Me: (Peeks out from behind a stone) Hi, it's me. I really hope you remember me with a smile.
Stina (my dark side) : (sitting around idly polishing her nails) Get out from behind there and explain why you didn't update last month you coward.
Me: (sends her a hurt glare) Fine. (steps into view) I thought about it, often, I promise, but every time I thought that I would update something else came up and left me with no time to update. I'm really sorry I never had the time to...
Stina: Translation: SHE FORGOT
Me: Meanie
Stina: I'm telling the truth since you obviously are avoiding it.
Me: (stares at her for a moment) By the way, where did you come from?
Stina: (shrugs her shoulders) Your imagination, with a little help from the YGO anime.
Me: (sighs) Well, anyway. I know I should update two chapters this month, but if I do the deadline will be one month closer, and I must say I really can't afford that. Sorry 'bout that.
Stina: Enough rambling, on with the story.
History – Legend – Myth – Fairytale
"Fine, just perfect. Just what we needed right now," Honda said irritated and threw the last script away.
The books revealed absolutely nothing. Ryouko's diary could hint to what had happened, but since it was a diary, the writing wasn't really revealing anything of importance.
Bakura, in utter frustration, read the last page of the diary silently to himself again.
June 13, 1631
Midsummer is closing in, yet I can find no joy in the event. We have been here for one and a half year. But she did not last that long. Scotland is in chaos. It was not supposed to be like this. We who are left can not pick up the pieces however much we try. And the pieces we have will soon be nothing but a memory.
The stars are not able to shine as bright as before. The sun is not able to share warmth anymore. Her kingdom, what she fought so hard to defend, is falling apart.
Miss Malin too is fading away. It is very hesitantly she leaves her pencil and papers to come and eat. She starves herself. There is so little left. Kyoko has fallen ill, and Marie say it will take a miracle for her to survive. I too feel like I have not much time left. I can only hope my lifeline is long enough for me to finish the last of my memories. But if not time will put me to rest, then this chaos will.
Bakura groaned in annoyance. "This won't lead anywhere," he growled. "And if you mention that black book one more time I will castrate you, fry it and force you to eat it," he continued as he felt rather than saw Yami's mouth open.
"Well… should we go through what we have once again?" Anzu said hopefully.
"For the umpteenth time," Jono mumbled under his breath. "Fine," he said out loud and picked up some notes to start from the very beginning. "The princess was born 1612 in the north of Scotland as the only child of Loutus III and his queen Yue."
"And according to the diary the princess had a bother," Bakura said from his place on the bed.
Honda didn't even pick up the notes. "1615 the queen was banished for reasons unknown, with the promise to return, but never did."
Anzu sighed as she picked up a book. "The Battle Princess grows up in Scotland. At the age of fourteen, 1626, she was named as Great Brittan's highest beauty ever. And 1630 the king pass away in illness."
"Mars 1630 Yuniko is crowned to lonely queen over Scotland," Yami said with his head resting on the wall behind him. He knew all of these facts by now, as many times as they have gone through them. "And the same year she disappears, reason unknown, and Scotland is left without monarch, causing a war between the noblemen who wanted the throne, as well as England who saw it as an opportunity to widen their own kingdom."
"According to the diary and the painting she probably died." Bakura sighed. "This is too little to be interesting."
"Or explaining," Yami agreed. "This does not explain why Yugi, Ryou, Malik or Seto would dream about it. If it was something important I would understand and accept. But this is simply too little."
"So…" Jono started placing Seto's and his own notes in a heap. "Shall we go to the library and try to find something more interesting? After all, we have done their job for them now."
That was true. Though it was not much interesting information, Bakura, Yami, Honda, Jono and Anzu had done the four Dreamers history search in the latest hours.
"Good idea," Anzu said and stood up, before she heard a few growls from the guys' stomachs. "But first we might as well eat something. Where's the kitchen?"
The grand library, to where Yami & co returned all the stuff Yugi and the others had borrowed, revealed nothing the five youths didn't already know. The stuff the Dreamers had borrowed seemed to be everything that library had. Now they were at a very small bookstore with much older books. It was actually very comfortable in here. It was dimly lit, but had it been stronger the cosiness would be gone. It smelled of dust, paper and old books, but for some reason it made everyone relaxed.
"Battle Princess?"
"Yes, do you know anything about her?" Bakura asked hopefully.
"That old fairytale?" the elderly woman asked.
"Fairytale?" Jono said surprised. "No, we're looking for facts, not some kind of tale."
"Well," the woman looked very thoughtful for a long moment. "I know it is based on a real person, but the Battle Princess is nothing but a legend, a myth, a fairytale."
The five youths exchanged surprised and confused stares, before Honda lead the word. "Well, we would need about anything we can get our hands on."
The old woman nodded, once again thoughtful, before she slowly stood up. "I do know we have something about her. My mother was fascinated about her when she travelled to Scotland once. She visited an old ruin, named The White Castle for its white stones. She told me she had found an undone painting in there. A painting of a woman with the heaven in her eyes and a face like an angel or a saint. But then again, the painting had been there for a long time, and there was not much left. What she did find was… this one." She picked out a thin book with faded red and black cover. The letters were so faded they were almost impossible to make out. Hadn't the five friends known what it said they would never have been able to guess.
"What is this?" Bakura asked, leaning forward in interest.
"It is something my late mother found, very well preserved, in the white castle," the old woman said and tenderly stroked the thin book's old cover. The teens leaned in. This was interesting, compared to the other things they had found that day.
"May I see it?" Yami asked and reached his hand to accept the book.
"It is very hard English, young ones," the woman said, but still handed Yami the book. "Be careful with it. There is no other exemplar in the entire world."
Yami nodded eagerly in understanding before he and his friends looked around for a table that was not already occupied with mountains of books. They found a small one in a corner and had to bring chairs and a lamp to it. But as they opened the book they found themselves disappointed.
"What kind of language is this?" Jono asked annoyed.
"She said English," Bakura said lowly, glaring at the words he could not even make out.
"You mean ancient English," Yami hissed and showed the book away from him.
"We finally found something useful and we can't even read it," Anzu said and glared at the book as if she demanded it to reveal its secrets.
"Do you need any help, young ones?" the old lady asked as she walked over to them. She moved with strange grace between the mountains of books though she was so old. No youth could ever move as easily in here as her.
"Yes, very much, please," Anzu said and gave the old woman a pleading look.
"Do not look at me like that. I can read that as well as you with my old eyes. You must wait for my young ones. They can easily read that for you. But while you wait I thought you might find this interesting."
From her pocket she picked a cross that was probably made of silver, but it had dulled with time. In each edge a stone was engraved, but they too were very dull and lifeless. The cross hung in a thin chain that looked very breakable.
"What is this?" Bakura asked carefully, leaning forward to see better.
"Look at the first page in the book," the old lady advised.
Yami snatched the book from the middle of the table and flipped the first page up for all of them to view.
"Jesus Christ!"
"Mon Dieu!"
"Oh my God…"
The teens could just stare at the still very clear ink drawing of the Battle Princess fighting off some kind of dark beings. It was a completely different image than the one Yami had found in the black book. But that was not it. The thing was that it was Yugi's face with an expression no one knowing him would ever imagine him capable of. It was filled with pure anger, and maybe even hate.
"This can not be the girl we are looking for," Anzu said lowly.
"It must be," Honda argued. "The cover says Battle Princess after all."
"But still…" Bakura voiced. "This is not the same girl."
"It can't possibly be," Yami agreed.
"Have you figured out what this cross has to do with that drawing?" the old lady asked patiently.
Jono was the first to see the connection. "This girl has it too," he said.
"Observant, young man. This has in all times belonged to the Battle Princess."
The teens stared at the old woman with wide eyes. When she realized why she could not stop herself from chuckling. "No, no. I am not the one you seek. And the cross is dull in my hands. Had I been the Battle Princess It would have been as clear as if it had been made just this morning."
"But you said-" Anzu started.
"That I do not believe the Battle Princess to be history? I must say I pretended. You see, you are not the first ones who seek the story of the princess of Scotland." The lady took seat in a chair, letting the crucifix rest in her lap. "The ones before you have sought facts about her, but what they found they only laughed at and threw aside. The church could not accept the history to be passed down. The catholic priests and the pope of Roma could not accept a woman as the one ruling a kingdom on her own. Yes, Elisabeth I of England had ruled England and parts of Ireland in the second half of sixteenth century, but her story and reason to rule was acceptable, the Battle Princess's was not. The story about the princess of Scotland… it has always been laughed at until it has been forgotten by everyone, but the land of Scotland itself."
"You… sound like you know very much about her," Yami said, leaning very far forward, as if he was afraid he would miss one single word leaving the old lady's lips.
"I will not brag about it, nor am I proud of it, but I have always loved the Battle Princess. She is laughed at and made fun of because she was a woman who alone defeated the world's greatest enemy and the greatest threat of mankind. But it is no beautiful fairytale. It is tragic and hard to understand."
"Do you know what happened to the princess?" Bakura asked.
"Yes… yes, I know," the old lady said slowly. "But you will have to read the story for yourselves. And for that you will have to wait for my young apprentices, Hoshi and Yosei."
"Beautiful names," Jono mumbled as the old lady walked back to the desk to continue whatever she was working with.
"Anzu, can your old Pa read English?" Bakura asked with a sweet smile that was more or less demanding her to say yes.
The French girl fidgeted in her chair. "Um… no. He can only read French, Dutch and Finnish. Don't ask me about the last one."
Bakura and Yami sighed in union. None of them were really patient enough to wait for those two. No one knew when they would come after all.
"Grandma Karin, we're back!" called a voice from the entrance. Or was it two? Whatever the number it made the group of teens jump up from their seats to look at the new appearance.
"Oh, we have guests?" the ones in the door said in another perfect union.
"Girls, how good to see you back so soon," the old lady, now known as Grandma Karin, greeted her two young apprentices. "These youths are in desperate need of your help. They have come for the Battle Princess."
There was a silence where the groups studied each other. Hoshi and Yosei looked like twins, but… yet they did not. Well, they looked exactly alike, and still like the other's opposite.
"Hi there, fellows," the one to the left said with a smile so bright she looked like a sun. "My name is Hoshi, and that is my little sister Yosei."
Suddenly their names didn't seem as strange anymore. Hoshi had the brightest green eyes, alabaster white skin, hair like the purest gold, and body that made all the boys stare, and probably would cause a traffic accident. She dressed in a tight blue and pink top that exposed both shoulders and her stomach, and she had pulled it low to expose her remarkable chest. Her pleated skirt had the same shades of blue and pink as her top, but it also involved some streaks of a bright, yellow colour. They suited very well together on her, though they would look ridicules on her sister. And Hoshi's smile talked for itself. It was a sun and star in its full pronounced nature.
Yosei's skin was dark, even darker than Malik's. Her hair had such a deep brown hue it looked black in the dull light. Her green eyes were much darker than her sister's and she dressed in a short Isabella white dress with a gold-yellow sash around her waist. But as her sister moved easily, Yosei moved with such grace she appeared like a fairy. Her body was not such a traffic danger as her sister's either, tough he really had the legs.
Bakura was the first one to stop staring at Hoshi's body. He picked up the old book and held it up for the twins to see. "Can you read this?"
Hoshi stared at the text with a slight frown on her pretty face.
"I can," Yosei said with a sweet smile as she carefully took the book from Bakura. "The story about the Battle Princess is my favourite one."
Hoshi's eyes lit up in delight. "The Battle Princess? I love that story. She was so cool when she fought off all those vampires in the lead of her army."
"Vampires?" Bakura, Yami, Jono, Honda and Anzu all stared at the bright twin.
"Those are the reason the story of the Battle Princess is said to be nothing but a fairytale," Grandma Karin said from behind the desk.
"You mean vampires have really existed… for real?" Jono asked with wide eyes.
"There may as well still be some left out there," Karin said and looked up at the teens over her glasses. "But they promised the princess to never again turn another human into one of them. So there is very few left in our time."
The way Karin said it sent cold shivers down Jono, Honda and Anzu's spines. Bakura and Yami were somehow not really surprised.
"Well, could you please translate this to us, Yosei?" Yami asked the dark twin.
"Sure, but it will take some time," she answered, her eyes never leaving the handwritten letters. "Please come with me."
Hoshi and Yosei lead the way between books and bookcases into a small office where Yosei sat down in a comfortable looking chair. Hoshi helped the rest of the gang bring chairs into the small office before she left in order to put some order in the library. Karin was too old to keep the order, and burglars were not actually unusual.
"Can you really read that?" Honda asked after a moment.
"Yes, but to translate it is something else. This was written in the first half of the seventeenth century's Scotland. It is quite different to understand and to translate."
"Can't you just read it in its original form and we may be able to understand for ourselves," Yami suggested.
"Scottish and English is not really the same language," Yosei explained. "The same roots, yes, but still not exactly the same. The pronouncing may be very hard for you to understand. And as I said, this is from the seventeenth century, which means the language has changed quite some bit since then."
All this Yosei said without looking up from the text she was reading. Obviously she was one of those people you meet once in a lifetime that can do three things at the same time.
Anzu turned to Yami and whispered. "Do you think we will get out of here today?"
Yami would have answered, had Yosei not sent him that look which told him she had heard. So he settled down to just shrug his shoulders.
"I think I have it now," Yosei said not long after. She leaned forward along with the rest of the occupants of the room. "I can not promise you it is exact, but it is as close as I can do in the hurry. If you give me some time I can have an exact translation done tomorrow if you'd like."
"Tell us what you got," Yami and Bakura said in union.
Jono and Honda stared at the arch enemies who glared at each other, before they returned their attention to Yosei.
"The times when fear and pain will break the chain. The Battle Princess is reborn to protect the human world."
Bakura raised an elegant eyebrow in slight confusion. There was just something wrong with the sentences. But he could not really put his finger on it.
"As I said, it is not exact," Yosei, who had obviously seen his action, said before she returned to the text. "Gained and lost, the battle must be won… Stripped of beauty the lord is vengeful." Yosei bit her lip and her brows furrowed in concentration. "I'm not sure of the next lines."
"Well, while you try to make out the rest, we may as well try to make out some sense in what you've gotten us this far," Bakura said.
Yosei nodded in agreement and leaned back while biting her little finger in thought.
"Well," Jono started. "Any ideas?"
Yami rested his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands. "Well, I think it's best if we wait until Yosei has an exact translation of the text."
"And I can't say I disagree," Bakura started. "But for some crazy reason I think this is important for what we may find later."
"Forgive me, but there is this little problem that the text seems to be written as some kind of riddle," Honda said with a muscle under his eyebrow snapping.
"Riddle?" Anzu asked. "I think it's quite clear."
The boys stared at her. "You sure are full of surprises, Anzu," Yami said and leaned closer to her. "What have you found that we are still looking for?"
"Well…" Anzu said while blushing for having all the boys staring so intently at her. "She said 'Times of fear and pain'. I think that it is the time when our princess lived. If it is true that vampires existed in her time the times must have been very… worried, so to say. After all, she mentioned a battle that they had to win as well."
"I have fallen in love with your ability to see what is hidden for the rest of us," Honda said as a joke. "Can't you share your ability with us?"
Anzu blushed deeply, but then she returned to her explanations. "Then I think she said that the Battle Princess was reborn. I believe that our Battle Princess may not be the first one. So her history goes even further back in time."
"Wait a sec," Bakura suddenly cut off. "Don't you think it's strange?"
"What?" Yami asked.
"This book and Ryouko's diary was written at the same time. Why did none of us have any problems to read her English?"
There was a silence when everyone just stared at each other, as if they suspected that the other was sitting on the answers they were looking for.
"Okay, I got the rest," Yosei suddenly announced and leaned forward again.
"Give us everything," Yami and Bakura said in another fine union, and glared at each other.
"As you wish. A place without belief, painful bonds are tied. Trust is torn and love too worn." Yosei bit her lip as she turned the page. "I'm not really sure this is right," she admitted. "Sorrow grief in the night of dark… that for sure didn't sound right."
"Nothing has done this far, so just keep it up and we shall just try to not fall over in our own confusion during that time," Honda said. He was seriously tired of being confused.
"I can give you a more exact translation, but you will have to wait till tomorrow then."
"And if I don't hear this now I won't be able to sleep tonight," Yami said, sending the dark twin a pleading look.
"I won't sleep anyway," Bakura mumbled mostly to himself.
Yosei shrugged her shoulders and returned to the text. "One heart of light. Now and then the word I seek is shining through the darkness. Give this feeling once more, the lord is kneeling. Grief and sorrow's opposite save the morning light. Light will never leave… I think it says that you give in for death or something, but I'm not sure. I don't really know what this word means."
"Don't stop there," Jono said somewhat exited. "You have lost me long ago, so you might as well lose me some more."
Yosei gave the blond a killing glare. She hated it when someone made a fool of her. "You can try to translate this yourself if you want," she said with eyes so dark they almost looked black.
"I've already tried, and I have to say I failed."
"Then don't say my work is bad."
"Okay, okay. No one could have done this better."
Yosei was about to continue her argument with the stupid blond when her sister dashed inside.
"Found it!" she sang happily.
"Found what?" Honda said interested, hoping that there finally had come up something that could clear the group's constant confusion.
"This, the written book about the Battle Princess, written by the nurse Miss Malin herself. With pictures!"
"In Japanese?" the entire gang asked excitedly.
"Unfortunately not. The tale was said to be absurd when it was written, but in Scotland it is more or less a holy story, so it has been written in newer Scottish and English. This is the latest translation, and it is in English."
"Perfect!" Honda sang and ran up to the girl and hugged her. "I love you!"
"Get your hands off of my sister or I will kick your ass till there's nothing left of it!"
Honda immediately released the bright twin. Yosei really looked like she meant what she said.
"Well, you were just trying to translate that text for us. Please continue."
Yosei slowly sat down and returned to the text. It took her some time to pick up the line. "What is the dark lord hiding? Love, home… pride? Hiding the star of heart and darkness is blinding."
"Huh?"
The dark twin ignored the three sounds of confusion. "I leave you with this to find the rest on your own. The word is the star in her. In light even darkness… retreat… I think."
The boys and Hoshi looked lost.
"Anzu," Honda and Jono said in union, sending the girl their most blinding smiles.
"I'm not sure either," the girl admitted, which made the boys' heads lower in defeat. "It was not only about the Battle Princess," Anzu explained. "There were more to it. But I think we will be smarter once Yosei has given us a more exact translation. Will you do that for us, Yosei?"
"Well, since you ask so nicely, alright."
"You're an angel," Yami prised the girl.
"You too, Hoshi," Bakura said and walked up to the blonde girl. "Can I have that book?"
"Hold it!" Yami yelled and pointed threatening at his enemy. "It's my brother, so I'll read that book first."
"This is not only about Yugi. Ryou is dreaming as well," Bakura hissed.
"Well, these are the Yami and Bakura I know," Honda mumbled to Jono, who nodded in agreement.
Yami was about to return when the twins suddenly cut them off. "What are you talking about?"
Yami's threat changed tone immediately as he didn't face Bakura anymore. "My little brother turned into the hosp last week, and we have figured that he is dreaming, possibly about an earlier life. We think that he once was the Battle Princess."
The twins' jaws slowly fell to the floor.
"Hoshi!" Yosei yelled and jumped over to her sister and both of them hid their noses in the book about the Battle Princess. On the cover there was a beautiful picture of the princess's face, Yugi's face.
When the twins looked up it was Yami they stared at. "You're the princess's brother?"
"Eh?"
"You're the one who killed her!"
For Yami, the world stopped. Those few words killed his heart and it forgot how to beat. It was like someone had dropped him into a frozen sea to never again pick him up.
"I…" he started, but the hyper twins interrupted.
"No I remember the story," Yosei said, looking at the open page of the book.
"The prince Atemu was killed on the night of the Battle Princess Yuniko's sixteenth birthday," Hoshi continued. "But two years later he returned from the dead. It is said he wanted the throne of Scotland, but the princess refused and declared war against her brother and his army of vampires, why she later gained the title of Battle Princess among the people of Scotland. The story ends with the princess's death when she defended a friend from being killed, and took on the death of her friend. That also put an end to the war, but that… no one knows how."
Yami just stood there, numb and cold. Bakura glanced at him, wondering if he should try to comfort him. Yami could be bull-headed, egoistic, self-centred, ignorant and all that shit. But Yugi was his little brother, nothing in the world could change that fact. And of cause brothers, and all siblings in the world for that matter, fought and teased each other more or less, no exceptions. But still no older brother or sister, with historical exceptions of cause, would ever even come up with a ghost of the thought of killing their younger siblings. But in the room, Bakura was the only one who realized that. The others just stared at Yami with more or less disbelief.
"Okay, that's it for today," Bakura suddenly spoke loudly and snapped the book from the twins. "I will borrow this for a few days. Yosei, we will be more than grateful if you can give us a better translation of that poem when we return tomorrow. And you're coming with me," he finished and grabbed Yami's collar and dragged him outside before anyone had a chance to protest. "Grandma Karin. We're borrowing this for a few days. I promise you we will return it as soon as possible. Good night!"
The old lady only nodded in understanding. But as the two boys left, their friends soon after, her grey eyes changed into a clear, red colour. Yosei and Hoshi walked out of the office with empty eyes. None of them reacted at their old grandma changing form right in front of their eyes.
"Do not fear, young ladies," Scot said kindly. "I will not control you forever, and I have not killed your beloved grandmother."
The old priest stood up, and walked over to a window where he could see the group of youths talk outside. "The seal will break soon," he said lowly. "This evil circle must be broken. Thousand years has passed since the first battle. At that time she only put a seal on us out of kindness and hope. The second battle, five hundred years later, she defeated us almost completely, but left only the few of us, not able to bear the deaths of ours. This time, this last time, she must erase our existence completely, or she will never find peace in mind… or heart."
"I should have guessed this much," a familiar voice said from the shadows.
"Oh? Long time no see, your majesty," Scot greeted without turning around.
"Your language has not changed with the years, my old friend," the other said and stepped up to him.
"You and I are still of the same sort, I can find no reason to show you the same respect now as I did when we were both alive."
The other smirked. "Now, now. We are not enemies. We are both fighting for the same thing: my daughter's victory."
Scot nodded and turned to the Battle Princess's father. "True, but also for the prince to tear his eyes away from what his sister has been, to what she has become."
Loutus nodded slowly. "Yes, the only thing you and I can do now is to help my son understand. The rest is up to Yuniko."
"And her little friends, my king."