A.S- I'm back! Sorry I left you all on a cliffhanger! I have school tomorrow so I won't be back for a while!

//…// = Yami talking to Yugi

/…/ = Yugi talking to Yami

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Chapter 9: Five Minutes Till Death

Now the gang watched helplessly as Saber-Tora roared in delight at regaining his power. The demon's roar was so loud that several of the skulls in the temple had fallen of the ceiling. One hit Zeero on the head.

"Ow! Kureta, tell me there's a way to reverse this…ritual thingy," said Zeero.

"Well," he started. "The only way to restore Shiro's soul is to defeat Saber-Tora… But, there's one problem…"

"What's that?" asked Mai.

"If we don't do it by midnight Shiro's soul will permanently become Saber-Tora's and Shiro himself will be forever lost in the darkness."

"Midnight!? But that's in 5 minutes!" screamed Joey.

"I know… but if you want to help Shiro we have to defeat Saber-Tora!"

"No problem… I'll just summon…" started Kaiba.

"I almost forgot… summonings can't be used in temples."

"What!?"

"Yes I know…it cut's our chances in half…"

/Yami, can you think of anything?/

//Not yet, but that kitty over there looks like he's spotted us.//

Saber-Tora turned his attention towards the gang, then it charged at them! Katana shot an arrow at it, but the arrow bounced off of him like it was a ball!

"Now's a good time to run! Bye!" yelled Zeero. A puff of smoke was left were he stood and he ran away yelping.

"For once I agree with the coward!" said Katana as she ran off in another direction. The group scattered and Saber-Tora reared up and slammed the floor with his paws, it knocked everyone (except Zeero, a fox demon, even Zeero, can withstand attacks like those) off their feet.

While Saber-Tora was busy chasing everyone Zeero got to Shiro and cut the chains off of him. Before he fell Zeero caught him and put his arm around his shoulder.

"Hang on Shiro! Don't die now!" whispered Zeero as he tried to get his friend's body to safety (a soul can't return to it's body if it doesn't have one).

"Oh man! There's only five seconds left!" yelled Joey looking at his watch as he ran. Then they ran into a corner and Saber-Tora was blocking the only exit. It began to charge up for a powerful blast.

"It's all over… Shiro, I'm sorry…" said Zeero as he watched the demon charge up. Suddenly Shiro's vacant eyes opened, the amber color began returning to the eyes and Saber-Tora realized that Shiro was calling his soul back! Saber-Tora aimed the blast at Shiro and fired.

"Shiro!" cried Tea as the blast hit it's target.

"Look!" yelled Tristan. Saber-Tora was dissolving and then nothing was left of him. The dust cleared and the place where Shiro and Zeero was had also vaporized.

"So, did I miss anything?" asked a familiar voice. They turned to see Shiro standing behind him and Zeero (in fox form) still a little scared and hiding behind a small rock.

"How did you… But we saw… How?" stuttered Akio. "What did you do?"

"What? I called my soul back."

"You could have done that anytime you wanted to?"

"Yeah, I just chose to do it at that time so they won't try to steal my soul again."

"I think I'm going to kill you! You scared me half to death!"

The gang watch as Akio unsuccessfully tried to catch Shiro. Zeero finally crept out from behind the rock and transformed back into the half-demon form. He sighed and sat down on the rock. It sunk down revealing a secret door to the outside. It appeared that while they were fighting the temple had landed somewhere.

"Good job Zeero, see what happens when you don't use your brain?" taunted Shiro.

"A little help here!" yelled Zeero squirming to get out of the hole the latch made when he sat on it. Laughing Shiro pulled Zeero upright and they exited the temple of skulls.

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Next time on Heart of a Demon: Akio here, that Shiro has some nerve! Scaring us half to death, but anyway…just we had the chance to relax this scorpion demon name Midori comes along. She challenges Shiro to a fight and it appears this demon has a lot of tricks up her sleeves. I hope we can get out of this mess before it become a big problem! Next Time: Good-bye For Good? See you soon.

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A.S.- I'm working on it! I'm working on it! Keep your end of the deal and R&R!