Bakura smirked with satisfaction. The dragon was huge, fueled by Seth's rage. It was larger than Diabound had ever been, and even as he watched, it grew larger still. Its wings unfurled, and hurricane winds buffeted him. Its summoner was quivering with anger, but his face was triumphant. How could he fail to lose with such a powerful monster behind him?

But Bakura could see what Seth could not. Those mighty wings were tattered, the blue eyes dull. Hardly white anymore, the dragon was a mess of dirt and dried blood. It roared, but to Bakura's ears there was a hint of despair, not triumph. He reached inside as lightning formed between its jaws. The Darkness rose up to meet him gladly; It knew, just as he did, that the fight was over.

It was taking all of Atem's concentration just to stay upright. He still held his sword, but loosely, and the effort of raising it was probably beyond him. Silently, he blessed Mahaad by all the gods he knew. Another thief was dead.

The Shadows responded sluggishly when he called. They could feel his blood, and feel that his strength was all but gone. It would not be long before they turned on him or, at best, refused to obey. If this battle did not end soon, he would be utterly powerless. Actually, he acknowledged, if this battle didn't end soon, he probably wouldn't be in a state to care about power at all.

He couldn't make his arm stop bleeding.

They didn't have time to look for Aknadin. If the old priest was dead or disabled, he'd be no use to them. And if alive, he would head to Pharaoh's rooms. So the little party simply ran toward these as fast as they could.

"Where are the soldiers?" Harry demanded as they rounded a corner.

"Outside the palace, most of them," Shaada panted. "More protecting the town. Pharaoh…Pharaoh wanted his people safe."

"Can't we…I don't know…summon them?" Ron asked. "We could use a bit of help right now."

"No time." Alone of all of them, Isis did not seem out of breath. The tears had dried on her face, and now it was almost as stone-like as the thief hit by Ron's Commutatus spell.

"What's going on?" People were emerging from their rooms. Most of them had only just been woken. Harry and the others just barreled around them, ignoring the questions. The ones that did not immediately move out of the way were pushed aside.

Then the dragon screamed.

Seth was back in the Shadow Realm. He had no memory of traveling there, but he did not care. All that mattered was the Thief King. He would kill him, break him, burn him... The anger white-hot inside him attracted the Shadows, and the Millennium Rod blazed to hold them back. But Bakura was nowhere to be seen.

"NO!" The word exploded from him, almost without his volition. Bakura had to be here; he had been dueling with him mere seconds ago. If Bakura was not here, then Kisara...

"Looking for me?"

Seth whirled. The Thief King lounged insolently on a throne of Shadows. They fawned on him like perverted dogs. Had Seth been thinking clearly, he might have wondered at this. Had Seth been thinking clearly, he might also have wondered how he had been dragged into the Shadow Realm without noticing.

But Seth was not thinking clearly.

"Bakura," he hissed. "You will pay for the crimes you have committed."

Bakura leaned forward. "Don't you understand yet, Seth? This is what befalls a man who has lost his soul."

"My soul..." Dimly, he remembered a dragon's roar, and pain. He pushed the memory away. "I lost my soul a long time ago, Thief."

Bakura smiled, a cruel smile. "I take what I please."

Even in the black of the Shadow Realm, Seth saw red. He raised a hand...and the Shadows swirling around the throne engulfed him. He could not move and could barely breathe. The Millennium Rod shone briefly and then went out.

"Don't you understand yet, boy?" the Thief King whispered in his ear. "I am master here."

And Seth saw his revenge stripped away from him. This was not the Thief King that he faced, not any more. This was something older, something darker. Memories, faint and precarious, of a voice, a similar meeting...

"Zor..." he began, then bit his tongue.

"Yeesss," Zorc purred. He circled the captive priest, looking him up and down. "I did not think you would be so foolish to come and challenge me again. Are you really so desperate for revenge?" Seth glared at him and was silent.

"Hmm, I wonder..." Zorc took a step back, and his semblance of the Thief King shifted. Another image formed, a copy of the first. It solidified and the real Bakura looked around, dark eyes narrowing.

"Zorc," he growled. "What..."

"You refused me last time, little mortal," Zorc said to Seth. "I offered you the world and you would not take it." He smiled and glanced at the Thief King. "But maybe I offered you the wrong thing."

Bakura's eyes widened. "Why you..." He lunged forward, but the Shadows pinned him in place, twining around his arms and legs. Another wound around his head, cutting off his voice. Though he struggled, Bakura was not strong enough to throw them off.

Zorc gestured towards Bakura, mouth curving even farther into a truly demonic leer. "So . . . here is my new offer, Blue Eyes." The Shadows imprisoning Seth slid backwards and away; he was free, and the glow of the Millennium Rod slowly kindled again. Zorc's voice grew lower, more enticing. "Make him scream. Make him suffer. Make him pay for what he did."

Yes, Seth thought.

A blade formed in Zorc's hand, and he handed it to Seth, hilt first.

"Expecto Patronum!" The stag burst from the tip of Harry's wand and cantered into the Shadows that were currently attacking Mahaad. They scattered and the thieves summoning them jerked their heads up in surprise.

"Stupefy!" One of them fell. Hermione had good aim.

"Commutatus!" Ron roared, but the thief dove out of the way, and the Pharaoh's bed suddenly turned to stone. "Oops. Sorry, Pharaoh." He took aim again. "Stupefy!" The thief couldn't rise from the floor quickly enough to avoid it, and he slumped back down again, unconscious.

"Forgiven," Pharaoh said. He leaned against the wall, his free hand clamped over his right arm. He tried to smile, but it turned into a grimace of pain.

"You're hurt!" Hermione hurried over, throwing a nervous glance at the two thieves who were now dueling with Harry and Mahaad, but they were too busy to notice her. She pried the Pharaoh's fingers away from the wound and blanched. "Vulnera Sanentur!" The bleeding began to slow as the light from Hermione's wand struck it. Pharaoh breathed a sigh of relief and a bit of color came back into his cheeks.

In the background, Harry's wand flew from his hand as his opponent slammed into him. The force of the leap carried the thief briefly past Harry. Without missing a beat, Harry dove for one of the swords on the ground and brought it up just in time to meet the swing of the man's sword. Apparently he'd absorbed a thing or two from Seth's sword lessons.

"Thank you," Pharaoh murmured. He raised his own sword. "I must help Mahaad."

"No need." The two thieves collapsed nearly in unison, one the victim of a full body bind – Harry had managed to retrieve his wand – and the second stripped of his soul by the Millennium Ring. Mahaad stepped over their bodies towards his king. "Are you alright, Pharaoh?"

"Yes, but Seth..."

Mahaad looked in the direction of Pharaoh's gaze. Seth lay crumpled on the floor, eyes wide and unseeing. Beside him lay the body of the Thief King.

"He is in the Shadow Realm," Mahaad said in horror. "They both are."

"But not by choice," Pharaoh murmured. "Strange..."

"We have to pull him out!" Hermione protested. "What if it's like last time? What if he..."

But the Pharaoh and his priests had already begun to chant.

Seth heard the chanting, but it sounded like it was underwater or far away. His mind stirred sluggishly, trying to identify it. But thought was driven from his head as his fingers, almost without his volition, closed around the knife's hilt. It felt good. It felt right.

This is Zorc! protested his common sense. He is not to be trusted!

Bakura murdered my wife.

He took a step towards Bakura, who struggled madly against the Shadow bonds. But the thief could get no leverage. Zorc made another casual gesture, and the Shadows tightened, locking the Thief King entirely in place. Only Bakura's eyes moved, darting from Zorc to the Shadows, then fixing inexorably on Seth. Something very like fear flickered in their depths.

"That's it," Zorc said. "He deserves to die. Kill him. Take your revenge."

His beloved wife lay sprawled on the floor. Her beautiful white hair was stiff with blood. Her clothes were torn; blood oozed from what seemed like every pore.

Bakura tried to say something, but the Shadows gagged him too effectively. Somehow, Seth knew that Zorc would not deny him the Thief King's screams. But until then, Bakura could say nothing, do nothing, until Zorc willed it.

Until Seth willed it.

Her fingers were broken, one leg lay at an awkward angle. Seth had seen a hundred battles, men screaming and dying, but never such an example of brutal savagery.

"You killed her," he said to the Thief King. "You tortured her for hours and then you killed her."

Bakura rose. He met Seth's eyes. He smirked. Then, as casually as if he were stooping to clear a rock from his sandal, he bent down and slit Kisara's throat. Her whimper of pain was cut off abruptly as she choked on her own blood.

Seth looked straight into the Thief King's eyes, raised the blade, and pressed it against Bakura's chest.

"Something blocks us," Shaada panted.

"The Demon," Pharaoh growled. "He knows us all by name and can close the Shadow Realm against us."

"Then why did he let you use Shadow Magic against his minions?" Harry asked. "If this…demon or whatever is so powerful, couldn't he just have, I dunno, stopped you?"

"Because He doesn't care about them," Mahaad said. "They weren't important. This," he gestured at Seth and Bakura. "This was His ultimate plan."

"We have to prevent Him from breaking through into this world," Pharaoh said. "But if we cannot even get to the Shadow Realm, if the Shadows will not respond..."

"Um...excuse me?"

They all turned to Hermione. Her face was pale, but determined. "Did you say he can keep you out because he knows your names?"

"Yes," Pharaoh said slowly, and then his eyes widened.

"What are you on about, Hermione?" Ron demanded. Then his eyes widened too. "You're not seriously considering going in after what's-his-face, are you?"

"I have to," Hermione said calmly. "If Bakura wins, it's over."

"You do not have to do this," Pharaoh said quietly. "We can find another way."

"No," she said, trying to ignore the pounding of her heart. "You can't."

"Then we're going with you!" Ron said.

The Pharaoh began to chant and slowly the priests and priestess followed suit. The air charged.

"No," Hermione said, knowing what she said was true, though not entirely sure how she knew it. "They don't have strength for more than one."

"Then I'll go!" Harry said, but the spell had already caught hold.

Zorc felt the new presence in his Realm immediately. He shifted in annoyance; it distracted him from the exquisite hatred and betrayal before him. Seth was so close…Zorc smirked. Whoever Pharaoh had sent would be too late.

The cold of the Shadow Realm pierced Hermione's heart like a knife. The light here was strained, diseased looking, and something was moving all around her, whispering to her, tugging at her clothes and hair and trying to worm its way underneath her skin.

"Protego!" she said, and the presence skittered backward, repelled by the shield charm. But Hermione gasped. It felt like a huge fist had torn a chunk out of her heart; she felt her knees begin to buckle. The something moved in closer again.

She began to shiver uncontrollably. What had she been thinking? What good did she think she could do? She couldn't even survive in this alien place. What would happen to her body when she died here? Would it just kind of crumble away, or would her heart still try and keep a body alive that had no soul?

But no. Pharaoh was counting on her. Seth was counting on her. Ron and Harry were waiting for her. She had to do what she had come to do. And then she had to get back.

"Expecto...Expecto Patronum!"

Her Patronus flickered into being and then died. The darkness seemed to laugh at her. She tried again, squeezing her eyes shut and forcing herself to remember how she had felt when they'd first started Dumbledore's Army, that sense of pride and accomplishment. She thought of Seth too, and his smile as he'd taught her how to use a sword.

"Expecto Patronum!"

The silvery otter burst into being again, and this time, it didn't fade. The Shadows drew back, filling the air with their anger at being balked. Hermione lifted her wand a little higher and looked around.

"Seth!"

Zorc jerked around, his attention torn forcibly away from Seth and Bakura. A girl was running towards them, a brightly illuminated animal running at her side and another light at the end of a short wooden rod that she carried in her hand. He hissed in irritation and anger; he could feel the strength of that magic, and how alien it was here. It was not the kind of light that allowed for shadows.

"Seth!"

Seth did not hear, too wrapped up Zorc's magic to notice the intrusion. He was saying something to Bakura, pressing the dagger against the Thief King's heart. His back was to the girl. She hadn't ruined Zorc's plans…

"Seth!"

…yet.

But Zorc would not give her the opportunity to interfere further. He was Master of the Shadow Realm, and no one had power here unless he willed it.

"Seth!"

"Seth!"

Her face was a bloody horror, but those same bright blue eyes stared out from the ruin; even now, they had the power to capture his heart. She smiled and whispered his name…

His name…

His name…

"Seth!"

Seth started, a man awakening from a dream. For the first time, he saw where he was, really saw. He could hear Kisara's voice in his head.

"No, my love."

She'd been trying to tell him. She'd been trying to tell him this whole time. She'd been right in front of him – he'd watched his soul decaying – and he'd refused to see her or to listen. What kind of a monster had he let himself become? Hermione had said the same thing. But in his heart of hearts, he'd ignored her too.

He jerked back from Bakura, the blade biting a little into the Thief King's skin.

Behind him, Hermione screamed in pain and fear.

"You would give up your revenge so easily? It is what you have dreamed of," Zorc growled at his side. "What you want more than anything in the world."

Seth shook his head. "You cannot give me what I want." With that, he turned and rammed the Shadow blade into Zorc's heart. The Demon screamed and writhed, but Seth leaned against the blade, forcing it still deeper until he was near enough to whisper in the Demon's ear.

"You cannot give her back."

Hermione stirred and opened her eyes. For a moment, she couldn't think of where she was. Why was she lying on the floor? And why were Ron and Harry leaning over her looking so worried?

"Hermione!" Ron yelled. He would later deny the surge of relief that colored his voice. "You're back!"

It was hard to make her voice work. "Did we win?"

"Yes," a quiet voice said. "We won."

She looked over. Seth sat propped against a pillar. Isis was fussing over him, and even Shaada and Mahaad hovered around him, looking worried. Seth ignored them. He looked exhausted, even haunted, but the hatred she had seen earlier was gone from his face. She looked away.

"How did…"

"Questions can wait until later," Pharaoh rumbled, stern tone ruined by his beautiful, radiant smile. "You must be tired."

And all at once, Hermione was. She didn't really want to stand up, and her bed must be miles away from here. She closed her eyes to gather her strength, only for a minute…and was asleep at once.