Oh, gosh, I'm really sorry for this lateness. But to make up for that, I call Yami Bakura a whole bunch of mean names in this chapter. It's super fun... maybe. I mean, who doesn't like to call Yami Bakura names.

Also, check the second author's note for some fun stuff :3

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember what was supposed to happen at this point of the show. To my recollection, the evil Bakura was after locator cards, and at no point in the show was he being held back by some girl named Lorna who could barely walk on her own -not that I would admit that I couldn't walk, but I wasn't exactly resisting the arm he offered me for support. We were proceeding very slowly through the city, and it made me wonder if we were going to end up way behind "schedule" (or should I say "plot") and miss the blimp ride.

We were walking through a nearly empty park. If it weren't for the lamps scattered around, we wouldn't be able to see a thing, and if it weren't for the idle chatter of duelists and other people all around, it would be deathly silent as well. Bakura hadn't said a thing to me since we left the hospital. It wasn't like I wanted to hear his stupid raspy voice, because I didn't. He was a poopface and a huge jerk, and anything he had to say was probably stupid.

Ohhh, burn. That one really hurt, Lorna.

Ugh… I may have been an introvert, but humans are social creatures, and I felt tired and bored, especially since I had nobody to vocalize my complaints to. It's not like Bakura would care if I were tired. I was already holding him back with the slow pace we were walking in. The silence allowed me to sink into my thoughts -whether my mind even wanted to process the events of this day or not. It seems like every time my brain went into unfamiliar territory, it simply flinched away and brought me back to reality.

I couldn't even think of a single reason why Bakura would want me around. Obviously, it wasn't for my charm and good looks. My thoughts went back to what Viola had been telling me during our duel together. There wasn't much I remembered from that duel aside from the pain and the tears, but something wouldn't leave me no matter what.

"You still don't understand, do you?"

"Understand what?"

"Why I'm even after you?"

Was Bakura after me for the exact same reason? Were they in league with each other? Was he going to send me right to those weird cloaked people?

"You aren't supposed to exist. You're a part of something bigger than yourself -something dangerous. You were brought here for a very specific purpose, and whether your existence on its own harms this world or not, it is one of several gears in a large device ticking down to doomsday. It is up to me and the rest of the Guardians to take apart that device, piece by piece."

They called themselves the "Guardians", but "Guardians" of what? They wanted to see me destroyed -that much was obvious -so they couldn't possibly have my best interests at heart. What scared me was the fact that they were obviously much stronger than I was, which meant that the fact that I had survived that Shadow Duel was pure luck…

Speaking of which, how did I survive that duel? Was it even possible that I might have won the duel?

Kristya's blast played vividly in my mind. The blinding light, the stinging, burning sensation, my deafening scream. That attack was a direct attack. It definitely must have wiped out a great chunk of my life points. The demons chomp chomp chomp sounded as clear as ever in my memories, making every single one of my blisters scream in agony. I winced and was only brought back to reality by the stiffening of the arm I had been clinging to.

"Careful," he grunted. "I've got a stab wound under there."

I slowly moved my gaze to Bakura's arm, realizing I had been digging my nails into his bandages, dangerously close to pushing on his wound. It must have hurt him. I wasn't even sure if I was very sorry about that. I remembered that he inflicted that wound upon himself, but I also needed to keep in mind that there was an innocent boy under there somewhere, Ryou Bakura.

I decided that for his sake, I'd choke out a small apology. "S-Sorry, I'm just -"

"I don't care," he interrupted, scowling in the direction of a couple of teenagers who were sitting at a bench laughing.

I felt his words go right through my chest. It wasn't like I cared about his stupid words, but his utter nonchalance towards me made me feel like dead weight. I hated him and his stupid face.

I bit my lip and glanced away from Bakura, my mind recalling the duel with Viola again. Right now, I didn't know whether I won that duel or not, and trying to remember wasn't doing me any good because my mind went blank at a certain point after Joey and Téa found me. However, I could certainly remember one way to know whether or not I won… It was something Viola had told me…

"Should you win this duel, I'd give you this fragment."

She had been holding something very small and clear, like a crystal, when she said that. The fragment. If I won that duel, then she must have given it to me even though I didn't remember ever taking it from her. And if I did take the fragment, then that fragment and my things would be in my bag. I may not have recalled putting them in there, but they must have been in there.

Right now, my bag was slung over Bakura's slender shoulder. He had been holding it the whole time, and I hadn't bothered asking for it back, because I knew that if I tried to hold it, it could rub against my torso, which was covered in painful blisters. The only parts of my body that were still unharmed were my neck, head, and arms. However, if that bag held the answers to what happened to me over the past few hours, then I needed to look inside of it.

"Bakura…" I called out timidly. I was such a fucking wimp. Oh, gosh… How was I even supposed to survive in this place?

I saw him tilt his head to the side slightly, not even bothering to look at me, but I knew that he had heard me because he let out a noncommittal "Hm" It was vague and hardly satisfying, but at least he was listening. I half expected him to ignore me.

"Could I take a look at my bag for a second?" I asked him, trying not to sound like a shy grade-schooler making a class presentation.

He shrugged lightly and looked at me. "Are you sure you can carry it?"

"Yes, I can…" I thought about the blisters on my back and grimaced. "Well, not for a while, but… umm…" I looked around the park, my eyes searching for an empty bench. "We could… I don't know… maybe… sit down? Somewhere? I-If that's okay with you?" I was doing such a good job of trying to sound confident -don't you think? Man, Lorna. Next step? Running for presidency. Yup, totally. Someone put me in the garbage bin where I so clearly belong.

I heard a long and drawn out sigh coming from Asswipe McGee himself. I wondered if he majored in fuckface-ism in 3000 year old Egyptian university… "You know we have no time for that. I need two more locator cards to qualify for the Battle City Finals, and with the way you're dragging your feet, I'd rather get those cards sooner rather than later. You can look at your wretched bag while I'm dueling."

I expected him to say something like that…

Wait a sec… Battle City Finals? That reminded me that I, myself, was once competing. I had at least two locator cards. If I could just find them somewhere in my bag, I could give them to him and we could get this over with. The sooner I could be reunited with my friends, the better. I had already given up any hope of making it to the Finals myself, but if there was anything I could do to make sure we didn't miss the blimp, I would do it, even if it meant helping out this professional asshole.

"You know… I was competing in the Battle City tournament, too… so I -"

And never straying too far from his true nature as a complete piece of horse shit, he decided to interrupt me again. "Yes, I know. I've decided to borrow your duel disk."

… That piece of shit did what?

Before I could truly respond to his heinous act of disrespect and treachery, he spoke again. "Don't worry. I didn't throw your deck away. It's still in your bag… You really should get a deck box, though…They're very useful." He smirked at me, evidently feeling very happy with himself.

"I -" My voice got caught in my throat. My brain was still trying to register the fact that he was using my duel disk and my locator cards, and it was so busy doing so, that it hadn't even realized that my cards were haphazardly strewn across the bottom of my bag, possibly bent and damaged. "O-Okay." And all I fucking said was "Okay" I was beginning to wonder who was the bigger piece of trash -me or him?

Wait…

Wait, wait, wait.

"Bakura, did you just say I have four locator cards?" I asked, craning my neck to look at him. He wasn't as tall (or as nice) as Joey, but standing right next to me, he was kinda hard to look in the face. W-Which was for the best, obviously! Because who wants to look at his stupid poopy face anyway?

At the moment, the two of us were slowly exiting the park, and I was beginning to wonder where exactly we were going. I just wished I could remember… How did Bakura even get the rest of his locator cards so quickly? There were hardly any duelists around. In fact, as we were walking, I didn't see a single duel in progress. Every single duelist had either given up or been struck out by a stronger duelist.

Bakura dragged me through the entrance of the park and onto the sidewalk outside. As we stood at the side of the road, waiting for an opening to cross the street, he decided to reply. "Yes, you do. In fact, I'm surprised an amateur like you even managed to get that far."

Hey! I didn't exclaim because I'm a chicken who is too afraid to stand up for herself.

The insult aside though, how had I managed to get four locator cards? The first one was the card that came with the duel disk, and the second was definitely the one I got by defeating Rex, but I didn't remember getting two other cards -unless they came from Viola. I felt my heart flutter in my chest as I remembered the demons from the Shadow Duel. They hurt me so much, and every time I thought about them, my skin throbbed and begged me to cast the thought away. An image flashed in my mind just then.

Everything in my duel with Viola I could remember with such vivid clarity up until Joey and Téa came to cheer me on. The image that came to mind was different. It was vague and felt like a long lost dream flashing in my mind then disappearing. I wasn't even sure of what it was, but something about it stuck out in my mind's eye. It was Viola covered in red. I wasn't even sure if I had red vision or if she truly was covered in red, but the color red was something that really stuck out, and it was a color that didn't exactly have a great track record where my hallucinations were concerned.

My thoughts were interrupted by Bakura, who was now ushering me to the other side of the street before any cars came. My legs hurt like hell, but I didn't exactly want to get run over, so I tried as hard as I could to keep up with the pace he had set for the both of us. And in less than a minute, we were both at the other side. One of us panting heavily due to exertion, and the other not really giving a shit. I bet you can guess which person was doing what.

In front of us was a large gate and above that gate was an elegant wooden sign. "A cemetery?" I asked, as I laid my eyes on the sign, glancing into it uneasily. I wasn't really a big fan of cemeteries or horror movies or anything creepy for that matter.

"Yes, will that be a problem?" he replied. I could hear the smirk in his voice. That smug, slimy little nazi butt was enjoying my unease, and I hated him so much.

"But there are like… dead people… in there." I complained, my voice rising a couple of octaves at the end of the sentence, making it sound almost like a question.

"Yes, we'll fit right in then, won't we, Lorna?" he replied letting out a small, sinister chuckle.

I scowled and pursed my lips, holding back an insult. That was pretty low. It felt kinda wrong to call Bakura names anyway, when really, it was the nameless Spirit of the Ring that I should have been badmouthing. "Say, Spirit of the Ring… what's your real name?"

"Why do you ask?" He looked down at me, taken aback at the sudden question. It seems like nobody had ever bothered to ask him that. I mean, watching the anime, I only really knew him as Yami Bakura or the Spirit of the Ring.

"Just… humor me," I replied, looking at the ground and beginning to regret my decision to ask him.

I thought he would simply ignore me and drag me into the graveyard for whatever reason he wanted us in there, but I was…. surprised to see him respond to my question rather naturally. "It's Zorc."

I nodded silently and committed the name to my memory. "You're a dick, Zorc."

He surprised me again by letting out a loud laugh. It sounded maniacal coming from someone like him, and I felt my blood boil that my insult wasn't being taken as seriously as I had intended. All this buildup for my amazing comeback to all his abuse and he laughs at me.

"I mean it!" I insisted, finally feeling my awkwardness stepping aside. "You're a huge dick!"

The laughter simply got louder from here. I could feel the arm I was holding on to shaking. He turned his head to look at me, a huge, toothy grin on his face. If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was just an innocent teenage boy. He quieted his laughter enough for him to speak. "I didn't know you thought of me that way, Lorna. Well, I'll admit you're right in a sense."

"Huh?" I gave him a questioning look. I didn't say anything funny.

Wait...

… THAT DIRTY-MINDED ASS-TRUMPET!

"T-T-That's not what I meant!" I exclaimed, quickly trying to regain my lost honor. "You're the absolute worst!"

Stupid, STUPID ZORC.

"No need to deny it, Lorna," he told me with a leer which I wanted to smack right off of his stupid, creepy face. "We have no time for pleasantries, though. I have some locator cards to win."

"So what are we going to do in a graveyard?" I inquired, feeling a soft but chilly breeze come at us from inside the graveyard.

He gave me a look that took my reputation and the reputation of my entire lineage and flushed it down the toilet. "We're going to duel obviously."

Obviously. Because that's what you usually do in graveyards.

"But what kind of duelist is going to hang out in a graveyard? Especially at a time like this!"

As Zorc walked me through the ominous cemetery, I couldn't help but gaze around at the gravestones scattered all about. In the day, this place probably looked like a beautiful and peaceful resting ground for the dead, but right then, it was cold and dark. The two of us were surrounded by fog, and I felt like a monster could pop up at us at any second. We were so vulnerable… I mean, I was sure that alone, Zorc could hold his own, but I was a liability…

A gruff voice cut into my spiral into fear. "Not a duelist in sight…"

I looked over at Bakura's face; Zorc had put it in such a deep frown. "What made you think there would be duelists here to begin with? I think we should just leave…" I weakly tugged at his jacket, urging him to leave.

Before he could respond to me, I heard an eerie moaning. It startled me, sending my heart into my throat all at once. I could hardly breathe, the oxygen entering my lungs in short, quick bursts which did more harm than good.

"UWAAGH! BEWARE!"

B-Beware?

Just then, three shadowy figures began to approach the two of us. I clenched my fingers around the sleeve of Bakura's jacket, shrinking into him to increase the distance between the figures and myself.

"Are you serious?" Zorc murmured under his breath.

Before I could say a word, he was throwing me at the ground, causing a frightened yelp to emerge from my lips and a pained scream at the friction between my legs and the ground. Why did he do that? Shaken, I curled up into a ball and cradled my sore limbs. He was going to get what was coming to him as soon as I got back together with Yugi and my friends. In fact, wasn't he going to be defeated early on in the Battle City Finals? Man, was I going to enjoy that. I was going to sit right at the front just so I could be the first to laugh at him when I watched him lose.

I watched as one of the three leaped at Zorc, who dodged the assailant with ease, simultaneously taking off his mask and pinning his arm to his back. I would say that I was impressed that Zorc had such good reflexes and could do so well against a guy twice his size, but that would imply I felt something other than hatred for him.

Zorc looked down at the ground a little ways away from where he had pushed me and I followed his gaze to a duel disk which had been carelessly tossed to the ground -much like myself. I guess you could say that I now felt a spiritual connection to that discarded duel disk. Someday, we would have our revenge. Soon.

"So you are duelists," he remarked, still looking down at the duel disk. I was glaring straight into his eyes, waiting for him to meet my gaze so that he would feel guilty for throwing me and possibly apologize, but when he returned his gaze to his assailant's two companions, his eyes skipped right over me. Stupid knob goblin. "If this is how you intimidate the competition, you're even more hopeless than you look." He then shoved the large man forward into his companions. "You're not match for my strength, so we'll do things my way."

Out of three, one pair of eyes looked away from Zorc and down at me. The owner of those eyes slowly removed the mask from his head, revealing his face. He was a tall, thin boy in a form-fitting shirt, wearing sunglasses which must have made it difficult for him to see, considering how dark the cemetery was (never mind how he was even able to fit those glasses under his mask). I could barely see anything here without sunglasses, so I couldn't even imagine the world of darkness that guy was in. However he was able to see, he was looking straight at me. With a confused tilt of his head, he whispered something into his shorter friend's ear.

Not paying any mind to this exchange, Zorc prattled on, like the gigantic fucking tool that he was. "I possess 4 locator cards, and if you'd like to have them, you'll have to duel me for them."

The short stranger in the middle, who seemed to be their leader, thrust his finger out at us, saying, "Fine. We have five locator cards. We'll only need one of yours to make it to the Battle City Finals, but if you insist on giving them all to us, then I, personally, don't mind."

The three of them began to talk among themselves again. This time, all three of them shot curious looks at my crumpled form. It wasn't like I could stand up again. I needed Zorc's support to get on my feet the first time, and this time, it seemed like he was content to leave me in the state that I was in, which meant that, until Zorc won this duel, I would be fair game to any and all bugs on the ground.

"If we're going to duel then take off your mask and show me your face," my companion ordered, a malicious smile playing at his lips.

The short one chuckled and began to peel off the wrinkled mask on his face. I didn't expect him to be ugly under the mask, too, however. "I'm afraid you don't stand a ghostof a chance in a duel against me!" he taunted. Ghost of a chance? Ugh, who came up with that stupid line. Judging by the way Zorc's face tensed, he didn't seem to enjoy that sorry excuse for a pun either. "So put up your locator cards and let's do this!"

"If you're so confident, why not raise the stakes?" the white haired boy challenged. "The winner takes all!"

The three of them gasped, clearly not liking the idea of risking everything. So much for not standing a Ghost of a chance…

"Not likely," the tall one said.

"You think we're dumb enough to risk all five cards?" the largest one asked, dismissing the idea with a wave of his hand.

Zorc grinned like a cat playing with a mouse. "Your cowardice comes as no surprise, but let me remind you: the finals begin soon and you're running out of time."

He was right. There was no way anyone would be able to get all six locator cards. My knowledge of the series also told me that there was no way they would be able to make it to the finals even if they were to give us the bare minimum of locator cards to qualify Zorc for the finals.

"Lorna."

I had been so caught up in watching the scene play out before me, that I had almost forgotten that I was a part of that scene. It felt surreal, watching this. It's funny that in the time that I had been here, this was the first scene that I recognized from when I watched the show a few years ago. And out of all the scenes, why did this have to be the first?

I looked up at Zorc, failing to glare at him as I had originally planned. "What?"

"Your bag," he said, dropping the olive green bag a few inches away from me. Immediately, he returned his attention to his opponent.

I couldn't be bothered to watch the rest of the scene play out, though. My hands swiftly pulled the bag towards my legs, deciding to search through it while it was on the ground rather than try to put it in my lap. I hurriedly undid the zipper and shoved my arm inside, thanking the heavens that my arms didn't have blisters on them or this would have been infinitely more difficult and painful for me.

Just as I had suspected, my cards were unceremoniously scattered all around the bag. It was going to be a bitch to try and put them all back together in a neat pile, but that was the least of my worries at the moment. I needed to know what happened at the end of the duel with Viola.

My shoulders shuddered as a chilly and familiar atmosphere surrounded me. No, no, no, Zorc. The fog had gotten very thick all around the five of us, and the unease in the hearts of myself and the trio who was unfortunate enough to stumble upon Zorc was almost a physical force that surrounded us and created thick layers around our hearts. A Shadow Game.

"Get out of the way"

"No, I won't."

I felt my fingers brush against something smooth with sharp corners, like a stone. This must have been it. The Fragment…

This was the answer.

I slowly wrapped my hand around it, feeling a strange warmth fill my hand. Carefully, I began to extract my arm from the bag, and when my hand was in the open air again, opened it over my lap.

This was it. It was the very same crystal that Viola had shown me. The fact that this crystal was now in my hand meant that Viola was dead -and that I was the one who killed her.

Oh, look -filler! Ahaha -it's okay, I'll just throw tomatoes at myself. The next chapter will have some, uhh, interesting plot twists?

Also, DAT 4KIDS DIALOGUE. I tried to find a subbed (and possibly less cheesy) version of this episode, but the odds were not in my favor.

Pfft, "beware" tho-

About Zorc anyway... my headcanon has Zorc as the main Spirit of the Ring, however, don't count Thiefy out yet, alright :D He's there... somewhere...

I'm also going to thank everyone again. My reviewers never cease to flatter and humble me. You guys make me feel so great and you inspire me as well.

I also wanted to say that in honor of Chapter 20 of this fanfic , I wanted to hold a little Q&A type thing, where you can ask me literally anything you want about this fic and I will answer at the end of Chapter 21, I will answer anything -even weird crack stuff. Go all out :D Just put your questions at the end of your review of this chapter, and I'll answer them :)