Author's note: This chapter is really more for my own amusement than anything relevant to the plot. (That is such a lie.) I hope you find it informative and… interesting, at the very least. (Oh, it will be. That is such a lieeeeeeee!) In this chapter, Malik makes everybody play a Japanese children's game. It's called Kagome Kagome. I did not make it up.

Realizing that I'm already up to 38 chapters, the chapters are about to get a whole lot longer. The bulk of the story is going to be in these next ten chapters, which are going to be pretty long. Sorry about that. But, I don't want to make this too many chapters…

dragonlady222- I don't think that's the secret Ryou has to be worried about… (Wink!)

Hakudoshi-chan- Why yes, it does. (Me too. OO)

Akio the Dragon Master- You'll find out… MuahahahhaHAHA!

"Oi, Mokuba!"

Mokuba turned his head towards Malik. "Yeah?"

"You want to play Kagome Kagome with me and Ryou?"

"Just three people?" Mokuba looked confused. "You can't play with just three people! …Well, ok, you can, but it's no fun that way!"

"Tea said she's coming over later. Maybe we can get Yugi or Yami to play!"

"Well…"

Malik whipped out his Super Deluxe Puppy Eyes. "Puh-leeeeeeeeeeease?" Lavender orbs wobbled dangerously on his face. Mokuba smiled weakly.

"Okay," he agreed.

Later…

"Yami!"

Yami turned. "Yes, Malik?"

"Will you play a game with Royu, Mokuba and me?"

"Did you just say Royu?"

"MY NAME ISN'T ROYU!"

"Sorry, Ryou, geez! Slip of the tongue." Malik glared back at his still-clandestine boyfriend. Yes, he was a cheater. But he was still thinking of a way to devastate Tea. …Not too bad, though. He did value her as a friend. You wouldn't find many people like Tea, not in the whole wide world. You could push her off a cliff and she'd still want to be your friend. LOYALTY, MAN! SHEER LOY-AL-TY!

"So do you wanna play?" Mokuba asked, peering out at Yami. "We've been trying to play, but Ryou doesn't make a very good oni."

"Shut up, Mokuba! I can't help it if I can't guess who's behind me!" Ryou protested.

"There's only two of us! There's a 50/50 chance, baka!" Mokuba argued.

"Don't call me a baka!"

"I just did, baka!"

Ryou growled from deep in his throat. "Grrr… baka!"

"Baka!"

"Baka!"

"Baka!"

"Shut up!" Malik screamed.

"Baka!"

"Baka!"

"Baka!"

"Bakas…" Malik half-lidded his eyes, giving him a peeved look. "Anyway, Yami, please play?"

"I… don't know how to. What game is it that you are playing?"

"Kagome Kagome."

"What's that?"

"We'll teach you how to play," Malik offered brightly. "Come on!" He grasped the Pharaoh's wrist and pulled him into the room. "Hey Tea! Want to play a game?"

Tea shook her head. She had just come into the house. "No; Yugi and I are studying. Tell Ryou if he wants, then he can join us."

"Okay. Although he can't see." Malik pulled his head back into the room. "Okay, Pharaoh, this is how you play. You have one person that's blindfolded… the oni."

"I can't see!" complained Ryou. Mokuba rapped him on the head. "Ow! Malik, stop that!"

"So, what you do, is you have to circle around the oni while singing a song. It's kind of like Duck Duck Goose, in a way," Malik explained. "Have you ever played that?"

"No…"

Malik sweat dropped. "That's okay!"

"I liked it better when we played Hide & Seek yesterday," Ryou complained. "I always get the short end of the stick…"

"So, anyway." Malik looked back towards Yami with sparkling lavender eyes that seemed alive with dew and fairies and excitement. "After you sing the song, the oni," here Malik tapped Ryou on the head, "has to guess who is standing behind him."

"What if there's nobody standing behind him?" Yami asked.

Malik shrugged. "The closest person wins."

"How does the song go?" Yami asked, growing interested. This game reminded him of one that he used to play with Mana when he was little. He didn't remember it, but the Dark Magician Girl herself had told him all about it.

Malik opened his mouth to recite the chant.

"Kagome Kagome
Kago no naka no tori wa,
Itsu itsu deyaru.
Yoake to ban ni.
Tsuru to kame ga subetta,
Ushiro no shoumen dare."

Yami nodded. "Okay…"

"Can we do this in English?" Ryou grumbled. Malik knocked him on the head. "Ow!"

"No. Nobody else here speaks English."

'Ooh! Ooh! I do!' Mokuba was jumping up and down and mouthing those very words. Malik forced him to the ground by placing his hands on his shoulders and pushing down, telling him to be quiet, squirt.

"How would the song go in English, Ryou?" Yami asked curiously. The blindfolded Ryou sighed.

"Kagome, Kagome,
When does the bird inside the cage come out?
At dawn and evenings.
Who is in front of the back where a crane and turtle slipped and fell?"

"Where do the lyrics come from?" Yami asked Mokuba. He figured that since Mokuba was the only person in the room whose nationality was genuinely Japanese, that he should know. However, his supposition was in error, as he found out when Mokuba shrugged

"Nobody really knows," Mokuba told him. "It's kind of mysterious. Some people think that the lyrics come from a lost myth."

"Interesting," Yami said. A graceful smile came upon him. Yami was, as Yugi put it once, 'The King of Myths'. They seemed to surround him. His entire past had been mysterious until he defeated the Leviathan. After that, the Dark Magician Girl assented to tell Yami tidbits of his past. But the majority of his Pharaohdom was still just another myth floating around in the quandom ruler's cerebrum.

"Usually you need five or more people to play," Mokuba continued explaining. Malik nodded. "I'll go and get Tea and Yugi. Like they're really studying. Pfff."

Yami blinked, wondering what Malik meant by that. "What did he mean by that?" he asked Mokuba, redundantly.

Mokuba shrugged. "Who knows? We found Tea and Yugi hanging out in the cabin together yesterday."

Ryou smiled happily. "At least Tea has somebody to fall back on when Malik… eh, never mind." Ryou blushed; he could feel the blank stare of Yami and the suspicious stare of Mokuba upon him. "Eh… let's talk about how much of an idiot Yami is again!"

"Hooray!" Mokuba threw his hands up.

Yami sweat dropped. "Oh, hush it. How does the song go again?"

"Kagome Kagome," Mokuba started. The way he enunciated the words made it clear that Yami was to repeat them.

"Kagome Kagome."

"Kago no naka no tori wa."

"Kago no naka no tori wa."

"Itsu itsu deyaru," Mokuba said.

"Itsu itsu deyaru," Yami repeated.

"I've got it!" Malik rushed back into the room. A cheeky grin amplified his face. In his arms, clasped against his chest, was an old-looking book. "I grabbed one of their textbooks."

"That doesn't look like a textbook, Malik," Mokuba pointed out. "You take Arabic at the high school, Ryou?" It was a random question that had just popped into his head. Ryou laughed at how Mokuba had grabbed the question out of thin air.

"No… I take English, like everybody else. Best damn student that teacher ever had, I tell you!" Ryou pumped his fist into the air.

Yami looked at him blankly. "But Ryou, you're British."

Ryou put on his pouty face. It made Malik want to glomp him, but of course he didn't. "But Yami, you're stupid. That was my point."

"Oh." Yami leaned back against the wall. "Kagome Kagome/Kago no naka ni tori ya/Itsu itsu de aru," he mumbled.

"What kind of a book is this, then?" Malik wondered, looking at it. "I was trying to grab one of their textbooks so that they would have to come in here to get it… and this was the one they were looking at. They seemed really interested in it, too."

"Are we going to play?" Ryou asked boredly. "I'm tired of being the oni! We're not even playing anymore!"

"Ok, ok." Malik set the book down gently on his bed and then looked at Yami. "So, do you understand, Pharaoh?" He asked, grinning at Yami.

Yami shook his head. "Not really."

"Good." Malik grabbed his wrist and pulled Yami into the circle.

"Kagome Kagome
Kago no naka no tori wa,
Itsu itsu deyaru.
Yoake to ban ni.
Tsuru to kame ga subetta,
Ushiro no shoumen dare."

"Um…" Ryou tried to guess frantically. "I think that… Malik's behind me."

Just then, time froze.

It's so close!

Bakura entered the room and coolly surveyed it. "Idiots," he said in regards to the game players. "Weakling," he said in regards to Ryou. None of them moved. He had time frozen for exactly five seconds.

He had really only come in to grab the Millennium Ring. Ryou hadn't told anybody (thankfully,) but he was still wearing it for safekeeping. It was time, Bakura decided, to make a withdrawal. He could have just waited to corner Ryou later and demand that he hand over the ring, but Bakura was impatient, causing him to expend mass amounts of energy on freezing the movements on everybody in the room for five seconds. In short, they were immobile and unconscious for those five seconds.

He reached over for his other half's shirt, getting ready to summon the Ring through it. However, an old textbook caught his eye.

"Hm?" Bakura picked it up. "What on Earth is this rubbish?"

Bakura flipped through it rapidly. He didn't want to bother with it, but he had learned that the oldest thing was usually the most important. Orichalcos was old; the Millennium Items were old; Ryou's great-grandmother was old. (And boy, did she teach him a lesson he'd never forget.)

Finally Bakura came upon a single recognizable spell in the Arabic spellbook; it was written in hieroglyphics.

"What the duck? That's pretty random."

Yes, Bakura, yes it is. Bakura started to read it aloud. But halfway through it, he realized…

"What the duck! These are the lyrics to the new Mike Jones song!" Bakura declared, infuriated.

But it was too late… (Dun dun dun.)

He was like a squirming egg, struggling towards that light. God, but it felt disgusting. But there was the light…

Bakura blinked.

Standing in front of him, grinning ghoulishly, while Mokuba screamed right next to him, Ryou grabbed Malik's hand unself-consciously, Malik fainted (hitting his head on the side of his bed… uh, named Ned! Unh! Unh! Named Ned, yo yo yo…) and Yami started to shout curse words, was the one and only Yami Marik.

And for once, Bakura was speechless.

"What are you staring at?" Yami Marik demanded indignantly.

"Malik!" Ryou slumped to the floor at Malik's side. "Malik wake up! You hit your head, Malik! Wake the bloody $! up, would you? I know you're not dead."

"Ooooh!" Mokuba oohed. "You said a swear!"

Surrounded by… red. Not blood, just red.

Malik blinked. Where am I…? Am I—Guh!

He clamped his hands over his mouth; his eyes bugged; he kicked with all his might for the purpose of going… somewhere—up? Which way was up?

I can't breathe! Malik realized. He hadn't realized it until now, having been too caught up in his new red, globular milieu. Even now he didn't—couldn't—fully comprehend his new situation.

Where am I?

The thought seemed to echo in his head.

Am I alone?

He started to shiver uncontrollably.

Hello? Anyone?

"Malik?"

"Malik?"

Malik's lavender orbs eyes snapped open. Ryou sighed in relief.

"I thought you'd gotten a concussion or something," he confessed. He then turned and faced Yami Marik. "Konnichi wa, Yami no Marikku," he greeted curtly and politely. Bowing slightly, he made his way out of the room, shouting to Ishizu—something about an ice pack?

Yami Marik raised an eyebrow. This hadn't been how he'd envisioned his homecoming. It was supposed to be glorious. It was supposed to be shocking!

…It was supposed to be dry.

"Why is your hair sticky?" Bakura inquired curiously. "And where were you? Tell me."

Yami Marik waved him off and headed off towards the shower. He knew the location of all of the rooms in the house; after all, he had been watching its inhabitants for nearly a year in amusement. That's not to say that he watched them in the shower, though… Erk. You know what I mean!

"ISHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIZUUUUUUUUUUUUU!" Ryou screamed. The poor woman was nearly bowled over. Immediately Kateb, who was being cradled in her arms, started howling. She sighed indignantly.

"What is it Ryou?" she prompted somewhat bitterly. To her immense surprise, Ryou fainted on the spot. "What on Earth…"

"Ishizu!" Yami ran into the room. The panicky, rising tones of his voice immediately gathered the attention of Seto and Odion, who had been immersed in a George Carlin special, as well as Tea and Yugi, who had actually been studying like they were supposed to be.

"What is it, Yami?" Ishizu asked as patiently as she could. A growl was not far past her lips, though, and Yami could tell. The Pharaoh actually gulped. Yugi smiled. Tea slapped him on the shoulder. As if Tea's arm had been a lever of some sort, Yugi's smile 180'd into a frown again.

"Marik… Yami Marik…" Yami's crimson eyes were huge. Yugi, upon hearing those two most hated words, immediately stood up. This caught Tea by surprise. It wasn't like Yugi to be heroic—or so she had mistakenly thought. The real truth of it was, she had just never paid enough attention to him to truly realize just how brave Little Yugi could be.

(Awwww, don't you feel sorry for him now? Don'cha? No? Good.)

"Where?" was Yugi's only question. Yami shrugged for a moment, then shook his head as if to clear his thoughts.

"In the shower," Yami said.

Yugi wrinkled his nose. "What's he doing in there?"

"Disgusted by the thought of bathing, Yugi?" Tea joked.

"Hush, Tea."

Tea pouted. She'd only been teasing… But Yugi seemed serious.

"Are you serious, Yami?" Yugi asked… serious…ly. Yami was seriously surprised by the… seriously imploring look in Yugi's… serious amethyst eyes. "Are you really, really serious about this?"

Yami nodded open-mouthed. "…Uhm, yeeah."

"He's in the shower?"

"Ye-ap."

"Okay then…" Yugi sighed sat back down at the table. "I guess we'll have to wait until he's finished bathing before we send him back to the Shadow Realm? It would seem kind of rude."

Yami stared at Yugi, momentarily lost for words. "…Er… yes… I suppose so."

Seto suddenly stood up. The gravity of the situation had finally settled in. He managed to knock over an armchair as he yelled, "WHERE'S MOKUBA!"

"He's… he's in Malik's bedroom, Seto…"

"I'll get him!" Seto literally dashed down the hall. Yami let out a breath, but his chest seemed to constrict so that the gesture offered no relief. What the heck was going on here?

Meanwhile, Yugi thought he had it all figured out. Surely Yami Marik was the one causing all of the nonsense in his dreams? Sure, Bakura had been in his dreams, and not Yami Marik, but… --In truth, Yugi just really wanted the dreams to go away. If temporarily blaming a false source gave him comfort, then that was what he was going to do.

Being cradled in Ishizu's arms, Kateb continued to cry.

Odion was in the bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror, tracing the lineaments on his face. He sighed, inundated with memories both good and bad.

"It's because of this tattoo I can't pick up chicks," he said sadly.

Suddenly, the door blasted open and knocked him into the toilet. "OWWW!"

"Ha ha ha ha ha!" Yami Marik chuckled. "…Ew, Odion, get some clothes on…"

"O.O Master Malik?"

":D Nope!"

"…Y…Yami… M—The other du—?"

"Yup!"

"Hey! You didn't let me finish!" Odion stood up and wrapped his towel around him again. "Sheesh…"

"Get out. I'm taking a shower."

"What!"

"I said, 'Get out.' I'm taking a shower." Yami Marik smiled slyly. Odion stared, perturbed, and then left the bathroom with nothing more than a towel on.