Negative Chaos

by High Crystal Guardian

*Sequel to Shadow Turned Light* The Shadow Realm's power is growing too high for the Realm to hold, and now it's magic is overflowing into Yugi's Realm. He tries to stop the magic, but can't...so a few old friends come through from the N. Realm to help...

10. The Prize of Hatred

***AGAIN. I'm very, very sorry for the extreme lateness of this chapter. It all just got out of hand, if you know what I mean. School started, and I think I've put myself in too many tough courses--Honors Algebra II was killing me, until I finally got smart and dropped to a lower level--and Latin isn't being too friendly either. And then there was a period when I moved to my new room, and my computer was temporarily NOT hooked up, so my writing came to a standstill. And of course, there was that age-old writers' enemy--Writer's Block. Anyway. Enough excuses. To the Chapter!***

*we focus on HCG, who is busily scribbling with her brand-new, undestroyed editing pen on a sheet of paper. She looks up, blinks, grins, and then adds the finishing touches to the paper. A second later, a rather confused Saguru appears with a poof of random smoke*

Saguru: @_@;; Whaaaa? What am I doing here?

HCG: ^~ You're the requested guest of the chapter, silly! You had to be here to say hello to your few loyal fans!

Saguru: O_o I have loyal fans?

HCG: Well...DUH. Why else would you be requested? *rolls eyes*

Saguru: X_x I dunno...

HCG: *cough* ANYWAY! Hello all, and welcome to Chapter 10 of Negative Chaos. Yeah, that's right, it's Chapter 10 and it's actually up! Whoooo! *fireworks go off, flags wave, a parade marches by, and hell freezes over*

Kaze: *sweatdrop*

Kaiba: O_o;;;;;

HCG: And furthermore, after...a really long time...I've finally gotten Kawari back from NeoChaosCrystal! Whoooo!

Kawari: -_-; I hate you, HCG. Never, ever, EVER put me NEAR another rabid fangirl again.

HCG: Aw, it couldn't have been that bad, could it have?

Kawari: *flatly* I was stuck in a small, dark closet for a few months. One of her muses tried to take Gin Hebi away from me. *goes sarcastic* Of course it wasn't that bad.

HCG: Knew you'd agree with me!

Kawari: ¬_¬;;

Saguru:....I'm not even going to ask.

Kaze: *starts rather suddenly* WAIT a minute, Saguru...if you're HERE, then who's back at base in charge?!

Saguru: OO;; Uh oooh...*flash to Duke and Pegasus, arguing loudly with each other over who should take the role of leader next, while other main Opposition leaders cower under the tables and avoid trying to be seen*

Kaze: *groan* Dear lord...

Kawari: *hastily* Let's just get to the story already, okay?!

HCG: *cough* Er...right...but before that, two major notes. First, all individual review notes have been moved to the end of the chapter from now on. I liked how it worked out last time; get Straight to the story, y'know? And secondly--my contest is officially up! That's right, enough of you said you wanted to join, so I've written up the rules. The links are posted on my bio, near the end. Go read, plan, and write! And have fun! ^_^ And hurry, 'cause you've already got competition. Six authors/authoresses have already submitted their entry fics, so you'd better get a move on, all the rest of you.

Kaiba: And note that the deadline is January 1st. New fics may not be submitted after that.

HCG: *cough* Anyway. I suppose we should start the story now, hmm? *rubs hands gleefully together* And boy, is this chapter ever gonna be fun...*evil cackle* KAIBA! DISCLAIMER!

Kaiba: *sigh* High Crystal Guardian does not own Yu-Gi-Oh of it's characters. Guardian does not own the Seven Elements, either, which belong to Wingleader Sora Jade. Guardian does own the Negative Realm, it's characters, theories, and anything else related, as well as the Realm Scrolls that are connected to the Elements.

HCG: Perfect. Well now, shall we move on?

Notes:

Kawari ~ NR Ryou

Kaeru ~ NR Bakura

Kaze ~ NR Kaiba

Saguru ~ NR Joey

word ~ Kawari to Kaeru, via mind link

word ~ Kaeru to Kawari, via mind link

italicized words are thoughts or dreams/memories

Note that Kawari would naturally call Kaeru "yami;" don't get the title confused with the Pharaoh. ^^;;

Anything in particular? Oh yes. WSJ, I threw in a little reference to your Tales, because it was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. XD. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Also, the Challenge...yes, it is split up a lot, as you'll see when you get down there, and the 5-star asterisk breaks come up a lot...but don't panic. It's just because the three Challengers are all spread out. You'll see what I mean later ^~

And I feel I'm obligated to put this in:

Warning: Do not attempt to read if you have better things to do! This chapter is EXTREMELY LONG, even by MY standards, but I can't split it in half or anything because this is all scheduled to be in THIS chapter. So, yeah, just a warning to you all....*sweatdrop* have an hour...or two...free before trying to read this'un...

Anything else? Nope! Okay then, read and enjoy!

Negative Chaos

Chapter 10: Prize of Hatred

"But I still don't understand...why are there two of you, Mr. Kaiba?" A mechanical, slightly feminine voice asked for the tenth time, sounding partly annoyed and partly frustrated--as if it was looking forward to a good bit of gossip and had lost the opportunity to get it.

"Oh, shut up and forget about it. Get back to work," Kaiba hissed irritably, staring up at the large computer situated in the Kaiba Mansion--one which, while the fastest in the entire household, also had artificial intelligence, and was rather nosey.

"Hmph. All this work I do for you and you won't explain one little thing to me," the feminine voice of the computer grumped, sounding angry. Kaiba just rolled his eyes and tapped his fingers impatiently on the keyboard. Kaze, behind him, looked slightly amused.

The group of twelve Scroll Hunters were situated back at Kaiba's mansion, where they had returned from the reserve only an hour beforehand. They had landed back at the mansion with determined spirits, although some were rather uneasy about the task set before them--to steal something from the Museum seemed wrong, even if it was necessary, and it went against the morale codes of many there. Still, they knew it had to be done, and were prepared to help in any way possible in order to get the deed accomplished.

The Negatives had not wasted a second upon landing; as soon as the helicopters touched down on the ground, Kawari, Kaeru, Saguru, and Kaze had leapt from them, striding with a purpose towards the mansion. The others followed at a slower pace, walking after the Negatives into the gigantic household, wondering what the intent of the other-Realmers was.

The answer had become clear soon enough. Kaze had asked quickly where Kaiba kept his strongest computer, looking every inch the Opposition Leader he was. Kaiba had answered him with a slight frown, asking afterwards, "But shouldn't you know? I mean...we are the same person, and I assume if you are also the CEO of KaibaCorp, then you live in the same house that I do."

"I did," Kaze had answered, somewhat dryly. "When Yami decides you're his enemy, you don't get to stay in your home for long."

It was all too clear what that was supposed to mean--Yami had grimaced angrily at the sentence--so the subject was dropped hastily, and the group of twelve had followed after Kaiba, Kaze, and the remaining Negatives towards the computer in question.

On coming upon the computer, Kaiba had turned it on with apparent boredom, although most of the remaining True Realm members--with the exception of Mokuba--had looked awed or stunned at the sight of the giant computer. They had been even more awestruck when it began chatting with Kaiba, as if it were alive, in it's slightly feminine voice. The Negatives had not looked particularly surprised--although it was hard to tell with them, they hid their expressions too well--and Kaze had even looked interested ("Mine was more polite than yours...before it was destroyed, anyway," he had explained).

Then the long research had begun, using the complex, strong computer to it's highest extent, looking for anything at all possible on the Domino City Museum's security records, floor plans, and other information of the like. Kaze and Kaiba had become the main searchers, with Kaeru standing by and observing all the collected data with a practiced eye--and a slight smirk, as though he were looking forward to his assignment.

That was how they were found an hour later, when the computer had asked them yet again about the two versions of Kaiba. It had been explained to the machine once before, in a hastily summarized and shortened version, but the computer seemed to realize it wasn't getting all the information and was constantly trying to work it out of them. This was starting to make Kaiba irritable, explaining his annoyed mood and rather snappish attitude.

"Here's another important piece," Kaze murmured, running over a quick list that had shown up on one of the many screens, which listed several artifacts in the Museum and their date of entry into the building. He carefully set the document aside in the computer for future reference before returning to the seemingly endless research with a patient determination.

"Good," Kaiba muttered back, eyes flickering over a document that had just been produced by the computer on the Museum. He discarded it after a few moments, finding nothing of use in it, before opening another document and beginning to read that one, as well. "How much more do you think we'll need?"

Kaze shrugged. "Not much, I think. It's really up to Kaeru; he knows how much detail he needs for his assignments."

Kaiba turned momentarily to stare at Kaeru, as if asking, How much more do you think you'll need? The Negative tomb robber, in turn, shrugged and said, "Like Kaze said...not much more." Kaiba sighed and nodded, returning to his research, while Kaeru's head turned to look over the remaining Scroll Hunters outside the small room that held the computer.

The nine remaining members of the Scroll hunting group were lounging in the room outside that which held the computer, chatting and swapping stories. The room was considerably cheerier than it had been the last time Kaiba had stayed there for long--namely, the time when he'd been on the run from Pegasus and had hidden in his own computer room to help Yugi--and Yami--win a duel against an imposter version of himself. Then, the room had been dull and dark, a library that had fallen into disuse, and served as nothing more than storage for unwanted books and a nice hideout for his top-of-the-line computer. Now, it was bright and cheerful, with light flooding from the lamps and dust cleared from the room. Several chairs were scattered around the room, which the Scroll searchers were using to sit in while they waited for Kaiba and Kaze to finish with their research.

Yami noticed Kaeru's gaze sweeping the unoccupied Scroll hunters, and he frowned slightly at the laid-back expression on the ancient thief's face. "How on earth can you be so calm about what you have to do?" the spirit asked flatly, looking and sounding slightly annoyed.

Kaeru laughed. "Oh, trust me, Pharaoh, after half the stuff I've had to break into for the Opposition--the most memorable being your own base, when Yugi came to our Realm--this theft'll be a piece of cake. I'm not too worried about it, other than the amount of time it'll take."

Yami sighed and rolled his eyes. "I suppose old habits die hard, even for a kinder version of a grave robber." Kaeru shot him an annoyed glare, but said nothing in return.

Another half hour passed in such a way, Kaze and Kaiba searching rapidly for any useful information, with Kaeru looking on, and the remaining Scroll searchers waiting--at varying levels of patience--for them to finish, so that a plan of action could be made.

At last, Kaze stood straight, looking pleased, and said calmly, "Okay, Kaeru, we've got everything you'll need." Kaiba nodded in agreement, collecting several pages and maps from where they had finished printing, and handing them to Kaeru.

The tomb robber grinned, flicking through the pages quickly before turning back to the beginning to read them more thoroughly. "Perfect," He muttered after a few moments, his face and tone becoming more serious. "Right, I'll get down to work on this."

The twelve moved back to their original room, the main library, leaving behind the now-shut-down computer and smaller room in favor of the spacier, more recognizable larger one. Kaeru immediately sat down at one of the large tables in the room, spreading out the pages over it's surface, while the others sat down in the comfortable, soft chairs and couches, continuing their conversations.

During the forty-five minutes in which Kaeru planned on his own, several topics flickered back and forth between True and Negative Realm beings. Dueling was a strong topic between them all, one that most of them could relate to in one way or another, and most of them shared their records of wins and losses, some retelling their more memorable duels. Indeed, Kaze had such an impressive record from his time when he still dueled--though he was rather modest about it--that Kaiba had been all for allowing his opposite to borrow his deck in a duel against Yami, to see who really was the better between Realms. Kaze had declined politely, saying that he doubted he would have been able to win against Yami, the Game King, in any event. (Yami had looked slightly disappointed at the decline, as well, though it was hard to say exactly why).

After some time, Kaeru finally returned to the rest of the group, holding in his hands a few sheets of paper from the stack handed to him, along with a notepad and a pencil. "Okay," he said calmly, looking over the group with what almost looked like an eager interest, "I've gone through all of the papers--" at this, he indicated the large stack, "--and I've planned out everything that we'll need for this little stunt. It's a bit messy due to the rushed time, but I'm sure we'll manage perfectly well."

"Great!" Joey said, looking part cheerful, as though he was attempting to forget that they were trying to steal something. "What now?"

Kaeru shrugged. "I just have to pick out my team and we'll be all set."

Most of the True Realm members blinked at this. "Your team?" Tristan asked, finally, raising an eyebrow.

The grave robber chuckled. "I see we're not that familiar with the term, or at least, not in this context?"

Tristan gave a slight sheepish grin. "Heh...I guess...I'm not the expert thief here, remember."

Kaeru shrugged. "Well, in any case...I need to pick my team. The people that will be going with me on this mission, and helping me to perform it. It's dangerous to go on a theft mission like this with less than one person...if you don't have backup, you get into trouble."

"Oh," came the now-understanding replies of the members of the True Realm.

"I must warn you all now, though," Kaeru said, looking serious, "on this mission, what I say, goes, especially for those going in with me. I call the shots, and you carry them out, got it?" He gave Kaze a side glance quickly, looking almost as though he were asking a question; Kaze looked slightly reluctant, but nodded ever so slightly, as though giving his permission. The others nodded as well, understanding.

"Well then," Kaeru said, his eyes already flickering over the eleven other people sitting in front of him, "if that's all cleared up, I'll choose my team. I'll need two others besides myself, I think...any more would get us caught, but any less could be considered foolish." He mused for a split second before murmuring, "I'll be taking my own aibou, of course...his skills in the art of theft match mine closely and are too valuable to waste...and I think the last one will be--"

"Hold on," Joey hissed, startled, leaping from his over stuffed chair and coming to a stand. "What did you just say about Kawari?"

Kaeru raised an eyebrow, looking at Joey as though he'd gone crazy. "I said his theft skills were nearly as good as mine."

The other beings from the True Realm looked startled too, particularly Ryou, although Joey looked nearly surprised as the True hikari. "There's no way!" the blonde teen yelped, startled. "There's just...no...way...that Ryou could be a thief...and a good one at that!"

Ryou looked partially hurt, and partially confused, at this statement, but Kawari just looked annoyed and angry. "Excuse me?" the Negative hikari asked flatly, giving Joey a hard stare.

Joey looked slightly hesitant under the stare, but responded with, "Well...it just doesn't make sense...I mean, Ryou doesn't steal...Ryou is...well...Ryou!"

"Oh, well said," Kaiba muttered irritably at the back of the group, but he was barely heard as Kawari chose to speak at that moment.

"So a Ryou can't be a thief, huh?" Kawari asked, raising an eyebrow high and staring with an unbreaking gaze towards Joey. "Well, if that's the case," he added, after receiving only silence from the blonde teen, "then how on Earth did I get this?" He held up his right, black-gloved hand, twirling what looked like a golden band around his index finger. The band was recognized moments later as an expensive-looking watch, and it's bright gold color stood out shockingly well against the black glove that held it.

Joey's eyes widened in shock, before he muttered, "Hey...that's my limited edition Duel Monsters watch!" he yelped, startled. "I won it at a smaller tournament they held a few weeks ago...but..." Startled, he turned his gaze to Kawari. "How'd you get it?"

Kawari shrugged, faking boredom, although the amused glitter in his eyes told otherwise. "I found it in your pocket," he said, grinning slightly.

Joey blinked in surprise, looking rather comical in his uncertain expression, but then his face broke into a grin and he chuckled. "Okay, you got me, fair and square," he said, laughing slightly. "I was wrong and you were right. Damn, and you got that out of my pocket? I never even felt anything!"

Kawari flicked his hand casually, sending the prized watch through the air for Joey to catch. "That's the point, isn't it?" he asked, also chuckling slightly, as he watched the blonde teen replace the watch in his pocket--in a decidedly more secure manner.

Kaeru, during all of this, had been laughing loudly, finding amusement in the shocked expressions of the True Realm beings, particularly that of Joey, as well as the jaunty manner of his hikari. The grave robber's laughter had gotten so strong by the end of the conversation that he ended up leaning on Yami--who was decidedly shorter than him--and using the ex-Pharaoh as an armrest so that he could laugh without collapsing. The ancient ruler was not particularly happy with this, friend that Kaeru was or not, and an extremely annoyed expression had passed over his face, which was rather stony as he waited for Kaeru's fit of laughter to slow down.

Kaeru had quieted slightly by the time Joey asked, grinning, "so, where'd you learn how to do that, Kawari?"

The Negative hikari rolled his eyes in a rather sarcastic manner. "If you have a tomb robber for a guardian spirit, you're bound to pick up a few tricks in your lifetime, like it or not."

Kaze chuckled as well, looking somewhat amused. "Ah, but don't pretend and throw them off, Kawari. You think it's interesting, don't you?"

Kawari gave him a dry look. "You're seriously going to ruin my reputation for me, Kaze." The Blue Eyes just laughed.

"If we could get back to business?" Yami asked in a huff, attempting to make a grab at his dignity, now that Kaeru had stopped leaning on him for support during his laughter. "There is still the matter of the third team member."

"Right," Kaeru said, still grinning slightly. "Okay, now I've been thinking over the qualities that have to fit the third person, and it came to mind while I was thinking--what about the Challenge?"

Tea frowned. "What about it?"

The ancient tomb robber shrugged. "Well, keep in mind...we are going after a Realm Scroll. I highly doubt that the protector of the Scroll of Hatred is going to let us walk out of the museum first before taking the Challenge. I'd guess we're going to be forced to take it right then and there--which means we still need a True Realm being in our theft team, so that the Balance of True and Negative in a Challenge is complete."

Kaiba nodded. "It's logical." He shrugged. "I guess I could go..."

Kaeru, however, shook his head. "You would have been a great candidate, if you fit all the requirements, but unfortunately, there's a few other things I need to take into account." Kaiba sighed, but nodded, and Kaeru continued. "Kawari and I can handle most of the problems that will come up in the museum, since we're more experienced and can handle this sort of thing, but there are a few sections that we can't take care of--the True Realm person would have to, instead." He looked around at the group slowly. "After taking into account all of the data that Kaiba and Kaze found...the third team member will have to have some experience with technology and computers, and they need to be relatively small for some of the tighter places in our route."

All eyes immediately turned to Yugi, but the Hikari only shrugged. "Sorry," he murmured. "I'm a little small, yeah, but I'm not that great with technology..."

Tristan sighed. "Then who on Earth could do it?"

"Me!" a slightly smaller voice piped up. Startled, the rest of the Scroll Hunters turned to face Mokuba, who was grinning broadly underneath the curtain of thick, black, messy bangs that slipped over his eyes.

"I'm perfect for the job, see?" Mokuba said, sounding cheerful. "I know lots about computers and stuff, 'cause Seto works with them all the time...and I'm small, so I can get into lots of places. Plus, I've done lots of sneaking and escaping before, so I know at least a little bit about what I'd be doing!" He grinned up hopefully at the rest of the group, his gray eyes pleading for him that he should be allowed to go on the "mission."

Much to Mokuba's dismay, however, his pleading eyes did not work. Almost at the same time, both Kaiba and Kaze said in flat, commanding voices, "No. You're not going."

"Awww," Mokuba whined, his eyes looking, if possible, even bigger and more pleading. "Please? You know I can do this, and that I'm the only one who fits Kaeru's requirements...you gotta let me go!"

Kaiba shook his head, seeming for all the world like a parent refusing to let his child go to a concert. "No. Too dangerous. I don't want you to get in trouble."

Kaze, however, frowned slightly, glanced over at Kaeru quickly, and then turned back to Mokuba. His Opposition Leader's mind was running furiously, trying to find some other alternate option, but there was none, and he knew the answer he had to accept. "Well...maybe," he murmured slowly.

Kaiba whirled on him instantly, looking part angry, and part shocked. "What the hell do you mean by that?"

Kaze stared back levelly, not a shred of emotion in his face or on his voice. "I meant what I said. It does make sense to use Mokuba for this mission; he's the best resource we have."

"Are you crazy?" Kaiba hissed, his hands unconsciously balling into fists, even though they would have been useless against his opposite.

"No," Kaze said, voice flat, "I'm not. Trust me, there isn't anybody less willing to send Mokuba into this mission than myself--" there was no questioning this statement, due to the Blue Eyes' past, "--but I'm also trying to look out for the fate of the world at the same time. If Mokuba is the person that can help us achieve our goal, then we'll just have to risk sending him and hope for the best. Besides, I trust two of my best agents."

Kaiba looked undecided for a moment, wavering, as though trying to say two different things and ending up in complete silence. After a moment, however, he sighed and nodded, giving his consent. "Fine."

Kaze nodded as well, as if thanking his opposite, but he had barely finished the action before he rounded on Kaeru, eyes cold as glaciers. "However," he hissed, softly, "should anything happen to Mokuba...well...even spirits can feel pain." A blunt, obvious threat, with no attempt to hide it whatsoever.

Kaeru didn't look bothered; rather, he had a calm expression on his face. "Don't worry, Kaze," he assured, "I am a guardian spirit, and I won't let a thing happen to him. Mokuba'll be fine."

"Good." Kaze's eyes changed from ice to cool blue orbs almost instantly, and he sat down casually once again. "Well then, if your team is all set, I doubt there is much more you need to go over, other than with them."

The ancient thief nodded. "Right." He glanced out the window quickly before adding, "We can't leave for a few hours anyway. I want as much cover from the dark as possible--we can't risk being seen, at any cost."

Yugi checked his watch, saying after a moment's pause, "In two and a half hours it'll be midnight. Is that as good a time to leave as any?"

Kaeru shrugged. "Midnight's a bit predictable. We'll leave at one-thirty, we'll say."

"Four hours, then, until the mission begins," Kaze murmured. "You had better brief Mokuba and Kawari on the situation and your plan, then."

Kaeru did, explaining thoroughly the security systems of the museum, the route that would be taken, and the jobs of each of the three of them. Kawari listened with rapt attention, taking in every detail fed to him quickly and quietly, and Mokuba listened carefully as well, a determined look on his face. Saguru, Kaze, Kaiba, Yugi, and Yami, though not directly involved in the theft, also stayed to listen to the plans, in case they spotted any mistakes or problems (though it was highly doubtful that a Pharaoh would be able to instruct a grave robber in the art of theft). Ryou, Tristan, Tea, and Joey, not much interested in the details of stealing from the Domino Museum, had broken off from the main group and were exploring the library, looking around the gigantic room while they waited for their friends to finish.

Finally, after a good half hour was eaten from their remaining time, Kaeru nodded and tapped the pages in his hands one final time, saying, "Well...that's that. All we have to do now is wait for the time to pass so we can get down to business." Kawari nodded, looking almost bored at the prospect of a theft, while Mokuba looked determined, excitement shining in his gray eyes.

Kaiba shrugged. "If we have a few hours to kill, we might as well get something to eat, right?" He looked around at the rest of the group, adding, "I don't think I've seen any of you eat since we got started on this stupid Scroll hunt."

"Sounds good to me," Kaze said, though he looked rather absent-minded, as if his mind was still back on the plan, and not thinking of Kaiba's mentioning of food.

The True Realm Seto called one of his servants quickly, and the man came walking at a fast pace towards the wealthy teen. "Yes, sir?" he asked politely, a formal tone in his voice.

"Prepare a dinner for twelve. Nothing too fancy; just enough to feed us all. And make it quick."

The servant inclined his head politely before answering, "Yes, sir," and turning on his heel, heading for the kitchens.

Dinner was not short in coming, but the wait did kill time. An hour later, the entire band of twelve Scroll Hunters were seated at the long, polished wood dining table, staring over the assortment of dishes and various foods in front of them.

"If this is what Kaiba calls simple," Joey said, blinking as he looked over the food, "then I'd love to see what he calls 'fancy'. Yeesh!"

The True Joey had a point. There was quite a lot of food on the table, and while none of it was particularly complex, there were several dishes that the average Japanese citizen wouldn't be serving for dinner any old day.

Kaiba gave a disdainful sniff at Joey's remark, but said nothing, lest he break the promise he had made in his duel. Instead, he served himself from a few of the dishes nearest to him and slowly began eating his dinner, the rest of the Scroll Hunters following suite (with the exception of Yami and Kaeru, who simply sat at the table to keep the others company and to chat with their friends).

Most interesting, during their dinner, was the reactions of the Negatives to the huge meal set before them. Kaze did not seem to find anything of particular interest as far as the large dinner went, but Kawari and Saguru (the only other Negatives that could actually eat) looked a little surprised at seeing such a large amount of food set out for one meal. Tea, curious, asked them about it. "Do you guys have a food shortage or something in the Opposition?"

"Oh, nothing like that," Saguru explained, helping himself to one of the dishes before him. "We've got enough food to support everybody with the Opposition, and some surplus--never hurts to be careful--but we can't spare this much just for one meal." He shrugged. "You don't really see something like this where we come from."

"Oh," the teen girl said, blinking slightly, before turning back to her own plate.

The dinner was an altogether entertaining hour, with humorous stories swapping back and forth between Negative and True beings, and tales of each Realm group's great deeds and adventures being passed back and forth as well.

The food was delicious, and everyone there managed seconds, with some (namely Joey and Tristan) stretching on to third and fourth portions. Saguru, surprisingly, was not a bottomless pit like his True self, pacing himself with his food and not trying to stuff everything within arm's range down his throat (indeed, he looked a bit startled, and partly disgusted, when the True blonde mauled one of the warm bread rolls as it passed by in the basket containing them). Kaeru had been attempting unsuccessfully to get his aibou to order a rare steak the next time one of the servants passed by (Kawari had point-blank refused to eat it, or allow his yami to do so in his body, much to the spirit's dismay) and he was now watching in annoyance as Kawari carved into a decidedly medium-cooked section of meat. Kaze and Kaiba, being at the same end of the table, were conversing on the evils of Exodia (for it seemed that Kaze had had a downfall against the powerful cards as well) while Yami listened on, smirking slightly.

Eventually, the dinner came to an end, with the plates cleared of everything but the tiniest of crumbs. Kaiba, playing the gracious (though somewhat resentful) host, led the rest of his companions to what almost looked like a cross between a living room and a game room. There was a big-screen T.V. set up at one side of the room, with several game stations hooked up to it. Couches, overstuffed chairs, and tables dotted the room, making for comfortable places to sit, while at another end of the room what looked to be a foosball table, an air hockey table, and a pool table were set up. A counter ran along one section of the third wall, looking almost like a bar of some sort, with a fridge that was stashed with drinks and snacks was located.
"Man, this is some room!" Tristan exclaimed, looking around with a surprised expression.

Kaiba gave a disdainful sniff. "I hardly ever use it," he said, voice flat. "It's more for Mokuba and his friends." He gave the game systems next to the T.V. an annoyed glare, but said nothing else.

The group dispersed to use up their final hour and a half before the mission was to begin. One of the game stations--a Gamecube, from the looks of it--was currently in use, as Mokuba and Joey were versing each other in Bloody Roar. Mokuba was surprisingly good, but Joey was a pro with video games, and so the two were evenly matched. Kaiba and Kaze had found themselves in another high tech conversation over their company's achievements, their inventions, and the like, a conversation that none of the others could follow and didn't even bother trying to keep up with. Tristan and Tea had been shown to their rooms by a pair of servants, both wishing to catch at least a little bit of sleep before the next Realm Scroll was found, while Saguru seemed to be taking a cat-nap on one of the couches. Yami and Kaeru, the yami spirits that they were, were currently facing each other in a heated match of air hockey while Yugi, Kawari, and Ryou looked on.

"Don't you think it's not the brightest idea to let those two face each other?" Yugi asked, somewhat dryly, as he watched his yami hammering the puck at Kaeru almost too quickly to be seen.

"Meh," Kawari muttered, shrugging, "At least they haven't attached bombs to the puck or something. It's surprising that they're actually doing this for entertainment, not for killing each other off."

"True," Ryou agreed, nodding.

"But...they still get a little...over-competitive...like yami spirits will tend to do," Kawari added, sighing in exasperation, as his own darker spirit scored a goal on Yami and swore at his opponent gleefully in ancient Egyptian. Well, at least Ryou and Yugi hadn't understood that--although from the way Yami shouted back indignantly, they had probably picked up that Kaeru's language hadn't been clean.

The entertainment went by at a fast pace, and soon another half hour had been eaten up while they waited. Kaeru had eventually lost the air hockey game against Yami, much to the grave robber's annoyance (it now seemed that it was a universal fact that Yami always won against any version of Bakura) and the thief had challenged the ancient Pharaoh to a game of pool to see if he could fare better there. Kawari, Yugi, and Ryou, tired of watching the two over-competitive Egyptian spirits, wandered off chatting amongst themselves.

After a few minutes, Yugi was called away from the two Ring owners by Joey; he had been challenged to a round of Bloody Roar and was looking forward to a match of his own against a friend. Kawari had strode over casually to one of the many over stuffed couches, plunking down on while looking almost bored.

"Hey," Ryou said quickly, following his opposite on a sudden impulse and sitting down on an opposite couch. "I've got a question. D'you mind if I ask you?"

"Nah," the Negative replied, waving his hand absent-mindedly. "Shoot."

"Okay, well..." the True hikari hesitated momentarily, not exactly sure how to word it, but then continued on a few seconds later. "Where exactly did you learn how to do that?"

Kawari blinked, confused. "Learn to do what?"

"You know, all that stuff with...a dirk, did you call it? Gin Hebi, I mean."

"Oh." Kawari shrugged absent mindedly. "Hey, you learn to defend yourself pretty quick in my Realm. If you don't fight, you die, end of story, and nobody's crying for you. All the people that didn't fight are long dead by now."

Ryou grimaced. "Your Realm sounds terrible...no offense or anything."

The Negative snorted. "None taken. My Realm does suck, but hey, when you get shoved into a situation you don't like, there's not much you can do, is there? Just fight until it's all over and never give in." He shrugged, then continued, asking a question of his own. "But why do you ask?"

"Oh...I was just thinking about what you did to my yami," Ryou answered, frowning slightly.

Kawari rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you think I was too mean or something. He deserved what he got, the freak."

Ryou shook his head. "No, I wasn't going to say that," he said quickly. "I was just curious...I mean, I've never seen anybody stand up to him like that before. It was new." The frown returned. "Although you must have done something big to him, because he's still unconscious in his soulroom."

The Negative gave a sly grin. "Gin Hebi has a few...ah...special abilities...that's why I favor it." But he wouldn't say anything more on the subject, leaving Ryou with a slight curiosity.

"In any case," Kawari continued, grinning again, "I never did any more to him than what he did to you. Did you ever notice that nearly all the attacks I used against him only struck in places where he had attacked or injured you?"

Ryou blinked in surprise. "No...I never noticed that at all!"

The opposite shrugged. "Well...he got back what he gave. I have no problems with that, and I don't think you should either."

Ryou chuckled ever so slightly. "I'll keep that in mind."

The conversation was halted as Kaeru strode forward, looking somewhat annoyed. Kawari glanced up at his yami spirit, asking casually, "Did the game end that quick? Who won?"

"Nobody," Kaeru muttered. "Kaze decided he had to separate me and Yami for the time being. Apparently we were being 'competitive to the point of being dangerous.' "

Kawari raised an eyebrow. "What made him say that?"

Kaeru grimaced slightly, then looked a little sheepish. "Well...heh heh...maybe it was because we both had an abnormal amount of shadow around us both..."

The Negative Ryou looked exasperated, and sighed. "Oy vey..."

Kaeru shrugged. "But it's okay," he said, turning to face his hikari and tapping the lighter being's watch. "We're way past your training session anyway, what with all this excitement."

"Aw, damn," Kawari muttered, looking slightly annoyed. "We have to do that now of all times?"

The guardian spirit looked stern. "It's not the best of times to be slacking off on your training. Especially now; who knows what will be in the next Challenge, or what will happen even after that. You need to drill, and now is as good a time as any."

The Negative Ryou gave a momentary sigh, then nodded. "You're right. Here; help me clear out some of these couches for a clearing."

The two set to work quickly, pushing and pulling the over stuffed couches, chairs, and hard wooden tables out of the way, making a sizable clearing in the middle of the room. Ryou, though not sure what exactly they were doing, helped them to clear, as did a few other curious beings from the True Realm. Kaze watched Kaeru and Kawari with a practiced eye, obviously understanding what they were doing, and Saguru (who had been woken up surprisingly quickly from his nap on one of the couches, so that they could move it) looked interested, as though some form of entertainment was about to be coming on.

Kawari strode out into the middle of the clearing, pulling quickly on his right-handed swordsman's glove to ensure that it was on tightly before coming to a stop in the center. He stood patiently, hands by his sides, and looked for all the world as though he was waiting for a bus or doing some other such normal, casual thing.

"What's he doing?" Kaiba asked Kaze curiously, frowning.

"Just watch," Kaze replied, looking interested, and not taking his eyes from his agent in the center of the room. "And don't go into the clearing, any of you, or you'll mess the routine up," he added, at a louder volume, so that the rest of the True Realm beings could hear it.

Kaeru followed after his aibou, but after walking only a few steps into the clearing, he began to circle, hands crossed in front of his chest and a determined, but critical, look on his face. His eyes never left Kawari, and he circled in a fifteen foot radius around his hikari, who never moved from his position to turn and watch his own yami spirit.

Abruptly, the ancient spirit opened his mouth, and he barked in a loud, clear voice, "Guard Position!"

Kawari moved suddenly, like white, black, and silver lighting. His hand moved so fast that the True Realm beings could not tell where it had moved, but moments later his empty, gloved hand suddenly held the glittering blade of Gin Hebi within it, grasping the black grip with a determined look. His entire body moved as well; one moment, he stood casually, straight and tall, and the next, he was standing in a crouched position, knees bent with a perfect center of balance, and Gin Hebi held in it's master's hand, forward and ready to plunge towards its opponent.

The True Realm beings were startled. "How'd he do that?" A surprised Joey hissed, staring with wide eyes towards the now perfectly still Kawari.

Kaeru gave the tiniest nod, still circling, before barking out another drill order. "Double Advance!"

Kawari slid forward with perfect grace, his balance always centered and his pace even. His movement, as before, was quick and precise, and it seemed to startle the True Realm beings momentarily.

The tomb robber gave another tiny nod, calling out, "Triple Retreat!" Kawari obeyed the command, sliding back one more step than he had moved forward, his movement never loosing it's grace once.

Kaeru looked more determined now. "Faster! Lunge and Recover!"

Kawari did as his yami instructed, looking as determined as the spirit. He lunged, his back leg staying in place while his front leg leapt forward and bent to hold his weight. Gin Hebi's shining blade rammed forward with the sudden momentum Kawari gave it, and had it been facing an opponent, it would have sunk deep into the torso of it's enemy. Before the True Realm beings could register the movement, however, Kawari recovered, drawing back into the guard position he had momentarily left without so much as a hint of uncentered balance.

"Parry and Riposte!" Kaeru barked, still circling. The action was carried out immediately; Gin Hebi gave a quick, expert twitch in it's master's hand, knocking an imaginary opposing blade out of the way with as little effort as possible, and then the blade extended, taking control of the battle, had there been one.

"Good, basics are down, now we'll get more difficult," the tomb robber called, grinning slightly despite himself. Kawari shared a nearly identical grin, though the rest of him stayed frozen, as though he could not move.

"Ready? Passata-Sotto, then attack!"

The True Realm beings frowned momentarily at the unfamiliar word, but soon understood what it meant as they watched Kawari. The hikari fell to a crouch almost instantly, still with an awe-inspiring grace--he looked as though he was made of liquid steel. Gin Hebi drew back, and seconds later lunged up at it's imaginary opponent above them. Yugi recognized the move as the same one that Kawari had used to injure Bakura's shoulder blade when he had been under attack.

"Fleche!" the Negative Bakura called, barely giving Kawari time to come back to a standing guard position. The opposite Ryou responded immediately, springing forward with a speedy step and lashing out with his prized dirk. Almost as soon as the blade had come back in it's arc, Kawari half ran, half skipped backwards, landing with feet planted firmly on the ground and once again in his guard position.

"Feint, Extend, and Round Six!" Kaeru roared, still circling, eyes watching his hikari with the critical look of a trainer. Kawari moved into action instantly; Gin Hebi lashed out, then withdrew in a fake attack. It was obvious from his movements that this was supposed to have drawn his opponent into a defensive maneuver; Gin Hebi then extended, twirled around the imaginary opposite blade of it's opponent, and planted it's shining tip deep into the torso area of it's enemy.

"In-Quartata, then a side slash!" Kawari preformed a side-stepping movement without a hint of hesitation, lashing out with his dirk and catching his "opponent" in the back.

"Good!" Kaeru said, nodding approvingly. "Target practice." As he circled, he grasped a handful of what looked like grapes from a bowl on the counter of the bar-like area. "Any blade forms will suffice, but do not let any single one of these hit the floor uncut." Kawari nodded, facing his yami with a fierce determination, Gin Hebi clutched tightly in his gloved hand.

Kaeru picked one of the grapes from his hand and tossed it towards his aibou, sending it in a high arc. Kawari lashed out quickly, a move that passed so fast it was almost impossible to see--but then the grape, now split evenly in two, plopped to the ground, dribbling a small amount of juice from it's neatly cut open halves. Still looking determined, Kaeru tossed another, this one farther away from his aibou. Kawari moved speedily, lashed out, and another grape hit the ground, split in two.

This seemed to act like a marking point, for suddenly Kaeru was hurling the grapes as hard as he could, sending them speedily in all directions. Kawari kept up with him perfectly, moving on pure instinct, slicing and slashing here and there, darting with nearly frightening speed, twisting and turning to keep up with his targets. When he was too far away from one of his targets to properly slice them, he would knock them into the air with the flat of his blade, slicing at them once again when they were nearer to him. At one point, he even knocked one into a high arc and caught it in his own mouth, chewing absent-mindedly on the juicy fruit as he slashed at the rest of his targets with a fiery determination.

"Nice," Kaeru called, nodding approvingly as the last grape had been tossed. "Kept your form, as always, that's not much of a problem with you. But for Amun-Ra's sake, stop fooling around during your training session, Kawari, this is serious."

Kawari shrugged, evidently knowing that his yami was talking about grape that he had eaten. "Hey, I was hungry," he said absent-mindedly, wiping his sweaty bangs out of his eyes and shrugging off his black coat.

The True Realm beings were staring in awe at Kawari, particularly Ryou. "Was...was that his training session?" Yugi asked the nearby Saguru, eyes even wider than usual.

"Nah, there's still more to do," the Negative Joey answered calmly, looking interested. "Kaeru seems to have shortened the schedule due to our current situation--they usually train for an hour or two every day-- but he's still not letting Kawari off the hook that easy."

Yami looked interested. "What else do they do?" he asked, curious.

Saguru winked. "You'll see."

Kaeru stopped circling, moving forward to face his hikari. "Well...think you're ready for a few one-on-one training sessions?" he asked calmly, arms crossed in front of his chest.

"Ready as ever," Kawari answered, grinning slightly.

"Great," Kaeru responded, turning to face Kaze. "Hey, I don't have any of mine with me. Can I borrow a few?"

Kaze nodded. "Sure." His hands flickered, and a pair of long-bladed knives seemed to appear out of thin air in his hands. Both hands gave a casual flicking motion, and the knives went spinning through the air, directly towards Kaeru. The True Realm beings looked shocked momentarily--it looked for all the world as though the spirit was about to be impaled by a pair of his leader's own knives--but then Kaeru's hands moved with quick ease, snatching the blades out of thin air. He twirled them between his fingers calmly, looking quite accustomed to the blades. The sight made Ryou flinch momentarily before the True hikari could remind himself that Kaeru was on his side, not against him.

Kaeru slid forward to face Kawari, a knife in each hand, raising them to a ready position. Kawari slid into his own guard stance, weight balanced and half-crouching, Gin Hebi held forward.

"Remember," the Negative Bakura reminded, "You need to work on your defense. Your offense is perfect, but while your defense is good, it needs work against the most skilled of blade masters. Ready?" Kawari nodded, his hand tightening on Gin Hebi reflexively. "Very well. Begin."

The two engaged blades with a clash, and instantly the two were off in a practice fight. Kaeru wielded his two blades with perfect accuracy, and despite all the skill Kawari had displayed, the tomb robber seemed to nearly always have the upper hand. The thief busily shouted encouragement and advice to his aibou, however, and Kawari seemed to act on it immediately, his weight shifting and his grip changing as his yami suggested.

After several minutes, Kaeru found an opening that was too good for the tomb robber to pass up. With perfect ease, he sidestepped the slash from Gin Hebi that Kawari had just delivered, slid within the hikari's line of defense, and tapped the flat of one of the knives to his charge's neck. "Dead," he said simply, stepping back to face Kawari with a critical eye.

"Dammit," Kawari said, almost conversationally, looking annoyed. "How d'you always do that?"

Kaeru shrugged. "I told you, watch your defense. The Hand of the Shadow takes an opening you give them, and so does a tomb robber."

Kawari rolled his eyes. "Righto. I'll keep that in mind."

Mokuba couldn't help but break in at this moment. "But...but you beat Bakura...so how can Kaeru beat you?" he asked of Kawari, looking confused.

Kawari sighed. "Kaeru trained me, so he knows all of my moves and what I'm capable of. Bakura did not." He looked annoyed.

"But that almost doesn't seem fair," Mokuba said, looking a little surprised. "If he knows everything you can do, you can't win against him!"

Kawari chuckled. "On the contrary, Mokuba, it makes it so he can notice my mistakes, and then I can correct them and better my form. Besides," he added, his face darkening to a dull frown, "it doesn't really matter whether anything is fair or not in our Realm. There is no fair in our Realm. An opposing agent isn't going to politely wait for you to catch up to him in skill before he kills you. Dead is dead, like it or not."

This little speech seemed to shock the True Realm beings into a momentary silence, and Kaeru and Kawari took the opportunity to turn back to their practice session. They dove into their practice fights with ease, blades whirling and slicing with what would have been deadly accuracy had either been meaning to kill, they themselves circling in a dangerous dance of graceful movements and forms. As before, Kaeru almost always seemed to keep the upper hand, and several more times he managed to step into his aibou's line of defense and press a knife to his neck; however, he shouted encouragement and suggestions as he had earlier, bettering his hikari's stance and movements. And Kawari did not simply allow his opponent to win either; he was a tough fighter, that much could be seen, and he managed to step behind his yami's own defensive line to "score" in the mock fights several times.

After a good forty-five minutes of their remaining hour had passed, the two finally came to a halt. Both of them were panting hard--Kaeru's physical body was just that, physical, and suffered the hardships of being a living thing while he kept the form--and sweat trickled down their faces, plastering their silver-white hair to the sides of their heads. But they were both grinning at the end of the training session, and Kaeru was applauding Kawari's skills, saying that he had done quite well--though he still needed to work on defense. The spirit then returned Kaze's knives to their owner (the weapons seemed to disappear into thin air when Kaze took a hold of them) and asked Kaiba calmly if there was a bathroom where he and his aibou could wash off their faces after the rigorous training. Kaiba pointed them down a hall, and the two white-haired agents disappeared, returning a few minutes later with sweat-devoid faces and chatting animatedly about different blade forms.

"That was amazing!" Joey yelled as the two returned, grinning broadly. "Damn, now I get how you beat Bakura like that!"

Kawari chuckled, sitting down on one of the couches (which had been returned to it's original position while he'd been washing up) and pulling Gin Hebi from it's sheath. He laid it out across his lap, pulling a few more tools from the large, wide pockets of his baggy black pants--an oiled cloth and a tool used for sharpening, from the looks of it. Picking up the cloth, he began running it over the shining blade of Gin Hebi, replying calmly, "I guess you could call it amazing if you want, but it's really no big deal. I've been doing stuff like this for a few years now."

"Maybe," Yugi said, "but wow, was it ever cool to watch!"

"Not something you see every day, I'm guessing?" the Negative asked, slightly amused at the excited looks from the True beings. He finished running the cloth over his prized blade and switched to the other tool, sharpening the dirk and bringing its metal to a razor sharp edge.

"Geeze, no," Joey said, grinning. "I haven't seen anything that cool in a while. Man, it's too bad Tristan and Tea missed seeing that!"

Kawari rolled his eyes, but said in a friendly, slightly sarcastic manner, "So I'm an entertainer now, am I?" Joey laughed, Yugi joining in.

The remaining fifteen minutes were filled with idle chatter, and soon the time had come for the theft team to leave for their mission. Most of those present from the True Realm wanted to accompany the three in the theft team, but Kaze put his foot down, saying firmly that not everybody could go, or they would get caught. Mokuba, Kaeru, and Kawari needed to go, obviously, and they were to be accompanied by Kaiba and Kaze until the mission started (partly because both versions of Kaiba wanted to look out for Mokuba, and partly because the Blue Eyes needed to have a connection with his agents should anything go wrong). Saguru, the last Negative, was asked by Kaze to stay behind at the mansion in case something should go wrong, and the blonde agreed to cheerfully.

With the team set, the five took off, exiting the mansion quickly and walking in the darkness towards the museum. It was a long walk, for the Kaiba mansion was set back from the road some ways to begin with, and it was not exactly close to the city, either. This did not discourage the group, however, and they continued walking, talking in whispers as they did so. Not even Kaiba, with his heavy metal briefcase at his side, slowed down during the quick-paced walk, although the case did bring a questioning glance from Kaze, until the opposite shrugged and disregarded it as unimportant.

It was about a half hour of fast-paced walking later that the group of five reached the Domino Museum. Most of it's windows were dark, although a few held soft glows that obviously indicated there were still people inside, most likely security guards. The building stood around eight or nine stories, and was altogether quite large, speaking of the many artifacts that must have been sitting inside it.

"This is where we leave you guys," Kaeru said to the versions of Kaiba, sounding perfectly calm, as though he were not about to steal something. "We've got to move around to the side so we won't get noticed." He turned to leave, as did Kawari and Mokuba, but Kaiba stopped them quickly with a whispered shout.

"Hold up," the True Seto said quickly, kneeling down on the concrete sidewalk underneath one of the street lamps so that he could see better. He placed the briefcase before him, snapping it open with a few quick strokes of his fingers to reveal soft padding inside of it. Nestled into the padding were four things--a large black laptop and three pairs of headsets. Kaiba snapped on the laptop quickly, then turned to the headsets, taking one out for himself and slipping it around his neck until he chose to use it.

"Here," he said softly, taking out another pair and handing them to Mokuba, while gesturing for Kawari to come and take his own pair, "We can use these to communicate, in case you get in a tight spot and need my help. I have downloads of all the information we got on this laptop, so it should be no problem."

Kaze raised an eyebrow, though he looked as if he approved. "Nice idea," he said simply, nodding.

Kawari and Kaeru nodded as well, but to Kaiba's confusion, the Negative Ryou did not come forward to retrieve his own headset. Blinking, the True CEO asked, "Well? Aren't you going to get yours?"

Kawari shook his head. "I don't need one," he said, shrugging. "I've got my own means of communication."

Kaiba rolled his eyes in reply. "And next you're going to tell me you have mind reading powers and you're a telepath or something."

The Negative laughed. "No, but I probably do somewhere in one of these Realms." He grinned. "I mean, the likelihood is pretty high due to the sheer amount of Realms and--" he caught Kaiba's annoyed, flat stare and shrugged a bit sheepishly. "Okay, okay, I'm shutting up."

The True Seto just rolled his eyes, but Mokuba asked curiously, "Wait. How can you talk to us without a headset?"

Kawari grinned. "I told you, I have my own communicator. It's just really well hidden." This said, he brushed back the long strands of hair over his left ear, showing that it was pierced and had a small silver hoop through it.

"What does a pierced ear have to do with it?" Mokuba asked, again with a curious tone. Before Kawari could answer, however, Kaiba suddenly caught on and spoke up.

"That's your communicator, isn't it? The earring." The Negative nodded, and the brunette added, "It's very well built. You wouldn't notice it's a communicator unless you had a practiced eye and could pick out the different components."

Kawari chuckled again. "Which is why it's very well hidden. We just have to adjust the frequency and I can talk to you easily enough. Kaeru can hear the messages through our mind link." The spirit nodded at this, still looking quite calm.

"Well then," Kaiba muttered, shrugging momentarily, "Kaze and I will have to relocate, but we can talk to you from some distance, so we won't look suspicious by hanging out here. If you need anything, just ask." With this said, the frequency was quickly adjusted, and within a few moments the two versions of Seto Kaiba were striding off down the darkened streets.

Kaeru looked after them for a moment, then shrugged and turned back to the two team members under his command. "Shall we get going?" he asked, sounding almost lazy. Kawari nodded in reply, sharing his yami's laid back, lazy expression, and Mokuba's nod was vigorous, full of determined energy that the boy so often had.

The threesome moved quickly, Kaeru in the lead, and within the span of only a few moments they were standing to one side of the museum, the shadows cast by the building effectively hiding them from the view of any possible travelers on the street (though the likelihood of pedestrians outside at nearly two O'clock in the morning were slim).

Once safely hidden, the Negative tomb robber turned and faced his two partners in crime. "Okay," he said, still sounding ultimately calm, almost bored, "now we begin. A few ground rules--" at this, he turned to look at Mokuba, since Kawari obviously had enough experience to know the basics--"try to refrain from talking loudly if you can, move as quietly as possible, and don't take your mind off of the goal. This should be a fairly simple mission, so don't worry about the possibility of not completing it; so far as I'm concerned that possibility is slim to none. I still want you to stay on guard at all times though. Better too much effort than to little, don't you agree?"

Mokuba nodded. "Right." He blinked quickly, still with a determined light shining in his bright gray eyes, but then the determination was clouded over with confusion. "Wait a minute. How were we getting in again?"

Kaeru chuckled slightly, looking partly interested, partly amused, while Kawari just smiled. The opposite thief, seeing Mokuba's confusion increase, explained quickly.

"Well, you see, I've learned from experience that whatever or wherever is considered impossible to get to is guarded the least. Therefore...myself and my hikari have perfected a variety of skills to be able to perform said impossible tasks. It makes the whole job easier, in my opinion."

The black haired child stared up at him in surprise, then frowned. "So...what's impossible here?"

Kaeru pointed upward, towards the high walls of the Domino museum. "I've noticed that windows higher up in a building tend not to have as much security. After all, it seems unlikely for a thief to break through a window on the fourth floor when there's no supports for him to stand on, hmm?"

Mokuba blinked, startled. "You mean you're gonna--"

"Scale the wall, yes. I find it rather entertaining, actually." He grinned. "The thrill of climbing a flat surface with absolutely no harnesses or supports...positively exhilarating."

The younger Kaiba stared up at both Kawari and Kaeru without emotion for a moment before stating quite calmly, "You guys are both crazy."

"Nah," Kawari answered, shaking his head slightly, "we're just from the Negative Realm." As surprisingly vague as this answer was, it seemed to be a perfect response to what Mokuba had just said; the boy shrugged and stuck his hands in his pockets, saying nothing.

Kaeru chuckled again and strode over to the wall, observing it quickly before giving a grim smile. "This brick is rather crumbly; we're in luck. A good blade would be able to carve handholds, should I really need it." He turned to his hikari. "Do you have the rope and knives?"

"Yup," the opposite Ryou answered calmly, reaching into his jacket's inner pockets. Two knives were produced shortly, tossed through the air in a glittering arc almost carelessly to the Negative Bakura; several moments later, a coil of rope was brought out as well, which Kaeru looped over his shoulder in an almost bored manner, as if he was shouldering a backpack.

"Well," he said, giving Mokuba and Kawari one last look, "be seeing you shortly from the top." And with that said, he calmly turned, found a pair of footholds in the slightly bumpy, uneven brick wall of the museum, and boosted himself up, beginning to climb.

Mokuba watched in amazement as the spirit moved upward, surprised that it was even possible to scale a wall without ropes or harnesses, and that he was actually seeing it. Kaeru moved up like a spider, finding hand- and foot-holds so quickly that he shot up the surface. When he found himself momentarily stuck, he would flatten himself as close to the wall as possible, using one of the two knives Kawari had tossed him to carve into the building's brick and cement in order to make just enough of a crack or indent for a hold. He passed the second floor within a matter of minutes, shot around the third floor windows ten minutes after that, and closed in on the fourth-level window nearest to him another ten minutes after that.

"Wow," the black-haired boy muttered, his amazement unchecked in his voice. "That's cool."

Kawari chuckled. "Oh yeah. It's even better when you're the climber."

"You can do it too?" Frankly, the younger Kaiba wouldn't have been surprised if the answer was yes.

"In a manner of speaking, yes. I'm not as skilled as my yami is at it--I mean, he has had more experience--but I'm lighter, so gravity isn't so much of a problem for me as it is with him. It makes it easier for me, at any rate."

"Oh."

The Negative Ryou chuckled again. "You're not used to this kind of stuff, apparently."

"Not really," Mokuba admitted, smiling a bit. "I mean...it's not everyday that I break into museums and stuff."

Kawari shrugged. "It's all in a day's work for us."

The talk was cut short as, up on the side of the museum, Kaeru traversed on the wall and sidled up next to one of the windows. He bent his head as close as he could to the window, observing momentarily, before smiling to himself and muttering something under his breath.

"What's he doing?" Mokuba asked, curious.

"Getting a lock pick," Kawari answered, sounding almost bored.

The tomb robber maneuvered so that he was leaning in towards the wall and holding on with only one hand and his toes; his left hand had dug into his pockets, coming out only a few moments later with a small, leather-bound case the size of a wallet in his hand. Grinning to himself slightly, as if he was in the middle of some very entertaining game, he flipped the case open with his thumb and pulled one of the metal tools inside out with his teeth before replacing the leather object in his pocket. Still grinning, his pointed teeth visible clamped around the lock pick of his choice, he maneuvered again so that he could lean close to the window, transferred the pick to his hand, and began working with it.

Mokuba watched with interest, head craned back so that he could see. There was no lock on the outside of the window, of course--no one would be fool enough to do that--but Kaeru appeared to be using the pick to loosen the window edges so that he could remove a part of the obstruction to create a way into the museum.

"You can do that with a lock pick?" he asked, a bit skeptically.

"You can do a lot of stuff with a lock pick, if you know what you're doing," Kawari replied, grinning mischievously, also tilting his head back to watch his yami. "That's rule number one in our trade in the Opposition: never go anywhere without a few all-purpose tools hidden on you."

Mokuba glanced over at the Negative Ryou quickly before returning his gaze to Kaeru above them, who was still miraculously clinging to the wall and working on removing the window at the same time. The younger Kaiba understood the need to remove, not break, the glass; they did not want to leave behind any evidence of their being there, lest they get themselves into trouble. Although they themselves realized the cause was a just one, they highly doubted that the Domino Police force would believe their tale of saving the world from evil magical forces.

Kaeru went at it for ten minutes, the soft clicking of metal against metal or metal against glass sharp in their ears and sounding enormously loud against the stillness of the night. The spirit was in a rather difficult position, clinging to the wall with one hand while he maneuvered the lock pick with another, and his attention was divided between both activities. After five minutes had passed, he started muttering under his breath, and Kawari informed Mokuba with a slight chuckle in his tone that the tomb robber was swearing in Egyptian.

After ten minutes had passed, however, Kaeru gave a triumphant hiss as the glass in the window shivered and gave way, the pane sliding inward towards the room beyond. He snatched it quickly before it could hit the hard tiles inside and shatter, which would make noise and attract attention, and set it down gently on the floor inside before slipping, ghostlike, through the window and disappearing within.

"He actually did it," Mokuba said, surprised.

Kawari raised an eyebrow at this comment, then said, shrugging, "He's not the King of Thieves for nothing."

"Are you going to stand out there all night chattering, or are you going to come up and join me?" Kaeru asked calmly from four stories up, speaking in a hissing, whispering shout so as not to attract any unwanted attention. Mokuba noticed that he had tossed down the rope that he had rested over his shoulder earlier, and it now hung, swaying slightly, ready for somebody to climb it.

"We're coming, Kaeru," Kawari replied, striding forward and testing the rope quickly by giving it a few short tugs. Satisfied, he turned to Mokuba, asking calmly, "You know how to climb, right?"

"Oh yeah," the younger Kaiba said cheerfully, grinning. "I do it all the time."

"Great. You go up first, just in case; if you fall I'll be right behind you, although I doubt that will happen."

Mokuba nodded, trotting forward to grasp the rope before taking a quick breath and beginning the assent. He looked as if he was walking up the wall, using it as a support for his feet, and within about five minutes or so he reached the window Kaeru was still leaning out of. The Negative thief helped him through the window quickly, Kawari slipping through in the same ghostlike manner as his yami to drop with a neat hop to the tiled floor inside.

"So far, so good," Kaeru said, nodding approvingly, as he reeled in the rope from the window. "We're inside, that's part one of the task over."

"Don't jinx it, yami," Kawari muttered rather dryly. "Saying 'so far, so good' doesn't ever seem to help a situation."

The spirit shrugged. "Who doesn't like a bit of a challenge?" he asked, dropping the rope to the floor calmly before picking up the glass pane of the window and re-fitting it to it's original location.

"I like a challenge as much as you do," the Negative hikari grumbled, "But not when it's connected to something as important as a Realm Scroll."

Kaeru rolled his eyes, finishing with the glass pane and fitting it back into its place with a small snap. "You're too superstitious."

"Better safe than sorry."

"Let's just get going," Mokuba interrupted hastily. He was getting more excited and nervous by the second about this latest part of their adventure, and his heart was fluttering so quickly it felt like it was trying to claw it's way out of his chest.

"Mmm-hmm, right, kid," Kaeru agreed, nodding, as he bent to coil the rope and loop it over his shoulder again. "Now remember--don't touch any display cases or items for show here, they'll probably have some form of detectors or alarms on them, and if we trigger one we're screwed. I'll let you know when any other obstacles could get in our way." The other two nodded.

"Now, a quick review of our plan of action," the spirit continued, speaking in a slight whisper. "Remember, the Scroll we're searching for, according to the records Kaze and Kaiba printed out, is on the first floor in the back wing where they have their displays of the artifacts they found on the reserve. We're on the fourth floor, so that means we're traveling down three flights and going to be doing a bit of roaming before we get to our destination. There will be security measures here, without a doubt, as we've discovered: cameras, laser sensors, and the like. Keep that in mind as we go."

Mokuba nodded, then turned his head to look around their surroundings. The room they were standing in was dark, lights turned off and only a few dim spots of light left here and there for the night watch. These dim bulbs cast eerie shadows over the floor tiles and walls of the room, and the boy shivered, remembering all too quickly that the shadows were their enemy, and their cause for breaking into the museum in the first place.

Spaced all around the room neatly were glass cases, tables, and information cards that spoke about specific items on display. On the walls hung paintings and photographs, held in large black frames that reflected the dim light of the bulbs in an almost lonely manner, as if begging for somebody to view their contents. Potted plants were skillfully placed in the corners of the room to fill up the empty space, though they looked rather forlorn, like their picture counterparts, leaves drooping unhappily as if waiting for a new day and new people to come.

A deep chill ran up Mokuba's spine, and he grimaced slightly. He'd been to the Domino Museum before, many times, and had always enjoyed it by day, when it was bright and sunny and filled with people. Now, however...it looked empty, desolate, dead and cold, to the point of being frightening.

Kawari strode forward absent mindedly, coming to stand in front of one of the glass cases and reading the card in it's plaque that explained the item on display, which happened to be a gray uniform that looked as if it had been the outfit of a soldier. He cocked his head quizzically after finishing his reading and asked the air, "American history?"

Mokuba shrugged. "It is a history museum, it has rooms devoted to all sorts of countries and their histories. This is the American history room, I guess..."

The Negative Ryou looked interested. "Heh...if we had more time in this Realm I'd have loved to come here for a visit..." he gave Kaeru a calm glance and then asked his yami absent-mindedly, "I wonder how much of their history is different from ours?"

"No idea, but that's not what we're here for. Let's get moving." This said, Kaeru strode forward towards the entrance to the corridor outside. Mokuba noticed with interest that his stance seemed to have changed, and he now walked with a practiced, slinking gait that almost screamed 'thief!'

Kawari shrugged and nodded to the younger Kaiba, motioning for him to follow them before turning after his yami spirit. The black-haired boy moved forward as well, heading after his two companions and to exit the dark room.

The depth of the shadows played on his nerves, however, and another chill ran up his spine lightly as he turned his back to the room. Tense, the boy turned his head hurriedly to look over his shoulder, almost double-checking to see if somebody was following him, even though his rational mind told him it wasn't possible. The result of the sudden movement was that he tripped, falling forward towards a glass case that held a Union rifle inside.

Oh, no, now I'm gonna trigger an alarm! the boy managed to think, clenching his eyes shut.

Before he hit, however, somebody grabbed his shoulders, pulling him hurriedly upright before he managed to hit the case. Startled, he whipped his eyes open to meet with a pair of brown harsh-yet-innocent orbs.

Kawari chuckled, releasing his friend's shoulders as he spoke. "Woah, there, careful. Don't get us caught before we start!"

Mokuba grimaced apologetically. "Sorry, sorry...I was just nervous, that's all..."

"It's not a problem," Kaeru assured him from the doorway. "Just try to stay more alert in the future. Mistakes like that can be costly in this business."

Mokuba still looked rather apologetic, so Kawari added cheerfully, "Don't sweat it! Even the famous tomb robber over there had a few falls in his day." Kaeru gave his hikari a flat, annoyed stare and a growl at this, but the lighter Negative only grinned widely in response.

The three Scroll hunters slid out into the hallways and corridors outside the American History room, Kawari and Kaeru still bickering good-naturedly, though quietly. They did not appear nervous or worried about the mission, and so Mokuba hastily reassured himself that everything would go perfectly fine and he was quite safe.

"Okay, now," Kaeru warned them, after a few minutes of striding down the hallways had passed, "security cameras are coming up, and I mean a lot of them, at least in this hallway. They'll be fairly simple to get by, even without disabling them...the trick is to stand in their blind spot, generally underneath them," he added, for Mokuba's benefit. The black haired boy nodded, filing this information away and keeping a close watch for the mentioned security cameras.

They appeared after a few minutes, hidden strategically in the corners where wall met ceiling and wrapped in shadow so that they were almost impossible to see--to the untrained eye. But Kaeru and Kawari (and Mokuba, after a few second's pause) could easily see the dim lighting of the hallways reflecting off of the glass lenses in the cameras, and took precautions not to walk in their sight lines. Instead, as Kaeru had suggested, they walked underneath the cameras, slipping from position to position quickly to avoid being seen by one while hiding from another. The hallway was passed by within moments, much to Mokuba's surprise, and when they turned down another camera-infested corridor, the boy was surprised at how fast he had picked up on the strategy--it took even less time than it did before.

"Security here is terrible," Kawari commented dryly, as he slipped almost ghost-like from his spot underneath one camera in mid-hallway to stand under a second. "Geeze, we could've stolen half the stuff in the museum by now and they wouldn't even know we were here until they saw the empty cases the next day."

"Mmm," Kaeru muttered in agreement, looking slightly annoyed. Mokuba giggled at the expression slightly, knowing that the spirit was probably fighting his thief instincts to take anything shiny and of high value.

They reached a staircase easily, and trooped down the stairs with eerie silence, passing by the shadow-covered sign that read "3rd Floor: Ancient Cultures." Kaeru pushed open the door leading to the next level and entered the hallways, glancing around quickly for security cameras.

Mokuba blinked in confusion. "Why don't we just keep going down?" He asked, pointing to the stairs that they had just left.

Kaeru shook his head, however, and Kawari explained. "We'd meet with the guard during his rounds," he said, looking calm. "That would hinder our progress a bit. It's easier to just bypass this pathetic security and go across one floor to the stairs on the opposite side."

"Oh," the black-haired boy murmured, understanding quickly. "I get it." He trotted after the white-haired theft experts, trying to move as quietly as possible past the stone statues, golden artifacts, and huge tapestries that adorned the open main chambers of this particular section of the Ancient Cultures floor--Roman artifacts.

It was during this walk--laced by dodging security cameras and slipping away from motion and light sensors that would trigger alarms--that the headset Mokuba currently had gave a quick beep, and a voice spoke. "Mokuba, Kawari? How you guys doing?"

Kawari appeared to be busy, so Mokuba responded. "We're fine, brother." He wasn't sure which version of Kaiba was talking--they both sounded exactly the same, after all--but it seemed safe enough to call them both brother, and he had adapted the title to the both of them quickly.

"Are you in?"

"Yeah; we're on the third floor right now." He chuckled slightly. "Kaeru and Kawari are acting all disappointed; it's like they were hoping this would be tougher."

"Yeah, that sounds like them," came the reply--though Mokuba was sure it was on a different headset then the one he'd been talking to a moment ago. Obviously, both Kaze and Kaiba were tuned into the network.

"So where did you guys go?" Mokuba asked, whispering due to the unusual silence in the museum that was so creepy, as well as the need to stay undiscovered.

"We're in the middle of Domino Park," one of the two Kaibas responded, sounding bored. "We found a bench and now we're just waiting for you guys to finish up."

"It's amazing to see that half the park hasn't been torn out," commented the second voice of Kaiba--obviously Kaze; why else would Domino Park have been ruined?

"Okay, well, from the looks of things we're gonna be done pretty soon," Mokuba reported, "so until then, unless we need your help, see ya Big Brother...both of you!"

"Right," one of them said, sounding somewhat calm, or maybe bored. "We'll leave you to your work so we don't disturb you. See you later." Another click, and the headset went quiet.

Slightly perked up at hearing his brother--or perhaps brothers'--voices, Mokuba found a slight grin growing on his face as he trotted to catch up to Kawari and Kaeru. The two of them were standing at the foot of a narrow hallway, staring down it with apparent disinterest, but neither of them were moving forward.

"What's wrong?" Mokuba asked, curious, as he came to stand next to Kaeru.

In reply, the tomb robber asked a question as well. "Do you remember your major part of this theft mission?"

The black haired boy blinked for a second, and then nodded, his grin growing slightly wider. "Yeah. Did we reach that already?"

It was Kawari that answered this time. "Yup." He pointed at the hallway, saying calmly, "Light sensors. You could call them laser sensors as well, I suppose." He rolled his eyes. "It's always in movies and whatnot; you know, the old red beams of light that go from one spot to another?"

Mokuba nodded again. "But that's not how it is in real life, I guess," he added, staring at the hallway, which was completely devoid of the tell-tale red beams.

"Definitely not," Kaeru said, his voice rather dry. "You'd need smoke in order to see the beams in reality. We don't have any with us, but fortunately we've come up with an alternative method." He grinned mischievously. "That's where you come in."

"Right. Just give me the directions and I'll do it."

Kaeru slid over towards one of the walls calmly, careful not to go too far down the hallway lest he trigger the sensors. Looking almost bored, he pointed out a nearby ventilator shaft that sat innocently up near the ceiling, as if trying to stay out of sight.

"You'll be going through that," he said, voice calm. "Kawari and I can't fit through such a small place, but you most definitely can. Just travel through them to get to the right room--there should be a computer or some other security system that controls these sensors. You just have to disable it with the code that we've already gotten during our 'research,' and we'll be free to walk through these hallways without a problem."

"Okay," Mokuba agreed, looking determined. "Where's the code?"

Kawari handed him a piece of paper with his gloved hand, on which were scribbled numbers and letters. The black-haired boy took it, looked over it quickly to make sure he could read all the numbers and letters without any misunderstanding, and then stuffed it into his pocket.

"Well, I'm ready," the boy told Kaeru, nodding again.

"Good," the tomb robber replied easily. "I'll boost you up."

Mokuba stood on the thief's shoulders as the spirit stood, reaching up to unscrew the clasps that held the ventilator shaft's grate closed. This was accomplished fairly quickly with the aid of a tool Kawari passed up to him, and within a few moments he handed the grate down to the Negative hikari before grasping hold of the shaft's edge and pulling himself up into the tiny space.

"Okay, now keep in mind," Kaeru directed carefully, each word clear so that they would not be mistaken for another, "the directions are fairly simple to remember, but there's a lot of places where you could get confused once you're in there. The shafts are like a maze all over the building, so we need to make sure you don't get lost. Listen carefully." The younger Kaiba stared at the ancient Negative intently, showing he was paying attention, and the tomb robber continued. "Skip the first two passages you could exit from; take the third from the left. After that, the fourth right, a left, another left--the second one--two more rights and then straight on for six other passages. You should find yourself at a security room. The guard should be out; he ought to be on his rounds by now."

"I'll be scouting for him," Kawari said calmly, reassuring Mokuba with a wink.

"Right," Kaeru said, nodding, before turning back to Mokuba. "If the guard is there, wait for a few minutes. If he doesn't leave, tell us by the radio link and we'll provide a distraction, but I highly doubt we'll need that."

"Right," Mokuba murmured, running over the directions again in his head. "I got it."

"Go as quick as you can; time is of the essence," came the final instruction of the tomb robber's, before he nodded. "Alright, take off."

The black haired boy gave a small grin before turning in the cramped space and crawling along the metal tube's lengths. It was dark, he realized, as soon as he left the opening that he'd entered by; fortunately, light was shed by each other opening that the shaft was connected to, so he wasn't forced to work in pitch blackness. It was cold, too, the metal brushing against his skin and giving him goosebumps. He went on gamely, however, determined to make his contribution to finding the Realm Scroll of Hatred.

He crawled for some time in the dim lighting of the shaft, twisting and turning as the directions commanded. He guessed it was roughly ten minutes, and hoped that he had gone quick enough to suit Kaeru's liking. After those estimated ten minutes had passed, he found himself facing another grate much like the first that he had taken off in order to travel in these twisted metal passageways.

"This must be it," he whispered to himself quietly, barely able to hear even his own voice.

Pressing his face to the grate, he stared out into the dim room beyond, feeling a sudden leap in his heart as he stared at the flickering screens of the computer monitors inside it. He hurriedly scanned the room for a person; there was none, he noticed quickly, and quickly pushed his fingers through the spaces in the grate to unscrew it and free himself from the shafts. Once free, it was a simple matter to lower himself onto one of the desks beneath the shaft (very convenient--he would have no trouble getting back up to it when he was done) and drop to the ground, quiet as a cat.

"I'm in the security room," he whispered into the communicator headset quickly, hoping that Kawari had heard it.

Apparently he had, for there was a response from him. "Great," came a surprisingly almost cheerful voice, as though it's occupant was having fun. "You're clear, too, the guard is way over in the Ancient Indian culture section and he won't be coming back for a while."

"Right." Feeling slightly safer now that he had this information, Mokuba took a deep breath and moved forward to the security computer.

It was pretty basic, he realized, after looking over the computer and it's controls for a few minutes. He knew how to work more difficult ones, thanks to his brother, and making this one do what he wanted would be a snap.

Grinning slightly, he placed his hands on the keys, clicking over them gently as he typed in a request to see the data and controls of the light/laser sensors. As expected, the computer asked for a password, giving a little beep of protest when Mokuba tried to bypass it before entering the code.

Quickly, the black-haired boy removed the scrap of paper Kawari had given him from his pocket, typing in the sequence of letters and numbers with a speedy accuracy. He smiled triumphantly and clicked "enter," expecting the computer to allow him to continue, but to his dismay, a window popped up on the screen informing him that the password was incorrect and that he would not be allowed into the security systems.

"What?" Mokuba asked the air, startled. He typed in the code again; and again, it did not work, the computer politely requesting that he type in the correct password.

He frowned, murmuring, "Something's wrong," under his breath and glancing over the computer screen again. Unable to find any errors he might have made, he thought momentarily before clicking on his communicator again and murmuring, "Big Brother?"

"Yeah, Mokuba?" the reply came, after several seconds pause. "Is something wrong?"

"Well...sorta," the boy muttered in reply, grimacing to himself. "I'm trying to turn off the laser sensors in the security control room, but the password you and Kaze found isn't working, and I'm not sure what's wrong."

"Give me a sec," Kaiba--Negative or True, it was still undefined--replied calmly, going silent. Mokuba waited impatiently, starting to feel nervous again due to the darkness of the room. He glanced around quietly, eyeing the shadows that sprawled innocently in the corner with a slightly edgy feeling.

He nearly jumped when Kaiba replied on the communicator. "Hmm, no wonder the password isn't working. They rotate the codes so that it's not always the same one constantly. We have the wrong one."

"Fairly intelligent," another Kaiba voice came, sounding approving. "A simple strategy, but often effective."

"So what's the new code?" Mokuba asked, swallowing slightly. He suddenly wanted to get out of that room very badly.

Kaiba read off the sequence of numbers and letters slowly, giving his brother time to type them in without getting them out of order. This time, the code worked, and the password window disappeared, to be replaced with a list of security measures and programs that were used in the Domino Museum.

"Thanks, Big Brother," the boy murmured, hastily clicking up the laser security documents even as he spoke.

"It wasn't a problem. I'll leave you to your work, if you don't need anything else."

"Right."

From there, it was a matter of minutes to disable the security that would have caused them a problem. Mokuba finished the work up quickly and efficiently, then reverted the screens back to the way they had originally looked. If the guard came in, it would look as though nothing had been changed, and hopefully the alterations the black-haired boy had made would go unspotted.

Feeling successful, the younger Kaiba pulled himself back into the ventilator shaft, screwed the grate back into its original position, and crawled off down the vast metal expanse of ventilating system, reversing the original directions so that he could make his way back to his two thief teammates.

As he crawled out of the shaft another ten minutes later, lowering himself to the tiled floor quickly, he noticed that Kaeru was grinning approvingly. "Very nice," the spirit commented. "Took control of the situation when it got out of hand. That's a good quality. It's a pity you're not an agent to the Opposition."

Mokuba grinned sheepishly in response. "Well...it was nothing special." He blinked and looked around. "Where's Kawari?"

"Here," came the answer from none other than the Negative Ryou himself. He was trotting up the hallway from where they had originally come, looking half bored, half entertained, as if this was all some game he was long since used to. "Back from scouting the guard for ya."

"Thanks."

"Not a problem," the hikari answered, dismissing it with a wave of his gloved hand. "Now, shall we get going?"

The three of them started off down the hall, now free to roam due to the deactivation of the laser sensors. It was fairly easy going; there were a few security cameras, but they were handled without problems (although there was a quick pause while they passed the Egyptian exhibits; Kaeru insisted that they stop long enough for him to look some of the artifacts over, as he was fairly interested in the ancient history of a Realm not his own). Within ten minutes, they had reached the stairwells that led down to the lower levels.

They slipped down the stairs with perfect silence, skirting around the lines of vision that the security cameras could focus on and passing the second floor (European History, for the record) without so much as a second glance. It was the first floor, after all, that was their destination. They reached it easily, but before Kaeru would allow Mokuba or his own aibou to pass through the double doors marked "Japanese History," he spoke.

"Okay," he murmured, looking thoughtful, "considering that the security codes were changed recently, it is probable that the guard's shifts have changed as well, and he may have a different round than he did before. That means we may have a problem with running into him; I planned this for taking a different path than we may have to now. Not that it's impossible," he added, seeing Mokuba's expression, "it just means we're playing this by ear."

Kawari shrugged. "Not much of a problem. I'll go scout it out. Be right back." Turning, he ghosted across the floor, pushed silently through the double-doors, and slipped out into the open rooms and exhibits beyond.

Roughly five minutes later he returned. "You're right, yami," he murmured, now looking slightly interested. "The rounds have changed; they're not the same as the ones you planned out. There's a possibility that we could run into the guard."

Kaeru frowned. "Hmm...where is he at the moment?"

Kawari shrugged. "About the middle of the floor. Not exactly close to us right now, but not exactly far enough for comfort either. And it looks like he's heading in the same general direction as us."

Kaeru grinned slightly. "Ah, so this task becomes more challenging? How interesting. It livens things up a bit, at any rate." He looked thoughtful for a moment, before murmuring, "All right. We'll just have to play this out fast and hard. No room for mistakes. The quicker we get to our destination, the quicker we can get out without being noticed." Kawari and Mokuba nodded, Mokuba looking nervous yet excited, Kawari just looking like somebody had given him a treat.

Still grinning slightly, Kaeru turned and pushed open the double doors leading from the exhibits to the stairwells, holding it open so that Kawari and Mokuba could slip through without a sound. He closed it gently, then picked his direction and headed off, his two teammates trailing after him.

The going was slow, compared to their previous movement. Kaeru, not wanting to run into the guard, often took detours into side rooms and slunk around the large glass display cases, hoping to keep cover in case the guard was to come close. He often sent Kawari out as well to keep a lookout for the guard--the Negative seemed to have an excellent talent for scouting--and used the information brought back to him to plan his next move.

In the end, however, they were forced to cross completely open ground in order to near their destination. One room in the museum, centered around ancient Japanese culture, was circular and large, with a huge open expanse of tiled floor and almost no cover. Four other hallways led out of the large, circular room, spaced out evenly so that it did not appear to look odd. Displays, paintings, and odds and ends were set up all around the walls of the room, looking neatly organized and in place where they stood. In the center of the circular room, seeming oddly out of place in the open ground, was a positively gigantic display case, sitting on top of a large table draped with fabric, which proudly boasted a variety of swords, knives, spears, bows, and other weapons.

"No good," Kaeru muttered, annoyed, staring across the wide expanse from where he and he two companions stood in one of the hallways. "We'll have to cross--we need to get over there." He pointed at the hallway directly across from them.

Kawari sighed. "We'll just have to make a break for it," he said, shrugging helplessly.

"Mmm," the tomb robber agreed, though he plainly was not happy about it.

They started across, all but running to ensure that they would reach their destination before the guard managed to show up. Unfortunately, luck was not on their side, and before they had reached the display case in the center of the room they heard the heavy footsteps of the guard.

"Duck down!" Kaeru hissed quietly, but firmly. He grasped Mokuba's shoulders and pushed him forward and down hurriedly behind the display case, which they had only just reached; Kawari performed a spectacular dive that was oddly silent and skidded to a halt next to them, crouching behind the table and it's fabric coverings that served as their shelter.

They were barely in time. Within the span of a few seconds, the heavy footsteps had entered the large display room and had come to a stop. There was silence for a few minutes, and then a voice asked slowly, "Is somebody there?"

Mokuba was wide-eyed with shock; the look increased when he saw the unfazed faces of Kaeru and Kawari. Geeze, didn't they panic at anything?

The footsteps began again, circling slowly around the room, and the voice called once more: "I said, who's there?"

Kaeru grimaced ever so slightly. If the guard continued to circle, they would be exposed within a few minutes, something he couldn't risk for a number of reasons. He'd just have to drive the guard off somehow...

Softly, he nudged his aibou in the ribs. Kawari, who was crouching next to him, looked over curiously.

What? he asked slowly, using the thought-link to protect their silence.

Have a coin? Kaeru asked quickly, fixing his eyes on his aibou in a questioning manner.

Yeah...here, the Negative Ryou muttered through the link, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a yen piece. He tossed it quickly to his tomb robber yami, who caught it easily and turned to face one of the halls that he and the others did not need to go through.

Taking careful aim, the ancient spirit drew back the hand containing the coin and threw it with a quick snapping motion of his wrist. The coin went spinning through the air quickly, nearly impossible to see in the shadows, and came down far inside the hallway Kaeru had aimed at with a loud, very noticeable clink.

The guard instantly turned, taking the bait that had been set for him. "Who's there?!" the man growled, his heavy footsteps quickening as he trotted over to the hallway and went inside it. "I'm warning you--" he disappeared within one of the rooms to investigate, leaving the threesome alone.

Kaeru wasted no time. He pulled Mokuba up and ran--Kawari had already started moving--diving headlong towards the hallway they needed to go down as quick as they could without making noise to attract the attention of the guard. After what seemed like minutes, but couldn't have been more than a few seconds, they reached their destination and slipped inside, moving away from the circular room as quick as they could to avoid possible detection again.

"That," Kawari said, sounding unusually calm, though a bit sarcastic, "was a close one."

"Indeed," Kaeru agreed, frowning slightly before shaking his head and looking at his surroundings. "Ah, but it's not as if it matters. We're nearly there."

"We are?" Mokuba asked, sounding partly surprised, but also partly pleased. "Awesome!"

"Come on," the tomb robber muttered, voice low, as he turned to head down the hallway they had already started down. "Let's go." He couldn't help but smile slightly, however, at the expression on the younger Kaiba's face at the realization that they had nearly made it to their destination.

They ran into several more security cameras--not a problem for them--and after another ten minutes of silent movement, they entered one of the rooms in the back wing. It contained several displays, placed neatly around the room, all of which had artifacts from the reserves they had been to earlier within their glass cases.

"We're here," Kaeru said, a small, slightly dark grin sprouting on his face.

"Now we just need to find the Scroll..." Kawari blinked and scanned over the room quickly, then moved forward suddenly, muttering, "Found it."

They gathered around one of the glass cases in the corner, staring down in awe at the fourth Realm Scroll--the Scroll of Hatred. It looked almost innocent, sitting on it's soft padding inside the glass case, but the three of them knew all to well of it's hidden powers.

Kawari bent down and read the plaque attached to the case out loud with interest. "Ancient Scroll, dated back several thousand years Before Common Era. It bears writing that cannot be compared to any other language on Earth as is known; the characters seem to have no resemblance to modern or ancient Kanji. The characters can be compared closest to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, but many important differences suggest that it was a different Egyptian dialect or a different language altogether. Speculation suggests the Scroll bears important stories or 'spells' that played a large roll in the Ancient past; however, further studying must be done before this can be determined with confidence." He smirked slightly. "It's amazing how close they can get without knowing one damn thing about the Scrolls at all."

Kaeru shrugged. "I think they just guessed and got lucky." He rolled his eyes slightly. "In any case, that's not important. We need to get that Scroll out of there and back to the mansion so we can finish up our mission here." He looked over the case quickly, then pointed at a small metal box clamped to the stand the case was on. "That controls the sensors on the case. Can you disarm it?"

"Already working on it," the Negative Ryou murmured casually, kneeling down so that he was at eye-level with the box in question. He examined it quickly, then took out a few tools of his own, pried the metal box open, and began fiddling with the wiring inside.

Mokuba blinked. "You know how to do that?"

Kawari shrugged. "I know the basics. I've been learning from Kaze for the last couple of months, at any rate. Complex stuff I still can't do, but hey, I'm not complaining." He pulled one of the wires inside the box from it's place and reconnected it to another spot quickly.

Mokuba blinked, a little surprised, and then turned to Kaeru. "D'you do this stuff often?"

Kaeru shrugged. "I suppose, yeah. We're used for spying, scouting, and stealing from the Hand of the Shadow, and--"

He was cut off rather quickly as Kawari swore--fortunately, not very loudly--and hissed, "The damn thing shocked me!"

Mokuba turned again to look at Kawari, who was glaring at the box in distaste and shaking his ungloved hand, looking annoyed. "You okay?"

"Fine," the Negative muttered. He tackled the sensor again, rewiring it carefully so as to disable the alarms (though with considerable swearing under his breath in what Mokuba heard enough of to recognize as English--very angry English). After several minutes he sat back, staring at his handiwork with a mixture of boredom and annoyance, and declared, "Done."

"Positive?" Kaeru asked, voice serious as he stared over at his aibou. In response, the Negative hikari held up his gloved index finger and calmly ran it over the glass case--no alarms were triggered as he did so, proving he had indeed finished.

"Good," the tomb robber said calmly, nodding in approval. "Now all that's left is the glass case." The case happened to be bolted to the stand it was on, but that wasn't much of a problem; the thief simply took a few of his prized lock picks and set to work. Five minutes later, the case was unbolted, and Kaeru very easily picked it up and set it on the ground next to his feet.

And there was the Scroll of Hatred, sitting innocently on it's cushioning before them. It glowed momentarily, as if hinting at it's untold powers, before the bright glow faded and left it looking like nothing more than a roll of dusty, ancient parchment.

"There it is," Kaeru said, looking almost gleeful and rubbing his hands together as if he had just won an amazing prize. "Look at it. The Fourth Realm Scroll. Get this, and we're more than halfway through our tasks here." He grinned, and the mood caught; Mokuba was smiling widely within seconds, and Kawari had a satisfied smirk on his face.

"Kawari...do you have the replacement Scroll?" the tomb robber asked abruptly, glancing over at his aibou.

The opposite Ryou nodded calmly, drawing an item from his pocket as he did so. "Yup, right here."

The replacement turned out to be a fake Hatred scroll, modeled off of one of the other Scrolls they currently had possession of. It looked like it could have been the original, so well had it been modeled, and it made Mokuba blink in surprise. "What's that for?"

Kaeru shrugged. "It's doubtful we're going to have this Scroll given back to the museum by morning, and I think the staff would be just a bit suspicious if one of their display cases was suddenly empty. They'd know there was a thief, and we don't want that. So we have an imitation scroll here...they'll never know their own Scroll is gone, once we put this in the true Scroll's place."

"Oh, I get it," Mokuba exclaimed softly, nodding. "That makes sense."

"All we need to do is switch it," Kawari agreed, nodding. "But before we can do that...we've got a Challenge to face."

Kaeru nodded grimly. "Then it would probably be best if we began it, wouldn't it?" The others nodded, and so he sighed, cracked his knuckles, and reached for the Realm Scroll of Hatred.

As before, with the last three Realm Scrolls they had encountered, a powerful, dangerous voice came into being as soon as Kaeru had gotten his hand within a foot of the powerful magical item. "AH, AND SO AT LAST THE REALM SCROLL OF HATRED HAS BEEN SOUGHT OUT. FOR WHAT REASON HAVE YOU NEED OF THE MAGIC OF HATRED?"

Kaeru looked quite calm, as did Mokuba and Kawari--all three had been expecting the voice, and it did not startle them. "We have come," Kaeru answered slowly, softly--so as not to be heard--"because we have need of the seven Realm Scrolls, so that we may restore the Shadow Realm to its original state and destroy the overflowing process of its magic."

"I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN," the voice said, sounding almost annoyed with itself--a sound that was quite terrifying, coming from such a powerful, mysterious being they could not comprehend. "EVERYTHING HAS BEEN SHIFTING OF LATE." It paused momentarily, then added, "BUT THAT IS NOT MY PLACE. MY PLACE HIS HERE, GUARDING MY SCROLL."

Kaeru nodded calmly. "And it is your Scroll we wish to take possession of," he murmured, still softly.

"YOU WILL NEED TO PASS THE CHALLENGE I SET FOR YOU," the voice rumbled lowly. "ARE YOU AND YOUR TWO COMPANIONS THE CHALLENGERS?"

"We are," Kaeru answered respectfully.

"VERY WELL. AND DO YOU ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE OF THE REALM SCROLL OF HATRED?"

Kaeru nodded, Kawari and Mokuba also showing their eagerness to follow through with the Challenge. "We do."

"THEN YOU--" the voice began...but it was suddenly interrupted by a meek, young voice.

"I...I have a question," Mokuba Kaiba asked softly, looking nervous, but also curious. "May...may I...ask?"

The voice was silent for some time, and Mokuba began to tremble slightly, thinking he had angered it. Then...

"HAD YOU BEEN ONE OF THE OTHER TWO YOU TRAVELED WITH, I WOULD HAVE DESTROYED YOU FOR ASKING SOMETHING OF MY KIND. YET YOU ARE YOUNG AND INNOCENT; FOR THAT, YOU MAY ASK ONE QUESTION. BUT ONLY ONE."

The black-haired boy looked positively shaken, but nodded quickly. "Thank you," he murmured, trying to force as much respect as he could into his voice. "Thank you very much. I..." he licked his lips hastily; this voice scared him, now...but he continued on. "I was wondering...why...why didn't the people from the museum who found the Realm Scroll to begin with have to take a trial?" His voice gained confidence ever so slightly. "I mean," he continued, "I'm sure it would have been obvious if they had taken one...it would be in the news, at the very least." He frowned. "I'm just confused..."

The voice responded quickly, and it seemed somewhat...gentler. .having obviously picked up on Mokuba's fear. "THE CHALLENGES ARE DESIGNED FOR THOSE WHO WISH TO POSESS OR USE THE POWER OF THE SCROLLS," it explained, as though speaking to a baby. "THEY ARE MEANT TO PROTECT THE SCROLLS FROM ILL USE, FROM PEOPLE WHO WOULD ABUSE THEIR MAGICAL ABILITIES TO SPREAD EVIL. A CHALLENGE WOULD NOT BE GIVEN TO SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT POWER THEY HOLD IN THEIR HANDS...AS WAS THE CASE OF THESE 'MUSEUM' PEOPLE." It was silent for a moment before finishing with, "WAS THAT ANSWER ENOUGH TO YOUR QUESTION, LITTLE ONE?"

Mokuba nodded slightly. "Yes...and again...thank you."

"ARE YOU READY TO BEGIN, THEN?" the voice asked, now sounding impassive.

"Yes," Kaeru responded, having taken it upon himself to act as the spokesperson for their group.

"VERY WELL," the voice murmured, becoming more powerful as it spoke and gaining a more formal tone. "YOU SEEK TO GAIN THE FOURTH REALM SCROLL OF HATRED. HATRED IS A WOUND THAT DOES NOT HEAL WITHOUT PROPER CARE, A VIRUS THAT SPREADS THROUGHOUT THE CONSIOUSNESS AND BLURS THE GOALS OF ONE'S MIND. THEREFORE, YOU WILL BE TESTED TO SEE HOW WELL YOU CAN KEEP TO YOUR CAUSE DESPITE THE PROBLEMS YOU FACE. YOU WILL BE PLACED UNDER HARSH CONDITIONS AND BE GIVEN AN OBJECTIVE--YOU MUST COMPLETE IT SUCESSFULLY AS IS COMMANDED."

"Right," Kaeru nodded, accepting the terms. "We're ready." He glanced over at his two companions, who nodded their agreement.

"THEN BEGIN."

Kaeru blinked for a moment, then suddenly opened his eyes wide, staring around the darkened museum room in surprise. The shadows...they were swirling out of their corners, coming closer, widening...spreading their darkness all around them, enveloping them in a blanket of Nothingness.

The spirit paled considerably. This place...this place of Nothing again...

He glanced over to his left, then his right. Kawari was nearby, floating in the Nothingness with the exact same shocked recognition playing over his features; and Mokuba was there as well, looking confused and nervous at the same time.

And then, in a sudden wave of blankness, Kaeru's consciousness was torn from him, and he blacked out quickly, already on his way to the mental Realm of the Challenges.

* * * * *

When Kaeru came to, he realized he was standing upright, as though he had fallen asleep on his feet and had just woken up. He blinked hazily, wincing slightly at the sudden change from the darkness of the museum and the Nothingness to the blinding glare of...of wherever he was now.

Curious, and a bit surprised, he looked around the mental Realm he'd been transported to in order to partake in the Challenge set before him. It was...odd...that was perhaps the best word to describe it...and it reminded him vaguely of a patchwork quilt as he looked around.

He appeared to be standing on hot desert sand, in what appeared to be, for all the world, a miniature Egypt. Spreading far out in all directions were coarse sands, dark and almost glittering in the harsh sunlight, and to his right and perhaps fifty feet away the beginnings of a small oasis, with a few stunted trees surrounding a tiny pool of water.

Strangely enough, however, that was not the extent of the mental Challenge field. Perhaps two hundred yards from him to his left, the sand of the desert-like area suddenly came to a complete end, only to be replaced by what looked like a thick forest, filled with tall pine and fir trees. To his right, beyond the oasis, was a sudden spread of golden plains, with the tall grasses and flowers blowing in the wind that seemed to die as soon as it hit the desert border. In front of him by another five hundred yards, a wide expanse of snow flurried wildly in mid-blizzard, yet it did not begin to melt at the boundary between the heat and the cold; in fact, the snow had piled several feet high in it's own territory, cold winds blowing snow drifts about mercilessly. Beyond the snow territory, which stretched a good seven hundred yards wide, the frozen expanse stopped abruptly, to be replaced by a canyon, cliffs stretching high above their heads into the heavens beyond. And when he turned to look behind him, he saw the desert sands quite suddenly lightened in color, changed, and gave way to an ocean behind them.

"Well," came a dry voice that most certainly belonged to Kawari, "There's something you don't see everyday. Six climates in one. How pleasant."

"It reminds me of my brother's Virtual Pod game," Mokuba's voice came, sounding both awed and nervous.

Kaeru turned his head slightly, glancing over at his own aibou and the black haired boy next to him and noting where they were. Both seemed fine, so nothing had happened yet, at least not to his knowledge.

"What do we do now?" Mokuba asked, frowning slightly.

Kaeru shrugged. "Wait for instructions, I guess," he said, tapping his foot impatiently. Kawari also looked impatient, and started pacing around in circles in annoyance, waiting for something to happen.

"OBSERVE THIS CLOSELY."

The voice came so suddenly that they jumped--a rather interesting thing to see Kawari or Kaeru do, considering their previous ways of acting. All three of them calmed themselves quickly, however, and turned to face something that had begun to shimmer in the air in front of them.

After several seconds, the shimmering in the air took shape, and they found themselves staring up at a beautiful blue orb, rotating slowly above them. It looked as though it was made of glass or crystal, and reflected the light of the harsh sun above them, flashing the light in all directions like a beacon.

As they watched, the orb shivered slightly, cracks beginning to run all over it's surface. Without warning, it suddenly shattered, pieces of it flying out all over the mental fields they were on in all directions. In barely any time it was gone, with nothing left to show it had existed.

"THERE ARE SEVENTEEN PIECES OF THE JUDGEMENT ORB," the powerful, mysterious voice said impassively. "THEY HAVE BEEN SCATTERED THROUGHOUT THE DIFFERENT LANDS AND CLIMATES YOU HAVE SEEN. YOU MUST FIND THEM ALL AND REASSEMBLE THE JUDGEMENT ORB TO PASS THE CHALLENGE OF THE SCROLL OF HATRED. BEGIN."

The voice fell silent, leaving the three of them with the words hanging in their ears. Then, very slowly, Mokuba asked, "So...it's like...a Treasure Hunting Challenge?"

Kaeru grinned. "That's exactly it," he hissed, looking gleeful. "And we couldn't have picked a better team for it!"

The younger Kaiba looked confused. "Why?"

"Because I'm a tomb robber," Kaeru said, still sounding absolutely pleased. "I made a living off of finding and stealing precious gems and other similar items. I'm practically made for this Challenge!"

Kawari frowned slightly. "Hey, don't take all the glory, Kaeru. I know how to do this stuff just as well as you do."

Kaeru raised an eyebrow and gave his aibou a critical side glance. "Are you saying you think you can do better in this Challenge than I can?"

Kawari gained a sudden competitive light in his eyes, even as Kaeru gained the same look. "Was that a challenge?"

Kaeru smirked. "You bet it was."

"You're on!" Kawari barked, meeting his yami's eyes. "Whoever gets the most pieces wins our little bet."

"And the looser takes on the paperwork for a week back home," Kaeru added, still with a cocky smirk on his face.

"Done deal!" The two shook on the bet, gloved hands meeting, before they suddenly whirled and took off, sprinting in different directions.

Mokuba sighed, watching the two depart--Kawari seemed to be heading for the plains on the right side of the Egyptian center, while Kaeru was darting for the forests on the left. "Oh well...I guess they forgot about me. But that's okay; I'll just search around this desert section for a bit."

Rolling his eyes slightly, the black-haired boy turned around and strolled a few paces over the sandy desert ground, but then came to a sudden stop. He wasn't sure where to go, and the desert portion of this mental world was huge. He'd never be able to search it out inch by inch without taking an entire day, and there were still other climate portions to search out as well.

Blinking, his gray eyes came to focus on the tiny oasis that sat innocently in the center of the desert area. Good enough a place to start as any, Mokuba thought to himself, shrugging a bit, as he walked over the shifting, hot ground towards the stunted-yet-shady trees and small pool of somehow crystal-clear water.

After several minutes, he came to rest at the edge of the pool, and looked around slowly. Nothing that he could see; no Orb pieces sitting out in plain sight, at any rate.

He frowned slightly at this. But...that doesn't make sense, he reasoned slowly. The pieces are supposed to be hidden, aren't they? Or it wouldn't be a Challenge, would it? I need to think sneakier...where could shards like that be hidden?

He blinked, then looked up into the twisted, gnarled trees near the pool, squinting so as to see past the leaves and through to the trunk. He even walked around each tree, scrutinizing it carefully for holes in the bark, and climbed one that had a branch low enough for him to use as a hand hold, but each careful search brought the same result--nothing.

Sighing, he sat down on the sandy banks of the pool, placing his chin in his hands and thinking carefully. Where could an Orb shard be? he thought to himself repeatedly, his eyes flickering over the pool as he did so. He absent-mindedly observed how the water reflected the light, thinking lazily of how the Orb had done the same thing when they had first seen it...

He sat up suddenly, looking surprised. Why didn't I notice that before?! Mokuba thought to himself inwardly, irritated with himself. He scanned the pool again; there, on the far side of the bank, what appeared to be something half-buried in the wet sand was reflecting light brightly, although it was partly smothered due to it's coverings.

Slipping around the water hurriedly--it wasn't that long of a walk, the pool was so small--he came to a stop where he'd seen the glittering item in the ground. Bending down, he scraped the sand off of the object hurriedly, digging it out of the ground, and then dunked it gently in the water to wash it off completely.

When his hand withdrew from the cool water, he felt like grinning. For there, nestled in his palm, was a glittering blue shard of the Judgement Orb.

* * * * *

Kaeru walked casually through the forest portion of the mental world, though his sharp eyes flickered continuously over the ground, never resting in their search for a piece of the Judgement Orb. He grinned slightly and felt the small pouch at his side that he always carried absent-mindedly; he had two shards of the Orb already.

One he had found high up in the thin branches of an old fir tree, nestled gently in the three-pronged hold of several of the lesser branches--he'd had to climb up for it, something that had been difficult due to the weak branches that snapped too easily, but he'd managed to get the piece without too much trouble. The other had been lodged neatly in the bark of an old pine tree, as though it had been a meteor that had struck the trunk, burying deep inside the wood. That one he'd only seen because of the reflection the shard cast when caught by sunlight, but at least he'd discovered it; getting it out of the tree had been the difficult part, and in the end required the assistance of some of his Shadow Magic.

Now he continued on in his search through the forest, keeping a calm appearance but in reality ready for action at any second. Who knew, after all, what was in this mental Realm? From what he'd heard, the last mental world, the one the third Challenge had been held in, had contained a Shield Dragon of all things. That had taught him all too quickly that anything was possible in these places, of which he knew close to nothing.

His eyes darted over the surroundings again, both looking for anything suspicious as well as anything that could lead him to the next Judgement Orb shard. He didn't see any evidence of either, but he did notice, with interest, that this particular forest that he was in seemed to be coming to an abrupt end.

Ahead of him, the trees suddenly changed, all aligned so it almost looked as if there were invisible fences between the two types of trees. On Kaeru's side were the simple fir and pine trees, trees that most people, by now, were used to--but on the other side were trees that towered over those of his forest, trees with thick green vines and leaves large enough to block out the sun.

"Interesting," he mused, still walking forward. It had to have been another of those strange climate changes; he'd never seen something quite so strange as two opposite climates sitting right next to each other. Well, perhaps he had, but he had to admit this mental world was at least one of the stranger things he'd seen in his life.

Holding his breath slightly, the only indication that he may have been unsure about what he was doing, Kaeru stepped across the invisible boundary between one forest to another. Instantly, as soon as he crossed the barrier, the air became hot and muggy, humid and wet. He grimaced irritably; the heat was one thing, something he was used to, but the humidity...that was another thing entirely. At least in Egypt it had been hot and dry.

Slightly interested, he passed his hand over the barrier again, back into the original forest he'd come from. His hand felt perfectly fine, even a bit cool, but as soon as it crossed over the invisible "line" between the two forests, it became hot and muggy once more.

"Odd," Kaeru murmured, raising an eyebrow. "The air stays in it's own boundaries. Humidity doesn't cross over into that other forest." He shook his head, sighing. "This place is very strange."

Ah, but enough of that. He turned and headed into this new forest--a rainforest, he decided--once again scanning for any traces of a Judgement Orb shard.

It was after he had been walking for several minutes that he stepped into a sudden clearing. He blinked in surprise momentarily; he hadn't even seen the clearing, and here he was in it. This place couldn't get weirder...But that thought stopped in his tracks as he stared at what was housed in the clearing.

"Hello, what's this?" the ancient spirit mused, cocking his head quizzically in interest. There, sitting before him, were the ancient ruins of what had most likely been a temple at some point in time. It had an air of the ancient Aztec or Myan ruins, with it's different colors and structures, and altogether it attracted the attention of the tomb robber standing only yards from it.

"Interesting," Kaeru murmured, a grin growing on his face, before moving forward towards the entrance to the ruins. "Let's see if you're hiding any pretty blue shards, shall we?"

* * * * *

Kawari tracked over the plains with pure determination, looking this way and that for the glittering bits of the Judgement Orb with his sharp, detail-oriented eyes. He'd found one piece so far, lodged in a mound of dirt that had been mysteriously piled up in the middle of the fields, something that had not been at all that hard to notice--or at least for him. Unfortunately, he had the feeling that he'd chosen a bad climate to start in; the grasslands just didn't seem to have any of those annoying hiding places the shards seemed to love, and he had a feeling he was wasting his time.

Slightly irritated, Kawari turned to head to the next climate, the Ring banging against his chest as he moved and reminding him of the bet he was in with his yami. Vaguely he wondered how many pieces his darker half had, then grew more determined.

There's no way I'm letting him defeat me in a Challenge like this, the Negative Ryou told himself confidently. I'll find a way to get more shards than he does. He grinned to himself slightly, staring down at the Ring, before he suddenly blinked.

Waiiiiit a second...the Ring! I wonder if I can find the pieces with it...well, there was nothing to be lost by trying, he decided. Lifting the Ring in his gloved hand, he concentrated as his yami had taught him and brought together the powers of the Ring.

"Show me where the next Judgement Orb shard is," he commanded, speaking clearly and with a tone of business in his voice. He'd long since learned that the Ring was much like a person; if you didn't sound like you were in charge, it wasn't going to plan on doing what you said. You had to be firm with it.

The Ring shivered momentarily, and one of it's pointers attempted to raise feebly, but it did nothing. Kawari blinked momentarily before recalling that the Ring was not made for finding Judgement Orb shards, but other Millennium Items, and therefore it was having trouble. Shrugging, the white haired Negative drew his first Orb piece from his pocket, holding it close to the Ring as if offering to let it learn the magical signature the shards gave off.

It worked. After a few seconds, the Ring's pointer raised and aimed with confidence towards Kawari's left. The teen turned, trotted in the indicated direction, and within the span of a few minutes had dug another piece from the ground and had added it to his collection. Now he had two.

Smirking slightly, Kawari asked the Ring, "Any others here?" the item did not respond with the raising of it's pointers, so the teen assumed that was a 'no.'

"Right, then," the opposite Ryou murmured, shrugging. "To the next climate." Turning, he walked quickly out of the heart of the plain, towards the next portion of land--the snowstormy arctic.

He grimaced slightly as he approached the next climate. He was standing on the border, yet strangely enough, he couldn't feel the cold of the biting wind or snow, though he felt sure he should have. Frowning slightly, Kawari asked the Ring, "Is there one in there?"

In reply, all five pointers rose, straining as if trying to tear themselves from the Ring they were bound to in order to locate the shard in question.

Kawari sighed. "I was afraid of that," he muttered dully. "Well, I suppose it can't be helped." He grimaced. "I'll just have to get in and out real quick before I freeze."

This said and determination flaring, Kawari took a final deep, preparing breath, zipped his leather jacket closed, and dove into the raging blizzard after the shards of the Judgement Orb.

* * * * *

Mokuba stopped for a rest back at the oasis, but he could not hide the feeling of success that he now held with him. Reaching into his pockets, he pulled out the second shard piece that he had found out on the sands and grinned.

The find had been completely by accident, he knew that, but that fact didn't dampen his spirits in any way. He'd seen the reflection the shard created, the harsh sun beating down on it, and had rushed out to the middle of the sandy grounds in order to claim it. A find was a find, and that meant they were one step closer to passing this Challenge and getting the Realm Scroll of Hatred.

Taking a final deep breath, he pulled himself up onto his feet from where he'd been leaning against one of the stunted trees of the oasis. Grinning broadly, he replaced the second shard safely in his pocket and began to walk out into the desert sands once more, looking ready for anything as he began the search for a third piece of the Orb.

* * * * *

As soon as he crossed the barrier, the bitter, stinging cold began to rip at Kawari, blasting his face cruelly and digging through his clothing to attack his very flesh. The sudden transfer from warmth to freezing cold shocked him momentarily, and he froze in his tracks, gloved hand up to protect his face from the lashing flurries of snow.

Damnit, he thought to himself, grimacing at the cold, so this wasn't one of my brighter moves...

Instantly shivering and trying to shrink into his coat more, he started off slowly in the direction the Millennium Ring indicated, plowing his way through the feet of piled up snow. His hair whipped around his face, blending in with the furious snow due to it's silver-white color, and he could barely see a foot in front of himself. He could, however, focus on the Ring's glow, and followed it faithfully, knowing it would not let him down.

After a good ten minutes of slugging through the hard, packed snow, the Ring's pointers dropped suddenly, the item coming to rest back on his chest. Sighing in growing exhaustion, the white-haired teen dropped to his knees, hurriedly pulling out Gin Hebi to dig at the piled snow--he felt his hands would literally freeze if he tried to use them to dig instead.

It took another ten minutes to free the shard, time that sapped the Negative Ryou's strength dangerously, but he was completely devoted to his task and succeeded. He pulled the blue, glittering shard free of it's snowy prison, smiled faintly, and then placed it in his pouch next to the two others he'd found in the grasslands. Then, struggling to his feet, he wearily asked the Ring once more: "Are there any other Shards here?"

The Ring answered him instantly, pointers rising and indicating a direction off to his right. Grimacing once again, Kawari pulled his collar higher around his neck and trudged off through the snow again.

His exhaustion showed in his search; it took the better part of twenty minutes to locate the shard, and another fifteen to free it. His hands were shaking and turning blue by that point, and his un-gloved hand had begun to go numb. He knew, both rationally and instinctively, that he had to get out of these cold conditions, or things wouldn't look so good for him.

Huddling even further into his coat, he murmured softly to the Ring, "Which way do I go?"

The Ring, almost sensing its master's distress, lifted gently and indicated with it's right-sided pointers which way to move. Stumbling in fatigue, Kawari lurched off in that direction, head down against the cold and the biting wind and arms wrapped around him for what little warmth they could give.

He felt like he had walked for ages before taking a hurried glance up, risking exposing his face to the wind. He blinked in surprise at what he saw; he was barely five steps from the barrier that separated the blizzard climate from one of it's neighbors, although it wasn't' the grasslands he had entered from to begin with; he was facing the canyon zone, it's reddish-brown stone hardened in the harsh light that beat down on it.

Kawari didn't care where it came out, so long as he got out of that gods-damned blizzard. Stumbling wildly, he broke through the barrier, the blessed warmth washing over him before he collapsed on the warm stone to lay there silently.

* * * * *

Kaeru dived aside as the latest trap within the temple was triggered, sending boulders, stones, and various debris crashing down from the ceiling above him. Grimacing, he rubbed his shoulder where he'd been unfortunate enough to be struck, silently thanking the gods that it wasn't his head. Sure, he couldn't die, but his physical body could, and it's death still remained extremely painful.

Once the last of the debris had finished falling and the dust had cleared, the tomb robber stepped over them, coming to stand by the trigger that had set it all falling. Leaning close, he studied it momentarily, a little surprised at how cunningly it had been hidden, even from himself. He made a mental note to search out similar triggers in the future, then turned and continued on down the hall, musing.

The temple seemed to have an abundance of traps, he had discovered fairly quickly. Most of them he had been able to avoid or remove, but a few had been so cleverly placed that even he could not find them, and they had nearly taken the existence of his physical body as a result. It was a dangerous temple that he doubted anybody but himself and a few choice others would have been able to enter and leave still living.

On the other hand, the temple seemed to be a gold mine. Every room he'd passed had been full of ornately carved golden jewelry, tableware, ornaments, and other items; it was only thinking rationally and telling himself that the items would be completely gone when he left the mental Realm that kept him from placing a few of the best pieces in his pockets as he passed.

He'd already found a third Orb shard in here, too, glittering innocently just beyond one of the traps that had been laid. He'd managed to render the trap useless before taking the shard, and it now rested easily next to it's two companions inside his pouch.

Still thinking to himself, he passed yet another room heaped with gold, this time ancient weapons with golden hilts and studded with jewels. This time as he passed, however, he suddenly stopped, blinked in surprise, and backed up, entering the room with interest.

He'd thought he'd seen something unusual in the room, he realized after a few seconds, but now he wasn't so sure. There was nothing more than a pile of gold, studded here and there occasionally with rare gems that he could tell were worth quite a lot, even on quick observation.

He blinked and frowned again, staring at the gems. Something wasn't quite right about one of them...

He suddenly broke into a grin, bending down to pull one from the pile, smirking at the small Judgement Orb shard in his hand. "Thought you could hide, did you?" he asked the air conversationally, placing the fourth shard in the pouch at his side. "It's not that easy to hide from a tomb robber, you know." Turning, he exited the room.

"Let's see what the rest of this place has to hide..."

* * * * *

Kawari laid still on the warm stone ground for several minutes quietly, simply resting and regaining his strength. He could feel the warmth beginning to work its way into his hands again, with the blue tint of his skin slowly fading away into it's usual pale color. His exhaustion was creeping away as well--he'd always been a quick recoverer--and in a few minutes he pulled himself gingerly to a kneel and stared around at the new portion he'd stumbled into, rubbing his hands.

It was a canyon, all right, and he appeared to be in the bottom of it, at the base of the tall, rocky cliffs that towered over him. It was pleasantly warm, but as far as the eye went, everything was one, solid, bland color--brownish-red.

Kawari frowned slightly, then shrugged, pulling himself to his feet and steadying himself when he swayed a bit. He took a few moments to regain his balance, then slowly started off around the canyon bottom, looking around with interest for the shards--they should stand out decently well here, what with their bright blue color.

He was right. Ten minutes later, another shard had been added to his collection, bringing his total number of Judgement Orb shards up to five. Grinning mischievously, he glanced about himself, looking around the canyon for other telltale signs of an Orb piece.

He didn't see any, however, and frowned slightly. "It can't be that hard to locate on here. It's blue, after all, and they stand out really well...I saw that myself. At the very least I'd see some sort of light reflection. So...where the heck is it?"

The answer came rather unexpectedly, for it appeared that the Millennium Ring had interpreted this question as an order. Wearily, as though it had been through too much work, the Ring's middle pointer rose and indicated unceremoniously upwards, somewhere high up on the cliff.

Kawari blinked in surprise at the Ring's movement, then shrugged and looked up at where his Item pointed. "The ledge up there?" As if in response, the pointer dropped moodily, no longer bothering to indicate where the shard piece was if its master knew.

The Negative Ryou grimaced. "Damn...that's pretty high up." He sighed, then stepped forward to the cliff side, grasping a pair of handholds and beginning the climb.

The accent was fairly easy; to begin with, there were large handholds that he could easily grab, and for another, he was fairly light and could move up without much trouble, as he had pointed out to Mokuba earlier. He shot up skillfully, pushing himself up with his legs, pulling himself up with his hands if the need came, performing more difficult skills such as hop-skipping from one foothold to the next or switching his hands and feet around to open up new holds. Always he stayed close to the rock face, knowing that if he even began to lean back, he would peel right off the cliff and fall-something he could not afford without proper climbing equipment.

After a good fifteen minutes of climbing, he stopped to take a break, leaning in close to the wall and panting slightly from the speedy climb. Looking over his shoulder slightly, he realized he was close to seventy-five feet up, and grimaced slightly at what might happen should he suddenly loose his holds and fall.

He was about to continue his accent--the ledge was only twenty five feet or so above him, now--but something stopped him. He supposed it was instinct, though were it came from he'd had no idea--perhaps it was one of those qualities he had inherited from his yami. Whatever it was, it kept him from moving upward--for he had the strange suspicion that there was something about twenty feet to his left that would be of great importance to him.

Logic screamed at him to ignore the instinct, to not risk traversing across the rock face on a hunch that might turn out to be false. It isn't safe, it's dangerous, you could fall, moving across is more difficult than moving up or down...Nevertheless, despite these very obvious things raging inside his mind, Kawari set his jaw and slowly began the sideways movement towards where his instinct led him.

It took a good, slow-paced ten minutes for him to succeed--much of the rock was weathered and some of the holds were not safe to grasp--but he reached where his mind told him to go and stopped, clinging to the cliff face and staring at the spot in confusion. Nothing was there...unless...

Maneuvering a bit so that he could stay on the face with only one hand and both feet, Kawari reached inside his coat and pulled out a blade. Not Gin Hebi; he didn't want to ruin his precious dirk with rock work--this was a standard knife, the same one Kaeru had used earlier, in fact. Carefully, the white-haired teen scraped at some of the loose rock in the spot his instincts had led him to, hoping it might uncover something...

It did. After several minutes of makeshift digging, Kawari unearthed a gleam of shining blue, a shard that had miraculously been buried in the cliff wall. Grinning to himself slightly, Kawari tightened his grip on both the handhold and his knife, digging further into the rock face to completely free the shard.

It was almost free, with just a small section of it still trapped within the rock, when the opposite Ryou's war-trained instincts screamed at him again. Falling!

He registered the thought only seconds before he felt a stomach-wrenching lurch, and then the handhold he had been using to hold himself to the rock wall snapped, broke, and crumbled away from him, leaving him unsuspended seventy five feet above rocky ground.

* * * * *

Mokuba kicked at the sandy ground moodily, annoyed. He hadn't found another Orb shard in a while, and it was starting to anger him; he felt useless in this Challenge already, having been put into it with two people who were far superior in this type of skill than he was.

He sighed to himself, attempting to be more optimistic. At least I have two pieces, he reminded himself, pulling the glittering blue shards from his pocket to stare at them. They glittered innocently in the harsh sun, but it was almost like they were mocking him.

Furious, he kicked at the ground again, sending sand in all directions in little glittering waves.

Wait...glittering?

Startled, he dived forward, coming to his knees on the soft sand and pawing at the ground. It took him five minutes, sifting through the sand carefully, but his work rewarded him...he soon found a third shard sitting on the ground, gleaming just like its two partners in Mokuba's hands.

The black haired boy grinned. A lucky shot there, but as long as he had the shard...

Another one down...

* * * * *

Kaeru smirked as he approached a table near the end of one of the rooms in the temple, on which was perched a glittering shard of the Judgement Orb. It hadn't been all that difficult to track down, once he'd discovered where to look; it was just a simple matter of narrowing down where he'd been in the temple and where he hadn't.

Now, he neared the last shard that could be found in the temple, grinning slightly. He reached out his hand for it, prepared to put it away in the pouch at his side with the other four...and withdrew his hand suddenly on pure instinct as a knife came thudding down where his fingers had been a moment before.

But there were no traps, I'm positive of that! the tomb robber thought to himself, leaping back instinctively. Another possibility came to his head. It must have been a magical ward...

He slipped left hurriedly as another knife came raining down from the ceiling above, barely missing being cleaved through the head. From there, it was as if the ceiling had opened up and began pouring knives; Kaeru was forced to duck, dodge, roll, and weave wildly to avoid the blades. Cuts soon populated his skin, though most of them were shallow and did not bleed badly. They would, however, slow him down, and he knew he needed to get out of there quickly.

Dashing wildly to his left, he zigzagged between the falling trap blades and reached out completely at random for the shard still sitting innocently on the table at the end of the room. Amazingly, he grabbed it, holding it tightly in his hand and pulling his arm back so that it was not an open target for the falling blades; then, still dodging crazily, he ran for the closest doorway he could reach, diving headlong into it and running non-stop out of the room.

He found himself in a hallway. Not hesitating, he tore down the length of it, not sure what other traps may have been triggered by that magical ward; those always tended to have more than one catch, and most of them were unforeseen. He needed to get out of that temple, and quick.

He reached the end of the hallway rather suddenly and dived out into the forest quickly, thanking Ra that he'd gotten out of there in time. He was only too soon; as he turned, the entire ruin collapsed behind him, crushing everything within it. Had he still been in there, he, too, would have been nothing more than a crushed yami spirit, body dying slowly until it could return to the Ring. He grimaced at that picture in his head and shook it out with an angry growl.

Still irritated, and also somewhat relieved, the tomb robber stared down at the innocent little shard still clasped in his hand. He frowned at it before stuffing it in the pouch with his four other pieces and beginning to walk away from the temple clearing.

He was sure he'd exhausted the shards that had been hidden in the forest area completely; he had five of them, after all, and it didn't seem that there would be any more in this one area.

Thinking to himself softly, he finally muttered out loud, "I suppose it's time to check out a new climate zone." This seemed like a good idea, so without hesitation he turned to his left and began threading through the gigantic trees towards where he knew another climate was located: the ocean.

* * * * *

Kawari gave a wild yell of dismayed surprise as his hand came loose from the wall, and with nothing to hold him up, he began to fall, plummeting backwards towards the ground below. His mind had a moment of shock, in which everything seemed to freeze for the white-haired teenager, but after a few seconds of this thoughtless falling his training snapped to work and he took action.

The knife was still in his hand; he hadn't dropped it, for which he was grateful. Working quickly, he reared the blade back and jammed it into the soft rock, sending it deep into the cliff face and effectively creating a handhold. He gripped it for all he was worth as he came to a sudden stop, then scrabbled hurriedly for another handhold and places for his feet as well. He found them in a matter of seconds--it was life or death, after all--and spent a full two minutes just clinging to the wall, panting hard.

Okay, so that was definitely scary, he thought to himself, eyes still wide from the fall. His limbs were trembling, both from the sudden terror and shock of the fall, as well as the immense physical action that had been taken in order to save himself. Nevertheless, he stayed on the cliff face expertly, giving himself a few minutes to calm down before he returned to his task--because as scary as it had been he needed that Judgement Orb shard.

Once he judged himself able to continue, Kawari slowly and carefully began to climb back up, regaining the height he'd lost when he fell. This time, he tested each hand or foothold carefully before using it; he wasn't a fool, and never made the same mistake twice.

He made it back to his original position quickly, and found himself staring at the little shard that had caused him so much trouble. He was glad he had managed to nearly dig it out to begin with, and used his knife simply to lever the shard out of it's hole in the rock; after a few moments of maneuvering, he was able to snatch the bluish piece with one of his hands and stuff it into the pouch at his side.

Now for the other shard that the Ring indicated, Kawari thought to himself, beginning to traverse back to his original climb so that he could continue up towards the ledge that had been his goal in the first place. Once I get it, that'll be seven shards...not bad.

The climb up was fairly easy after what he'd been through; it was simple and straightforward, all the handholds strong and easy to grip. The only difficult part, Kawari realized after a moment, would be the overhang that the ledge happened to be a part of.

The overhang cast a shadow over the Negative Ryou as he climbed, stretching out over him--not too far, but enough so that it would be no simple matter of pulling himself over to the ledge.

Yet despite the difficulty level, Kawari could not help but grin. He always loved a challenge; anything that was supposedly difficult (and in some cases carried a certain amount of risk with them) was something he was positively dying to try. This overhang would be tricky, of course, and there was no denying the danger that it presented, but all the same the Negative was rather looking forward to it.

Technique and strategy, he mused, were really the key to getting over such an obstacle, and as soon as he reached the rock jutting out above him he began to use both. Walking his hands out as far as he could on the underside of the overhang while keeping his feet planted firmly on the vertical wall, he stretched himself thin, still keeping his body as flat to the surface as possible. He chuckled as he realized he was now upside-down, one hundred feet above the air, with no harnessing equipment--just about everybody at the Opposition, his yami included, would call him positively insane.

His feet came next. He walked those out as well on the holds that he could find until he reached the edge of the overhang that lead up to the top of it. Swinging one of his legs over quickly, he used it as a hook to hold himself up, throwing his hands over and half pulling, half rolling himself on top of the ledge.

"There," he said, looking bored, "that was easy enough." He chuckled slightly, taking a quick break while looking around for the shard on top of the platform-like ledge.

And there it was, gleaming in the sunlight and sitting safely in the middle of the ledge. Grinning triumphantly, he added it to his collection, patting the seven shards through the cloth of the pouch before swinging his legs over the side of the ledge and sitting.

He gazed out over the landscape with interest; he could see very far, being at the highest point in this strange mental Realm with no landmarks above him. He could easily see that the different climate zones were spread out like wide squares all over the place, in various, random patterns that didn't seem to make sense. The desert seemed to be the center zone, with the others branching off in all directions as far as the eye could see in any direction.

"Weird," he muttered, blinking slightly. He'd never thought he'd see a blizzard-strewn arctic sitting right next to blazing, sandy Egypt, after all...

And speaking of that blizzard...he did not want to go through that arctic zone again. The cold had nearly struck him down, and he knew that it would be unsafe to go through there again without any of the supplies. Blinking, he stared down at the layout of the land, quickly selecting a path that would go around the arctic climate, cut through what appeared to be savanah, and enter the grasslands that he had started in. From there, he reasoned, he should probably check back with the others in the desert zone and see how they were doing...and, of course, see how many shards his yami had.

Grinning slightly, Kawari stood up, moved towards the cliff wall, and began his decent down so that he could return and see how his competition was coming along.

* * * * *

Kaeru stared glumly at the crashing waves of the ocean, fingering his six shard in his hands absent-mindedly while wondering how on earth he was going to get the seventh on from it's current position. It was going to be difficult, for the shard had decided to hide in the water, and although he knew quite well it's location, getting it out of there was going to be a problem.

The ocean seemed to have a tropical touch to it; the water was clear and sparkling by ocean standards, and there were even a few reefs skirting the coast, colorful and almost pretty.

That, however, was the problem. While Kaeru had been able to find the sixth shard when it washed up on the shoreline, the seventh, he could see, was lodged deep between two of the coral structures some distance out. It caught the light almost beautifully and reflected it in such a way that it was almost impossible to miss seeing it, even from Kaeru's distance. But how on earth was he supposed to get out to the reef to get the seventh shard?

Swim, I suppose, Kaeru thought dully. He wasn't exactly looking forward to it, however--while he did know how to swim, he didn't particularly enjoy it. Oh well; he'd just have to deal with it.

He removed his jacket, and then the shard pouch from his belt, and dropped them onto the shore where the water would not wash them away, fighting the impulse to bury the pouch for safekeeping--there was no one there who would actually steal it from him, after all, since he doubted Mokuba or even Kawari would. Grimacing, he waded into the water, slightly surprised at how warm it was.

He walked out up to his neck, the baggy clothing his aibou--and therefore he--wore billowing in the water, and his white hair floating out behind him softly. Looking slightly annoyed now, he kicked off from the ocean bottom and swam forward, moving as quickly as possible to get it over with.

Reaching the reef was not too difficult; the only hard part was fighting the waves as they crashed forward, attempting to push him back to the shore, or worse, to push him under the water. He was able to push past them, however, and after a good fifteen minutes of swimming he had reached the calmer ocean surface. Five more minutes after that, he was at the reef, treading water as he tried to find the shard again.

There...he'd spotted it once more, thanks to it's light reflection; he was actually quite close to it. Kicking again, he swam forward until he was swimming almost over it...and that was when he discovered that the shard was quite far down in the water.

"Damnit," the spirit growled, ignoring the salty taste of the water as it got into his mouth. He'd have to dive, now, something he looked forward to even less than swimming.

Sighing, he took one last breath, then plunged under the surface, kicking downward hurriedly. His strong arms pushed him down still further, and he shot down fairly quickly. Within twenty seconds or so, he had reached the level of the reef that the shard was nestled in gently.

Grimacing, even underwater, the spirit lunged his hand between the two coral structures, grasping at the shard. The sharp coral edges cut his hand, and blood floated in a daze out of it, but he didn't care; he could feel the pressures of running out of air now, and he wanted to get out of there quickly.

At last, he snatched the shard into his hand, holding it tightly to ensure that he wouldn't drop it, and pulled it free from between the corals, spilling more of his own blood in the process. Far past caring, he kicked off against the coral, rocketing himself upward towards the blessed air that his physical body needed as fast as possible...

He broke the surface in a rush, gasping for breath and spitting out the salty water in his mouth. After several seconds of simply breathing and treading water, he raised the hand still holding the shard and stared at the piece he had just recovered.

"Number seven," he hissed, sounding amused. "And what trouble you caused, too." Growling a bit in annoyance, he began the swim back to the shore, this time allowing the powerful waves to aid him in getting to the sandy banks.

As soon as he trudged up onto the beach, he wrung out his hair and clothing, still looking rather irritable. Once he was at least not dripping wet, he shrugged on his jacket again, then picked up the pouch and placed his seventh shard inside it, making sure the others were all still there (another instinctive habit that had not left him as a tomb robber).

He thought carefully for a moment about his next move, absent-mindedly fingering the shard pieces through the pouch at his side as he did so. He wasn't sure where to go next to get an Orb shard, but then again he didn't know how many shards the others had, either. For all he knew, they could have all been collected by now, or there still could be ten out there waiting to be discovered.

Sighing, he almost unconsciously walked towards the desert zone, still fingering the shard pouch as he did so. Maybe he should try to find the other two, though Ra knew where they were--there were too many climate zones to choose from, and they could be in any one.

He was spared this particular search, however, as he crossed into the desert border. Several hundred yards away from him, next to the oasis, he thought he could just barely make out the shape of his aibou, and next to him a shorter shape that had to be Mokuba.

How fortunate, he thought to himself, somewhat dryly, as he paced forward, taking his time about his movement. Ten minutes later, and he was striding into the oasis to come to a stand next to his lighter half, smirking slightly.

"So, you two decided to do the same thing, did you?" he asked conversationally, still fingering the pouch, which both of the other two noted with sharp eyes. "Coming back here, at any rate?"

"Pretty much," Kawari answered, the competitive glint in his eyes still strong. "Decided I'd better check up on how many shards you guys had before I went searching more."

"Great minds think alike," Kaeru replied, smirking a bit in his own competitive expression. "So tell me, how many shards did you manage to get?"

Kawari raised an eyebrow and shot back, "How many did you get?"

There was silence for a moment, and then both opened their mouths and spoke at the same time. "Seven." Another silence, and then...

"What?!" they both yelped at the same time, looking startled. "No way!"

Mokuba rolled his eyes as they broke into a competitive argument, sighing and waiting impatiently for it to finish.

"But there's 17 total, that's an odd number, one of us should have more!" Kawari hissed, sounding annoyed.

The black-haired teen at their side coughed loudly to gain attention, and then spoke. "You forgot about me. I have three shards."

Another silence followed, which in turn was followed by an equally loud outburst from both sides.

"That's completely unfair! One of us should have beaten the other!"

"By Ra, it ended in a gods-damned tie?!"

Mokuba sighed and yelled over their arguing voices; these guys were getting a bit too competitive now, and were loosing focus on the matter at hand. "Guys? We have all seventeen shards! Let's put the Judgement Orb back together and just finish this Challenge up...we need to get back to the others at the mansion, remember?"
Kaeru and Kawari both looked a bit irritable, but finally nodded, shaking on the matter. "A tie," the spirit said, a bit forcefully, to which Kawari nodded again and stayed silent.

Mokuba grinned slightly; this was almost funny to watch. There was no doubt about it that Kawari was Kaeru's reincarnation. "Okay," he said hurriedly, taking out his three shard pieces, "here are mine. What about yours?"

Kawari pulled a pouch from his belt and dumped out seven pieces into the palm of his hand, Kaeru doing much the same with his own seven pieces. "Here."

"Okay...so now it's just like a puzzle, right? We just need to put it back together..." Grinning slightly, Mokuba picked up two pieces at random to see if they would fit together and immediately started the Orb puzzle.

"A puzzle, yes," Kaeru said, rather dryly. "Too bad we don't have Yugi with us, or this would be a snap."

The Orb, however, was not that difficult to fit back together, and only took twenty minutes or so, with each of them kneeling around the pile of pieces and slowly fitting them back into their original positions. When two pieces were joined, the crack seemed to melt away, forming it into one again, and soon they had nearly the entire Orb reassembled perfectly, without a scratch on it.

"Here's the last piece," Mokuba proclaimed, taking up the final glittering shard and fitting it into place. It melted into the hole that waited for it, the cracks disappearing as had all the others; the Judgement Orb then flashed once, blindingly brightly, until all they could see was white.

When the light cleared, they found themselves standing once again around the display case for the Scroll of Hatred. Momentarily startled, they blinked around at each other before Mokuba asked softly, "Did...we beat it?"

As if to answer, the voice came once again, stating humbly the exact same phrase its last three brother guardians had said. "I AM DEFEATED."

"Does that answer your question?" Kaeru asked, laughing slightly--though quietly.

Kawari grinned as well, but then the smile faded as he looked around him hurriedly. "We need to get out of here, Kaeru," he murmured, glancing at the Scroll of Hatred in it's case. Understanding, Kaeru nodded, removing the Scroll gently and with respect, while Kawari replaced it with the copy Scroll to ease the suspicions of the museum officials.

Mokuba watched in silence, observing the scene quietly, but then his communicator beeped once more and he hastily opened the connection to speak. "Yeah, Big Brother?"

"You guys okay in there?" one of the Kaibas asked, sounding slightly worried. "You've been in there for a while."

Mokuba grinned, even though his brother couldn't see the expression. "We're fine, Seto," he murmured softly, but with an excited manner. "We just got the Scroll of Hatred!"

"You passed the Challenge and everything?"

"Yeah...just finished." Mokuba was quite pleased, and it showed in his voice.

Kawari had been listening to the conversation on his own ear piece, and added calmly, "Give us an hour to reset all the security we messed with, and we'll be out. See you then."

"Right." The link clicked off, and the trio of thieves, having reset the display case to the way they had found it, turned and left the silent, shadowy wing of the museum behind.

* * * * *

An hour and a half later back in Kaiba's mansion, the entire Scroll-hunting group of twelve had reassembled once more and was gathered in the gigantic library that had seemed to become their unofficial meeting place. Kawari, Kaeru, Kaze, Mokuba, and Kaiba had only just returned; they'd come back to find most of the group asleep, but with a few "sleep guards" set up to wait for them (Saguru had, without a doubt, enforced this idea). Now, however, the entire group was wide awake and ready to listen to the tales of the three that had been in the theft team.

Grinning, the trio had told of their latest adventure, going through the details of both the theft and the Challenge with great enthusiasm. When they reached the end of the tale, Kaeru took out the newest addition to the Realm Scroll collection and showed it to the others calmly, almost as if to prove what they had done was real; then, quite calmly he removed the latest verse that would lead to the next Realm Scroll and handed the magical item to their keeper, Kaze.

Kaeru read the verse to himself, slowly, one, two times, as the others looked on with barely controlled impatience. His frown deepened by the second as he read, and then, very quietly, he murmured, "I hate to say it, but...I think we have a problem."

* * * * *

HCG: AND...it is finished. And HOLY CARPS was that long...OO;;;

Kawari:...'Holy carps?'

HCG: ¬_¬;; Do not insult my expressions...*smirk* "Mate."

Kawari: -_-; You know perfectly well I don't use those expressions. I haven't lived in England in AGES.

HCG: I know, but it's so fun to make fun of you for it ^^ Who could imagine Kawari saying "Mate" or "Great Scott," after all?

Saguru: O_o not many...

Kawari: -_-;; You're not helping

Saguru: *sweatdrop* ^^;;

HCG: Anyway. For the sake of keeping this as short as possible...TO THE REVIEW RESPONSES! And note, I only responded to a few who asked big questions or did something in their review in particular that I liked, because, to be frank--there's just too many now to reply to nearly all of you *sweatdrop* ^^; which I suppose is a good thing for me...anyway:

Linchi ~ A goddess and a demon in one person, eh? Well...don't think I've heard a description quite like that one before ^^;; At least you didn't' have to wait TOO long after reviewing. Hope you enjoyed!

Amiasha Ruri ~ Wow, you submitted a lot of reviews in one, and I liked them all--you put lots of detail into yours ^^ Authoresses love that! Anyway...glad you like Negative Chaos, hope you enjoyed this new chappie too!

Ebony Kuroneko ~HAH, now you can't muse-nap NR Yami, 'cause I updated! ^^ Or Kaeru...although I doubt you'd be able to budge him...he's a stubborn one...^^;; Hee hee...

Chikara Takashi ~ Invited Saguru for you; unfortunately, due to the fact that I was trying to get this chapter UP, he didn't do much..*grimace* Sorry.

LavenderAlana, Kyra and Kazura ~ A...quiz? Oo;;;;;

Aisu Hoshino ~ Ooh, long review from you. Let's see here..*sweatdrop* Hope I crammed enough into this chappie to keep you amused...Xx;;; eh heh...as for Tristan's name, well, I always thought it was "Tristen" but meh, I'll change it. I'm not particular. And as for laughing 'historically' yeah, that was meant to be hysterically...*cough* I typo a lot late at night ^^;; And I didn't catch it until two days after I'd posted, like most things I do...anyway, hope you enjoyed!

Ancient Enchantress ~ Yeah, NR Cecilia is alive...heh heh, yeah, not much of a psycho fruitcake, but he has his moments ^^;;

LoneWolf16 ~ A long review indeed ^~ Let's see here...some of your questions were answered in this particular chapter, but the ones that weren't answered I'll give you right now. Firstly, "Is Kaze going to be in the next Challenge?" the answer...Well, he wasn't in this one, obviously, but in future chapters perhaps. Kaze hasn't gotten much of a part yet because he plays an amazingly important role later, and I'm trying to give other characters roles while they can get them ^~ Like Mokuba, for example. Now for the others:

1) Technically, Saguru's gun is still loaded, at least in the physical world. He unloaded his gun in a mental Challenge Realm, but seeing as it was all in their heads...it never actually got emptied ^^;;

3) Mai or Pegsy meeting the Negatives? *muse* Probably not, I'm trying to keep the amount of characters in this to a minimum to begin with, and besides, who on earth knows where Pegsy is anyway?

4) Now this was a good question, and I was wondering when somebody'd catch this. No, the SR isn't on "pause," it's building up. My best example is the earthquake analogy; you know how earthquakes have long spans of time when the tension of the plates is just building up, and then suddenly bam, it all releases in a rush? That's what we're looking forward to here, goody goody ^^

5) The NR is panicking; this'll all be answered later though

6) The Scrolls are sorta...all-existent, if you know what I mean. They don't really have a particular area they belong to; they're just THERE and become available when a Realm may need their help. Confusing buggers, them ^^;; This'll get explained later too

7) *cough* SOMEBODY hasn't' been reading. Go see chappie 5 and 6 ^^;;

Finally, on the contest...two months left, so go ahead if you want to...but don't feel forced into it. ^~

Windswift ~ Many reviews from you, too. Thanks for giving nice detailed reviews; they seriously make my day. Then I go hyper. Wheeee!

Silver Dragon Gold Dragon ~ Meh, the riddles aren't as hard to write as it seems....just work backwards ^~ Now I have updated after a long time; you must as well!

Crystal Hikari ~ No, as much as everybody seems to want him to, Negative Realm Yami is NOT coming into this story, beyond the flashbacks or odd sequences that occur (like in Chapter 8 with the fears). He WILL have a big part in the story that follows THIS one, however.

NeoChaosCrystal ~ Yes, reviewer #100, that was you. And thank you for finally returning Kawari; I badly needed him for the completion of this chapter ^^;; As for the convenience of the Scrolls being so near--well, yeah, I considered that at first, but to be frank, the characters don't have enough time to go running all over the world after these Scrolls, and in any case I was just too lazy ^^;; There's a theory that I came up with, in any rate, that backs up this "convenience," but it's coming in the last chapter, so just sit tight until then ^~

Evil Neptune ~ What happened to TR Bakura? Well...you got SOME hints now...but trust me, he'll be coming back into play VERY soon. Heh heh heh...and as for Kawari, yeah, I suppose it is difficult to see Ryou wielding a dirk...although I myself only have trouble imagining the two with the same voice. 'Tis difficult.

Wingleader Sora Jade ~ Wow, I really hope you like the spiffy longness here @_@;; Oh well...one more chapter closer to seeing Kaze in action ^~ And in the meantime, you got to see thief-mode Kaeru and his stealing partner Kawari in action! And in competition! Wheee! Oh, and as for Tristan...yeah...I gave him a part because he never gets to do anything, poor guy ^^;; I pitied him. Just like I pitied Mokuba here. Anyway...*cough*

Daricio ~ *cough* 'Nother long review, not that I mind ^^ I like'em. I think I answered most of your questions in the IM's, but if I missed anything tell me in a review or email and I'll get back to you on it later. ^^;;

HCG: That's it for the review responses...and on a general note, Kawari would like to know what you all have with kidnapping him, seeing as he was actually kidnapped once and was threatened to be kidnapped three other times in various reviews.

Kawari: ¬_¬;; I hate being popular.

HCG: Don't blame you. Anyway. I'm exhausted and I have a HUUUUGE biology test tomorrow, so I must finish up and get moving. So...I apologize for the extreme lateness, I apologize for the extreme longness, I apologize for any grammer/spelling/other mistakes I made in this chapter due to editing at midnight, and I apologize for anything else I may have done that annoyed you *sweatdrop* and I'll see you all later! And have a heart; if you make it through the chapter alive then for god's sake REVIEW!!!!