4 minutes to midnight, 14 August
"That was strange," he said to nobody in particular. He stretched his arms and legs to their fullest extent, then hopped off the bed and made his way over to where he kept his deck.
There was nothing that could have been more comforting to Yugi at that moment than the glossy feel of the cards he knew and loved. He looked at them one by one, smiling as he looked at Mystical Elf, Curse of Dragon, Gaia the Fierce Knight, Winged Dragon Guardian of the Fortress, Dark Magician…
(wait a minute!)
He blinked. He pinched himself. He called Yami Yugi. But none of his actions changed the fact that there was a completely blank space where the picture should have been on his favorite card.
Yugi and Yami were forcibly removed from their stupor by the crashing in the hall outside.
***
They were
running best as they could, but they had discovered it was quite hard to
run and carry a soulless body at the same time. Ailill was dropping behind
fast, and when Gabriel stopped to let him catch up, the stretch of empty
hallway between them and the guards was considerably shortened.
Ailill
saw Gabriel looking at the cards in his left hand, the cards they had obtained
from behind the second door. All of a sudden all three were on the floor
and Gabriel had lifted his staff high. The jewel was glowing. "What are
you-" He stumbled back as all the colors seemed to switch to their opposites
in the wake of Gabriel's staff.
He landed
hard, and all of a sudden the child was screaming incoherently and thrashing
on top of him, and one shoe struck him quite hard. Ailill bit back several
curses as pain collected in that spot. Then the child had got off him at
last. He got to his feet and looked at their current situation.
In the
short time since Gabriel threw down the cards it had gotten much, much
worse.
***
Sugoroku Motou moaned softly and opened his eyes. His first words were, "Yugi's cards…"
***
Near-interchangeable
guards were coming closer from both directions. They had with them dark
shiny things that looked like nothing he had ever seen before, but he knew
they weren't good things. He looked around for a convenient door to enter;
there was nothing but a gold frame of squares filled with glass through
which he could see dark sky.
The child
was looking at him with wide eyes the color of that sky and full of wonderment.
Ailill thought of his first seeing duel, and how his role in it had so
quickly ended; he winced.
"Are
you… but weren't you…"
Gabriel
cut him off with a raised hand. "There is no time for this."
(nothing
to do about this, either)
Ailill
took another look at the guards. He looked at the glass. He looked through
the glass. And he had an idea.
"Gabriel?"
"Yes,
Ailill?"
He indicated
the glass. "D'you think you could break that?"
"Yes,
why do you ask?"
He thrust
the child close to Gabriel. "You're the one that can do that safest. I
don't think I could make it down that far."
Gabriel's
expression was comparable to that of the child. "You cannot mean it."
The guards
had apparently become tired of being ignored. "Hey, you two jokers cut
it out and hand over the kid!"
"He's
not ours to give," Ailill snapped right back. They were talking about this
child like he was one of them in a deck, and as if they were Masters… Ailill
had to resist the temptation to draw his sword and decapitate the speaker.
"I mean
it! You think dressing up as cards is gonna save you, think again!"
He turned
back to Gabriel. "I can mean it. And I do. You're the one with the impact-absorbing
spells."
"I know
that." He didn't look particularly happy about this.
"All
right, you ASKED for it!"
The explosion
sounded even louder than Haku's finishing shot. Ailill flung himself to
the ground again, and got up when he heard one of the guards screaming.
"Ow!
Stupid- bounced right off!"
Gabriel
had thrown up a shield around the three of them that was still trembling
from whatever it was that struck it, distorting the images that could be
seen through it. He looked straight at Ailill. "I could take you with us."
"Better
this way. Take it away from me. It'll take less just to protect you and
him. Besides…" His grim smile had no happiness in it. "I guess it's my
fate to have the impossible battles."
Gabriel
still hadn't decreased the size of the shield. He was getting ready to
protest again, Ailill knew it; they hadn't got the time for more reasoning.
He took the hard option. "Damn you, Gabriel, take it away from me now or
I'll- I'll take that staff and break it! I will! I mean it!" And
he did mean every word of it. He could feel tears as he said it; he wiped
them away with the back of his sword hand-
(why
do you have to make me do this to you)
- then
at last Gabriel, his own eyes looking like miniature lakes, made a motion
with one hand and the shield was away from him. Ailill drew his sword and
prepared for the first impossible battle where he could make his own decisions;
the first impossible battle where there were no numbers to mark out who
would win and who would lose.
He began
to fight.
***
"What's
going on here?"
"Buzz
off, kid, it's none of your business."
"But
I-"
"I said,
it's none of your business! Buzz off!" With that, he pointed unmistakably
back to the guest rooms. "NOW!"
Yugi
turned around with quite a bit of reluctance. From the corner of his eye
he thought he saw someone familiar, but then the guard was on his case
again, and he had to go.
***
(he meant
it when he said he'd break it he did mean it)
Gabriel
grabbed the hand of the child and ran for the window. It shattered as the
first of Gabriel's shield met it, and then they had passed straight through
the mangled remains. He motioned with his staff, and the shield reformed
into a dark ball that started for the ground at an incredible rate.
The child
began to scream as they fell. "Seto! Seto! Seto!" Right then they struck,
Gabriel and the child both being flung upward like a pair of puppets with
their strings cut. As Gabriel fell back to solid ground the shield dissipated,
leaving them both vulnerable. Gabriel got back up, dragging the child with
him by the hand that he had never let go of. Then he began to run blindly
for the forest, not daring to look back because he was sure of what he
would see. Behind him the child continued to scream.