura snapped. "Even if you can't believe I care about you, can't you recognize that I don't want anything more to happen to Bakura?!"
Bakura blinked rapidly, bewildered. "Me? But . . . what have I got to do with this?! It's Tristan who's hurt!"
"Out of everyone here, I most likely know the most about wounds," Yami Bakura continued. "Hold still and let me work!"
Tristan just glowered. "If you have to treat me, I'd rather be dead," he coldly rasped.
Yami Bakura stared at him. The others gasped.
"Tristan?!" Téa exclaimed. "You don't really mean that!"
Bakura turned away. "After everything he said earlier, I could almost believe he does, but . . ." He slowly shook his head. "I didn't think he'd feel that strongly about it. . . ." Tears pricked his eyes, but he blinked them back.
Yugi was frowning, deeply. "I don't think Tristan does mean it," he said. "Look at this knife! Does the handle remind you guys of anything?!"
They looked.
"It looks kind of like that Blade of Chaos I had to pull out of that Red Eyes," Joey said. "But that's the thing—I pulled it out and he was okay! But Tristan's still acting screwy even with the knife out!"
"Remember, this is Yami Marik's world," Yugi said. "Maybe the weapon wouldn't work the same as that other one did. Or . . . it could even be another type of poison. . . ."
Yami Bakura growled. "In any case, this wound is bad. He's losing too much blood in spite of what I'm trying to do to stop it. I don't think there's anything I can do."
"No!" Téa cried. "Keep trying! Please!"
Tristan looked up at Yami Bakura and hissed a curse under his breath. But as his eyes started to cloud over and close, they flickered with a horrified spark as he realized what he had been saying. Then he was gone.
