Chapter 7, now aren't I doing well? The feedback and encouragement I'm getting is priceless so I extend my gratitude to you all! Thanks! I do write depending on the number of reviews I get simply because it is inspiring to read!

For those of you who have stated that you keep checking the story for updates, I can tell you now that I DO NOT update any other day than Friday, simply because my access to the Internet, erm, moves... So only check on Fridays because I won't be posting on any other date. If there is any change in that I will dutifully let you know.

Also, let me know what you'd like to read in future chapters as I'm always happy to incorporate outside ideas, which is something that I have already planned to do with the content of one particularly interesting review...

I'm dipping out of the humour element a little here and moving onto a more dramatic style, but tell me if you prefer it in the style it was in before if you're not happy. I live to please. And for reviews which come from pleasing...

Borath ;p

Chapter 7: Flare

YVO

//The extension to the Game Shop and the house is just about finished now, which is miraculous as the builders have been working within strict hours under Seto's orders so as not to disturb us early in the morning or late in the evening should we be sleeping. I wanted to send all their souls to Hell after the first few days when they did not work abiding to these rules and after I screamed at them all for a while they decided that following orders would be better for their personal safety. Being a dark creature does have its uses...

At just under seven months 'along' now the child has actually started moving around, something which was quite pleasant at first but has quickly become a nuisance as it keeps waking me up.

Yugi's reaction the first time it kicked was priceless and there has been very little time ever since when his hand is not on my stomach. I'm a little worried about Joey though, as I don't think it likes him; it gets rather violent when he speaks near me now.

Sleep is becoming infrequent now meaning that I am spending most nights looking out of the window and letting my mind wander aimlessly, a less than productive use of my time.

Whilst on the topic of 'wasting my time', another stupid event that I am required to participate in every week are these lamas class things. Seto and the others are insisting that I attend and I think the sole reason that I am putting up with the head-woman's incessant prattling is because one of them has taken to standing guard outside to ensure I don't escape during the session. They keep changing every week so I don't know which of the group I need to blackmail or threaten to get them to piss off each time.

Learning about feeding, setting up cots, handling a child and so forth has been useful, yes, but we have finished those lessons now and are focussing solely on breathing, which I am quite capable of doing on my own. Remembering to respire during birth is something that I don't think I need to have drilled into me!

It's also a bit strange being around all the other pregnant women as they all seem willing, eager even, to share some of the most intimate experiences they have had during their own pregnancy or previous births. I really don't want to know how wide they were dilated at birth in terms of their husband's fingers! I don't!

Some of the topics of conversation have made me squirm more than once simply because I am a male mind in a female body. The rest have had all of their lives to get used to every little aspect of their body whilst I have only had a year in mine.

I voiced such thoughts to Seto and he said that he would accompany me to the next session, an offer that I had declined from him when I first started attending. Having him listen to a discussion on my cervix was a little much then with our 'relationship' having been so tenuous. I think that aspect of my life is improving steadily though. Yugi is hyper about that as well as the baby kicking, by the way.//

****

Yugi had been flicking through some new comic books that had come in today with Honda, Joey and Tea when Yami stalked in with Seto in tow. The latter was holding a cold pack to his left eye and looked a little pale whilst the former had eyes that could melt steel.

"Whoa Seto! What happened? You alright?" Joey asked when he saw the older boy readjust the pack against his face marginally.

"Yami had one of her mood swings," he grumbled, making a note to move a good distance away from her as he said that so that the counter and the others were between himself and the wrathful women.

Her ruby eyes grew large at that, her lips twisting into a snarl. "Me?! You're the one who fainted!"

"Well you didn't have to hit me when I came to!" Seto shouted back as he slammed the cold pack down on the counter, revealing a rather impressive bruise over his right eye.

"At least I waited until you came to before hitting you! And I think I had the right to after that bloody video!"

He gawked at her incredulously. "It's childbirth! It isn't my fault you're scared!"

"It's your fault I'm in this position in the first place! And you Joey," she added, flickering fiery eyes to Joey who made a small 'eep' sound before wisely sprinting out of the shop as fast as possible. "And I am not scared."

"Well, your reaction proves otherwise. That or you're just mental," Seto stated flatly before following Joey's escape route out, leaving her standing silently whilst Yugi, Honda and Tea shifted uncertainly.

Sighing, Yami brought her hands up to her face and buried her fingers into her hair. "Urgh, that was stupid."

"Why did you hit Seto, Yami? I thought everything was going so well," Tea asked softly, stepping forward and placing a hand gently on her shoulder.

Yami dropped her hands to her sides, the fires in her eyes having diminished now as her anger fled. "It was. It was all going beautifully. He's is wrong though. I'm not scared; I'm terrified. This whole thing feels like some sick cosmic joke. I have no idea what the Gods were thinking setting all those events off at the same time when this all started."

Yugi frowned and stared at the floor in concentration. When he spoke it was in a small voice, a note of hesitancy in his tone as he slowly dragged his eyes up to his other half. "Yami? Do you even want the baby?"

Yami snapped her eyes to her Light instantly, her face twitching with hurt when she heard the sincerity in the question. "Of course I do. You can feel my emotions through our bond, Aibou. You know how happy it makes me. It's all just too much sometimes. And now I have just done a fantastic job of making it much worse. I really have a problem with my temper, always have. If I don't like it or am afraid of it, I attack it. Through some warped logic I decided to choose Seto as my punching bag today."

"You should apologize to him, and probably to Joey too. I bet he's hiding somewhere now though," Yugi said smiling ironically.

"I should, but I doubt either of them want to talk to me right now. I'll try and find Joey whilst I let Seto cool down though. That article about him not being the father has been out a few weeks now so I'm not in any danger on my own," she reasoned already moving back out of the shop.

"Famous last words," Honda muttered loud enough for Yugi and Tea to hear.

He knew that Yami was just being her usual stubborn self but he was quickly growing sick and tired off all this denial between her and Seto. It was a thick cloud that everyone save for those two could see and he was at the end of his tether waiting for them to come to terms with both of their feelings on their own. As a matter of fact so was everyone else. Mai had said only the other day that she was going to go over to the Kaiba mansion and demand that he get his head together if they didn't become a proper item soon.

Glancing nervously at Honda at those words, Yugi started out after Yami before Tea caught up to him and held him back. "You need to look after the shop. I'll stay with her and make sure she doesn't get into any more trouble."

"Thank you," he murmured before watching her jog to catch up to his Dark. Shaking his head silently and sending a silent prayer that they would get all of this sorted out soon, Yugi moved back to the counter and hopped up, returning his attention to the comic.

****

"What are you going to say to him?" Tea asked finally, glancing down at her shorter companion. They had been walking for fifteen minutes together quite comfortably now, exchanging small talk and generally just hunting down the missing teen. They were currently working their way through the park, the cluster of dark trees to their left and the open field where a group of boys were playing some kind of game on their right.

"Something like 'Joey, I'm sorry for threatening your immediate existence and promise not to glare at you when I look at pickles and feel the urge to retch any more'. I think that sounds acceptable, don't you?" Yami replied dryly, eyes locked straight ahead along the path they were travelling. Her body was beginning to tire again which wasn't making searching for Joey any easier.

"That sounds pretty good coming from someone like you."

Yami chose to ignore that, knowing full well that she was referring to her pride and stubbornness. Those had been valuable aspects of his personality during his imprisonment in the Puzzle when he needed all the determination he could muster simply to hold onto his sanity. The result had left him cold-hearted when he finally emerged when Yugi assembled the Puzzle and broke the seal binding him, but some of his Aibou's loving ways had rubbed off and allowed some of the feelings he had lost to return.

But after relying on pride and determination for so long to fuel his floating spirit, they had become deeply engrained into his personality and had, arguably, turned into weaknesses. The instinct to lash out stemmed from those feelings and that made her condition and relationship with Seto even harder to handle than they should have been.

"Have you come up with any names for the baby yet?" Tea asked breaking into her thoughts. She was thankful for the distraction though, her mind taking more depressing turns with every second he allowed it to travel.

"We both agreed on some a while ago actually. Kiara if it is a girl and Kiroko if it's a boy."

Tea smiled warmly as she turned the names over in her mind, testing them on her tongue and finding that she enjoyed how exotic the second name felt when she spoke it. "Those are beautiful names. Why don't you know the gender of the baby yet? The doctor should be able to tell by now."

"I'd rather it be a surprise. Seto thinks so too," Yami smiled back, a hand wandering absently to her stomach. She stopped then, eyes snapping into focus and wandering warily about their surroundings. Something felt wrong here. Extremely wrong.

Tea stopped when she heard Yami stop, turning to stand a few feet away from her. "What's wrong?"

"I can sense something. I'm not sure but it feels dark. We need to get out of here," she replied quickly, eyes narrowing as she scanned the shadows between the trees suspiciously.

No sooner than had they started a brisk pace out of the park when the roar of an engine could be heard behind them, the sound of tires crushing the gravel on the path signaling the machine's approach.

A large motorbike, jet-black in colour with silver highlights, swerved across their path, some kind of symbol imprinted on the substantial faring that couldn't be identified at the speed it was traveling. The passenger released one hand from the grab-rail and raised the small baton in the air, bringing it down hard against the back of Tea's head as the driver brought them around on another pass.

Tea collapsed instantly, a small trail of blood leaking from beneath her dark hair, Yami shouting her name as she fell. Expecting an attack now, Yami yelped in surprise when the bike swerved tightly past again instead, the second rider tightening his legs about his partner and expertly leaning over the side of the bike to grasp her beneath the shoulders. The driver leant to the opposite side as a counter weight, displaying that this had been well planned before they left.

Hauling her weight into his lap, he ignored the elbows he received to his armored torso and reached up a gloved hand to her head and pressed his fingers firmly across her temple. The effect was instantaneous and he settled her now prone body against his with one arm, the other still gripping the back of the bike for balance.

Feeling that the pair had finally stopped shifting around behind, the driver turned the bike off of the straight course that had been required for the maneuver, dropping off of the sidewalk outside of the park and beginning the drive back.

****

Returning to the world of the living was like surfacing from a great depth. Yami gasped in a breath when sensation returned abruptly, coughing hard and rolling painfully onto her side. Her head pounded and her back felt like it had been led on a stone floor for the last hour.

Opening her eyes slowly, she found that, ironically enough, she was led on a stone floor. No wonder she ached. The last few moments of memory came crashing into her head and Yami bolted upright despite the pain, searching her cell for Tea. Apparently she was alone although she could see a guard sitting in a chair facing into her cell through the smooth metal bars of the door.

Reaching a hand to her neck she found that the reassuring weight of the puzzle was gone meaning that she couldn't contact Yugi mentally. Placing a hand on her swollen stomach, she closed her eyes in concentration and extended her senses to check if whatever the rider had done had caused any damage to the child. She felt a knot in her stomach ease a little when she found nothing, her baby squirming and fidgeting quite contently. //Ignorance is bliss.//

"There has been no harm caused to your child, my dear, so you needn't be concerned. Actually I was given specific instructions not to damage either of you which is why I used my own particular skills to incapacitate you. I believe that you're lower back is aching now? I have already requested that a couch be sent down for your comfort and it should arrive shortly. It should have already been there before you regained consciousness but the incompetent idiots above failed to carry out that simple task. My apologies for your discomfort."

Yami stared in bewilderment at the guard whose head was now raised. The young man smiled slightly at her, slender arms crossed across his chest as he sat easily on the slight wooden chair. His hair was of a peculiar shade of purple and seemed to reach his shoulders, the ends tapering off into a lavender shade from where they protruded from the tight ponytail at the base of his skull. Twin scars ran across the length of either cheekbone at the bottom of each eye-socket, the dark marks appearing as it a blunt blade had been drawn through the flesh beneath each eye.

It was his eyes though which interested Yami most though. Shaped eerily like her own, the irises were coal black and the pupils a bloody shade of red. He held her gaze steadily for a few moments before standing, stepping towards the bars and moving his hand to something to the right. Producing a small china cup of steaming liquid from what was evidently a small table against the wall, he knelt down and pushed it through the slot at the base of the door, stepping back and watching her once more.

"I recommend that you drink that. It is quite a wondrous mixture of various herbs that should alleviate the pains in your back and head. When you are finished, I would appreciate it if you would kindly push the cup back through the slot so that I may retrieve it."

Never taking her eyes off of the guard, who was standing in a non-threatening and non-intimidating pose a few feet from the door, Yami reached forward and lifted the cup up from the floor. Smelling the sweet liquid before concentrating on he substance for a few moments, she downed it quickly and placed the cut back on the floor, the Eye of Horus quickly fading from her fore-head from where she had inspected the tea.

Pushing it back through the slot, she used the bars as leverage to stand and stood in her usual stance facing the guard, her eyes crossed and head slightly lowered as she regarded him critically.

Smiling and tipping his head in thanks, he knelt down and picked up the empty cut, placing it back on the table before returning to his chair. Having had enough now, Yami snapped out, "What are you?"

The guard smiled broadly, an action that complimented his warm features. "What I am is not important, not at this precise moment anyway. My employer should be more in your interest of knowing than me. But you may call me Tetsuo. Would you prefer to be called Miss Mutou or Yami? I have no profound desire to offend you," he replied smoothly, ignoring the look she gave him at his cryptic response.

"Only my friends can call me Yami," she replied flatly, shifting her weight to her other foot.

Tetsuo nodded slightly, his smile broadening. "Well, for now then I shall address you as Miss Mutou but that may change. I always have enjoyed a challenge."

Having enough of this creature's enigmatic responses, Yami clenched her hands into fists and practically growled out her next question. "Who is your employer."

Tetsuo didn't answer that, looking up instead down the hallway to his left with interest. His devilish eyes followed whoever was approaching silently, the broad man stepping into Yami's view totally ignoring him. "Yami-Yugi, I am disappointed. I would have imagined you to have everything figure out by now. You have the mind for that, even though your common-sense is lacking, something that showed in your foolish efforts when we last faced each other. My how you have changed though."

Yami's eyes narrowed to burning slits, the acknowledgement ground out from between gritted teeth. "Pegasus."

TBC

Yup, I am totally screwing up continuity and, in general, the plot of the entire series. I haven't seen any further than 'Match of the Millennium: Part 3' so I'm getting all my information from Internet sources, which I am now ignoring totally.

I OFFICIALLY CLAIM THIS FICTION AS AU (ALTERNATE UNIVERSE) SO DON'T GO FLAMING MY ASS AT THE END OF THE NEXT CHAPTER WITH THINGS LIKE 'OH THAT CAN'T HAPPEN BECAUSE....' AND SUCH. I WILL NOT LISTEN BECAUSE I"VE ALREADY SAID THAT I DON'T GIVE A DAMN!

Ah, the freedom of writing... You've gotta love it! Anyway, same-old-same-old, leave a review and tell me how I'm doing. First Yu-Gi-Oh fic EVER so be nice and only give constructive criticism.

Now, I'm going to be really cruel and offer you a choice concerning the posting date of chapter 8. Because of all of the fucked-up stuff going on that I need to assist in sorting out, I likely won't be writing for a few weeks. Next week I'll be hammering out a chapter or two but then the well is going to temporarily dry up for a week or more.

I have chapter 8 with me... Now... Completed. But I don't know whether to post it yet. Hear me out: I can either give you all a steady drip of chapters once a week on Fridays, as I had planned by pre-writing all this stuff for me 'dry-period', or I can give you the next chapter tomorrow and leave you hanging after next Friday's chapter for a fortnight.

Look, lots of reviews that are;

A: Nice and praise-filled.

B: Tell me how great I am and that they can't wait to see what happens next.

C: Give suggestions for future chapters

Will mean that you get the next chapter within 28 hours. Not so many of these and you won't hear from me until next Friday, and then it'll be steady input after that until the end of the ficlet (which is currently unknown by me).

You're choice. I don't give a damn. That's why I'm asking you.