"Why you…"

Honda held Jounouchi back yet again. Anzu stood and faced Kaiba. "But you have to behave yourself too! Nothing gives you the right to treat Jounouchi like that!"

Seto looked as surprised as if she had just slapped him across the face. Apparently the multi-billionaire CEO had never been told off by a girl before. "I can do what I want," he retorted after a moment.

She shrugged. "Just remember, there were times when you depended on Yuugi. Maybe you should use the chance now to repay some of that debt. You may need him again."

Seto glared at her. "I never need anyone."

"Please!" shouted Yuugi, trying to make himself heard. "Stop it! We have to figure out how we're going to deal with this new threat first, and then you can plot how to kill each other off."

Everyone was silent for a moment. "All right then," Jounouchi said softly. He glared at Kaiba. "We can finish this later."

*

They all gathered in the living room to discuss plans. "So did she say anything to you, Yuugi?" asked Kaiba, sitting casually in his chair, his cold eyes thoughtful.

Yuugi nodded slowly. "Yeah…she knew Yami had been pharaoh…and she said something about taking power and then blood."

"Blood, huh? So she had a weapon, then?"

Yuugi delved through his clouded memories, concentrating hard. "Yeah…a blade, I think, and it had the eye symbol of a Sennen item."

Malik jumped up suddenly. "Impossible!! My family protected the pharaoh's memories since his time, and I KNOW for sure that there are only seven items: rod, puzzle, ring, tauk, ankh, scale, and eye. The only one that has a blade is the rod, and she could no way have the rod." He ran his fingers delicately down the object in question.

"Thank you for that, Malik," said Seto calmly. "You may sit down now."

Malik nodded and seated himself.

Seto continued his interrogation. "So, Yuugi, did she say anything else?"

Yuugi was silent, thinking. "She…she called Bakura 'tomb robber,' unless she's hurt someone else too. But she talked of him. She said he had put up a good fight." He paused. "She was really rather cocky," he added as an afterthought.

"No kidding," snorted Tea irritably.

Jounouchi looked up from the piece of pie he had found in Yuugi's fridge. "So we stay in groups so she can't ambush us, and wait until she's lured out of hiding."

Seto looked annoyed with himself for not having thought of that sooner. Then another idea came to him. "No, we only have to watch Yuugi," he said.

"Why?"

"Well, didn't you hear? She said power and then blood. That's what she did to Bakura. She took the power of the ring, and some of his blood to finish it. With Yuugi, she only had the chance to take power, hence the reason his Yami is out cold. She'll be back for his blood. Just wait."

There was a silence. "Of course!" agreed Malik. "It all makes sense. But how are we going to make sure he's safe? For all we know, she could just need the slightest scratch to finish this. And without the power of the puzzle…"

"Well that was brilliant, but how do you propose to fix all these problems?"

"He doesn't," teased Jounouchi. "He just comes up with them and leaves them to the master genius Seto Kaiba."

"I didn't ask you, puppy dog."

Honda stopped Jounouchi from throwing the rest of his pie at Kaiba just in time.

Kaiba ignored him and turned to Yuugi. "So you," he said, "will be live bait." Nearly everyone objected to that, but no one could come up with a better suggestion, so it was merely decided that until all this blew over, Yuugi could not be left alone.

"And how do you propose to do that?" challenged Jounouchi.

"We can take shifts. There will be someone with him twenty-four seven if we want any chance of stopping this new menace."

"Hey, that's what you guys called me when I first showed up, didn't you?" put in Malik.

"Yeah," agreed Honda, "but now we have a newer new menace."

"How is this relevant?" asked Seto, sounding suspiciously like their history teacher.

No one cared to comment further.