This evening, however, also did not go as planned. Yuugi seemed a little short of breath when they arrived home. He was pale as they raided the fridge. An hour before the meal, he started to feel a little dizzy. He declined to take any dinner. Jounouchi looked horrified. "No food? Are you sick or something???"

"Maybe," groaned Yuugi. "I'm going to bed."

"I hope you feel better," said Anzu, her face betraying her worried feelings.

Yuugi flopped down into bed without changing. Something seemed vaguely wrong about it all. He had never gotten sick like this before. Sharp pains shot through his abdomen and he doubled over in silent agony. He was too tired to cry out, too tired to even think. Below, he could hear his friends cleaning up the dishes and getting ready to leave. Suddenly a cool breeze swept over his face. A quiet thought came to him, pointing out the fact that the window had not been open when he had come into the room. He rolled over to see a dark human shape silhouetted on the night sky. She dropped to the floor as silently as a cat and glided over to gaze down at him.

Yuugi slowly recognized her as the girl from that afternoon. "Who…?" he began.
She laughed softly and not at all nicely. "Perfect. So this is the great Mutou Yuugi, king of games and reincarnation of the ancient pharaoh. Not so great now that I've taken you down with a little bit of a certain poison I got in Egypt. It was on the pencil tip, in case you didn't guess. I didn't want to risk you fighting back. I had a bad enough time with the tomb robber."

"No…"

"Oh yes. This won't hurt…much…or maybe a lot… You can tell me in a minute."

Slowly she placed her hands with their palms facing each other, her right hand over her left. The air between them rippled and swirled until it had formed itself into a black dagger. A familiar eye-like symbol glowed momentarily on the hilt. She kept it in her right hand as her left snaked around Yuugi's Sennen puzzle. The puzzle glowed an angry red, as if resenting her touch, but she did not seem to be bothered with it. "First the power, then the blood," she murmured softly.

The tip of the dagger touched the center of the puzzle's own eye-like symbol. Burning pain raced through Yuugi's body, centering in on his heart. His vocal chords found their use at last, and a yell of anguish escaped. In a split second, she had clapped a hand over his mouth, muting his voice. "A little longer," she whispered.

Running footsteps outside the door, however, told them that Yuugi's cry had done its work and that she did not have even a little longer. The door burst open and his friends rushed in. "What is it, Yuugi?"

Yuugi was gasping, sweating, trying to hold on to consciousness. His fingers clutched the puzzle as his eyes went blank. Within his mind, he stumbled out of his soul room and into the narrow hall outside. His Yami's door opened a moment later, but instead of rushing out to help his other side, Yami merely collapsed into the hallway as well. His hand clutched at his chest and his breathing came with difficulty. "She…she's taken the power," he gasped out.

"I…I know," said Yuugi, sliding to the floor.

"Can't…give…up…" Yami's eyes closed.

"Ya…mi…" Yuugi's world trembled before his eyes and went black. Both the light and the dark lay in the hall, deaf to the calls of their friends outside.