The Magicians' Realm Chapter 112: Borrowing Trouble, a yu-gi-oh fanfic

Chapter 112, everybody! In which we learn that the adults are not ready for children….

You can't fix stupid is something my Dad says and is unfortunately the truth. :| Also Kineil and Bakura Necromancer are referencing The Lion King, which is one of the rare tidbits from this section that actually survived from when I first started this.

And now we get into the part that annoyed me and had me ending up postponing this fic for two years—I swear up and down that I wrote this section out before, on my laptop in my bed at like midnight sometime during the summer because I was literally so busy during the day that I had to write in bed. And yet, for the life of me, no matter how hard I looked I could never find it, which was kinda disheartening because it was like three or four pages. Eventually I gave it up as lost and rewrote it, which ties it in a bit more closely with the story threads, but recently I read that onedrive will erase extra copies and overwrite it with the onedrive version, so I may have found out what happened to it.

In other words, modern Microsoft sucks and it can't be bothered to recognize words like "encaptured" and ducks up contractions by autocorrecting "don't" to "d'n't" but by golly it'll auto-capitalize it's own brand. (yeah I'm peeved with big corporations in general bring back true capitalism so competition can whip these guys). Also Skul's referencing his source material and perhaps my own experience with female roommates oh gosh why are we so catty sometimes?!

Movie this week is Moana—we tuned in for the chicken and stayed to watch the rest of the movie (it's so pretty but at the same time Disney why u do all your IPs dirty?).

Angiembabe, thanks for the review (also congrats on being review #272)! Fun fact, part of the reason this fic went on that unintended hiatus was because I couldn't bring myself to write politics with all the junk going on. But yeah, it would totally be their fault.

References:

Original characters, + setting © Kineil D. Wicks (myself, not the girl in the story)

Kineil was muttering a string of invectives as she wound through the twisted town, eventually found Bakura Necromancer trying and failing to distract the kids with the mosaics.

"Those things tried to kill us," the mini-Hephaestus said. "I'm not interested."

"A wise choice. Hey Jake!" she yelled, making them jump as she came up behind them. "We're not supposed to be teaching the kids rude language!"

The mosaics immediately smoothed themselves out.

"We're not supposed to be teaching the kids rude language, are we?" Bakura Necromancer asked her, eyebrows raised.

"You shut up."

"Right, right, whatever. So, who's hungry?"

They all were, obviously, but at least one of them had cottoned on to what that meant and had warned the others. Her money was on the one with the funny hair who looked an awful lot like the source of her grief—the mini-Yami, she amended, when she realized that didn't narrow it down any.

"So I understand that starving to death is one of the slower ways to go," she said.

"Nonsense," Bakura Necromancer said. "They'd die of thirst first."

"Die—die is the word I want to emphasize there."

"And?" the mini-Vulcan asked. "Unless you have a way out, which you don't, we're stuck anyway."

Okay you know what helping Hephaestus was suddenly sounding really appealing. "And you're all just going to hasten that decision along then? Wow, not sure whether to call that smart or stupid. Guess which one I'm leaning towards."

"Kineil we talked about you playing nice with the other children," Bakura Necromancer said, nudging her head so she wasn't glaring at the kids now in varying degrees of discomfort.

She slapped his hand away and rounded on him. "Do not start with me, I will steal your head while you sleep and this time, you will never find it."

"So that was you!"

Actually it was Hephaestus and Vulcan, but that was beside the point. "Look, I am sick of dealing with other people's idiocies, I'm done, if these kids want to kill themselves that's on their heads."

"Ah, so we've swung from never wanting children to actively plotting against them."

"No, we started at you can't fix stupid and have come all the way around back to you can't fix stupid. Unless you plan to force-feed them—"

"Now there's an idea."

Oh brother—glance at the kids—

"Right. Well," Kineil said, looking back at him. "Did you order their meal to go?"

"No," Bakura Necromancer said, eyebrows furrowed. "Why would you ask something like that?"

In response, Kineil pointed at the kids running away. "Because there they go."

*\*/*

There was really no point in putting off unpleasant things, unfortunately, so despite giving Kineil a lift to Dr. Heller's—mostly in an attempt to stave off her potential shooting—he had to turn his Bentley to the library eventually. After ensuring that said Doctor Malachi Heller didn't in fact match the description of her murderer.

"Are you sure?" he asked when Skulduggery had finished filling the man in. "Because I can't deny it's tempting."

"I need new friends," Kineil announced.

"You do," Skulduggery agreed. "I'll help you find less murderous ones when I'm done with the whole investigation."

"She's not even dead yet," Dr. Heller said, indicating her. "Shouldn't she be dead for her murder investigation?"

"I'm trying to see if it's possible to solve a murder before it happens," he said, tipping his hat as he walked out. "See about being proactive."

"Come back when you're done and you can help me cover up a murder," Kineil said, giving the doctor a narrow look.

"Then stop coming over," Dr. Heller said.

But eventually, the Bentley was carefully parked in front of the library, potential miscreants who could mean it harm were warded off (including pigeons, who sat on wires just waiting for nice clean cars to drive by), and he was ascending the steps to duck into the cool quiet of the building.

By choice, he didn't often have occasion to come into the library, mostly because he was very familiar with the owner. He had known China Sorrows from the old country, had plenty of cause to distrust her even before personal feelings got involved. Yes, he had once professed his love for her, but that wasn't exactly a new thing—anyone who had ever met China Sorrows professed their love for her, that was how her glamour worked. No, probably the main issue was that he was one of the very few who she actually reciprocated, and thus she had taken him marrying Idgy with less grace than one would usually expect of the feminine persuasion. Granted, if one employed standard deductive reasoning, it wasn't too much less—women could be catty and cunning, in his experience, and one or two motivated women could do more damage than a hundred raging men. It usually boiled down to motivation—men needed less reason to dole out damage to each other, but women needed a focus to channel that aggression.

Or maybe that was just his experience. It wouldn't be the first time he had such a bad relationship, after all.

"Detective Skulduggery Pleasant," China said, smiling and savoring every syllable. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Business, primarily," he said. "I need what reading you have on divination and a quiet corner to read it in."

"Pick someplace out, I'll find you," she said, gesturing as she turned away.

It didn't really matter which cubby he picked, considering the layout of the place, but he did drift through several rows before picking out a nice sunny alcove, picking up a copy of the book Jack had been reading, the one that had gotten Teana in such a state. He had skimmed through most of it when China deposited the first stack, finished it up and tugged out a notepad to jot down some ideas before moving on to the more official material.

The official material was mostly introductory and conjecture, not the sort of nitty-gritty he was hoping for. Skimmed through everything again, looked around, skimmed again hoping for something he missed…finally got up and headed for the front desk, where he found China skimming through her ledgers.

"Looking for more reading for me, I hope," he said.

"What you had wasn't sufficiently diverting?" she asked, not looking up.

"What I had is bare-bones. China, I know better—you have more than that."

She glanced up at him, flicked her eyes about—he scanned the library as well, saw nothing untoward. Met her eyes when she looked back at him.

"Come back to my office for a spot of tea—I'll check my inventory," she told him.

"China, Idgy is expecting me," he warned.

"I'm sure," she told him. "One cup between friends is hardly cause for suspicion though, is it?"

He considered her for a long moment, weighing his options. As he said, he knew her, and she could be underhanded when it so served her.

Now might be one of those times…but there was still that other worrisome piece of information, the notion that there was much more than Teana was letting on.

It meant it was worth the risk.

"I suppose one wouldn't hurt."

*/*\*

The plan had been bare-bones at best, but considering starvation was rapidly becoming a real thing, a plan born of desperation was about as desirable as one of deductive reasoning.

Basically, we don't have a better plan so we might as well.

That plan being this: run, split up, two groups would act as distractions while the third tried to make it to the town square to see just what it was they were being kept away from. As thin a hope as it could be, maybe it was a way out. And if not…well it would be better than being continuously in the dark.

Now for the tricky part of the plan: staying ahead of the dead denizens who knew the place much better than they did and wouldn't be happy when they caught them.

Yami risked a glance back when the groups split, first the girls, then the rest—the dead denizens chasing them had gotten help, unfortunately, which meant that both Kineil Wicks and Bakura Necromancer were able to pursue their group. Those burning orange eyes were a motivator, yes, but it also promised pain if they were caught.

They needed an escape, and fast.

"There!" Jonouchi yelled suddenly, pouring on the speed. Yami had no choice but to try to go faster, body informing him that despite his usually healthy activities, it was not built for high speed. Barely saw what Jonouchi and Honda were angling for, a metal door set into the rock—faster, just a little faster, little farther—

They managed to reach the door, yank it open and dive in—Honda swung it shut with a metallic clang—Jonouchi shoved a nearby pipe into the workings, jamming it—

They held their breath as banging started up on it and the door handle jumped.

"Get back out here!" Kineil ordered, sounding past angry.

"Let's not," Honda muttered, glancing back down the hall. "Do you think the others got away?"

"We can try to find them later," Yami said, glancing down the two branching paths leading away—it reminded him of what he had heard of the cavernous warrens beneath Delvaire, only lined with pipes and unpleasantly steamy and warm.

"We could leave them in there," he heard Bakura Necromancer suggest. "We know where they are that way."

"Oh sure," Kineil spat. "Which means you get to be the one to explain to Yami why Heller ate them!"

They stopped, looked at each other—

Which was about the time Yami spotted something with luminous, pale-yellow eyes advancing on them from one of the side halls.

And in the moment he spotted it, those harvest-moon eyes narrowed—

And the thing snarled, a deep noise that Yami felt in his bones.

"Oh boy," Jonouchi muttered.

"Run," Yami ordered. "Just—run!"