And here's another update!

...

Yeah, that's all I got. Tch!

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Disclaimer: Authoress does not own Yu-Gi-Oh

Claimer: Everything in this fic that was not made up by someone else belongs to the authoress! No stealing!

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It was probably a miracle, or at least would make a really good story: the jeeps that forced their way through the dense plants on the old road and pulled up in front of the ruins were full of people. It was a good-sized expedition, determined to investigate the extensive ruins, and the many people involved were all very surprised to find a small group of plane-wreck survivors hanging around in such a remote place.

Of course, the expedition was more than happy to help the poor kids out; a jeep, helicopter, and plane ride later, Duke, Mokuba, and Yuugi were back in the depths of comfortable civilization. The instant Mokuba found himself within arm's-reach of the Internet, he started searching frantically, eager to discover any mention of his older brother's whereabouts.

The results came back extremely fast; apparently, wherever he had ended up, Kaiba had started an equally frantic search for Mokuba the second he got within arm's-reach of the Internet himself. It was a relatively short trip before the two halves of their group reunited - in a Mexican hospital.

The hospital wasn't exactly state-of-the-art, but it was more than adequate. Jonouchi (and Kikki, much to Yuugi's surprise and relief) greeted the three of them at the door, before leading them to one of the hospital rooms. In the bed in that room lay Kaiba...looking only slightly under the weather.

Kaiba, as it turned out, had been as sick as the proverbial dog ever since the Items on the jumbo jet had blasted them to various parts of the world. Since the doctors at the hospital hadn't been able to diagnose anything wrong with him, and the only computers with fast enough Internet access in the area were in the hospital, Kaiba had grudgingly agreed to stay put.

Now that he had Mokuba back, however, nothing was going to keep Kaiba put now. He used the computer to arrange for the smaller private jet they had originally been using to be flown over from storage in Sydney. It was an unfortunate delay, but the jumbo jet, they were assured, was now nothing more than expensive metal toothpicks floating in the Pacific.

"...Hey, does anyone know what happened to those demons after the explosion?" Jonouchi wondered.

They had laid out the three Sennen Items on a table - Kaiba's hospital room was serving as a de-facto conference room for them - and had been warily speculating on how the remaining Items might be hidden, when Jonouchi brought this up.

"They must have been blasted to someplace, just like we were," Mokuba pointed out, "Unless they all burned up when the plane exploded...wait, that would mean that the demons don't have those freaky scales anymore! That Item might have sunk straight to the bottom of the ocean!"

There was a pause while they thought about this idea. Pleased and relieved looks were breaking out on Jonouchi and Mokuba's faces when Yuugi reluctantly held out his hands.

(Not good. We need all seven here. Not in ocean) Yuugi signed.

Mokuba - who they had finally managed to sit down and start teaching sign language to - blinked at the signs owlishly for a moment, before rolling his eyes and groaning.

"Even if that's bad, at least we blew up those demons, right?" Mokuba said, trying to keep the vaguely more upbeat mood going.

Duke shook his head at this thought, putting an end to it.

"I seriously doubt they were all killed so easily, actually. They didn't seem to end up any closer to us, and this was a fortuitous turn of events in getting them off our trail...but even if the Sennen Scales did sink into the ocean, that wouldn't stop their kind from getting it back. Demons swim very well in deep water, actually."

Expression fully soured now, Jonouchi grumbled something inaudible to himself and set to poking at the Sennen Eye, rolling it back and forth along the table with his fingertip.

"And be careful with that!" Duke snapped, "The last thing we need is for one of these Items to get damaged!"

"I'm not gonna break it! Besides, with all the power these things have, I bet it could take being kicked around a lot harder than this," Jonouchi retorted.

There was a momentary pause.

"...So, what does this thing do again?"

"I think it reads people's minds," Mokuba said, "Right?"

Duke nodded.

"The Eye reads the hearts and minds of others, penetrating deception. The Ankt unlocks souls and opens paths to different levels of reality. The Torque watches the future and past," Duke said, indicating each Sennen Item in turn, "...Oh, and they also allow their bearers to do various things to other people's souls, all of which are unpleasant. All the Sennen Items can do that much, actually."

"...Was that what that scary demon lady was going to do to us?" Jonouchi wondered.

Duke nodded, rubbing the almost healed bruising on his neck in memory.

"What else do the Scales do? Do you know, Duke?" Mokuba asked, curious despite himself.

"Let me see...if I remember correctly, they were forged by an Arbitrator, who gave them 'Power to weigh hearts and punish foul deceit', whatever that means. An Arbitrator is a kind of judge," Duke added, seeing the nonplussed looks he was getting.

(All the makers gave their same power to their Items) Yuugi asked.

"Yes, actually. Each of the sorcerers had their own unique power, and were the most powerful humans of the time."

"Weird," Jonouchi said, "Man, these are so strange, I wonder if the ones we ain't seen yet could even top them."

"Oh, they do, actually," Duke was quick to point out, "I don't know much about the seventh Item - it's the most powerful but also the most mysterious, since so little is known about it, actually. The other two Items have fairly straightforward abilities, considering who forged them."

(Who made them) Yuugi signed.

They were all starting to get interested by this point; even if their group had been more-or-less dedicatedly searching for these Items, none of them knew anything at all about them aside from Duke.

"One of the other two Items was forged by a powerful warrior who was undefeated in battle," Duke explained, "That Item is a powerful weapon. The other Item was forged by a thief."

"A thief? ...You sure?"

"I was confused when I heard this the first time myself, actually," Duke agreed, "But he really was a thief, and a deviously cunning one as well. It's said that there was no precious object in the world that could be hidden from him when he sought it."

Duke hesitated, blinking.

"...I just said he could find anything he looked for, didn't I?"

"You sure did," Jonouchi said, grinning and rubbing his hands together, "Just think - if we had had that Item from the beginning, we would have gotten them all by now! We just gotta get this thief's Item next!"

"That's not going to be easy," Duke sighed, "The thief's Item is hidden better than any other Item. Not even the Ban-Ile who guard it know where it is, actually. The thief hid his Item himself just before he died, and no one's found it since. From what I've heard, that Deyadi charged to locate and guard the Item only managed to narrow the possible location down to a specific continent..."

"Well...crap," Jonouchi groaned.

"It figures," Mokuba pointed out unhappily, "This thief guy knew better than anyone about how important things could get stolen, I bet. So what do we do now? Look for the other two Items instead?"

(Maybe if we try to think like a thief we can figure out where he hid that Item) Yuugi pointed out, (It worked for thinking like a Ban-Ile)

"I suppose it couldn't hurt..." Duke slowly agreed.

"Okay, so which continent did you say they narrowed it down to?" Mokuba asked, "Too bad we don't still have that atlas handy..."

"The atlas wouldn't have been much help, actually," Duke said, "If I remember right, the hiding place was narrowed down to the Eurasian continent, but no one was able to figure out whether it was hidden in the Asian side or the European side, so it couldn't be narrowed down any further."

"...Well...crap," Jonouchi groaned.

There was a pause that stretched out into minutes. The four of them were despairing over finding this Item, especially since they really did need all seven. The fact that no one, not even the Ban-Ile who were supposed to be guarding it, knew where the Item was was incredibly depressing. Even if they skipped it for now, they'd still need to find it later, but if it was nowhere to be found...

Over in the hospital bed, Kaiba, who had been valiantly attempting to ignore everyone else in the room, snorted in disgust.

"I cannot believe how gullible you people are," Kaiba announced, "The answer is so obvious that even the imbecile there should have figured it out by now."

Jonouchi growled. Being stuck in the wilderness with Kaiba for an extended period had done nothing for their mutual enmity.

"Oh yeah? And what's this answer you got there, y'smug bastard?"

Kaiba smirked nastily back at Jonouchi before making his reply. "If you're too unintelligent to figure it out, far be it for me to try and assist that mass of solid bone you call a brain, imbecile."

"Would it be possible for you to be at all helpful, Kaiba?" Duke asked, breaking into the argument before it could get any further along.

Kaiba threw a glance Jonouchi's way - the blond was visibly restraining himself from going over to Kaiba's hospital bed and giving the brunette a serious beating - before deciding that he'd done enough baiting for the time being.

"Hn. The answer is obvious - if this person was as masterful of a strategist as you've claimed," Kaiba said, "Then he would have hidden this Item you're looking for it the one place no one would ever consider a good hiding spot. Therefore this Item you're after is in the one place where no one would consider looking."

"Where would that be, though? I can think of lots of places I wouldn't hide something this important, and none of them are very good," Mokuba asked his brother.

Perhaps due to the sole fact that it was his younger brother asking the question, Kaiba decided to elaborate and expand on his answer.

"Think about it. What place is both the most famous and the most accessible historical site, known around the world, and visited regularly by tourists most if not every day of the year?"

The other four thought about it. After a moment, Yuugi raised his hands.

(I can think of one place for Asia and one place for Europe) Yuugi signed.

Kaiba nodded agreement, looking vaguely pleased that someone managed to figure it out besides himself.

"It will be very simple to check them both out," Kaiba continued, "We'll start with the nearest one."

"Wait, hold on. Where are we going now?" Jonouchi blinked.

"Got me," Duke shrugged.

"...I don't get it either," Mokuba sighed, "Can you just tell us the answer?"

"Fine," Kaiba said, "We're going to Stonehenge. If that doesn't pan out, our next stop is the Great Wall of China."

There was a moment's silence after Kaiba made this pronouncement. Then Jonouchi jumped to his feet, sending his chair skidding backwards across the floor.

"Stonehenge? You stole my idea, Kaiba!" Jonouchi yelled, "I wanted to go to Stonehenge since when we couldn't even figure out where to go to!"

"And that's why they call it dumb luck, imbecile."

Seething, Jonouchi stepped towards Kaiba's bed, itching for a fight. A moment later, having belatedly remembered that Kaiba was still in that bed, therefore making him unable to fight back, Jonouchi found himself with nothing to do but snarl at his would-be opponent, before storming out. Jonouchi's sense of honor wouldn't let him get away with trying to beat up someone in a hospital bed, something that Kaiba had known well in advance, judging from the size of his smirk.

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"First we go places that are too damn cold, and now its someplace too bright and hot! Can somebody remind me why the hell we're doing this!"

"It's your own fault, Jonouchi!" Mokuba yelled back, none too happy himself, "If you hadn't started complaining about our travel plans, those guys wouldn't have been able to talk us into this stupid tour in the first place!"

((It all beaking crap-dirt flock to me,)) Kikki said, fluttering around Yuugi's head and providing a very small (and welcome) breeze.

Jonouchi, infuriated and stressed from dealing with Kaiba for extended periods of time on his own, had been very loudly airing choice remarks about the billionaire for a few hours after storming out of the hospital. He'd stretched his multilingual skills to the limits by doing so, but the hospital staff had determined from what few snatches they'd understood (none of them knew any Japanese, but they were all almost fluent in English) that Mr. Kaiba and his group were on some sort of world tour of famous ruins and archeological sites.

Kaiba's hospital stay thus far was making the staff very, very rich, and so they decided that this would be a very good way to make even more money. Their hospital could use some renovations and more state-of-the-art equipment, after all...

And so, just as Kaiba was checking himself out of the hospital, their group had been approached with an offer of a tour of one of Mexico's most wonderful ancient ruins. Kaiba flat-out refused, but the would-be tour guides were determined.

Somehow, they'd prevailed. And so now Kaiba, Mokuba, Jonouchi, Duke, Yuugi, and Kikki were all overheated and unhappy as they made their way up the huge staircase of an enormous step pyramid. Clearly, the 'Temple of the Sun' had been named so because when it got around noon, it was as baking and unpleasant as being on the sun's surface would have been.

If not for the blistering heat, it might have been a very enjoyable visit; the Temple of the Sun was an enormous step pyramid that nearly put Egypt's pyramids to shame. Unfortunately, all any of their group could think about was getting to the top level of the pyramid, since their guide had assured them that there were some small, shaded rooms full of interesting carved works at the top. The fact that these rooms would be guaranteed cool and dim was most certainly part of their enthusiasm.

Even Duke was looking forward to escaping the worst of the heat, despite how it meant that he'd be crowding into a tiny little confined space with several other people.

Once situated inside one of the rooms, their guide began explaining the meanings behind all of the carvings and explaining the various rituals conducted at the Temple of the Sun in the past. Seto waited until the others were fully engrossed in learning all the details behind the various human sacrifices before slipping off.

There was another, larger room connected to the one where the guide had lead them. Concealed shafts in the ceiling, doubtless put in place to allow smoke from torches to escape without choking the room's occupants, let in more than enough light to see by. Most importantly, as far as Seto was concerned, this room did not contain the several irritating people he and Mokuba seemed to be stuck with.

Naturally, since this was a pleasant moment, it was ruined almost immediately. At least Seto found some satisfaction in the fact that it was Duke who was bothering him now and not that fool Jonouchi.

The Ban-Ile refused to take the hint and leave him alone, no matter how fiercely Seto glared, but Duke seemed more interested in the carvings in the wall than anything, and so Seto managed to tolerate his presence. Finding a comfortable-looking spot of wall, Seto leaned back against it, planning on enjoying the peace and quiet as long as possible before the other irritants inflicted themselves upon him once again.

At least, that was Seto's plan. Unfortunately, that was not to be. The second Seto's back came in contact with his chosen bit of wall, he recoiled as something like an electric shock jolted through him. Whirling in disbelief and anger - was the universe conspiring against him today? - Seto poked at the offending wall section, daring it to try shocking him again.

Not only was he shocked every time he got too close, Seto discovered, the shocks seemed to increase in intensity with every try: the wall was attempting to discourage him, it seemed. By the time that Seto determined how much of the wall was going to shock him - a relatively narrow strip, set just below eyelevel - his hand was tingling and half-numb.

Then Seto realized that Duke was standing almost directly behind him, watching this with a fascinated look on his face. Seto watched as Duke poked the section of wall Seto had narrowed down as the source of the shocks, and felt almost amused to see the Ban-Ile yank his hand right back, as if he'd burnt his fingers.

"Well that was unexpected," Duke remarked, "I wonder..."

With a hesitant glance around to make certain that no one was spying on them, Duke reached into a pocket. Seto decided to settle back and watch as the Ban-Ile pulled out one of the Sennen Items their group had collected - the 'Sennen Eye', if Seto recalled the name correctly - which he did.

Duke held the golden bulb up to one of his own eyes, the raised design pointed towards the strip of wall that was the source of the shock. The Item seemed to flash and shimmer in some unseen light, before Duke put it back with a smile on his face.

"Congratulations, Kaiba," Duke said next, "You've discovered one of the Sennen Items."

"Wonderful," Seto replied, making certain to avoid hiding any hint of his distaste, "I suppose this means you'll be insisting that I carry it?"

Duke nodded, still beaming away at him. Seto felt his distaste twist into disgust. He did not want to be involved like this, but since none of the other idiots were around, it seemed like he would have to suffer after all.

Besides, Seto recalled after another moment's thought, if he didn't do it, that only left the imbecile available for this duty. And since these artifacts seemed to be somewhat important, it was probably for the best that he make certain the imbecile didn't screw the job up. This only partially mollified him, and so Seto turned to the other walls, determinedly ignoring Duke and the presence of a Sennen Item until he really had to carry the thing.

"Hey, there you are!"

Seto didn't even bat an eye as Mokuba walked in.

"Our guide wants to go back down now! He said that it'll be a lot cooler now that the sun's starting to go down. ...What are you two doing in here, anyway?"

"Your brother," Duke announced before Seto could get a word in, "Just found us another Sennen Item, actually."

"He did? That's awesome! Where is it? What's it look like? Does it have a cool power?"

As Duke worked to fend off Mokuba's eager barrage of questions, Seto turned his attention back to the walls. Casually looking them over, he was vaguely interested in that they seemed to depict some kind of battle. Strange figures on either side were clearly struggling for dominance, and the strangest-looking ones were shown in the air above the others, just underneath a carving of some kind of unusual raised disk...

"Oh no! We were too late!"

Duke's cry of dismay drew Seto's attention back over in a snap. Over where that annoying section of wall had been, there was now a small niche in the wall. From where Seto was standing, he could see how the inside of the concealed hold held a shelf, clearly shaped to hold something long and narrow - like a knife, or perhaps a short stick. It was also plainly obvious that their group had not been the first ones here, as the holder was very obviously empty.

"Now those demons have two Items? This is so not fair!" Mokuba groaned.

Huh. His brother still expected the world to be fair? However, Duke was taking a closer look at the holder, and suddenly sighed in what was obviously relief.

"And now this is a good thing?" Mokuba protested, staring at Duke.

"Better than it could have been, actually," Duke explained, "This Item might be gone, but it wasn't taken by any demon. These marks, carved into the stone here - you see them? They were left by another Ban-Ile, and that was who took this Item away!"

"Oh," Mokuba said, "Wow. So, what does it say?"

Idle curiosity rising in him, Seto took a glance inside the niche for himself.

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"It says 'To whoever: Fools who leave such weapons unused in the dark have no right to keep them.' There's nothing to indicate who left this message..."

"Back to square one on this Item, then," Mokuba sighed, "Well, at least it proved that my brother is an expert Sennen Item-finder! ...Huh? Where'd he go?"

Duke blinked and turned. Sure enough, Kaiba was long gone. He'd been standing just next to them just a moment ago, too... Duke shrugged, and turned to re-sealing the niche. Kaiba had probably deduced that he no longer had to perform Sennen Item-carrying duty and had seized the opportunity to take off while he could.

Duke wouldn't have put it past him, actually.

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