"What do you mean he's running out of time?!" Yugi gasped at Blue-Eyes's words. At the Pharaoh's mention, Yugi immediately pushed off the dragon's head and managed to stand on his own. Be it be a very wobbly stance.

The dragon shifted uncomfortably as her tail whipped back and forth. "Yugi…" He felt the inner argument broiling within her, even if Yugi couldn't hear her exact thoughts. "I need you to sit down before we discuss this. You can barely stand as it is."

Yugi grumbled under his breath but relented. He found a relatively clear spot on the ground and flopped down, ash kicking up around him. As he sat, he found he needed to rub his forehead to lessen the pain of the headache and the pressure of this time crunch bearing down on him. Once again, he felt as if the world was on his shoulders. He remembered back to the Duel Spirits Hero prophecy and swallowed a sour taste from the back of his throat. He certainly didn't feel like a hero at the moment.

Blue-Eyes gently lowered herself to lay beside him, circling him with her body and tail. She gingerly bumped Yugi's side, but he was in no mood for her attempted comfort.

"Yugi, may I see your puzzle?" Blue-Eyes eventually asked. Yugi's brows furrowed, but he took off the puzzle and let Blue-Eyes look it over. It was then Yugi noticed deep cracks in the item. It seemed to steal all the breath from his lungs. What had only felt like a fragile puzzle before now truly looked like it would shatter at any moment. Blue-Eyes saw this too and sadly nodded.

"Dark Magician Girl, and I didn't want to tell you since we couldn't do anything about it. But it was stupid of us to expect a Muto to stay still," Blue-Eyes whispered as she studied the puzzle.

"What is going on?! Did I do this? Is this why the Pharaoh is running out of time?!" Yugi gasped as he pulled the puzzle protectively to his chest.

"This is absolutely not your doing!" Blue-Eyes growled. "That star-cursed wishing well cannot create. When it brought you here, it had to split the Millennium Puzzle's power between you and the Pharaoh to create a circumstance where you both had some form of a body. This was, of course, an uneven split."

Yugi's eyes widened as he felt his headache get a little worse. At the same time, another small crack appeared on the puzzle.

"Is that what you meant by three-fourths of a body?" Yugi whispered as he clutched the puzzle.

"We found this out while you were unconscious and did those tests on your soul. You are not a whole person right now; you are split with the Pharaoh. Thankfully you have most of the body and none of the darkness that comes with that puzzle. Probably because it is your body that is physically being split, and it is not your soul that is being used to lock away-"

"What about the Pharaoh! Is he ok?!" Yugi cut in as he got on his knees to face the dragon.

Blue-Eyes closed her eyes and turned to the sky, her wings laying flatly against her side. "The Pharaoh…Well, he has much less of a body. He would be mostly a projection of the puzzle at the moment. Depending on how long it's stored magic can last… How have you been feeling? Anything I cannot pick up from our link? You two are still connected. Your feelings will reflect his."

Yugi looked into himself and gently laid the necklace around his neck, still hugging the pyramid close. "I've had a headache for a while now, and I've gotten tired easier. But it hasn't been too bad." Yugi then shifted the puzzle in his grip. "Well, it hasn't been too bad until now."

"Multiply that by about five, and that is the Pharaoh right now." Yugi looked up in utter horror. Blue-Eyes grimaced under his gaze but continued. "You see why we have to focus on this lockdown. If we don't get you two back together soon, his body will continue to decay. If it gets to the point that puzzle breaks, then…."

Blue-Eyes didn't have to finish the thought for Yugi to feel sick to his stomach. As his insides twisted in knots, Yugi tried to once again reach into his mind. He hadn't attempted to contact the Pharaoh since his first few failed attempts when he initially landed in this dimension. But he had to try. He had to know how his partner was doing. But nothing came, not his voice or even a flicker of his presence. All Yugi felt was confused and very scared.

'Pharaoh, please…'

…

Yami groaned. Something had nudged him, and he wasn't in the mood to be awoken. He didn't have to open his eyes to know where he was. That chilled air and that weightless feeling as he laid on what should have been solid rock. He was in the Millennium Puzzle. It was familiar, probably the most recognizable place Yami had been since Yugi had first freed him. But familiar didn't mean comfortable. He hated it here, the confusing passages, the oppressive atmosphere, and the alarming feeling that something else was here, always just a step behind him. It may have been his soul's residence for who knows how many years, but it definitely was not his home.

Yami felt another annoyingly strange nudge and forced his eyes open. The black ceiling was the only thing to greet him. As he laid there, he tried to remember what was going on. He hadn't suddenly woken up in the puzzle without remembering how he got there in a long, long time. He shivered as he quickly threw the memory of his first time waking up in this prison into the farthest recesses of his mind.

Yami then stood up, or he tried to stand up. One leg found ground while the other slipped into the open air as the bricks underneath it crumbled away. He gasped as he realized he was lying right next to a ledge over an endless void. He immediately rolled from the edge and threw himself to the nearest "solid" (for there honestly weren't many stable things in this place) pillar. He then watched as where he had laid broke away and fell into the void below.

Yami stood there for a few moments, gasping, his mind reeling with questions. Then his memory caught up. The headaches, the cracks! Yami grasped at his chest but found to his continued horror that the puzzle was gone, even if his pain was. He always had the item around his neck when in his soul room before. Ignoring how impossible it was to be wearing a thing he was also inside of, he frantically looked around the area.

Yami was currently facing where the door to Yugi's room should have been. Instead, it looked like the wall, hallway, and Yugi's room had been violently ripped out, leaving nothing but a gaping hole to prove anything had been there at all. Yami swallowed hard. The last time he had been here certainly wasn't this bad. While Yugi's room had been gone, there had been a door and a hallway for Yami to run through. Now there was nothing but ruins.

"Yugi…" Yami whispered. His hand unconsciously reached out towards the hole.

…

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?!" Yugi demanded.

"Because we couldn't do anything about it! We cannot send you back with the lockdown, and we cannot figure out how to fix the lockdown with the Silents and Gandora breathing down our necks! Both refuse to listen to reason. I am told the Gandora have rejected Dark Magician Girl's multiple attempts at peace. And the Silents don't care about the lockdown or the hundreds of spirits in danger. In fact, they think it is great! 'A chance for the world to see how useless the Knights were compared to us!'" Blue-Eyes roared.

Blue-Eyes then took in a deep breath and shifted away from Yugi, forcing her muscles to relax. "We tried to keep healing you to slow the decay. It's why I wanted you to stay in the healing wing so badly. I didn't want to scare you, but… Even in your time away, the puzzle has broken faster than before. Healing must have done nothing to stop it."

Yugi sat frozen, unsure of what to feel. His heart seemed to want to beat right out of his chest. Each beat becoming another stroke on their fast running out clock.

"Please, Yugi. I know how terrible this situation is. But fighting the Silents will take time and maybe lives. If you talk to the Gandora, maybe we can end this quickly. Getting you back to Yami sooner." Blue-Eyes pleaded.

"But just giving over the other Gandora won't be much better! Even if they respected me, which they don't, they would still fight to stay free."

"A fight that the Silents will keep to the ravines. A fight that the Gandora will lose."

"I can't just give an entire archetype over to enslavement!" Yugi shouted as he stood up, fighting back the tears. He may not have been forced to sleep at the time, but he was still fatigued, in pain, and about as emotionally drained as Yugi had ever been. Yugi then looked back to Blue-Eyes, still awake as ever. A strange question forced its way to the front of Yugi's thoughts.

"How are you even still awake?" he asked, pointing to his knocked-out friends.

Blue-Eyes shifted uncomfortably and pointed to her scar with her wingtip. "I don't fully exist in this plane of reality. Back then, with Kaiba… I stayed as long as I could before he ripped my anchor point. But I cut it much too close…." Yugi felt her pain and embarrassment flow through their mental link. Yugi shook his head, realizing this was a topic he needed no further explanation on.

"I understand," Yugi murmured as he sat back down.

Yugi had been everyone's rock this adventure, and he'd been happy to be as such. But it was all catching up to him now. He honestly just wanted to go home, to see his friends, to check on the Pharaoh, and finally see his dad in person again. But then all this happened. He refused to blame anyone, but he was very close to yelling at the sky until destiny finally stopped beating him and his friends. The weight that had been on his shoulder before now seemed to crush him. He NEEDED to get back to the Pharaoh. The Nameless Pharaoh was counting on him.

…

Yami forced himself to survey the rest of the tomb. He saw that it wasn't just the chasm to Yugi's missing room that was falling apart. While this place had never followed the laws of physics, to begin with, this was strange even for it. The thousands of levitating staircases and walkways were now slowly disintegrating in front of his eyes. Their broken bricks sometimes continued floating in place. Other times they crashed to the lower floors. Columns that once were the only proof of some structure in this twisted place soon collapsed after the stairs.

Yami had to jump away as a pillar toppled nearly on top of him. Its clatter shook the very floor he stood on. Then cracks spread from the fallen support. They reach far, including going right under Yami, moving as if they had a mind of their own. Anything the cracks spread across soon shattered. Then everything would fall silently into the void, far beyond Yami's sight.

Yami immediately started running, to where he had no idea. He never had an idea as to "where" when he explored this place in the past. But at the moment, the Pharaoh at least knew falling into the void would not end well for him. And that was honestly more information than this place had ever given him before.

Come now. Come now, Pharaoh.

The entire time Yami ran, he began to feel the presence of something behind him. While that wasn't unusual for the puzzle, what was new was he actually saw something. He could only describe them as shadows. Amorphous, dark creatures that should have only been tricks of the light somehow given life. They slithered after him, appearing from every dark corner and seemingly multiplying after every turn. Reaching, grasping, working with the crumbling bricks to trap him. Yami continued to run and dodge their sudden attacks. All the weakness and pain he had felt before was gone, but that didn't make evasion any easier. When the Pharaoh even so much as grazed their shadowy tendrils, he felt sudden emotions surged through him like venom. Fear, pain, grief, betrayal, they all forced themselves into him and then ebbed away as he continued to run.

Rejoin us. Rejoin us.

Yami had no idea where these shadows came from, but like everything in this accursed puzzle, they were familiar to him. During his thousands of years of being locked away, he knew them. Oh, he knew them well. He knew them so personally at one point; he was nearly one of them. It was only Yugi, his friends, and their compassion that freed him from that fate. Once Yami stopped playing his shadow games these things, started to drift away. By the time he was fully in his right mind again, they had entirely disappeared. He had to admit he almost forgot about them, half the time wondering if his insane mind had simply made them up, so he wasn't alone here.

'Oh, they're real!' Yami thought to himself as he had to escape up a set of upside-down stairs, using the handrails almost like monkey bars. He then leaped from the stairs to a higher level, managing to grab onto a ledge. He began to pull himself up when he felt that hopeless chill return and wrap firmly around one of his legs. Yami lost a handhold as more of his ledge broke. He couldn't help but look down to see the void swirling beneath him.

Come now -. Rejoin us in the eternity your - cursed us with!

Yami swore they didn't speak a human language for parts of that sentence. But he certainly didn't care to ruminate on that at the moment. He tried to fight against their pull, but his strength was waning. He was filled with so much hate and fear, along with the freezing touch they brought. His hand was already slipping when he felt the brick crumble under his grip.

Yami fell, the chill spreading past his leg to consume him. It was odd. As he prepared to be sucked down with these shadows, he didn't panic. Instead, he merely closed his eyes. Being something in a sea of nothing, as he had described it in the gas station. It was such a familiar sensation; he had no choice but to accept it. Five thousand years of being nothing.

Then Yami felt a set of warm hands grab him. They yanked him from the shadows' hold and pulled him over the ledge.

This newcomer's warmth was a slap to Yami's senses. 'What am I doing?! I'm not going to just accept this!' Yami thought. He then shook off the intense emotions and jumped to his feet.

…

Blue-Eyes slowly laid her head beside Yugi. Her deep eyes had grown soft as she let her prideful persona fall. She was clearly just as tired as Yugi. "Perhaps we don't have to give the Gandora over. At least not permanently." Blue-Eyes softly spoke.

Yugi paused and looked over to her, hope flickering in his chest. "How?"

Blue-Eyes clicked her tongue uncomfortably. "This plan is very… shameful, but it might be all we have. At first, we have to let the Silents take the Gandora. But if you can get the Gandora in on this plan, we can learn where the Warriors are keeping them before giving them over. When this whole lockdown is over and the Knights are back. We can break them out with as many strong monsters on our side as we can get. The Knights will also most certainly help!" Blue-Eyes said, forcing her voice to be optimistic.

Yugi deflated after hearing Blue-Eyes's plan. "But we don't know how long it'll take for us to get back to them. We also don't know if the Warriors will move them in that time, let alone send more into battle or worse-" As Yugi spoke, he felt his headache throb. He gritted his teeth as his hand rested on his forehead. Time, time, time, he didn't have time for this!

The quickest and easiest way to solve this problem was to lead the Silents to the Gandora. Yugi knew as soon as he sided with the Silents, the whole domain would be behind him. They could get it done quickly, painlessly. Yugi wouldn't let them take his Gandora, but what would it do to his friend to see the rest of her race enslaved once again? Even if it was just for a little while. Then again, his Gandora had even suggested surrendering before, but… Every cell of Yugi was telling him that was wrong. He couldn't let these dragons fall victim to some nebulous war. But did he have time?! Many lives were in danger. The Pharaoh was fading away at this very moment because of a stupid decision from one of his "friends."

Yugi grimaced as he fought the tears that were still working their way up. It felt like his chest had tightened to the point no air could get in. The guilt that had been boiling in Yugi these last few months once again surfaced. This swirl of negativity wasn't just for thinking about not going immediately to the Pharaoh. This guilt had been darkening his thoughts for a long time. It was this guilt that had led Yugi to so easily push the Pharaoh out of the Seal of Orichalcos all those months ago. It was the same guilt that had ruined Egypt for Yugi and made him fear for the future.

The Pharaoh relied entirely on Yugi. Without him there, the Pharaoh would still be trapped in the puzzle. He had made it clear in the past how tortuous being alone in that place was. While it was the Pharaoh's self-appointed duty to protect him, Yugi had his own mission. He had to help the Pharaoh any way he could because, without Yugi, there would be no Pharaoh. There would be no savor of the world. There would be no dear friend to Joey, Tristan, Bakura, or Téa. There would be no Yami. And it would be all Yugi's fault.

Soon many other toxic thoughts flowed into Yugi's mind, as it always did whenever Yugi tried to face this guilt. Whether it be whenever Yugi thought of the future or thought of being separate from the Pharaoh. It was Yugi's duty to be at the Pharaoh's side, and if that meant pushing aside his own wants and morals, wasn't that what was required of him as the Pharaoh's host?

…

"Run!" A male voice ordered. Yami immediately followed without question, the destruction and shadows following close behind. It was only when the two were running through a tight passage that the Pharaoh saw the face of who saved him. His white hair seemed to glow in the gloom of the puzzle.

"Bakura?" Yami gasped. What was at first shock then turned to anger. He realized it wasn't his friend in front of him. "What are you doing here, Yami Bakura?!"

"What am I doing here?! What are you doing here!" Bakura barked back.

Yami wanted to stop running, to face his old adversary and figure out what was going on. But he knew he could only stay in front of the cataclysm for so long, and Yami Bakura seemed to know where he was going. But as the Pharaoh learned well the last few years, he could not trust Yami Bakura, no matter what.

Yami began planning to break off from Bakura when he felt another chilling tug, this time on his arm. He was yanked backward as the shadows and cracks pulled him towards the void.

"Stop! Don't you understand that destroying him now will just pull us all into the netherworld!?" Bakura yelled as he grabbed Yami's other hand and pulled him to his feet. The shadows didn't seem to listen as they continued to reach for the Pharaoh.

As soon as Yami found his strength, he jerked his hand from Bakura's and started running again, not following Bakura this time.

"Wait! Don't go there! It leads back into the destruction!" Bakura yelled.

"Why should I trust you? How are you even here!?" Yami demanded, stopping for precious seconds to face his old enemy. Bakura stood there, a snarl on his face, but Yami could see his eyes ever so slightly dart back and forth.

"I… I am not the real Bakura. I'm just an image your mind made up. You do this with all the great villains that traumatized you. You should feel grateful that I found you instead of fake Dartz or Marik. They would have let you fall."

Every cell of Yami's screamed that this Bakura was lying. The Pharaoh prepared to run.

"Think about it! How could the spirit of the ring even get in here?! The last time Bakura held the puzzle was years ago before Battle City, and even that was definitely the good Bakura." Yami Bakura tried. Yami still took another step back. "And if this was part of some crazy plan, wouldn't the real Yami Bakura have already done something about it, not sit on this plan for years?! You have to trust me!" Bakura nearly begged.

Yami turned away from Bakura. If anything, what he said made Yami more suspicious. Why would this seeming "image" of an enemy know so many facts that the Pharaoh himself forgot? But right at that moment, another pillar crashed in front of Yami, missing him by mere inches.

"Come on!" This Bakura shouted as he ran up a flight of stairs. Yami looked to the destruction barreling towards him and followed. But he was certainly not going to blindly trust this "image."

"Ok then, if you're from my mind, can you tell me what is going on? What are those things?!" Yami shouted as he caught up to the white-haired boy.

"Those 'things' are - - - - -." Yami Bakura began to explain when he suddenly started speaking in nearly inhuman tones that made Yami's skin crawl. The confusion must have been clear on Yami's face as Bakura turned away with a growl. He uttered a string of curses under his breath, a few Yami didn't recognize and then turned back. "They are… a monster. Yes, a monster called Kul Elna."

"A monster? What is it doing in the puzzle?! And why is it so angry at me?" Yami asked as the two continued to dodge the racing desolation. The look Bakura gave nearly made Yami pause. He seemed tired, just as tired as Yami had felt earlier that day. It was a strange reminder that the spirit from the ring, whether real or his own imaginings, was just as old as the Pharaoh.

"The Millenium Items are a prison to more souls than just yours. And this… Kul Elna has been here much longer than you." Bakura said in a surprisingly weak voice for the maniac. "With how fragile the puzzle is, their restraints have been loosened. I'm sure you felt them when you were still on the outside."

Yami gulped. He had barely survived his own time locked in the puzzle. The thought that something else had been here even longer…

"Here." Bakura suddenly turned off into a lit corridor and pulled Yami in with him.

Yami looked up in surprise to see no traps activated like in most large rooms. Instead, this was a somewhat lit and decorated area, the wall covered in hieroglyphics. By the far wall, a central sarcophagus laid. It was open with nothing inside. Surrounding this casket was similarly empty coffins. The only other notable feature was on the wall. A carving of the millennium eye hung there, with a knife sticking out of it.

"This area is the mental remnants of a room made by another power. Kul Elna won't come in here. But the destruction will happily tear through this place, so we must be quick." Bakura said as Yami looked around. Bakura then gripped both of Yami's shoulders.

"Where is Yugi?!" Bakura demanded.

…

"That is absolutely not what your relationship with the Pharaoh is about." Yugi jumped as Blue-Eyes spoke. Her voice was harsh, but her eyes were soft.

"What?" Yugi asked.

"I can read your mind, remember?" Blue-Eyes said. Yugi's face turned a tint of red as he realized he just had an internal argument with an audience.

Blue-Eyes then stretched her head forward to gently touch foreheads with the small human. "Yugi, Yugi, Yugi…" She sighed. She seemed to take in a deep breath, thinking for a while before she spoke.

"You know of my archetype's need to align ourselves with a strong human?" Yugi nodded. "Most duel monsters see it as very odd and even a little unhealthy. But we Blue-Eyes don't see it as such. It is a sense of pride for us. We have a longing from the moment we are strong enough to project ourselves in the human world. The need to find our 'other self' in the human world." She then smiled at Yugi as she gently booped him. "I know you have felt what I am talking about."

Yugi's hand was still on the puzzle. The two looked down at it for a few moments, the cracks in it slowly etching along. Yugi then looked back to Blue-Eyes as she grew sad.

"There are only four Blue-Eyes left. We have many off-shoots in our archetype, but there are only four original Blue-Eyes. Well, to be more accurate, there are three. I can't stand the two males, and they can't stand me. However, the other female was a dear friend of mine. She found her human long before me. She became so close to her partner that when that human so desperately wanted to stay, even after her death, that…." Blue-Eyes became very quiet. "Well, you will meet them soon enough, I suppose." She then grew quiet for many moments.

"Blue-Eyes?" Yugi urged.

"I am sorry, this is no time for reminiscing. What I am trying to get at is I, as a Blue-Eyes White Dragon, know the strong bond you have with the Pharaoh, and it is not just because I invade your brain occasionally. I know how awful it feels to be apart from them, the lengths we will go for our chosen partners. But even for me, a dragon biologically driven to connect myself to humans can see that your thought process is toxic."

"Hey-!" Blue-Eyes cut Yugi off by placing the tip of her tail on his lips.

"Let me finish." She snipped. Once Yugi took a deep breath and nodded, she continued. "You don't own your very life to this Pharaoh just because you got saddled with him,"

"But I do! He has given me everything, magic, courage, and…." Yugi then paused. He looked over to Silent's and Kuriboh's sleeping bodies. He remembered back to her talk with him in the prophecy room. The freeing feeling he had felt back then, a reminder that Yugi was his own person. The Pharaoh helped him, and he helped the Pharaoh, but that was because they were friends and partners.

"Yugi," Blue-Eyes said in a whisper, occasionally glancing at Yugi's group of spirit friends. "Aligning with your family has given me so much. From adventures with your grandfather to watching you grow up. These things I treasure deeply, but your family is not my whole life. And that is not just because we were ripped apart. Once I came to terms with the fact I couldn't be with you guys anymore, I moved on. I had a very fulfilling life before you were yanked in here by some trap card."

Yugi was about to speak up again, but Blue-Eyes pressed her tail a little harder to his lips.

"I am not saying to abandon the Pharaoh. I still very much think we have to focus on getting you back. But I do not want you jumping into this if your heart absolutely screams no, just because you feel beholden to the Pharaoh. If you think it is truly right to get to the Pharaoh as soon as possible, I will back you all the way. But do not choose it because you feel like it is your only choice as the Pharaoh's companion. You are not a parasite and host; you are friends and partners!"

'Partners.' Yugi repeated in his head. He then forced himself to think more about why he felt so guilty. Yugi was allowed to want other things than to be by the Pharaoh's side. He could live without the Pharaoh, but that didn't mean he wanted to, and he wasn't selfish for thinking that.

Yugi swallowed hard. He looked down at the puzzle again. While it had many cracks, no large pieces had chipped off. All the things his friends, human, and spirit, had said to encourage him in the past seemed to come flooding into his head (Blue-Eyes may or may not have helped with that). He was his own person, and so was the Pharaoh. They were more than just separate personalities like Marik and his Yami. They definitely were not god and follower like Dartz and the Great Leviathan. And they were definitely more than abuser and victim like the Bakuras. They were friends and partners.

They needed to return to the Pharaoh and save those spirits trapped in the human world, but not at the cost of an entire archetype.

Yugi felt as his tears finally broke forth and streamed down his cheeks. He was so tired. But there was still so much to do. Yugi still felt guilty for this decision, but more for the pain and danger the Pharaoh might be going through at the moment. Yugi knew how strong the Pharaoh was though. The spirit would survive anything thrown at him.

…

Yami quickly summed up their situation to Yami Bakura, something he had gotten quite good at summarizing thanks to these last few days. He made sure to keep out certain personal parts. He still didn't trust this Bakura.

Once done, Yami Bakura looked utterly shocked. He at first denied what the Pharaoh told him. But Yami's stern reminders of what they were hiding from made him go silent. Bakura's arms fell limply to his side as he stared wide-eyed at nothing in particular. He ended up sitting on one of the discarded coffin lids and resting his head in his hands.

"Thousands and thousands of years of planning. All to be thrown out the window by one random dragon." He groaned into his hands.

"What do you mean?" Yami asked as he took a protective step away.

"Isn't it clear? Without Yugi's soul, this place is falling apart. The Millennium Items need a modern holder to function. Do you think I-, the real Yami Bakura is using your friend's body because it's fun?! And if the Millennium Puzzle isn't functioning, you and all the souls here get sucked into the netherworld!" Bakura shouted as he slammed his fist down on the lid.

Yami watched as Bakura started muttering as he ran his hands through his hair. Yami was unsure of what to say. How much should he give away to this "image." How much had he given away already?

"Do you mean we'll go to the afterlife?" Yami asked, the concept putting both fear and curiosity into him.

Bakura paused in his rantings. Then a chuckle that sent a shiver up Yami's spine broke from his lips. "Oh no, that would be too easy. I forget just how much you really don't know." Bakura then snapped his attention to the Pharaoh. "You sacrificed yourself to stop -." He paused after another unintelligible series of syllables. "To stop the shadow games, correct? You at least understand me in this?"

"Yes." Yami tentatively said.

"Well, when the great - " Bakura paused again, an annoyed scowl deepening in his face. Then he tried explaining again. "…When a dark being is destroyed, it doesn't go to the afterlife everyone else does. The netherworld is the place for these - …. truly evil entities. In sacrificing yourself, you would have - -… Oh, deck it and your erasure magic!" Bakura pointed at Yami like it was somehow his fault he was speaking in gibberish. "You would have been pulled down along with us. But since your dear - didn't want to curse you to that fate, they used the Millennium items to - - - until we could be properly - -. The Millennium Puzzle is the centerpiece of all this magic. No modern holder, no Millennium Puzzle, no magic keeping us in this realm!" Bakura shouted.

Just then, the whole room began to shake. Yami nearly lost his footing, and Bakura jumped to his feet. As Yami reoriented himself, he noticed there seemed to be a dark aura growing around Bakura, one he hadn't noticed before.

"It's nearly over." He said in a desperate, near mad voice. "All our planning, scheming, and years spent trapped. It's all going to be for nothing."

"It's not over yet," Yami grunted as he righted himself. "We have a plan to get to the world of the spirits."

"Yeah, a plan that you won't be there for. The fact you are even in this place means the puzzle can't project your soul in the body anymore. You going down will take any connection that Dark Magician card has with you."

Yami still stood firm. "I refuse to give up! There has to be a way for me to get back out there."

Bakura silently looked over Yami in some dark form of pity. The Pharaoh turned his nose up and stomped towards the doorway out.

"There's going to be nothing for you out there," Bakura said.

"There has to be some hidden power left in this puzzle! It just has to be strong enough to last until Pegasus gets back. If you want to stay here, fine, but I'm not sitting back and accepting this!" Yami said.

Bakura looked almost annoyed, then he met the Pharaoh's determined eyes. His pity slowly turned to a thoughtful expression. His face darkened as he reached up to his chest, seemingly grasping for a ring that wasn't there. Then his hand fell to his side.

"Your resolve has always been such a thorn in our side. But, we suppose it is that same fortitude that has allowed your soul to survive this long…." He then locked eyes with Yami. That same insane grin that never seemed to fit Bakura's face stretched across his features.

"Bakura?" Yami warned as he took another step back.

"Ironic how these things turn out. If we want to destroy your soul, we'll have to give you ours first. Even if it's just a small piece."

Yami tried to hide his widening eyes but failed. "Bakura?!"

"Oh, it's not permanent. Once you get Yugi's stabilizing soul, we'll literally be kicked out. And you better get Yugi back. We refuse to make room for another soul in this fusion of ours!"

With an animalistic growl, Bakura lunged at Yami. The Pharaoh had no time to react. He wanted to pull away and dodge this clearly mad man. But for one, Bakura was too quick, and two, the collision never came. Everything seemed to dissolve around Yami right before Bakura touched him.

Yami was falling; it was the only sensation he felt. But it was only for a few moments, the crash came soon enough. He groaned as headaches, bodily pain, and fatigue swept through him. He was lying on his side on some sort of cushion with his eyes firmly shut. Then the loud shouting made him wince even further.

…

'Please hold on for a bit longer, Pharaoh. This may be selfish of me to trade some dragons for everyone in danger. But I refuse to make that trade.' Yugi thought.

"As you wish." Blue-Eyes sighed, but Yugi heard deep relief in her words. She clearly didn't even like her own plan. "Then what are we going to do?"

Yugi's gaze fell on Blue-Eyes's scar. Then slowly, his gaze went to Marshmallon and Silent. An idea popped into his head so suddenly that even Blue-Eyes jumped in surprise. Yugi's grin returned with a vengeance.

"Blue-Eyes! If we are going to stop the Silents from taking the Gandora, then those dragons have to save themselves. If they are going to stay in this domain, we need the people to want to have them here. If we all as a Domain agree to protect the Gandora, maybe we have a chance to do this with no fighting." Yugi said as he tried to jump to his feet. It ended up being more of a stumble with Blue-Eyes supporting him, but that didn't stop Yugi. He was already distracted by figuring out each step that'll have to be taken before everyone wakes up.

"Alright, but even someone as revered as you will have a hard time convincing everyone in this domain to support these dragons. They have not exactly made the best impression." Blue-Eyes said as she followed alongside Yugi. She could no longer follow his rapid-fire thoughts. She still grinned. This is what she loved about the Mutos and Yugi in particular. Their power came not in physical strength but in their willpower, heart, and strategic skills.

"That's why the Gandora will have to learn how to save themselves. They need to prove they can help this domain and have the drive to be members of this society." Yugi then glanced at Marshmallon. "And I have an idea of how they can do that. I need to talk to Dark Magician and Giga. But before all that, we have so much to do while everyone is asleep. The Silents may have had time to prepare an attack. But we have time to prepare a defense."