Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-gi-oh!

Umm…feelin' better, so I'm slowly starting to update…with that said, here's the next chapter…

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Tea dreamt that night for the first time since she became a superior.

She was walking across a burnt field of grass, the dried-up plain crunching beneath her boots. It seemed as if she was walking aimlessly around while black crows jeered raucously above. The hills went on and on in endless mounds, no sounds of life anywhere except for the black birds flying near her head.

She stopped. A figure appeared in the distance, its features blurry. Frowning, Tea jogged toward the person, why would a person be here, in this place of past memories and faded hopes?

As she approached closer and closer, the face remained hazy as if something was blocking her view, as if she wasn't supposed to know who this person was. All that she could surmise was that the unknown person was male.

"So unsure of yourself, Tea Gardener," the person in a wooden voice, its back straight as it stared with unseeing eyes past Tea's shoulder.

Tea opened her mouth to speak but no words came out.

"No," the mechanical voice said, "Just hear me out. You molded yourself into this person because you thought that you would prove to everyone else that you could become a Superior, that a human girl could become a Superior. But because of that action, you were forced to live a life of loneliness and despair, forever wishing to join the happiness that you saw in your army when they greeted their loved ones. While you, you hung back and went off into the hills and forests to isolate yourself from their tears of happiness as your loyal army joined their family and children."

Her mouth tightened at his words.

The figure stiffly lifted up his arm to point a finger accusingly at her. "Everything about you is a lie. Your true emotions are bottled up and sealed while you put this smooth façade. This," he gestured at her body, "is just an empty hollow shell of your real self. The real you is the hurt Tea when she was first taken away from earth."

Tea mouthed words, trying to tell him to shut up, to stop the torrent of words that shredded her carefully built wall around her to pieces.

But the words flowed on and on. "The only thing you care about is the army because that was the only thing you had left but if that's gone, what will become of you? You believe that you are weak because you're human, because you have emotions. Does not your army and everyone up there have emotions? Since when did the job as Superior say that one must no have emotions? Ironic is it not, that you live for your army yet the army does not live for you, to them, you are the legendary Superior, the see you as a mythical figure not as a human. So when you turn away when seeing them being hugged by their wives, they say nothing, because they can not understand. . ."

Tea put her hands over her ears, stop it, stop it, she thought.

The scenery around her shifted to transform into the many faces of the people she had killed, in battle, by the hand of the Council. Their mouths screamed at her accusingly, shouting nonsense words.

Tea fell to her knees, trying to shut out their voices.

"Remember them!" the voice hissed, suddenly becoming vehement. "That will be the last thing you remember if you continue down this path. Break away from the council and come back to the real you. All is not lost. The council is the one who shaped you into this path by making you kill those people in order to 'save others.' Make your own decisions, stop letting them use you!"

"How can I?!!" Tea screamed soundlessly at the voice. "Some of the people were supposed to executed…it's just that some weren't! The Council…the council…represents everything I know, my past is gone! I can't take it back..I can't…I'd be a traitor to everything I represent! Me, the Superior, breaking away from my only family, the army, and the Council…I'd be a traitor. No, I can't turn back now. I have my army now, that's all I need."

"No," the voice said maliciously in a contemptuous tone. "You're already a traitor. Traitor to your friends and your own race."

"Shut up!" Tea shouted in fury, she could talk now. "Just leave!"

The voice just laughed in response while the shrieks of the people around her grew louder as they started to whirl faster and faster around Tea.

"Traitor…," the voice whispered in her ear. Tea opened her eyes to look at the mysterious person. The features sharpened and turned in to…Bakura.

"What?" she whispered as she fell, fell…fell into darkness.

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The hazy mist of the morning was so thick that Bakura could barely tell if he was walking in the right direction. The fog seemed to appear from one of those evil fairy tales, the kind where little tendrils would creep around an unsuspecting person to strangle them with their black fog.

He frowned, picking his pace, that strange man, Ballir or whatever, Tea was actually going to kill him?

Finally Tea's pristine white house appeared in view, the shrubbery neatly trimmed, the door mat wet from the gray fog.

Bakura slouched as he slowly walked to her door. Nailed neatly in the middle of the oak door, there was a note addressed to Bakura. It said:

Bakura, I needed to go to the park. I left something there. Go to school without me.

Tea

Bakura tore the paper off, scrunching it up. Most likely she had to meet the Ballir guy.

He checked his watch disgustedly, he still had enough time to get the others. This was the final straw, he was not playing babysitter to a sulking…psychotic…Tea if all she was going to do was run off fighting aliens that could…probably have the power to kill him if he wasn't careful.

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Tea scowled blackly, Ballir had sent her a message to meet her near the big tree at the side of the river. He had supposedly gone back to Sector 2 to get his weapons but he was late.

She tapped her foot impatiently, her eyes frosty. No warrior was supposed to be late when a match was held. Scanning her perimeter, she checked if there was any hidden power in her area. Perhaps he was waiting in ambush.

The little device on her belt beeped, it had found something! The coordinates said that a dangerously low power was found.

Tea vanished and reappeared to the where the coordinates were.

And blinked in astonishment.

Ballir'sho'narir laid in a bloody mess. His stomach had been slashed apart as if wild animals had gotten to him. His eyes were blank and staring in surprise while his hand twitched around his laser gun while the other was clenched around his sword.

"My god," Tea breathed, this was not possible, no one on earth would have been able to defeat Ballir.

As she knelt beside him, Ballir's listless eyes focused sharply on her. He was still alive! His chest shuddered as he struggled to speak.

"Your---something----is---gone."

"What?" Tea said intently, "What is gone?"

"Army," Ballir said as saliva mingled with blood dribbled from his mouth.

Tea stared at him, a shiver went throughout her body. Army?

"What are you talking about my army is gone, was their an attack?" Tea hissed.

Ballir's face contorted in pain as death started to take him. "I went back and there was an attack," he said with gritted teeth, "Your army, your precious army, is completely and utterly wiped…out." His voice died off.

Tea looked at him with growing fury. "Bastard, talk sense! How can there be an invasion when my informants told me that there wasn't going to be an attack for at least a year by Galaxy time."

His eyes shone triumphantly. "That's what you think. All I know is that your army is dead, your wonderful army that you trained for so long, the army that you live for is dead."

"You're lying," Tea said, eyes ablaze.

Ballir laughed weakly. "I'm dying here, I have no reason to lie to you, search for them yourself. You will only see their littered bodies trashed to the side. I know what I saw."

"And I suppose you came back here, fleeing them?" Tea said sharply, still not believing him.

"No, I came here to see if I could get you…you had turned off your communicator so they sent me to get you…"

Tea drew back, her face expressionless, the thick mist cold against her face.

"I take it that the skirmish is over by now," she said finally, her voice blank.

No answer. She looked down. He was dead.

Slowly she reached to the side of her belt and took out the communicator. It lay dully in her hand, a knob switched to the off position. With a flick of her finger, she turned it on.

"Anyone there?" she asked quietly.

Then, "By the gods, where the hell were you?" bellowed a voice. "Why was your communicator turned off? They're dead, oh my god, they're all dead," the voice started to sob. "Where was your duty to the army? You're a Superior for gods sake! All those men died thinking that you would still come and save them."

Tea had no answer. For the first time, she had turned off her communicator before she had gone to bed. After Bakura had left, she felt disconsolate, something was missing. She had tried to disassociate herself from the Galaxy in hopes of trying to alleviate this strange feeling she had in her chest.

The councilor's voice went on hysterically. "My god, they just came, killed and took everything. We can't trace them! They're concealing everything they're doing…they're scavengers, they won't come back, they'll just search for another galaxy through a warp." The voice then hardened as the councilor took deep breaths.

"Superior, you were right in your accusations that we used you. In fact some of the councilors believed we had gone to far, but by that time you were beyond reason. But one thing is clear as a Superior. You were not supposed to fail your army…" there was a muffled noise on the communicator, and then, "You are summoned to the Council right away, a pod will land in a few hours." Silence. She knew what that meant. The Council retained the right to strip any type of rank from anybody. That was only if the person had failed in their job or betrayed their Council. All her efforts in becoming a Superior would be gone, her memory wiped from the records, name forgotten, they would take away her title. But her army…

Tea stared for a few minutes, her eyes empty. Her mind raced back to what Bakura had said in her dream…traitor.

With a hand she crunched the communicator to pieces.

Pounding footsteps brought her back. Voices from Yugi and Tristan were heard.

"I think I saw her over here!" cried Mai.

They burst into the clearing and stopped, their eyes huge and round. She knew what they were thinking, that she killed Ballir. And in a way she did, if she hadn't been stupid enough to leave the communicator off…

Mai lurched off to the side, throwing up while the others had disgust and revulsion across their faces.

Bakura came up last and his eyes widened as he took Tea's knelt form over Ballir's slashed body.

"You killed him," he said, raising an eyebrow. Outwardly he was calm but inside he was shocked. He knew Tea would kill, but the man's body was mangled, almost beyond recognition.

Tea slowly turned her face to stare at him. Bakura recoiled back. Her eyes. They held him captive, forever searing inside of him, he felt like he was drowning in those eyes, they were like mirrors of his long ago when he had hated himself for being a dirty tomb robber. Hurt and sadness was in there as well as bleak acceptance for what she had become. Then in a flash, her eyes transformed back into the cool blue eyes that he had become to know so well.

Tea rose up, brushing her pants. She silently walked to the group. Everyone drew back, eyes flicking back to Ballir and Tea.

As she brushed past Bakura, he held out an arm, stopping he.

"He was like that when I got here." Her voice was inscrutable.

"Tea," said Yugi hesitantly, "Are you going…to leave that person lying like that there?"

A heavy pause. "Yes."

Bakura gripped her arm hard. "You're a traitor to your army if you just leave that man lying there. You're the one who keeps on saying that you just live for your army."

Everyone drew an abated breath at Bakura's daring words.

Tea went stock still. "Traitor…," she whispered softly to herself. Then she burst into hysterical laughter. "Traitor," she repeated to herself as she doubled over, clutching herself.

They stared at her in consternation. This was the first time that they saw Tea actually show an emotion since her arrival.

"Can't you see?" she cried, "Bakura just said I was a traitor…a…traitor…he was right all along."

"What the hell are you talking about woman!" Bakura said fiercely.

Suddenly Tea gripped Bakura by the neck. "I…am…a…traitor," she said softly, all laughter gone from her voice. "I am not worthy enough to hold the title anymore."

With that, she vanished, leaving them in dismay and shock.

Tea reappeared at her house as she quickly packed her belongings. They would be here any minute.

Seven men appeared at the front of her house and rang the doorbell.

Tea opened the door, already expecting them. One man stepped forward with an odd looking handcuff. It was blocky and square instead of round.

Silently, Tea held her hands together and the man slipped it over, latch locking.

The gang came out running down the street just in time to see Tea's hands being locked together with seven men beside her. They vanished. But just before they left, Tea had looked in her friend's direction. To them, it seemed the same dead, cold look that they had seen Tea use on them, but to Bakura, he saw the same flash of hurt. It was as if her eyes had communicated with him, saying, I can not change who I am. I'm sorry.

As they pounded to where Tea had just stood, Bakura's mouth felt bitter as if he had eaten something long overdue.

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Okay, not much of bakura/tea there but yeah…Umm…yeah, I …don't even know what I just wrote. I'm writing this in the middle of the night and my brain is dead right now. Anywayz, yeah, I tried to make it easier to understand, but I don't know if I succeeded…lol. But on the brighter side, I am feeling better. My counselor is okay, my friend at the hospital is back, and my sister got accepted to her college. So I'm okay now…^__^. But you guys really helped me out, such good advice…thank you. Oh yeah, Bakura is slightly older than Tea, because he's thousands of years old and translated in Galaxy time, he's older than Tea.

Oh yeah, tang? I haven't forgotten about your story, ~__^.