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XXIX

"How exactly are we going to save the world?" Kaiba asked. He and Sakurelle were running through the streets of Domino in the late afternoon. The high sun illuminated the bright blue sky and cheerful atmosphere of the town as school kids returned home in their uniforms and workers boarded the buses. There was a dull chatter in the background of every street they jogged through, smiling faces and waves distracting their vision.

And because Kaiba was annoyed that the descriptive paragraph was delaying his answer, Sakurelle flipped a few stray hairs out of her face and responded, "Well, we're going to randomly run through the streets, looking like we're doing something urgent while everyone else has no idea of the impending doom. Then, someone is either going to beckon us in dark, creepy robes to some deserted building, or a giant, live Duel Monster will pop out and the sky will turn dark and swirly." Kaiba nodded.

"What if we did something more productive than randomly running through the streets?" Sakurelle stopped, not looking even the slightest bit exhausted after running for a full half an hour or so. Come on, even Kaiba was winded.

"Do you have a better idea, Seto?" she asked. Kaiba bent over, with his hands on his knees, catching his breath. Since he was helping the Sue, even he got a full sentence to himself. Not that he really cared.

"I think that Malik and his freaks would be more likely to hide in something dark, underground."

Sakurelle snapped her fingers and her violet eyes glowed. "Of course! We have to go into a deserted building and then we'll find a secret pathway into the secret hideout."

Kaiba stared at her and narrowed his eyes. "How did you know?"

"It was like…season two or something…on the show. You know the one with the creepy Arkana guy. You should know…it was during Battle City!" Sakurelle stated as if it was obvious. "This isn't exactly like that, but the author's creativity has somewhat lessened as of late. This is all we get."

"Then what are we waiting for?"

"Suspense…I guess?" Sakurelle replied. Kaiba grabbed her hand and the two of them ran to the nearest deserted building that had a secret underground hideout, while the rest of the world went about their cheerful, daily business, having no idea that their lives were in the perfectly manicured hands of our Sue.

………

Yugi, Téa, Tristan, and Joey were also randomly running through the streets, trying to find Sakurelle or at least the final setting of the story. On the way, they ran into Mokuba to make things a lot easier.

"Why hello, Mokuba, what are you doing on this fine day?" Yugi greeted. Mokuba blinked, holding a weird device in both of his hands that started beeping.

"Um…I'm tracking my brother. He and Sakurelle are in danger, and I'm going to help them save the world. I was wondering when I was going to run into you guys. Sakurelle can't save the world unless she is in the presence of the main character."

"Right," Téa replied. "Well…we kinda don't know where they went, so anything we were doing up until this point has been rather pointless."

"There's usually some sort of clue," Joey added. "Like a creepy guy, food, a giant monster in the sky, or food…"

"How is food a clue?" Mokuba asked. Joey shrugged.

"I don't know. It just sounded like something I'd like to look for, you know." The five of them stood in silence for a while.

"Yeah, okay, next topic. I have a tracker, and I've traced Seto's location to this weird building that has an underground tunnel. I think we have to go there," Mokuba suggested.

"Now?" Tristan asked, since he's the only one who hadn't had a dialogue yet.

"Well, as long as we're not doing anything else to serve the Plot," Mokuba replied. "Come on."

………

In the time that the previous section occurred, Sakurelle and Kaiba found the creepy building. Don't ask the author how…that's why that part of the story was carefully avoided in the first place. They had, in fact, also already entered the building and gone inside and were now standing outside the double doors that announced that they were about to enter the secret hideout.

"Here we go!" Sakurelle proclaimed, facing Kaiba and holding his hands. He eyed the door once and then looked at the Sue.

"Why aren't we going in?" Sakurelle rolled her eyes.

"Oh, Seto. We're about to start the final scene that leads to the climax. We have to be emotionally prepared to face whatever comes at us." Kaiba still looked confused, so Sakurelle leaned forward and whispered, "That means we have to kiss."

"Oh-!" Kaiba didn't get much time to finish his sentence – or word, rather – before Sakurelle wrapped her arms around him and pressed her most enthusiastic kiss upon his lips. She pulled away and buried her face in his shoulder.

"Whatever happens, Seto, I shall always love you! We can get through this, I know we can!" Sakurelle exclaimed, closing her eyes tightly. Kaiba awkwardly stood in her embrace, his eyes glancing at the top of her head. Apparently the seriousness of this hadn't dawned on him yet. Or it could have been that this entire Plot was getting annoying and he just wanted it over with.

"Yes, we can do it," he stated with no hint of the dramatic optimism that Sakurelle possessed. This is why he didn't date. "Can we go in, now?"

"Of course, Seto!" Sakurelle pulled away, taking a deep breath and smiling. "Let's do this!"

The two of them turned to the giant double doors of the secret hideout and pushed them open. They walked into the looming darkness and waited till their eyes adjusted to the scene. Sakurelle looked around, gasping in surprise.

"Oh my gosh! It's the Egyptian underground cavern from the Yami versus Bakura episode!" she cried. Kaiba stared at her, and she turned to explain. "Oh…there's this episode that comes near the end of the show, and basically Yami's friends go to ancient Egypt or something. And then Thief King Bakura attempts to summon Zorc…do you remember that? Oh, wait, I think only your ancient counterpart was there. Anyway, that cavern! That's this."

Sakurelle was right. Apparently the author wanted to save some time on the creation and description of the dramatic final scene and therefore chose to recycle something from the show. Oh well…anyway, it was just a giant cave-type black chamber with Egyptian carvings on the stone walls and an altar at the opposite end.

"Greetings, mortals!" a voice exclaimed from the darkness. Kaiba recognized the voice immediately as Malik's. Sakurelle narrowed her eyes, completely getting into the scene.

"Show yourself!" she commanded. The voice chuckled and vanished. Instead, hundreds of Rare Hunters appeared on the scene, surrounding Sakurelle and Kaiba. Okay, maybe not hundreds, but probably…twenty.

"We're surrounded!" Sakurelle cried, clinging onto Kaiba. "What shall we do?"

Before Kaiba could offer a suggestion, Malik and Bakura appeared on the dais at the end of the room, a weird, physics-defying spotlight focused on them. Sakurelle gasped.

"You!" she cried. Malik laughed his usual super villain ominous laugh. He kept laughing. Finally, Bakura cleared his throat.

"The time has come to summon the Fourth God Card!" he said.

"Finally," Kaiba said. Sakurelle looked at him.

"What?" she asked.

"Hello, this is my dialogue!" Bakura snapped. Sakurelle and Kaiba shut up and looked at him again. "Anyway, finally the time has come! Rare Hunters! Bring me the four Millennium Items that Sakurelle is wearing! And Kaiba, if you want the card, you will cooperate."

"We're actually going to give him the card?" Malik whispered. Bakura shook his head.

"No, we'll think of something. Until then, let him pretend everything's going his way."

Sakurelle, meanwhile, turned to Kaiba.

"What the hell is he talking about?" she demanded. Kaiba didn't answer. Instead, he put on a grave face and stepped back as the Rare Hunters converged on Sakurelle. They took her Millennium Items before she could summon any Sue special abilities and she was left standing in confusion, looking at the suddenly hardened Kaiba.

"What's going on?" she asked again. Kaiba turned away from her and looked at Bakura.

"Lock her to that stone tablet that we have kept over there," he instructed. Kaiba nodded, taking Sakurelle forcefully over to the side of the giant, dark chamber, where another spotlight-from-nowhere was focused on a brown tablet with two metallic clasps. Sakurelle struggled, but her confusion overpowered her, and in the end Kaiba, with his clear mind, strapped her hands to the metallic clasps and held her there.

"What are you doing?" Sakurelle cried desperately. Kaiba still didn't answer. Meanwhile, the Rare Hunters crossed the dark room and handed Bakura and Malik the Millennium Items. They took them gleefully, doing a little Egyptian jig (if such a thing existed).

"At last!" Malik cried. "I have triumphed!"

"We must use Sakurelle's presence and distress to summon the Fourth God Card!" Bakura said. "Hurry, do the spell!"

"Not so fast!"

Bakura and Malik stopped and turned as the doors to the secret hideout were thrown open. Mokuba, Yugi, Téa, Tristan, and Joey stormed into the chamber. Sakurelle sighed in relief, but then whimpered as Kaiba directed an icy glare at her. He turned to his brother.

"What are you doing here, Mokuba?" he demanded. "This is dangerous."

"Oh please," Mokuba responded. "No one's going to kidnap me here. It's already the final scene. Anyway, I have to help Yugi and the others save the world, with Sakurelle, of course."

"How dare you interrupt our happy moment?" Malik cried. "Rare Hunters! Use your special powers and fight them!"

The Rare Hunters nodded collectively and confronted the group of five world-saving teenagers. Well, Mokuba was like twelve, but that's close enough.

"What are we going to do?" Téa cried dramatically. "There's too many of them! Even a friendship speech won't be able to save us now!"

"Anyone have any Plot-approved weapons?" Mokuba cried. The four looked at him.

"Plot-approved?" Yugi asked.

"Yeah," Mokuba replied. "This Plot is based on the dubbed version, so most of the scenes have to be gun-free and blood-free."

"Right," Yugi replied.

"But…guns are so much more efficient!" Tristan protested. The others stared at him. The world stopped spinning. Mokuba placed his hands over his mouth. Yugi turned to the readers (which is hard to describe how he did that, but he did) and put out his palms.

"You did not just read that!" he said. "Trust me, kids. Violence is not the answer! That is not the reason we have giant monsters eating each other in our Duels, or the reason we have creepy guys kidnap Mokuba in every season, or the reason why we skip school to save the world and get our souls' sucked from our bodies! The answer is always friendship and the heart of the cards!"

"It is?" Joey asked. "No wonder I keep getting the wrong answer on all my math problems."

"Do you guys mind?" Malik finally interrupted. "Your pointless dialogue is delaying the moment of doom." Mokuba snapped his fingers.

"That's it! Dialogue and narration!" He turned to the others. "I remember Sakurelle used to do it all the time! Use all the dialogue and narration for her descriptions! We can do that too!"

"What do you mean?" Joey asked.

"The more stuff we do and the more we say, the longer it takes to get to the moment when Malik destroys the world! And maybe we can even get to the end of the chapter before Malik and Bakura have a chance to do anything!"

"No!" Bakura cried as soon as he realized what they were planning, but Mokuba quickly jumped in the air and waved his arms. He then spun around in a circle and stomped his feet.

"Hakuna matata!" he cried. The others, realizing what he was doing, started doing their own thing. Sakurelle urged them on as Tristan did back-flips, Joey walked in circles, Téa danced, and Yugi sang off-key. Then, before Bakura and Malik had even a chance to snatch the dialogue, they changed motions. Tristan sang, Joey danced, Téa walked, and Yugi fell as he attempted to do back-flips. And all the while, Mokuba kept inserting random dialogue.

"I like to shower at night! My older brother helps me do homework. I always wondered when I would study calculus! Come on, guys, talk! Remember, we get extra lines every time a different person speaks."

"I have to take pills," Joey declared, "to control my body weight because I eat too much."

"My hair is actually a birth defect," Tristan admitted.

"I don't really think friendship is always the answer," Téa said. "But it's convenient. And I've never had a boyfriend…they all think I'm too weird to hang out with."

"Except for us," Yugi said. "Because we are freaks in ourselves."

"You guys are doing great," Mokuba said. "Though…I didn't expect it to get that blunt!"

"Noooo!" Bakura moaned. "It's six pages! We've reached our chapter quota already!"

"Curse those fools!" Malik said. And the scene, with little time left in the chapter, switched immediately to Sakurelle and Kaiba to play out the final cliffhanger of the Plot.

"Why are you suddenly on their side?" Sakurelle demanded, before gasping. "Is Malik controlling your mind? That happened to Téa in the…" Kaiba turned to her, stopping her display of her episode-memorizing skills before the author who supplied her dialogue actually had to think about when that happened to Téa.

"My only incentive, since the start, was the Fourth God Card. That's the only reason I took you in."

Sakurelle stared at Kaiba in horror. "But…Seto…you love me! You're my hot canon character love interest! I'm a Mary Sue! You have to love me!"

"Well get used to reality," Kaiba whispered, leaning in so Sakurelle had to press herself against the back of the tablet. "Because I don't love you. It was all a lie."

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Well, I can't believe there's only one chapter left. I don't know exactly when I'll post the next one, because I have to edit it a little. But I'm pretty sure it'll be updated on or before February 25th, whenever I'm done with the editing! Please review!