"What is that?" Miho leans in close to Ryo as she points out a symbol on her book's page. She tries to whisper, but rust coats the girl's ability to speak quietly, so a stage whisper reaches out to Yugi instead.

Even the boy's star-shaped hair droops. He really should not have expected Miho to have studied divination. Luck charms and love spells possess a far stronger pull to a schoolgirl with unrequited crushes and an affection for sweepstakes, so, naturally, that was what Miho had obsessed over for the past several weeks.

Yugi sighs and stares past Tristan, Miho, and Ryo as they look through books on Gypsy magic. No anger resides in him at Miho's actions. How was she supposed to know that they would need to find a missing friend? Still, disappointment weighs down his shoulders.

Tea is probably terrified right now.

A hand pats his shoulder.

"Don't worry, Yug. I'm sure that it won't be long before they find a good spell." Joey's words reach out, but Yugi barely hears them. Somehow though, he manages to nod.

At the nod, Joey continues to talk, but Yugi finds himself focusing inward. A disquieting emptiness fills his head, and every time he thinks, each thought seems to bounce off a solid wall within his mind. Yugi's head has been like this ever since Miho admitted that she would have to search through the several books she had for a divination spell. His Other Self had been in control up until that point, but a moment past Miho's admission, the Other Yugi had vanished back into whatever part of Yugi's mind in which he dwelled. The switch had been so quick that Yugi had almost stumbled to the floor.

A thought occurs to Yugi. Maybe his Other Self had receded because he did not want others to see his reaction.

"Are you angry?" The thought reaches out tentatively, but it glances off the same wall as the others.

Yugi crosses his arms in front of his chest. It is odd to think that where Yugi feels no anger, his Other Self might. They had to have been the same person at one point, and Yugi knows that he would not have felt that kind of anger even before he obtained the Puzzle. Or maybe he had felt anger in bad situations and had just pushed it down.

Yugi sighs and deepens his frown. The burden of his thoughts tightens his arms around himself to the point that they almost hurt. The fabric of his shirt stands no chance of protecting his chest from the pressure, and, as he presses tighter, the rough, hard texture of his skin pushes against his arms.

No, wait….that's not right.

Yugi looks down. His arms uncross, and he pulls the collar of his shirt away from himself. Underneath the white shirt, a dark leather vest hugs his chest and torso. Yugi blinks slowly. He definitely did not put that on this morning.

"Um, Other Me, did you do this?"

Silence surrounds the wall.

For the first time since Tea's disappearance, Yugi does not think of her. Instead, he racks his brain for when he even bought this vest. Nothing is found, and the boy is torn between asking Joey if he has worn this before and keeping quiet about it until his Other Self resurfaces. Before he decides, Yugi searches himself for anything else that he may have not put on this morning.

A thin silver chain glints from the white shirt's pocket. Yugi hesitates for a moment before he pulls the silver strand out. The short chain might be long enough to fit around his wrist, but its length does not interest him as much as the object that dangles from it.

A heart-shaped device shivers on the end of the strand. It is the same one that Tea had given him one morning before school. At that time, she had explained to him a popular love game that involved devices called Lovely Twos. These devices went off whenever a person that was a match for you and had one of them walked past. Yugi used to wear this every day until Ryo's hardships had distracted him enough so that he neglected to carry it on him.

Yet, Tea had given this to Yugi because she liked him. Whether liked him as a friend or liked him is still unknown to Yugi. Regardless, she had sweetly smiled at him when she had handed him the love game.

How could I have forgotten about a gift like this? And now she is missing and who knows where she is or how she's doing. She could be tied up somewhere, terrified…

The recording said that they only had as long as until the effects of dehydration kicked in.

A surge of desolation starts in Yugi's heart and wells up in his eyes. He does not make a sound, so Joey, who had long since looked over to where Miho and the others are reading, does not notice and can do nothing to stop the desolation from sinking further into Yugi's heart.

The wall cracks, and, with no more than a whisper, the Other Yugi's presence blooms in Yugi's mind and then descends upon his most recent memories. The tears are shocked out of existence as Yugi's body trembles with an almost completed attempt to take over. When the lack of an immediate threat has been confirmed, the Other Yugi recedes slightly, his thoughts brushing against Yugi's.

"We have worn that every day, even after Monster World."

Yugi straightens in surprise at his Other's low tone.

"You put it on each day." The realization weighs oddly in Yugi's mind.

Yugi's Other Self's thoughts recede a little more but then return. On them, Yugi can sense a weight of nervousness as palpable as a thick coat, unlike the barely existent hints of other emotions that his Other Self had let slip through.

"Yes."

"So, you really like her." Yugi's thoughts are soft. Maybe there is not too much of a disconnect between them.

"Yes. But not like you do." The thoughts are slow, like it takes every bit of his Other's effort to let them slip past. "I can't feel sad that she has been taken." Something sears within their mind, but then the same veil the Other Yugi always uses engulfs the stray emotion. "Anger. I can only hate the one who took her. I can only feel frustrated at Miho's lack of foresight."

Then there is silence. Silence that stretches as each half observe the other's obscured thoughts and feelings.

"So, I stole the ability to feel sad, and you got stuck with every bit of anger that I ignored." Regret intertwines with Yugi's thoughts. "Sorry, can you take any of it back?" he asks.

Shock pushes out from his Other's presence. Disbelief at Yugi's lack of fear and his presence of empathy follows in its wake.

"I got it!"

With those words, Miho guarantees that nonverbal, half-thought up responses are postponed 'til who knows when. Tea is far more important than this odd exchange between the two.


As Yugi moves out of the way far too easily, his darkness settles uneasily back into control. The Other Self's recent admissions leave him feeling rough rub marks within, and the feeling almost makes him snatch away Yugi's memories of the last few moments and stuff them into the same room that he has shoved all the other stolen memories. He would have… he would have taken his light's memories if Yugi had not reacted with regretful words instead of wariness. Dark Yugi had expected his other side to show at least a hint of fear, and, because of that, the dark half has to work hard to keep the unbalanced emotions hidden behind his neutral mask.

He stands and walks over to the group. A shift behind him says that Joey follows.

"'This spell only requires a map, a string, and a piece of the missing person's valuables,'" Miho reads. She looks up, her eyes shining with delight as she meets a crimson gaze. No confusion or hesitation enters her voice or face.

"We can print off a map using my laptop," Ryo adds. Green eyes glance at Dark Yugi for a breath before refocusing on Miho. The tension in a spiky-haired body loosens since even the owl-eyed Ryo does not notice any vulnerability.

"I'll get a string." As always, Tristan volunteers to fetch Miho's wants.

Joey fidgets from behind Dark Yugi. "So, what are we going to use as Tea's valuable?" His question is one of curiosity and was never meant to point out something they lacked.

"Damn it, I don't know. Does anyone have anything?" Tristan scowls as he waits for an answer.

Miho shakes her head while Joey narrows his eyes.

"We could break into her house," the sharp-eyed blonde says.

Inside, Yugi cringes at the thought of running into her parents while doing that. His darkness dismisses the suggestion though because it takes too long to get from Ryo's house to Tea's home.

The Lovely Two still shivers at the end of its chain as Dark Yugi holds it up.

"This technically isn't hers, but it may work." The low tones give way to a slide. It will work. If the Puzzle has shown him anything, it is that, whether an actual foe or an incorrect piece of a spell, any threat to the unity his friends and him share will fall easily to its power.

A few minutes later, the heart-shaped device dangles from the end of Miho's ribbon above the map of Domino that Tristan had printed off the web. Miho does not speak as she glances at the spell's instructions one more time before swinging the device over the map in a few large circles. On the second swing, the girl bites her lip.

On the third swing, the device sets off like a telltale heart.


The stranger's hands are quick, and even though Tea tries to shove the chair back again to stall the inevitable, his hand already reaches into her skirt pocket before she can do much more than twitch. The pressure against her thigh actives the desire to bite down hard on the man's ear, but he leans his head away from her before a gnash of teeth can draw blood. Two shrill beeps later and he has drawn back; the Lovely Two that she always, always wears dangles in-between the grip of his thumb and middle and ring fingers.

She glares at him and somehow makes the blue of her eyes glow with fire as he stares at the dangling heart. As it beeps and beeps, Tea's heart flutters. The last time that beeped, the Other Yugi was using it to find the second one of the pair after it had been hidden away by a cruel teacher.

If it's beeping, he must be near here right now.

"YUGI! I AM RIGHT HE-"

There is no warning. Only a hand firmly against her mouth and fogged green aglow unnaturally so.

"Quiet." He whispers with a hand gripping her arm hard enough to darkly bruise it and a voice that hisses too much to be human. Tea quiets. Who wouldn't while staring into eyes bordering on completely empty?


Miho gasps at the erratic beeps, and her grip loosens. But then Dark Yugi's hand latches out and tightens around hers, and, even though the ribbon descends an inch, it does not leave their grasp. However, the jostle does nothing though to stop it from swinging its perfect circle, whose radius has begun to shrink. While both hands are forced to stay steady, the ribbon defies normal rules, the center of the circle moving across the map and the upper part of the ribbon bending at a crooked angle.


Thankfully, it is only a flicker of time before he removes his too-strong-of grip from her arm and his hand from her mouth. Tea is not stupid enough to speak, but the beeps help hope into her chest. Even if she cannot yell out, there is no doubt that the Other Yugi will find her.

The kidnapper stands and steps away from Tea. Fogged green eyes study the Lovely Two for one more moment before it slips from his grasp. It hits the floor, but the beeps still ring out in defiance. The crunch of a heel against plastic and metal silences that.

Tea does not speak or cry out. The stranger's eyes are too reminiscent of the emptiness that Kaiba possessed when he sentenced her and her friends to die at Death-T, yet, even when the stranger grabs the arm of her chair and stares at her with that emptiness, blue eyes glow with anger.

The stranger says nothing. He watches her while his mouth sets into a neutral line. His thoughts are unclear as he steps back, turns around, and walks out of the room. From behind him, Tea glares through stray strands of hair, and she knows that he must feel the message burn into his back.

Yugi will find us.


The Puzzle glints as the Lovely Two swings in tighter circles and beeps louder. The only part of Domino within the circle now is a small suburb that exists near the outskirts of the city. The circle starts to shrink again, but then the beeps cut off. The silence rings as the Lovely Two sways back to the center of the map and dangles limply.