Thank you for the reviews everyone! I hope I reviewed at least one of yours...if you want me to review then you must either sign in or tell me your pen name! Or else, duh, I can't find you to review one! Yay for Irken Nani for getting number ten! *Sigh* I should have prizes...anyways, read on, enjoy and hopefully review!

/ Blah / = any hikari

// Blah // = any yami

By the way, do you guys want me to use any Japanese in this, b/c I will. I wasn't sure. I promise I won't do any "nani is the matter?" Ergh, I do so hate that! Well anyway, leave your answer in the review please. ^-^

Sorrow welled up in Yuugi's heart as he stumbled through the forest blinded by the tears he had been too ashamed to show the one he loved. In the back of his mind he could hear Yami calling for him but the voice sounded weak and strained, as if he was at the bottom of a deep well without enough strength to pull himself up. Yuugi ignored it and pushed on, deeper and deeper until the black swallowed him up in its icy hold, away from any trails that might allow the others to find them. Right now he just wanted to be left alone, his love hated him and that was all he could dwell on.

"Stop!" A voice like water over stones in the river shocked the saddened boy into doing just that. Before him stood a beautiful young woman round about his age. Thick, black lashes curled delicately around her stunning ruby eyes and her long, rich black hair hung down to the middle of her back. She was dressed in a white kimono trimmed with gold thread and tied about her waist with a crimson sash. She was tall and thin with all the right proportions...and there was some dark flavor about her Yuugi didn't like. "Are you lost?" The girl asked sweetly, circling Yuugi like a wolf stalking its prey.

"N, no..." he stammered wishing that he had brought Yami along with him in the puzzle. "I, I was just l, looking for someone to duel with." He lied hoping the female would just turn and walk away but somehow he doubted that would happen.

"Oh, well, I could duel you. My name is Kanashimi Aoi." She bowed gracefully returning to the standing position with a look of perplexity. "Usually, when someone introduces herself, the other person does the same."

"Oh, sorry, I'm Mutou Yuugi." He dipped forward, shallowly, his sense of foreboding not leaving...what an odd name, he thought to himself.

"Shall we duel?"

"No! I mean, no, I was looking for a specific person." Suddenly Aoi was a different person, a young girl with fear in her dark brown eyes and a cry on her lips. Yuugi blinked and the other girl was gone replaced once again by Aoi's beauty. "Who are you?" Yuugi asked, stepping back and preparing to run at a moment's notice. He gasped as Aoi was surrounded by swirling black and a shadow seemed to burst out of her back leaving behind a small, brown-haired girl who slumped to the ground in a dead faint. The red-eyed shadow reared up, towering over Yuugi.

"I am your darkness! I am your fear, Mutou Yuugi!" It sneered, full of contempt and scorn. "I will be your undoing! I will be your death!" It hissed, leaning in closer, paralyzing Yuugi with fear as the freshman's eyes widened and his breath came quicker, his legs felt like jelly, hardly able to keep his quaking body upright. Suddenly it swept through Yuugi like water through a sieve and a chilling cold enveloped the boy's soul, freezing it in time. Yuugi didn't have even time enough to scream as he felt his body fall towards the ground, passing out from shock and pain into a dreamless sleep. The shadow caught the boy as he fell and slipped the puzzle over the spiky hair feeling the golden weight settle in its palm. "Sleep boy, for it will be your last peaceful one..."

"Unh!" Yami gasped and fell to the ground on one knee, surrounded almost instantly by Joey, Tristan and Tea. "Aibou..." He gasped, holding his chest.

"What is it? What's happened?" Tristan asked with fear noticing that the image of the puzzle around Yami's neck was fading. "The puzzle!" He cried.

"Yes...the puzzle, something has taken the puzzle...Aibou..." his voice became softer and softer until it was nothing at all. His head slumped forward onto Joey's shoulder.

"We gotta find Yuugi." The blonde murmured hefting the smaller yami over his back and setting off through the woods turning only for a moment to see if he was being followed.

"What do you think happened?" Tea asked quietly, regretting how hard she had been on her small friend and thinking to herself that Yami had been right. God how she loved him, his deep, comforting voice and confident nature-so unlike the Yuugi that had confessed his true feelings. She wasn't surprised when nobody answered her but she didn't feel too bad, she had brought it upon herself, however she did want to apologize for her out burst.

"..Aibou...hikari..." The unconscious yami's pained cries echoed in all their ears sending daggers through their hearts.

"Hang in there Yami." Tristan whispered, "we'll find him..."

What seemed like many hours later a soft drizzle began soon turning into a heavy downpour that reached the group through even the leaves of the trees towering above them.

"We should make camp." Joey announced after spying a small alcove in the roots of a huge tree. The lower branches, he decided, would make it dry enough. The rest agreed, both Tristan and Tea allowing their eyes to drift over the sleeping darkness still thrown over Joey's shoulders. Minutes later they were sheltered from the driving rain struggling to light a fire with the wet sticks and moss.

"It's no use." Tea said after a few arduous minutes and the rest could only agree. Yami lay in the dirt under the roots wrapped in a blanket and murmuring fitfully, tossing his head, a victim trapped in his own mentality.

"Aibou!" He screamed suddenly, rocketing up into a sitting position and dashing his head against the dark wood of the root he was sheltered under. He fell back, rubbing his forehead and cursing every tree he had ever laid eyes upon to a fiery death.

"Are you okay?" Tristan asked, chuckle with a cough and averting his gaze to stare at Joey who had tears running down his face from holding in his laughter. He could remember every time he had done that in a bunk bed...

"Did you find Yuugi?" The group was somber after the almost inaudibly asked question.

"No." Tea answered.

"Then I'm not fine..." he wrapped himself up tighter and pulled his knees in to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. "Something has happened to him...something evil has him, I know it, I can feel the darkness...it's eating him..." he whispered. Nobody knew what they could do, they had never seen Yami like this: ever.

"Hey, don't worry." Joey said putting a hand on the wet shoulder. "We'll find 'im. You can still feel 'im right? Even without the puzzle?"

"Vaguely, his presence will never truly go away until he dies, such is the bond between hikari and yami..." He shuddered, body reluctantly going back to the sleep it needed to be free of Yuugi's pain. "But, it will be extremely hard to track him without the Sennen item...I can't even reach him...the...link..." his talking ceased, the darkness had fallen back against the roots, sound asleep.

"What did he mean when he said the darkness was eating Yuugi?" Tea asked, scared for the young boy.

"I don't know, Tea, but it couldn't have been good." Replied Joey, his greater worry resting with Yami's fear for Yuugi. If something had happened that was bad enough to send the pharaoh into that cataleptic state what was happening to the boy in the darkness's grasp?

"I see you are awake, boy." The creature hissed into Yuugi's face as he groggily opened his eyes. The black demon had still not taken on any recognizable body and that in itself worried Yuugi, how could he fight what he could not understand? He wouldn't be able to pinpoint any weakness or flaw if it was merely a shadow. He trembled in the darkness's gaze. He hurt all over. Raw pain flew along every nerve burning what seemed like his soul. It felt like he was being devoured from the inside out, like the shadow creature was sucking his life away.

"Wha, where am I?" He asked, so scared that he was beginning to feel dizzy.

"Why, in the Duelist Castle of course. Where else?" Yuugi winced at the grating sound of the shadow's voice. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

"Duelist Castle?" Yuugi repeated, he had thought Pegasus lived there.

"Do I stutter?" The evil asked loudly. "That fool, Pegasus I believe his name was, is dead! And I have stolen his Sennen Eye!" It leaned in closer. "Does that knowledge make you tremble boy? It should!" If you are not careful the very same will happen to you! I will use you to torture that accursed Pharaoh!" Suddenly what seemed like a thousand torches lit up, casting light into every corner of the vast room. And there, in the very center lying next to Yuugi, was Pegasus' dead body. The empty eye socket was staring at Yuugi almost as if it still held the golden Sennen Eye. Congealed blood was spread in a puddle about the duelist's head. It was soaked into his silver hair and red suit, his cold, lifeless lips frozen in a permanent scream. The other eye was open and staring into the dark reaches of Yuugi's soul as if to say "you've lost" and indeed he had. In the worst possible way. The freshman felt an urge to throw up at the sight.

"How..." he gasped, sickened by the sight of death so close up.

"Silence! I will return again," it held up the blood encrusted Sennen Eye. "Sleep and dream boy, dream of your death!" Cackling laughter echoed through the otherwise still tomb and the creature passed a 'hand' through Yuugi's chest. The teen felt his heart constrict painfully and his eyelids closed in silent agony as he drifted into horror filled dreams.

"Aibou!" Yami called out weakly in his sleep. His heart throbbed with Yuugi's pain and he could feel nothing else, not even the hands that struggled to wake him from his nightmares. "...no..." his body shuddered once more and then was still.

"I wish this would end." Tea sobbed openly, holding Yami's cold hand in her own.

"I know..." Tristan sighed rubbing his eyes. "The rain has stopped, we should get moving. Want me to carry him Joey?" He asked soberly.

"Yeah, t'anks."

The slow procession marched on, Tristan carrying his delirious burden silently, wrapped up in his own thoughts. The night air was cold and crisp, you could see the stars clearly through the trees, small pinpoints of light in an endless void.

"What's that?" Tea cried out, clutching Joey's arm and pointing to a lump in the middle of their path.

"I t'ink it's a person." The blonde muttered, drawing closer followed by Tristan and Tea. Indeed it was, wearing sopping blue jeans and a white sweatshirt. His silvery hair was spread around his face as it lay in the mud of the path.

Yuugi raised his head weakly, taking in his bleak surroundings with a silent dread and wondering how long he had been out, praising whatever god cared to listen that the dead body of the Duel Master Pegasus was gone, realizing that he was in a different room. His head ached and he groaned, thanking god again that he couldn't remember any of his wicked nightmares, raising a hand only to realize that it only made it halfway to his face: he was chained to the wall. The only light he could see came from a thin trickle of moonlight sifting through the only barred window in stripped patterns along one damp wall. He sought the comfortable weight that usually hung around his neck and remembered, with tears in his eyes, that the shadowy figure had taken it.

/Yami? / He waited for what seemed like ages but got no answer, their mental link was gone with the puzzle. Suddenly Yuugi heard a noise and he froze, someone else was there.

SY: Wow, people actually read these? Okay, I've taken Ookami Gekkani's advice and decided that I'm not going to huggle you all as much! I guess I shouldn't love you all too hard...

YY/DM/CG: *Cheers* Yay!

SY: *Sniff* Don't leave me! You'll all stay with me...right? *Sob! *

DM: Of course!

CG: But you must share!

YY: And no more strangling! *Rubs neck*

SY: Really? *Opens arms wide*

YY/DM/CG: *Eyes open wide in fear* No!

SY: Oh yeah...*Pats each one on the head* Is that better?

DM: Much.

CG: I agree.

YY: *Rolls eyes* You hurt my Aibou and I entirely too much.

SY: I haven't killed you yet! And besides, I don't hear Yami Bakura or Bakura complaining. *Motions to chair where they sit, very quietly, smirking at Yami Yuugi*

Yami Bakura/Bakura: Huggles for Yami Yuugi!

SY: That's a good idea! Thanks!

YY: No! Argh! *Everyone dog piles Yami! * ...Ehhh...

SY: Don't forget to review! Perhaps I should up the rating...dead Pegasus, ick...Anyway! Who is the person with in the darkness with Yuugi? What does the demon want with the Sennen Items? Will Yami Yuugi ever be nice to me?

YY: *Wrestling from under other monsters and SY* Heh, not likely! Hrack! *Gets buried again*

SY: Stay tuned! And give the bishos a pat on the head for me, 'kay?