Special thanks to The Danvers Girls for something in this chapter. I won't tell what because it's semi-spoilerific. This chapter rated T for some language near the end.

Note that this story takes place BEFORE the Millennium World arc, so Yami doesn't know his true name or about the high priests or anything.

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! is owned by Kazuki Takahashi. Kingdom Hearts is owned by Tetsuya Nomura and all that.

Duel Disks and Keyblades

By FlikFreak

Chapter Thirty-Four: Chaotic Truth Revealed

To Yugi, this was entirely too confusing. One moment, he and Yami were engulfed in a terrible inferno of dark flames, the chaos so loud he could hardly speak. The next, they had stopped, and Sora – whom seemed incredibly different for some reason – had distracted the sphinx and taken it down single-handedly. If he could have anything right now, he'd take an explanation about what just happened.

That'll have to wait, Yami noted, noticeably disgruntled. We've got company.

Indeed, when Yugi looked up he noticed that it wasn't the sphinx's attack that had Yami in a dangerous mood. Standing before them was none other than Zexion, and he didn't look as calm as he had before. "So you have even surpassed Theinien," he muttered, glaring daggers at Sora. "You have even more power than I thought."

Sora narrowed his eyes. "Yugi, go wake up Jounouchi. Hurry!"

Yami nodded, heading over to the unconscious blonde immediately. Yugi spotted Roxas heading in Axel's direction, and Sora resumed his previous look. "I've toyed with you children for long enough," Zexion snarled. "If a sphinx cannot get rid of you, then I'll just have to do it myself!"

You saw how Sora demolished that thing! Roxas protested. What makes you think you're any better off?

Apparently, Zexion heard him. The man smirked, and an aura of darkness surrounded him. He lifted his hand into the air, and the darkness converged, transforming into a large book of sorts. A smirk crossed his face. "This will be the end of you!" he cried triumphantly.

"Not if I can help it," Sora replied, a bit too quietly for anyone other than Yugi to hear.

What do you plan on doing? Yugi asked. We don't know what this guy's got up his sleeves!

In response, the keyblade master closed his eyes, placing a fist over his heart. An ethereal wind began to blow around him. The boy muttered something under his breath while one of his hands absently reached into his pocket, drawing out a single card. When Yugi looked more closely, he recognized the card as one from Sora's deck. Sora lifted the card into the air, and it began to shine with a brilliant light. Yami and Yugi shielded themselves from the sudden burst of white that flooded out of the card in his hand, which rose into the air to take the form of a great winged beast. The light was still immensely bright, but Yugi could make out the form of a dragon formed of what had to have been diamond, its neck and belly lined with amber. Three horns, one on its nose and two protruding backwards as though they were ears, glittered like the gold they had to have been; and keen, sapphire eyes gazed fiercely at the battlefield. A beautiful and deadly creature such as that could have only been one thing.

Yugi, Yami said breathlessly, What is that?

Yugi shook his head. It's got to be…

"Let's go, Hyozanryu!" Sora commanded. "Attack with Diamond Rain!"

The sky swarmed with shimmering white clouds. Zexion's gaze shot upward, his eyes wide in terror as a heavy rain of arrowhead-shaped diamonds poured from the sky, penetrating the man's cloak. The light reflected in each individual shard, creating a beautiful spectacle even as the Cloaked Schemer screamed in horror. When the storm vanished, Zexion stood; his cloak tattered and torn, the pages of his book in shreds. "How…" he stuttered. "How could you have…"

"Call out to your deck and it will heed you," Sora echoed as Hyozanryu landed lightly on the ground behind him. "A man once told me that."

"Insolence," Zexion insisted. "I'll finish you here and now!"

That's enough, Zexion.

Everyone froze as the voice reached them. It was thoroughly malevolent, and echoed in their skulls. Behind Zexion appeared a man in cream-white robes, the hood pulled back to reveal long, ragged blonde hair. His dark eyes were narrowed in anger as he reached forward and grabbed Zexion's head, lifting him up.

Yugi's eyes widened. Yami-

I know, the Pharaoh replied. It's Anubis!

"You have served me well," Anubis snarled, "But you have outlived your usefulness!" And with that, he threw the Cloaked Schemer aside, sending him crashing into a telephone pole, where he disappeared. By this time, Jounouchi and Axel were back to their senses, and had re-gathered around their friends.

"What do you want from us?!" Sora demanded, Hyozanryu roaring defiantly in agreement with its master.

Anubis sneered. "You fools," he replied. "I have only used the Nobodies to bolster my army of Heartless."

Sora's eyes promptly widened. "No," He breathed. Yugi knew what Sora was thinking; if Anubis was using the heartless, then the only thing he would be after would be…

"I have no further use of those incompetent imbeciles," Anubis continued, lifting a hand into the air. The group suddenly found themselves surrounded by a horde of dark, humanoid creatures with beady, glowing yellow eyes – creatures Yugi and Yami recognized as the shadows that had devoured Sora's home.

"What now?" Yami cried. "We can't take on this many!"

Hyozanryu swatted a good number of the creatures with a lash of its whip-like tail, but there were only twofold as many monsters to replace them. "We've gatta get out of here!" Sora shouted, still brandishing his keyblade and dispatching any heartless that could come close. "There's got to be a million of these! I can't take this many on at once!"

As though to answer Sora's prayers, a burst of flame shot from the sky and scorched the landscape. Thousands of the heartless that had surrounded them vanished in puffs of black mist. Sora and Yugi jerked their gazes upward to see a strange airplane of sorts hovering over them – a colorful one at that – with a man standing on the deck with what was apparently a flamethrower. The man himself had short-cut blonde hair, a plain white T-shirt, ragged jeans and a cigarette sticking out of his mouth. He looked more like a country hick than anything, but Yugi could tell that this man was intelligent.

Sora could apparently tell that this man was someone he knew. "Cid!" he cried.

"These things never give up, do they," the man replied. "I heard you were in trouble, Sora! Came here as fast as I could!"

"But what about the rules?" Sora asked.

Cid was apparently insulted. "Screw the goddamn rules! You're the keyblade master, you should know when it's time to forget about that!"

Sora wasn't about to argue against that. "I know!" he said, swiping the keyblade at another heartless. "But there's too many of these things! What're we going to do?!"

At that moment there were six separate flashes of golden light. As Yugi looked around, he noticed six ghostly figures – spirits even – surrounding them. It didn't take him long to recognize them: there was a woman wearing a torque, a man with a strangely-shaped scepter, another man with an ankh-shaped key, one with a pair of golden weight scales, one with a ring-shaped pendant and another one with a golden eye.

Who are these people?! Yami cried.

The man with the pendant was the first to call out to them. "Pharaoh! You must leave this place while you still can!"

Yami's eyes widened. "Wha-"

"We'll construct a barrier around this world to slow him down!" The woman shouted, already focusing her efforts on the said plan. "You must leave and find help!"

But what about our friends?! Yugi cried.

We have to hurry! Yami protested. "Sora, we have to leave now!"

Sora agreed, recalling Hyozanryu in a flash of white light. "Hey, gramps!"

"I thought I told you not to call me that!" Cid shouted.

"Yugi and I need to get out of here," Sora replied, ignoring Cid's comment, "And fast!"

The man nodded and vanished. Moments later, a ladder came tumbling down from the side of the ship. "Jounouchi!" Yami called.

"Don't worry about me!" The blonde replied, grinning in his usual manner in spite of the chaos around him. "Axel and I can handle things here!"

"That's right!" Axel replied. "They don't call me the Flurry of Dancing Flames for nothing!"

"But-"

"We will protect them!" The ankh-wielding man replied vehemently. "Now hurry!"

Reluctantly, Yami nodded and climbed aboard, Sora following closely after him. Looking down, Yami noticed that there were shadows following them, and he picked up the pace. The moment both he and Sora were aboard, Cid threw the ladder off the deck, causing the heartless climbing it to fall to their doom. The two were ushered into the cockpit, where they both buckled up tightly. Yami switched places with Yugi now that fighting was no longer needed, and Yugi tightened his seatbelt.

Cid slammed the door behind him and locked it shut. As he started up the ship, Yugi caught a glance of the window: a familiar violet shadow field was appearing. "Hurry!" He cried. "The force field's closing!"

"I'm hurryin'!" Cid replied, somewhat annoyed. Within moments, the engines revved up and the ship sped forward through the force field, making it to the other side just as they would have been trapped. The sky around them became ominously black, and the stars slowly became streaks as Cid hit the gas pedal. Other ships flew past at an inhuman speed. Yugi could hardly believe what he was going through, but he was still more worried about what would happen to his friends.

"Cid, look out!"

The cry jolted everyone from their thoughts. On the radar, Yugi noticed a large red dot speeding right toward them. Cid made for the brakes and pulled back, but it was to no avail. He cringed. "Hang on to your seats!" He shouted. "We're in for an emergency landing!"

In front of them, a large, orange object sped directly for them. Sora, Yugi and Cid winced as it became rapidly closer, and then everything went white.