19th chapter everyone! SUPER exciting! I hope you guys enjoy yet another chapter of this awesome story! Thank you for all of your comments and compliments regarding my fic!

~Nymph kingdom castle~

"It's been one whole week from the gathering of mages and healers, how are we on numbers?" King Enlil asked. He was sure he'd have many volunteers for his cause but he had to make sure he had enough. This poison was no joke, he was going to need as many as possible to even hope of dissipating it.

"I'm happy to report well over 50,000 people my king!" The guard who previously announced the terrible news in the beginning has been charged with gathering and writing down the list of mages and healers who were willing to aid in the cause for the king. Granted, in the grand scheme of things 50,000 people wasn't much but for only a week, that was impressive.

Enlil smiled graciously. "I'm so happy my people haven't lost their willingness to help do the right thing." He was worried that they might have revolted or rejected the idea altogether considering the war, but to his surprise, he had many who were wanting to help, many more than he'd thought would. "Thank you my son, now we will gather for another week all the while preparing for the journey ahead. We must gather all supplies that we may need. We must remind everyone that every day more children die and the more children each day the poison takes as it gets stronger with each child's death." He sternly stared at the guard.

"I absolutely agree my lord! I shall send papers out to every person in the nymph kingdom and even attempt to reach the people of the dawn forest for help as well." The guard saluted, earnest expression graced his young face, the graveness of the situation very much clear in his mind.

The king smiled once more. "I'm counting on you son. No, the elven children are counting on your efforts, I know you won't fail me or them." Enlil nodded, his flowing dark blonde hair shined from the sunlight, his red-brown eyes gleamed an orange hue as he looked toward his kingdom and then beyond towards the dawn forest, knowing that in just a little over a month he would visit the elven kingdom once more. But with no war, no violence, or hatred, only his true earnest helpful intentions. For the first time in almost 20 years, he was wanting to help the elven kingdom instead of hating them. Maybe this will be the change that they needed to go past beyond hatred but understanding and maybe, just maybe, this will be an end to this war.

~At the Elven castle, in the "experiment room"~

"AGH! Another FAILURE!" Yami yelled throwing his latest experiment across the room.

Yugi flew to her husband, and gently placed her left hand on his right shoulder. "It's okay Yami, we can always try again. We can't expect a perfect cure after only a week." Her bright amethyst eyes showing only a smile of comfort and little sadness, knowing just how much these failures are causing him misery without a hint of stopping.

Yami closed his ruby eyes in shame and clutched his right hand to Yugi's left one that still laid upon his right shoulder tightly. "I know my love, I know." He took a deep breath and turned to look at Yugi with the most distraught expression she has ever seen on his face. "It's not like at home where if I don't come up with a solution right away, the most an individual will suffer is mild discomfort. This is different, innocent children are dying... And... for every day I fail, more children die than the day before. I hate being the result of children dying simply because I couldn't figure out a way to at least make it pause, not even to make it completely go away, just making it temporarily stop..." He wasn't a man who cried easily, but he was ready to, at that moment that's all he wanted to do. He wanted to cry for every person who has lost a dear person today and every day since it happened. But he can't because he needed to keep it together, because if he couldn't keep it together then he felt he really would fail the elven children.

"Yami..." Yugi couldn't say anything, there wasn't anything that she could possibly come up with that would better the situation, or even make it seem not as bad. Because it was that bad.

"Yami, I want you to look at me." Jono came over on his left side and crouched on the floor, looking up at him. He sighed but he looked anyway. His ruby red eyes landing straight onto Jono's honey brown eyes which held so much sadness but she still had an ability to smile despite the grim situation. "I want you to hug Yugi, and I want you to hug her tight for me."

Ruby eyes stared confused. "What...?"

"Don't ask why or what, I just want you to do it okay?" She then grabbed the chair he was sitting on, and proceeded to pull in away from the work bench. The screeching from the metal legs of the chair scrapping against the hard onyx tile floors echoed throughout the space. Once the chair was fully removed from the bench, she then went on in front of Yami and quite literally picked him up from the chair and placed him in front of Yugi. "Please, just do it." So he did, and at first he hugged her like he normally did. Then he felt this urge to hug tighter, so he did. "Now Yami, I want you to do something else while hugging her."

"Oh yeah, what would that be?" His normally stoic voice almost trembling for what he knew was going to happen next.

Jono went behind Yugi so she could face Yami. "I want you to let it all out. Your stress, the burden you feel, the guilt you shouldn't have but do anyway. Yami I want you to..." She knew he was already on the verge of tears and she paused waiting for the breaking point that was already happening "...cry."

And he did, for the first time since the time Yugi had agreed to marry him, he cried. He wailed screaming curses at the spell-caster for enchanting this poison. He howled in agony for the elven kingdom children whose lives were taken from them. And then he kept weeping saying he's sorry that he couldn't figure out a solution sooner.

The whole royal family having witnessed this just outside the open doorway, didn't know what to do. Lycus and Mikuro looked at each other and smiled knowingly but still didn't have a clue as to handle it appropriately or if they should do anything at all. Mokuba stood silently, frowning at the floor, shuffling his feet, and then promptly decided to go to his room and try to focus on his assignments. Seto stood in awe of Jono and how she took it upon herself to help the mage to cry.

After Yami started crying Jono then went to leave them alone, knowing that he needed comfort just as much as Yugi did. As she reached the doorway with the royal family standing in it, she looked up at them and smiled. "Everyone has a breaking point, and sometimes another person has to show you the way to handle it, even if it's to cry despite being a protective man with intense pride like Yami. Sometimes, you have to cry or scream or both in Yami's case, to get whatever is ailing you be it sadness, anger, stress, or any other intense emotion out in the air." She lightly bowed to them and then walked straight down the hall to her room and lightly closed the door, barely hearing the click signifying the latch catching.

Yami wept for hours, Yugi even cried with him telling him that he's not a bad person and no one is going to blame him for anything.

Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, kind of a sad one, but this definitely needed to be brought out in this story. Please leave a comment for me! You know I love to read them!