"Can we leave now?" Yugi asked. The shape and atmosphere of the chamber made his voice come out a little muffled.

Pharaoh Atem turned to Bakura. "So you are on our side now?"

"As long as it suits my goals. My goal is revenge against the man who sanctioned this done to my people."

Pharaoh Atem smiled. "Welcome to our side then."

"I still hate you," Bakura snapped. "Let's go."

The thief turned and headed up the steps, not even bothering to douse the torches. Yugi ran up after him.

Yugi ended up riding back with Bakura, whom was no longer tied up. It was a long and awkward trip home. Neither of them spoke, though the thief didn't protest the fact that Yugi was with him. Ra was slowly starting to sink over the horizon by the time that they finally arrived back. Mahado, Mana and the rest of the priests were out waiting to greet them.

None of them made any comment on the fact that Bakura and Yugi were untied. Atem ended up leading everyone who had come on the journey to a large feast. It was late in the evening before Yugi finally retired to his room. The door had been rebuilt in his absence, and to the casual observer it looked as if nothing had happened there. He collapsed on the bed fully intent on falling asleep immediately.

He soon realised that this wasn't going to happen. Yugi found himself watching the light from the moon move slowly across his ceiling. His mind continued to buzz and finally he found himself getting out of bed. Yugi slipped out of his room, marvelling at the lack of guards in the halls. It was obvious then that he was at least forgiven, though he doubted that Atem would ever trust him again.

Yugi continued unhindered until he reached the exit from the palace into the gardens.

"Halt!" one of the two guards commanded. "We are under the orders of the Pharaoh to let no one inside or out of the palace unless he decries it himself!"

"I will allow this." Yugi jumped at the voice coming from behind him.

"My Pharaoh!" the two guards fell to their knees and bowed.

Yugi turned and was about to do the same. When Atem grabbed him gently be the arm.

"I need to talk to you. Will you come for a walk with me in the gardens?"

"S-sure," Yugi mumbled. "I was about to do that anyway."

With a nod to the guards, Atem led him into the garden. Yugi enjoyed the sensation of the cool night air on his hot skin and allowed it to relax him as they walked. They walked in silence until they came to the very bench where they had begun their friendship such a short time ago. With a gesture from Atem, Yugi gingerly sat down. The Pharaoh sat down beside him, seemingly unaware of Yugi's nervousness.

Finally, Yugi couldn't hold back anymore. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

"I want to know why you betrayed me," Atem said after another few moments of silence.

Yugi swallowed hard. "I didn't mean to. At the time I was confused. Bakura had told me what had happened to his village, and I felt that he was telling the truth. When I met you that day, I felt that you were telling the truth as well. Then I found out that Seto... or at least I thought it was Seto at the time was gathering people with Ka and forcing them to fight each other until they became as strong as possible. And then, he would kill them and seal them into stone slabs."

He told the story from start to finish including the fact that Aknadin had come after him in his room. When he finally fell silent, Atem had a contemplative look on his face.

"Yugi," he said. "Who was your loyalty to first? Me? Or Bakura?"

"Bakura. He is the one who saved me from certain death, even though it was only because he thought that I had information that could help him kill you."

"Did you?"

"No. And I am sorry for betraying you."

Atem sighed and shifted slightly. "Yugi, you didn't betray me. I'd like to think of it as though you saw the truth before everyone else."

Yugi and Atem continued to chat long into the night unaware of who exactly was watching them. Bakura was only just down the hall from Yugi and had heard his door open. He had intended to find out where he was going and confront him, but had held back once the Pharaoh had gotten involved. He had slipped past the guards and followed them.

There he had listened in the shadows a short ways away from them as they talked. If Yugi was keeping something from him, he had the right to know.

"It's getting late," he heard Atem say.

Yugi laughed. "More like early. The sun's going to rise soon."

"We'd better both go to bed. Mahado is going to be teaching the people that Seto rounded up to summon their Ka as well as you and Mana. We are going to see if we can rope Bakura in to help."

"I don't think he will."

"I have something that could convince him," Atem said quietly.

"He'll be pretty mad."

Atem just shook his head and returned his gaze to the sky above. Yugi hesitated for a moment and then held up the hand that was not broken. He caught the Pharaoh's eye and curled it into a fist. Atem looked confused.

Yugi blushed in embarrassment and scratched the back of his head. "You make a fist and bump it. It signifies friendship where I come from. ... Are we still friends?"

Atem smiled and bumped Yugi's fist with his own. "Yes. I believe that we are."

As they turned around to head inside, Bakura seethed with fury and confusion. He was furious over what had just happened. The problem was, he didn't know why. Why was he so angry when Yugi smiled and looked at the Pharaoh? Why did it make him even angrier when Yugi told Atem something about his world that he hadn't told Bakura? Why should it matter? Grumbling under his breath, Bakura stalked off.

Yugi groaned as someone banged on his door. After the late night, it felt like he had just barely fallen asleep.

"G' 'way," he mumbled as the banging became more insistent.

"I'm coming in now," sang a familiar voice.

Before Yugi even had a chance to register who it was, his door was knocked open with a bang. He groaned as Mana eagerly jumped on his bed.

"Come on! Today we get to learn how to summon," Mana chirped. "Mahado is putting us with the group of people that Seto was protecting. That thief is helping out as well."

"Bakura said yes?" Yugi was fully awake now.

"You already knew? Aww. I wanted to be the one to tell you," Mana got off his bed with a pout.

"Atem beat you to it," Yugi chuckled. "Now out with you! I need to get dressed."

"Fine," Mana practically danced out of the room.

It turned out that they were gathering outside of the palace as there was such a large group to attend to. Mahado and Bakura weren't the only ones teaching. The other priests, Siamun and Atem were also there.

"I've suspended all court matters until further notice," Atem said standing at the front of the class. "This is because what we are about to teach you is of utmost importance to the defence of this country. A time of prophecy is at hand. Priestess Isis has seen it with her Necklace. Very soon, we will need all of you to serve me against an ancient foe that threatens to tear this country into ruins.

"Now you may be wondering why we have chosen you, out of everyone else. I am sure that some of you are aware that you have Ka sleeping inside your souls that can be used for battle."

A murmur rose up from the crowd.

"That is right. What has until now been left to those highly gifted in shadow magic will now be taught to you," Atem said. "Do any of you want to go home?"

The crowd was silent.

"How many of you want to fight?"

A cheer went up from the crowd.

Atem smiled. "Good. Now I will have someone that may be known to some of you, and unknown to others demonstrate a Ka summoning. Bakura, if you please?"

Bakura stepped forward and smirked as a hush of surprise fell onto the crowd. He closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment. The air above him warped and Diabound roared as he appeared before the masses.

"Diabound! Spiral shockwave!" the mighty Ka roared and shot its attack over the heads of the crowd

People in the crowd let out screams of surprise and terror as Bakura cackled.

Atem stared at him angrily. "That was unnecessary."

"But it was fun," Bakura replied.

Atem raised his hand into the air and at once the crowd fell silent. "Bakura has joined us willingly and is willing to teach you how to summon your own Ka. We will be training you on how to use them and how to strengthen them over the next few weeks."

"We will be dividing everyone into six groups," Seto continued over the crowd. "The rest of the class will be conducted in those."

Isis and Siamun stepped into the crowd and began to separate them into the groups. Yugi ended up with Bakura. The thief smirked as he glanced around the circle that had formed in front of him.

"There is only one way that you can summon your Ka in the time that we have to learn," Bakura said. "There are two different ways that a person could learn how to do this. You either have to meditate for months and sometimes even years to achieve this. Or you can learn the quick way by using your emotions in order to bring them forth."

"What's the difference?" came a call from the circle.

"With meditation, you can summon your Ka whenever you feel like it. If you use emotions as your base, you can only summon them when you are in an emotional state. You are going to be using your Ka on the field of battle. This won't be a problem."

"Each Ka will gain a special ability that reflects the person's personality. For example. Diabound!"

The mighty Ka swooped up in the air and dove right into the centre of the circle and vanished into the ground. Many took a step back in fear.

"I am a thief and the best at it. Diabound shows this by being able to go through walls and into the ground as well."

Diabound appeared away from the group and swooped back up into the air.

"Now that you are all in a terrified state, concentrate on wanting to defend yourself and those that you care about and think about what about your personality stands out the most."

Yugi couldn't help but roll his eyes despite the frantic pounding of his heart. Bakura was definitely enjoying this. He closed his eyes and concentrated. What stood out most about him? He didn't like to study that much but he loved history. Was it that he didn't much like fighting?

"Feel around for that part of you that would fight no matter what was happening to you," Bakura said.

Yugi frowned. That was just as vague as some of what Mahado would say when he was teaching.

"Yugi!" Bakura suddenly said. "Come up to the front and help me demonstrate."

Yugi hesitantly walked up to Bakura. How could he help demonstrate? He didn't even have a monster in his soul yet thanks to the sheer power of his shadow magic. At least that was according to Mahado when he had asked. Apparently the more powerful a person was in that, the harder it was to get in touch with their Ka. There was no real explanation for why this was, but it was what occurred.

"Now! Diabound!" Bakura shouted.

The Ka roared and swooped down at Yugi. Yugi let out a yelp and subconsciously summoned a shield of shadow magic to protect himself. Powered by his fear, it was by far the strongest that Yugi had ever created. Diabound slammed into it, knocking Yugi to his knees. To his shock though, the shield held.

Bakura looked unsurprised. "Diabound. Spiral shockwave. Aim at his shield and fire just until it breaks."

"Urgh," Yugi grunted as the attack hit his shield. Within seconds, his shield began to crack and then shattered. Yugi fell face first into the ground. He groaned and hauled himself onto his hands and knees. He looked up to see Bakura staring at him.

"Tch," the thief turned away from him.

"What was that?" Yugi muttered under his breath. "Is he mad at me?"

By the time that Yugi staggered to his feet, Bakura was explaining how most of the people who possessed copious amounts of shadow magic weren't in tune with their Ka.

"The important thing to know is that everyone who has a little bit of shadow magic has one," Bakura said. "It's just that you are those people with enough shadow magic to summon them, but not so much that you fall out of tune with them. Yugi here is a student of Mahado's. He will be one of the last of this group to summon his Ka because of this."

"So," Bakura said. "Let's try this again. Think of what I told you before."

The group collectively closed their eyes and concentrated. Yugi searched around inside of him, but all that he felt was the buzzing of his shadow magic under his skin. He felt a slight pulse of power and looked up. The air in front of one of the men was warping. After a few more seconds, the small Ka fell through.

"Baby Dragon," Yugi muttered.

Bakura looked pleased. "You are the first of everyone here to summon your Ka. It is weak, but with training that shall change. It will also become easier to summon with practice."

The man's eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed. The Baby Dragon disappeared almost immediately.

"I forgot to mention this, but you will feel exhausted after the first time that you summon your Ka," Bakura said.

There was a call for a break and everyone was sent inside the palace for the midday meal. Yugi yawned as he waited in line in a room that must normally be used for hosting parties. One more man in their group had summoned their Ka, though Yugi himself had not felt so much as a stirring of his soul. None of the other groups had experienced nearly as much success. Yugi was sure that this was due more to Bakura's unorthodox teaching style than anything else.

Yugi had glanced around many times during Bakura's lesson and noticed that none of the others who were teaching had summoned their Ka and used it to terrorize their students. Instead they had seemed to focus on wilfully working their students up to the point that they summoned their Ka with little success.

When they broke for lunch, Yugi tried to approach Bakura a couple of times, but the thief seemed to be giving him the silent treatment. The only other reaction he had garnered from the thief was a slight sneer earlier. He finally reached the front of the line and got his food.

"Yugi!" Mana waved frantically at him from across the room.

He smiled and went over to her. They ended up walking outside into the hall and sitting against the wall.

"How did training go?" Yugi asked.

"Great!" Mana chirped. "I may not have summoned my Ka, but I definitely felt it stir when I called it. How about you?"

"I did about as well as expected," Yugi sighed. "Nothing happened. Also Bakura has been acting strangely today."

"How?" Mana asked.

"I don't know. He's brash, stubborn and rude, but he usually talks to me," Yugi said. His stomach flip-flopped at the thought. Yugi frowned to himself. Maybe there was something in the food?

Yugi jumped in surprise when Mana gave him a short hug.

"Do you have any idea why he is acting like that?"

"No."

"Well maybe he's just in a bad mood?"

"Maybe..." Yugi mumbled.

As the days went by, Bakura remained the same. Yugi still didn't know what he had done wrong. Every time that Yugi tried to talk to him, Bakura would either not reply, sneer at him, or walk away.

Finally, two weeks into the training, everyone had summoned their Ka in Bakura's group except Yugi. He ended up joining Seto's group. Bakura took charge of all of those that had summoned their Ka, which was well over half of all the people training. Together, he and Mahado were running mock battles and endurance training for them.

Yugi sighed and looked back at the ever-shrinking group around him. Mana hadn't been successful either. Once again he concentrated on his emotions, specifically on how bothered he was that Bakura wasn't talking to him at the moment. He stacked annoyance after annoyance on top of each other including the fact that he was frustrated with getting no results for his efforts, how the sun felt on his hot, dusty body, and how he really didn't want to be the last to be able to summon his Ka. Yugi turned all of these feelings inward and jumped when he felt a slight fluttering in his soul. His face broke out in a wide grin. It wasn't much, but at least it was progress.

It was after dinner when Yugi caught sight of the thief again

Yugi lay on his bed that night staring at the ceiling and fuming. Why was Bakura ignoring him? What did he do wrong?

Yugi finally felt mad enough to confront Bakura in a place where the other man couldn't avoid him. He slipped out of bed and pulled on his clothes before padding down the corridor to the thief's room. Yugi tried to open his door only to find that it was locked.

"As if that would keep me out," Yugi muttered.

With a twist of his shadow magic, he more felt than heard the simple lock pop on the door. He pushed it gently and much to his relief the door swung open silently. Bakura had a lot to answer for.

So like it? Hate it? Review it?

See you next Wednesday.