Borath: Second-to-last chapter now so reviews are important to keep my spirits up, get the final chapter out soon-
Bakura: Yeah right.
Borath: -and try and get me past the 300 reviews mark. Seriously, *that* would be cool.
Yami: This took a bloody long time and a lot of effort for her to write so be nice and review. Maybe she'll feel the urge to get the last chapter written rather than continue 'Experiment'.
Bakura: I feel insulted by that fiction by the way.
Yami: (Laughing) I made you cry!
Bakura: (On the verge of killing his co-host) At least I'm not dying!
Yami: (0_0) Who said I was in the first place?! Where is that?!
Bakura: (Looking smug) Let's face it; Borath hates you. You're all sick in the fic so I wouldn't be surprised if she killed you off for good. It's not like she hasn't come close to that more than once in the last 25 chapters of this happy-little-romp.
Yami: (Considering) Point. I'd better not die though. That would be bad.
Borath: (Frowning slightly as she figures out the warped logic in the latter part of that sentence) Same old song. Read, review, don't point out my mistakes and e-mail me with a request for the Yami-girl picture. Swearing is the norm so if you are somehow more sensitive than you were before Chapter 25 then brace yourself. Not as bad as I have been before in this chapter but still a bit rough. Humor is more focal in this one than in Kiara's birth.
Oh! I nearly forgot! Someone (not me) has written the beginning of the sequel to this series! Yes! It's called 'Princess of Games' and I'll post it in my account under the writer's name as soon as possible. I can't disclose a name yet as I do not know what she wants to go by as a penname. (Shrugs) I feel extremely smug and flattered though. The fic is set about fourteen years after this thing happened and follows an alternate ending. I won't spoil it too much but please check it out when it's up.
Yami: Are you done?
Borath: Not quite. I'd like to thank all you guys (and gals) who chucked suggestions for names at me, particularly those who sent me Japanese names with their meanings. It was hard to pick one, particularly between the suggestions from Lfangor and YuNique, but YuNique's suggestion won out. Thankies!
Bakura: (Right eye twitching) *Now* are you done?
Borath: yes.
Bakura: Right. Back to the sadistic fun-house which this fic has become then.
Chapter 26: SeparationRunning a hand through his scraggy blond hair nervously, Joey chewed on his bottom lip and debated long and hard how to announce the news. The town they had been heading for was still a good two miles away and from the look of Yami now he would be hard pressed to be able to walk two meters. Seto looked extremely anxious and Yugi had moved aside for them, standing by the driver's window and talking to Ryou.
Stepping back a bit from the smoking remains of the engine, he coughed loudly to clear his throat of the foul stuff before waving his hands to get everyone's attention, planning to inform them all now whilst he still had the courage.
"Um, guys? I hate to be the one to tell ya this but, um, the engine's dead," Joey said finally, hesitantly, glancing nervously at Yami who had seemed to have taken up cursing every God in the Heavens.
"You mean we're stuck?" Ryou asked incredulous from beside Yugi who had turned white, also eyeing Yami warily.
"I guess so, yeah, unless anyone brought a spare engine wit' them."
"I am *not* having a baby in the middle of the desert!" Yami announced with venom lacing his tone. He then turned on the second happy father-to-be. "You bastard!" He screamed eyes wide and practically glowing, the eye of Horus flashing threateningly once again. Everyone par Seto took a step back.
"Why am I a bastard?!" Seto exclaimed, throwing his hands up into the air.
"You did this to me! Again!! This is all your fucking fault you insensitive prick!" came the shouted retort. Yami was unable to continue on his rant for the need to clench his jaw very hard suddenly became overwhelming.
"Oh yes! Everything is *my* fault!" The CEO shouted to the sky, eyes matching Yami's in size and intensity now. "I got you pregnant, I got your Puzzle broke, I brought you to Egypt for an early birth and *now* I give you a busted engine!"
Having planned on no-more-babies for at least another three months Seto had decided to mentally prepare during that period, but having labor chucked in his face without any form of preparation beforehand had evidently caused the poor sod to snap.
"It doesn't matter whose fault this is!" Yugi shouted in an uncharacteristically loud voice, causing everyone's eyes to snap to him in surprise. "It's happening now and we need to do something. Yami could die," he trailed off uncomfortably, ducking his head and clenching his fists hard. Much as he didn't want to think about that fact, it was a possibility that they had to accept.
Ryou looked surprised at that, turning to Yami with concern in his chocolate eyes. "Could you? The Puzzle is fixed now."
"Hemorrhaging, shock, the Puzzle can't do anything about those," Yami replied honestly with a slight shrug that caused him to cringe immediately afterwards. Apparently all forms of movement hurt now, not just most.
"I can call for someone to come here but that could take hours-" Seto began, standing and pacing a little, feeling oddly desperate to take a step back from the situation for a second to think about it. Worry was clouding his mind now, making finding a solution very difficult.
"-and I don't have that long," Yami snapped, finishing the thought for him. Everyone immediately turned their attention from Seto to him and he glowered at them slightly. "Let's be honest about this; someone is going to have to remove this child from my body now. I barely have the strength to talk at the moment and the longer we wait the harder it's going to be for me to recover afterwards."
Another long silence as everyone thought that over, the sand whistling about them sending granules of sand lashing at their already sun-abused skin, scratching and irritating as they struggled to think. "There's a knife in the trunk," Seto said finally, sounding defeated.
"Right. I'm not exactly going to be able to do this to myself, so one of you is going to have to," Yami stated feeling slightly annoyed that he had somehow taken charge all over again. The latter part of that sentence had been extremely rushed as the pain that seemed to encompass his entire lower half intensified. Thinking alone was starting to get difficult so everything needed to be sorted out before he could be of no help, not even to himself.
"I couldn't," Yugi spoke quietly, standing beside Ryou who had stepped out of the car now and was also shaking his head negatively.
"I'm still queasy so I'll probably just chuck-up all over ya. Sorry Yami," Joey mumbled, avoiding meeting the Game King's eyes as he said that.
"I'll do it then. The only one left is Bakura and I'll be damned if he goes anywhere near you two with a blade," Seto stated flatly, unconsciously narrowing his eyes at the Ring hanging about Ryou's neck, causing the soft-spoken teen to fidget slightly beneath his gaze.
"Good," Yami bit out between clenched teeth before allowing himself to drop back into the sand entirely, feeling the muscles in his lower back tell him where to stick it and losing strength. Resting one hand on his stomach, he brought the other up to the bridge of his nose and squeezed hard, hoping to distract his mind from the pain in his abdomen with the one on his face.
"We should do this inside the car. I'll call for help now; the rest of you help Yami get onto the back seat," Seto instructed already pulling out his cell-phone, moving around to the back of the car to link it up to the equipment in the boot so the signal could be received. He had made a point of getting a few numbers in case of an emergency in Egypt before they arrived. Now he was calling in a lot of favors and likely emptying his off-shore account. Not that that was a problem. Anything that could be done would be done now.
"Could someone knock me out?"
All four faces looked down at Yami in confusion, debating whether or not the pain had been too much for the poor guy and he had snapped. Seto quickly moved so that was knelt beside him, deciding that keeping his lover's mind in tact was more important than calling for assistance at this particular moment.
"Pardon?" Ryou asked cautiously when no one else dared to test the former Pharaoh's sanity.
"I really don't want to be awake for this and seeing that no one is carting any strong herbs or drugs on them, one of you is going to have to hit me hard enough to render me unconscious before you move me and then cut me open," he explained through gritted teeth, crimson eyes clamping shut once again.
"Well I'm not doing it," Yugi stated flatly after a lengthy silence.
"Me neither."
"Nuh uh."
"You'd hit me back later."
Yami growled in frustration as one by one his friends turned him down. //By Ra! You'd think that at least one of my friends would want to help me enough to knock me out!//
After another period of silence and a great exchange of various 'Looks' from the assembled group, the Millennium Ring about Ryou's neck shone brightly and Bakura manifested himself at Yami's toes. Glancing along the form with interest, he looked over at Seto. "I'll do it."
Seto gave him a suspicious look before nodding hesitatingly. Glancing about, he saw an almost entirely dead tree a little way to the right of their group. Walking over to it, he broke off one of the larger and smoother branches before returning and handing it to Bakura.
The platinum-haired Hell-Child grinned broadly and moved to Yami's head before raising the end of the stick to the skies and bringing it down hard.
A pause.
"You didn't do it hard enough!" Yugi exclaimed, staring at Bakura in outrage and panic after seeing the all-new, dazed look on Yami's face, and the discoloration on his temple that promised to be an impressive bruise given time.
"Yeah," he acknowledged, staring down at the sweat-littered face blankly. A beat. "Let's fix the engine and run him over."
"What?! Why?!" Seto exclaimed loudly, yanking the stick out of Bakura's hands before he tried this apparently ineffectual course of action again.
"Well, he'd be unconscious," he stated perfectly reasonably.
"No one is running over Yami. End of discussion," Yugi said seriously, looking up pointedly at Bakura who just crossed his arms and glared back down at him.
Yami made a sound that was somewhere between surprise, pain and a plea for death. Seto knelt down again and took one of his hands in his own, grimacing at the lack of strength he felt when Yami squeezed.
Bakura sighed loudly and rolled his eyes, crouching down opposite Seto ignoring the death glare that he was being sent. Reaching out a hand, he placed his middle and forefinger in the hollow at the base of his throat and closed his eyes, gathering up his magical energies. He wasn't doing this out of sympathy or to help the former-Pharaoh; the pained-noises that Yami was making were just really starting to piss him off.
Wielding the energies he had gathered with a skill that can only come with time, he sent a bolt of it down into the body his hand was against and opened his eyes just in time to see Yami's roll back. Sitting back, he awaited a reaction from the others.
"You could do that all along?!" Seto practically screamed, his expression incredulous, angry and shocked as he stared at the Tomb Raider. Dropping the now limp hand he searched frantically for a pulse, finding one strong and steady beneath Yami's jaw signaling that he was unharmed. Only unconscious.
"Yup," Bakura replied looking a bit smug.
"Then why did you hit him?!"
A shrug. "For fun."
Resisting the urge to throttle the spirit, Seto shifted his hands beneath Yami's form and hefted his now greater weight up, moving him into the back of the car before telling Yugi and Ryou to dig up some clean blankets and water. Joey was put under strict instructions to keep Bakura *away* from Yami whilst the CEO made a few necessary phone calls to try and get a helicopter or similar out here.
Then the real fun would begin.
****
Awareness of the world returned in dribs and drabs, the sound of monitors bleeping irritatingly the first thing that Yami noticed. Opening his eyes for the sole purpose of locating the sources of those sounds so that he could destroy them, he found himself in a painfully stark white hospital room, the smell of disinfectant invading his senses and making his already pounding head spin.
Sitting up was less painful than he had anticipated, only a twinge of fire lacing around his stomach where he had expected the full agony that he had been experiencing some unknown hours ago. Touching the sore flesh of his now flat stomach gingerly, Yami glanced about himself to try and locate his son. Panic surged through him when he could see no sign of him, his fear moving him to awaken his Hikari who was sleeping with his head pillowed on his folded arms on the bed at his side.
"Aibou?"
The small teen snapped awake instantly, glancing around himself groggily before meeting Yami's gaze and practically beaming. Lunging forward, he wrapped his arms around his Dark's neck, almost sobbing with relief. "I'm so glad you're okay! We were all so worried! You've been unconscious for three days."
//Three-?//
Panic lanced through Yami's being and he pulled back from Yugi quickly, meeting violet eyes intently. "Where's the baby? What happened?"
Yugi grabbing his clenched hands firmly, trying to relay reassurance as he spoke. "Everything's fine. Kiseki was sick by the time we got back to the hospital and they couldn't help him here so Seto flew with him to the capital yesterday morning. They're going to meet us in Japan; he needs specialist care. Our flights are booked in two days but we can change them if you're not up to traveling. With the Puzzle fixed now Bakura said that you'd be fine within a few days anyway."
Yami nodded blankly accepting the latter part of that as true. He just wanted to get home now and see Kiara again, as well as seeing his son for the first time *outside* his body.
//Kiseki? 'Miracle'? An appropriate name to be sure.//
Nodding slightly now that his immediate questions had been answered, Yami leant back slightly and adjusted his weight against the soft pillows beneath him. Although his strength had returned, there was still a degree of tiredness that he couldn't argue with at the moment. "Who named him?"
Yugi smiled slightly and his eyes shied away. "You'll never believe me."
"Yugi…" Yami droned out warningly.
His hikari laughed slightly at his serious tone, meeting his eyes again for the simply reason of gauging his reaction. "Bakura."
//Well. I didn't expect that.// "What?!"
"He didn't *exactly* name him. He just said that him being born at all 'was a bloody miracle' and Seto picked it up from there. We were all really worried about you though. You lost a lot of blood and no one came for hours to help afterwards. You're okay now right though, aren't you?"
Yami smiled softly at the show of concern, losing his fingers in his Aibou's hair for a few moments. "Fine Little Light. Tired, but fine. Give me a few more hours to rest and then we can get going."
Yugi nodded slightly before squeezing Yami's hand a final time and tearing out of the room, obviously eager to inform Joey and Ryou of Yami's return to the world of the waking. Yami shifted slightly in the narrow bed, seeking a apposition where his body was comfortable enough to allow the darkness permeating the edges of his vision to engulf him completely.
Laying his hands across his stomach, he felt a twinge of sadness in knowing that Kiseki would be the last to ever reside there. On the one hand he was happy; after having two children knocking around inside his gut he knew the discomfort that was suffered through pregnancy *quite* well. But on the other there was no way he would be able to bring another child into the world, not without screwing up the Puzzle's magical conduits again at least.
Sighing and cursing the fact that his brain was still active when the rest of body was in favor of passing out again, the Game King settled himself amongst the sheets, consoling himself that he would be seeing his son for the first time soon and he would be reunited with both Kiara and Seto.
****
//Sleeping in hospital beds is not funny. This I can say with absolute certainty now. When you are exhausted and just happy to be in the reclining position, then they are the most comfortable things in the world. When you wake up however, refreshed and alert after a further day's rest, they feel as if nine-inch nails are inserted into the mattress along with solid concrete globules and some kind of detergent that I am obviously allergic to. It took four hours for my Puzzle to get me to stop sneezing and the rash to go away.
Still, the *worst* thing happened at the airport. I had my ticket in my hand and was ready to get onto the plane that would take me back to my family only to feel the strangest burning sensation coming from my pocket. Pulling out my deck, it took me a whole three seconds to 'feel' that a card was missing, and a bloody important one at that.
I'd left Tetsuo in the Temple.
Yugi wanted to come with me but I need him to make sure that Kiseki and Kiara are all right as well as Seto. There's no reason for him to accompany me and I refused to leave the monster behind so there was no way that I was heading back to Japan.
I was the only one that could remove him from the alter simply because I'm the only one he answers to, so I had to exchange my plane ticket for another that leaves in a days time. I didn't know my way around the Temple well enough to be able to traverse it on my own though, which meant that Bakura had no choice but to come with me.
I'm as happy with this situation as he is by the way.
Getting back to the Temple and the card out of the stone indentation wasn't difficult giving that the energies that bind the two released when I touched the surface. Tetsuo had activated himself again at some point because he was sat there patiently when we got inside. He didn't say anything and as I had been bracing myself for a verbal assault, his lack of response was very unnerving.
Still, he looked annoyed at being forgotten and didn't speak as he returned to his card. I checked that he was still in my deck twice as Bakura led the way back out of the intricate maze that are the Temple's passageways.
The sun is insanely bright again and, as neither of us can drive, we had to use camels to get here which means riding for hours again in the blistering heat to get back to the town, and then to catch the bus that will take us to the airport. Wrapped in white cloth to shield us, we aren't in any danger. Our bodies are well adjusted to this harsh climate and now that I'm no longer pregnant, the heat isn't a problem. Still, riding an animal that delights in spitting at me with only Bakura for company is not my idea of a good time.//
****
"Are you sure this is the right place? It doesn't look like the area that we set off from," Yami asked with a note of concern in his voice, glancing around himself nervously at what could only be described as the biggest flea market in the world.
Bakura looked admittedly anxious as he stepped off of his mount, squinting around in the bright sunlight for some kind of sign as his camel rose back onto its feet. Finding one, he rooted around in the pack slung to the side of the camel for a map, tracing it with his finger lightly and murmuring to himself as he continued to look around.
"Hand me the place tickets," he instructed firmly, his eyes still on the map.
"Why?" Yami countered suspiciously. He was not entirely happy with the idea of risking his passage home in the hands of the Tomb Raider.
The platinum-haired spirit rolled his eyes with a sigh before meeting his gaze. "Because I need to check the bloody address. The spelling isn't exactly normal and there are three places around here that go by a similar name."
"Why don't you just look for the airport sign on the map?"
"You think it's that advanced? Heck, the *desert* isn't bloody labeled on here. Now give me the bloody tickets.
Yami growled in his throat slightly, not happy with the way this argument had gone. "Fine."
Producing the slips of paper from his pocket, he leaned forward to hand them down to the other spirit stood at his camel's side. Unfortunately, said camel swung its head around and snatched the tickets out of his fingers milliseconds before they could enter Bakura's hand. Making a point to chew them up slowly and deliberately in front of them, it then faced forward and spat at Bakura's camel.
The second animal, not taking to being spat in the eye by its companion, bellow loudly and stepped at the camel Yami was still sat on imposingly which caused it to take several steps back. In shock still from seeing the tickets being chewed and swallowed, Yami was unable to adjust his balance as the beast moved violently beneath him and found himself slipping off and landing hard on Bakura.
Lying in a stunned heap in the sand, the pair cringed away from and watched the two camels kick at each other before they both trotted away. Swallowing several times and bringing his fingers to the bridge of his nose to squeeze firmly, Bakura was the first to speak. "What the hell do we do now?"
Still gaping, it took a few moments for Yami to form words himself. "Walk I think. Now that that *fucking* creature *ate* our tickets home."
"Walk back to Japan?"
"We'll try the airport. We can use the money Yugi gave me to get a new set of tickets, or phone home and ask for help."
"The money that Kaiba gave you?"
"That's right."
"The money which is in the saddle bag if the camel that just ran off?"
"That's-damnit!"
//Breath in, breath out, repeat. This is alright. It isn't going to kill me.// Looking back to Bakura who seemed on the verge of the mass-homicide of camels everywhere, he rapidly reconsidered that thought. //Okay, *it* won't kill me but *he* will probably *try*. Stupid Tomb Raider.//
"Idiot Pharaoh."
Ignoring that, Yami shoved Bakura's elbow from out of stomach and glanced around himself, searching the street for inspiration and finding none. "So. What do you propose we do now?"
"Well you can get off me for a start. You may not be banged up anymore but you're still heavy."
Standing with a glower, Yami brushed the dirt and sand from his clothes half-heartedly and watched as Bakura did the same. Planting his hands on his hips, he pursed his lips before stating what was on his mind in the most eloquent manner possible.
"We're screwed, aren't we?"
"Most definitely."
****
Borath: Final chapter soon. Well. Not that soon; as soon as I have written it. Keep an eye on my bio as the stat' report for it will be kept up to date.
Yami: Review. Please.
Bakura: I would say something but I'm still trying to figure out how she's going to finish all this in *one* chapter given the ending of this one.
Yami: Probably in a phenomenally crap way.
Borath: (Lips pursed and nodding slowly) You may be right. Ah well. Reviews make me happy and give me incentive to write so click that nice little button and bring me joy.