Chapter 38

'Can somebody please turn the insanity chip off now,' the words were out of SK's mouth before he could stop them. 'If I have to listen to one more half English, half Etean conversation I swear I'm going to completely lose it.'

'This is how he speaks to us now?' Kaiba cocked an eyebrow as he and Joey made their way towards him.

'Lu yie arla desma,' Joey smirked, before giving a causal flick of his hand. 'I do not appreciate the attitude SK; you're our Helper, not the other way round.'

'I know First, but...' SK's tongue skated nervously across his lips. 'It's just... with all three of you mortalised and the Reganna off to... who knows where... I just feel like we should all be speaking the same language.'

'Apparently wish granted,' Adam's face filled with a sheepish expression.

'Hey I can understand you,' SK laughed, 'does that mean we're all speaking English now.'

'Hardly,' Kaiba laughed, 'we're all speaking Etean.'

'We can't allow him,' Joey's glazed eyes shot a dirty look in Adam's direction, 'to speak another language; not even if he doesn't realise he's speaking it.'

'Is that because it would disrupt the timeline or because you don't like him?' Tristan folded his arms. 'Because I'm not sure I like the answer either way. The Spirits sent Adam to you because you need him. We need him. So put whatever grudge it is you have against him aside for half a second and try to do something other than insult him.'

'I will try,' his voice was almost deadpan, 'but I'm not making any promises.'

'Whatever. So where exactly have the Reganna gone?'

'To take on our children,' Kaiba half smirked and shook his head.

'Your children?' Mokuba stared at him.

'The gods,' Yugi gave a nervous cough.

'The gods are your children?' Mai frowned. 'Joey's been teaching me a little about the Tenth Order, but he's not really mentioned that.'

'I'm guessing that would be because of all the incest,' Tristan rolled his eyes.

'He's right,' Adam shifted his weight from foot to foot, 'the Pure and the Face of Friendship both married and had children with their nephews; the First's two sons.'

'The First had three sons,' Tristan's gaze met with Joey's.

'Do we really need to get into this now?' Joey rolled his eyes.

'I guess not. So how long do you think your children will be able to hold out?'

'We're relying on the Wen more than anything,' Kaiba folded his arms. 'Set, Du, Sta and Ni are all competent warriors. They won't give up easily and they're all more than willing to defend the Fay.'

'So you're saying we have a while then?' SK licked his lips and frowned.

'Then Wen might be able to fend them off for some time, but that doesn't mean they can't do a lot of damage.' Joey sighed. 'The words innocent bystanders aren't exactly in their vocabulary. The faster we come up with some kind of plan the better.'

'The... the Spirits have one,' Yugi's voice sounded dry, 'but... I'm not sure either of you are ready... I mean, I don't know if...'

'Win,' Kaiba half turned away from her, 'you think there's a way of bringing Win back.'

'You shouldn't read my mind sister, that isn't fair.'

'I wasn't reading yours,' his eyes went passed Yugi to Tristan. 'Why are you projecting these thoughts? Why aren't you saying them?'

Tristan shrugged, half turned away and said nothing.

'What do we do?' Kaiba's white glazed eyes flicked between Joey and Yugi.

'We could really do with Win's power right now, it's the one thing which would tip the balance back in our favour,' Joey placed his hand in front of his mouth.

'There's just one problem,' Yugi lowered his head, 'whatever we do would only be temporary.'

'What do you mean?'

'There are four souls involved?' Kaiba gave a strange laugh. 'There are four souls involved? So we would be bringing him back just to lose him again? How is that fair?'

A frown appeared on Joey's face as he glanced between Tristan and Kaiba for a moment. SK felt his tongue skate across his lips several times; he wasn't totally sure he understood what was going on, but he got the feeling it was something important.

'It doesn't need to be fair,' Joey's words were delivered with a grave kind of weight. 'We need Win's power Pure, it doesn't matter if he's around for five minutes or five hundred years, we can't stop the Reganna without him.'

'So that's it? You're willing to just bring him back and let him go like it's nothing?' Kaiba stared at him. 'How can you be so cruel? Weren't you the one hell bent on making sure I never got hurt again? This will cut me deeper than you can ever possibly imagine. We will find another way. We have to find another way. It doesn't matter if he's here for five minutes or five seconds First, if I have to lose him again...'

'Pure...'

'I can't... I can't lose him again. I just can't.' Kaiba crushed his hands against the sides of his head.

SK was starting to feel uncomfortable now; from the way Mai and Mokuba were desperately trying to find something else to look at he could tell he wasn't the only one. Even though they all knew it was the Pure and not Kaiba talking, it was still pretty hard to deal with. Yet at the same time a part of SK found himself feeling sorry for the Pure; the first thing SK had learnt about the sisters was the fact the Pure's feelings about everything ran deeper than the other two combined. Her feelings were like a blinding Technicolor which almost conflicted with her balanced nature. Almost; ninety percent of the time the Pure was in control of her emotions, right now they were witnessing the ten percent when she was not.

'Pure we have to do this,' Joey placed a hand on Kaiba's shoulder. 'We were foolish children back then and we made a lot of mistakes. Mistakes we're still paying for now.'

'He wasn't a mistake,' Kaiba shook his head.

'I'm not saying he was, but...'

'I... I can't go through it again First. Don't make me go through it again.'

'If there was any other way...'

'Please...'

'I'm sorry Pure, we have to do this. We have to bring Win back and we'll have to say goodbye to him again.'

Na danced his way into the Mistresses' Chambers, before running his fingers along the walls causing a black line to follow in its wake. He laughed and began touching the walls in various places causing black marks to appear. The more of himself he touched the wall with, the larger the black area which appeared. When the wall was an uneven mess of black and white he pulled himself back to the centre of the room, focused his gaze on his siblings and winced.

'It won't take long before the gods work out what's happening.'

'So that just means we strategise quickly,' Gan folded her arms. 'I suggest we...'

'You'll be having no part of this battle,' Re held up a hand to stop her. 'We can't risk it.'

'But I'm the original antagonist, the creator of conflicts; war only exists because I made it exist. You need me.'

'And that's exactly the problem, we do need you,' Re wound her way towards Gan. 'The only reason I let you take out the Face of Friendship is because I know that's what they would have expected. Anything else and it would have drawn too much suspicion. We can't risk them knowing what's going on until there's nothing they can do about it.'

'You mean when Gan get's the strings to make the First dance?' Na mimed controlling an invisible puppet.

'Is that plan even salvageable anymore,' Gan's eyes narrowed on Re.

'Perhaps,' Re curled herself around Gan, 'it depends on whether or not we want it to be. After all, there are so many other ways we can make the First dance, why go for the one which would cause the least amount of pain?'

'Not everything is about torture you know,' Gan rolled her eyes.

'You're right, the rest of it's about sex,' Re laughed. 'Wait a minute, what am I saying, even that can be about torture.'

'You're such a... sadist.'

'I know,' she smirked. 'Now, we really need to be concentrating on battle strategies.'

'Strategies which don't involve me, right?'

'Consider yourself lucky little sibling, I'm promoting you to general of our little army at least for the duration,' her hand squeezed Gan's stomach. 'Generals come up with plans and strategies and all that. So my original antagonist, tell me, how do we beat the gods?'

'The same way you'd defeat any other army,' Gan smirked, 'you turn them against themselves.'