It was...strange to hear Kisara's voice emanating from the dragon without any movement of her mouth. Strange to hear a voice at all coming from the creature that had sat on his dueling field for years. But it was her—it was really her, Kisara was here, he could see it in the dragon's eyes, the way they sparkled. It was her.

He felt his breath catching in his chest in spite of himself, and he tightened his hand on Ishizu's almost instinctively. Her other hand crossed to grasp his shoulder, squeezing—but her eyes, too, were claimed by the sight of the sparkling dragon. It seemed neither of them could tear their gaze away. It was one thing, Seto realized, to feel life in his holograms—it was another thing entirely for her to actually be here.

"Kisara," he breathed. "You...you're here."

The dragon shuddered softly, her wings fluttering a bit from her sides, as though pleased to hear her name.

It's me, she said. Her voice echoed a bit, and it vibrated with excitement. Gods...it's been so long...I thought I'd never be able to speak with you ever again.

Her voice cracked, then, and he felt a similar twist in his throat. Ishizu squeezed his shoulder again, and pushed him forward gently. He moved, but he didn't let go of Ishizu's hand, so she ended up walking with him to meet Kisara. Her head swung down from its height, and he reached his free hand out almost wonderingly, carefully placing his hand on her nose. Her scales felt cold, like icy metal, but it wasn't so cold that he couldn't touch it. Kisara sighed deeply, her breath ruffling his hair with a pleasant, almost minty coolness, eyes closing at the touch.

I missed you, she whispered.

Seto swallowed thickly.

"I...I missed you too," he said.

Kisara's eyes opened then, and she sighed, settling back onto her haunches, so that she was lying down. Her wings half opened as though to catch the light up above, sending glimmers through to the floor as though her winds were made of diamonds.

We should probably get to the important parts, shouldn't we? she said. You were trying to summon me because I know about the Death Wars. I should tell you.

Seto had to stir himself out of his stunned awe. R-right. That was why they had tried to contact Kisara...because she knew something about the Wars, she might have the clues they needed to figure out what to do next. But...but Seto was having trouble focusing on business right now. He felt like the two parts of him were fighting—the part of him that was Seto Kaiba, and the part of him that was Priest Set. One part of him just wanted to wrap his arms around Kisara's head and hold onto her crying so she couldn't disappear again. The other part of him felt...uncertain, his stomach twisting and flip flopping with emotions that weren't quite his.

He swallowed and nodded. They had to focus. There was a war to be won.

"Okay," he said. "You...what do you remember?"

Kisara's head swung down again and pushed gently against Seto's forehead.

Everything, now that I'm back with you, she said. Before, there was...there was a disconnect. There was a stain in your soul that made me unable to connect with you. So my memories were frazzled.

She breathed out softly so that her breath would ruffle his hair again.

The stain is still there, she said, sounding nervous. We—I don't know when we'll be able to talk like this again. I don't even know how much time I have before I lose my memories again.

Seto's hand jumped up to press against the side of her face, trying to grip against the cold metal scales. Not yet—she couldn't go yet.

I'll start from the beginning, and go as fast as I can, Kisara said. The Death Wars—the first ones from four million years ago. Apep begun that one, too. He had rebelled before, I know that much, but this time was the worst. He...

Kisara seemed to need to pause, her eyes closing at the thought.

He...convinced some ka...to kill their bonded humans.

Ishizu sucked in a breath, and her fingers tightened against Seto's. Seto felt his heart thump against his rib cage. Ka were supposed to protect—how would it even be possible for a ka to murder the person they were bonded to? Seto could feel his closeness to Kisara thrumming in his blood as though it were his own—was it even possible feel any animosity towards something that shared your soul? Was it possible to betray someone that was part of you so intimately?

The act warped them, Kisara said. It was against their very nature and they became—something else.

Seto swore softly.

"Shinigami," he said, the realization washing over him all at once. They're like a shadow with nothing to cast it, Yugi had said. Because they had murdered the part that was supposed to cast the shadow. "They became Shinigami."

Kisara nodded, and her deep blue eyes actually filled with tears for a moment.

There were thirteen of them, Kisara said. With Apep's favorite becoming his King, his perfect opponent for the King of Light and Shadow.

"Only thirteen?" Ishizu said. "That's it?"

Kisara shook her head.

That was all they started with, she said nervously. But their magic—it corrupts everything. Those that they destroyed...

She keened softly, an ancient sound that made Seto shudder.

His mind flashed back to the deteriorating world of the Madolche they had gone to, back to the description Yugi and L had given of what had happened to Tiramisu. She had simply wasted away...

"They become Shinigami too, don't they?" Seto said, horror spreading through him at the thought.

Kisara keened again.

Yes, she said, her voice full of fear and sorrow. Ka who were killed by the death magic—they were reborn as Shinigami—Shinigami with no memories of what they had been before. And that's how the thirteen wanted to spread their rule, to create a world of nothing but Shinigami themselves.

Seto's head was spinning. Tiramisu must have been reborn as a Shinigami, that was what had happened to her—but why didn't the ka spirits know that, if they had lived through that war before?

Kisara responded to his thoughts as though she could hear them—and she probably could.

It was their closest guarded secret, she said. If the ka knew the truth, they would have learned other ways to engage with them rather than head on, which was the fastest way to gain as many Shinigami as possible. Even most of the turned Shinigami did not know—only the first thirteen did.

She shuddered deeply, wings tight against her sides.

I was captured, she said. By one of the thirteen...she...she infected me. She meant me to become one of them. But I managed to escape, before it took, and I fell through a hole in their deteriorating world...I was trapped between dimensions for so long, that I forgot what I was—but it stayed the spread of the infection.

"And you...ended up falling out in Egypt three thousand years ago," Seto finished the story for her, eyes wide with wonder.

Kisara nodded, and he could feel the rush of emotion that washed from her. Fear, sadness, loss, everything rattling around in her head.

I must have been drawn to that time and place because of you, she said. Because you were the other half of me. And you found me...not only that, but you removed the stain of the infection from me with your magic in that time. You took it on yourself...I fear that because of that—because of what you did for me, your next life became a magnet for tragedy—because you saved me, you...

Seto quickly raised both hands to her, wrapping his arms around her head.

"No," he said harshly. "If I chose to do that, it was because I chose it. Don't you dare feel guilty."

Ishizu stepped forward too, smiling as she put a hand against her neck.

"If he hadn't saved you...perhaps we wouldn't be here," she said softly. "I don't think a soul without a ka attached to it can reincarnate. All of the things that happened, I think they must have happened for a reason."

Seto pressed the side of his face to Kisara so that he could look at Ishizu and send her a faint, grateful smile. She smiled back.

Kisara puffed her breath at both of them softly, then she carefully pulled her head free of them, lifting herself up.

I'm running out of time, she said. There are two last things I need to tell you—the reason you can't summon me is because of the death magic infecting your soul. Both what you took from me, and what you gained from your use of the Death Note when you were a child—it's suppressing your magic, and me.

Seto grasped at his chest, feeling a sudden tightness there. Death magic? He had death magic in him. He needed to find some way to get rid of it, or he'd never be able to summon Kisara.

"And the last thing?" Ishizu said.

Somehow, Kisara's image was becoming more smokey, and Seto knew her time here was almost at an end. He could feel her trying to speak, but it was getting faint and shaky.

The Death Note— she gasped. It didn't exist until the end of the war—it came from—it's—it must be given to him—freely—that is—the rule—destroy—tree—

"Kisara!" he called out, desperate—what was she trying to tell him? What was she trying to say?

He reached out once more to her, his fingers brushing her scales. Kisara let out a soft cry—

And then Seto felt her thoughts crashing through his brain in a horrifying twist of images and memories—he saw swirling darkness, he saw a landscape made of grays and blacks and littered with broken bones, he saw a huge tree, taller than the tallest buildings on earth, without any leaves just twisting, gnarled branches and a trunk that was marred with pustules and lumps which were leaking disgusting purple liquid, he saw a skeleton sitting on a throne at the base of the tree, he saw the world twisting and tearing around him as he fell through a hole in space and time and—

"Seto! Seto!"

Ishizu's terrified voice broke through Kisara's final message, and Seto gasped for breath. He flapped his hand upward, trying to find Ishizu's hands, and she twisted her hands into his. Her face was strained, eyes wide with fear.

"Oh my god, you just collapsed—you were flailing around, you were speaking in another language, Seto, was that Kisara? Was Kisara trying to tell you something?"

Seto just lay there for a few moments, trying to gasp for air. He held onto Ishizu's hands like a lifeline. The images he had seen tumbled through his head over and over, like water over a falls. He—he thought he knew what it meant, but he—he wasn't sure.

A tree—you could—you could make paper out of trees.

"The tree," he gasped through a tight throat. "Ishizu—Ishizu, there's a tree. In the Shinigami realm. I—that's—that must have been where—"

He swallowed again, trying to make sense of the thoughts, the words in another language, the memories and impressions that Kisara had given him.

"That's where the Death Note came from," he said. "The Shinigami made it out of that tree. That's the source. That's the source of the death magic."

Ishizu inhaled.

"W-what do we do?" she whispered.

Seto swallowed thickly, letting his eyes slip up to the ceiling over Ishizu's head—oh...he had collapsed, he was on the floor.

"I think—somehow—we have to get there," he said. "And we have to destroy it."

. . .

"I don't like this anymore than you do," L said quietly. "But I am running out of time."

Soichiro's face was red, his eyes flickering back out to the warehouse room where the others were still practicing. L had called him over after asking the others to give him some time. L wasn't lying—he didn't like this, and Soichiro was trying his best to hold it together.

"You've known my suspicions from the beginning," he said calmly. "If I'm wrong, we'll all be a little happier, and we'll go back to square one."

Soichiro glanced over his shoulder again, looking nervous. L knew his eyes were going to his son.

"So you're asking me to arrest that woman that has come to visit my son," he said. "Because you think she's the second Kira, and he's the first."

"Yes."

"Under what suspicion?"

"Call it a statistically probable hunch," L said. "Bring Amane Misa in. Please. Just for questioning. If I'm wrong, she can go."

He gripped his arm, the spot where Seraphina's death magic was spreading.

"But I could be dead in a week, Yagami-san," he said. "So I don't have time to be patient right now. I understand it is much different than my usual proceedings, but we now have a time limit."

Soichiro sighed heavily.

"We'll handle it," he said. "She'll be in for questioning by tomorrow."

"Thank you."

Soichiro nodded, and turned back to the rest of the room, leaving L behind. L rubbed his arm briefly—it still stung and burned. He hated it—he hated the most the not knowing what would happen to him if he lost Seraphina.

A tremor passed through him in spite of himself at the thought. Losing Seraphina...before now, he had always been alone. Even meeting Yugi and the others, he assumed he would be breaking ties with them before long, and he would be on his own again. Just him and Watari, as always.

But Seraphina...Sera would stay. L knew that in his bones, he could feel it as though it were something he knew about himself. He would have had her at his side until the end. She would have been a part of him until the end. He could count on her like he could count on no one else, because he could never, forever, trust anyone else.

Sera he could trust, with anything, and everything.

But she could be gone, and if he didn't die from the loss, he would feel it for decades to come.

The doors slammed open, and Seto and Ishizu appeared all at once—L jumped a bit, realizing just now that they had still been working on their experiment in summoning Kisara. Seto looked a little flushed, his hair mussed—he looked, in a word, ruffled, and that wasn't something that L saw out of Seto Kaiba...ever.

"We have a lot to talk about," he said.