Chapter Three: Look who else we found!
0730 AM, Monday Morning, Domino High School Auditorium "EXCUSE ME!!" The principal at the microphone had to raise her voice over the sound of the teenagers talking. Then, a short, old lady walked up and blew her whistle into the mike. Everyone covered their ears and was silent.
"Thank you, Sensei." The principal said, into the microphone, as the Sensei walked away. "Students, I have called this assembly today to greet the new students today." Sukayna was sitting behind the principal, her briefcase by her chair. She was braiding the hair of the girl in front of her, who looked about twelve or thirteen. A girl sat across the stage from the two siblings and glared at the back of the principal's head.
"Psst… Kaiba's twin…" Sukayna said, talking to the other girl, who glared at Sukayna so fast, she nearly sprained her neck.
"Don't you dare…" The girl whispered. "I am Crystal Black, from Canada!"
"I'm from good old USA." Sukayna said, in a pacifying tone. "But I was just asking if you'd let me'n my sister go before you do."
"Yeah, of course. but ain't your name Akila? As in, you'd be before me anyway?"
Sukayna shrugged as Crystal was called.
Crystal glared at the principal, who had made the mistake of looking at her directly. "J- just state your n- name, h- how old you are and your f- favorite t- TV show…"
"They go first." Crystal jerked her head at Sukayna and the younger girl.
Sukayna stood up, briskly, done with her sister's hair. She walked to the microphone, reminding people of a cat.
"My name is Akila Sukayna. Call me Akila. My age is 17. I do NOT watch television shows."
Sukayna's sister walked up as Sukayna sat down.
"My name is Akila Tamela," She said, with an American accent, "My age is 13, and I am a sophomore. I take after my sister on the opinion of the television."
Crystal, up until now, had been hidden from the assembly of students, and as she walked up, a mutter whispered through the room, but at Crystal's murderous glare, fell silent.
"I am Crystal Black," She said, ignoring the tradition of saying family names first. "I refuse to be called by any name other than Crystal." She was busy glaring at people in the audience, who seemed to turn to stone. Then, she met Kaiba's eyes, and she involuntarily stiffened. A murmur went through the audience as they realized her as Kaiba's twin. As suddenly as it started, the murmur stopped, and there was a loud silence.
The Principal tried to take advantage of the situation, but crystal glared at her harder than before, and she cowered. "I'm NOT done."
"I strongly dislike any and every person that bears the name," Crystal's glare was roving the audience again and then it came to rest on Kaiba, tripling in intensity. Kaiba glared back as she continued. "Kaiba." No one moved, but amazement was felt everywhere. Slowly, as Crystal walked off of the platform, noise gradually filled the auditorium.
Jou leaned over and whispered to Anzu: "Now, that's what I like in a girl!"
"Why are you telling me?"
0030 AM Tuesday Morning That night, Tamela, a blonde (that looked like she had bleached her hair) with dark brown eyes was sitting on her makeshift bed in Sukayna's apartment, writing in her journal. Sukayna was watching world news, and e-mailing people in the US like crazy off of her laptop. Sukayna sat on the couch, and her black hair, usually penned up in a clip, hung down the sides of her face like rivulets of water from a waterfall. Her face was lit up eerily from her computer screen and the scowl, Tamela knew, was from her losing money in high tech gambling procedures.
The rest of this day has gone comparatively smoothly, although Yugi Motou has not been found.
Tamela sighed and looked at her watch, finding it stopped.
"Its 12:30, Tammie." Sukayna said, typing again. She was more cheerful now. "Do you want the TV off? Nothings gonna happen between now and 6:00 that I don't already know about."
Tamela grinned at her sister, someone who knew what her pauses and sighs meant, and made it possible for her to communicate without breathing. She nodded, and the TV flicked off.
Tamela lay down on the mattress and tried to fall asleep. Eventually, she did.
0040 Tuesday Morning, abandoned warehouse Yugi woke up with a splitting headache, almost a migraine as a cat meowed off to his left. He realized he was gagged and blindfolded, and his hands were cuffed to a pipe behind him.
Suddenly he heard footsteps, light and slow. they stopped three feet away, and Yugi tried to talk through whatever was in his mouth.
"Hello Yugi," said a smooth, even male voice that under normal circumstances Yugi would have trusted. "I trust you enjoyed your stay here?"
Yugi couldn't believe his ears, and he shook his head vigorously.
"No, I won't let you see me, but here, I'll release you from your bondage, just like Malik." Yugi felt rather than saw a flash of light- and was suddenly transported to the Shadow Realm, where he fell over and passed out.
Timeless Sanctuary of the Shadow Realm Yugi woke up, head still aching, and groaned to see that the past wasn't a dream. He really was in the Shadow Realm, which he remembered from some duels he had participated in.
"Well," He said aloud, to himself, "Nothing else to do. I wonder how big this Realm is?" Yugi picked a direction and walked straight ahead.
He walked for a long time, and had thought everything that there was to think about the Shadow Realm, he thought, and then he looked up and watched the shadows above swirl around.
As a result, he did not see the video tape until he had tripped over it and stubbed his right pinkie toe.
"Ouch! Hey, that's that video tape Pegasus gave me." He kept walking, and stupidly enough, started watching the swirls of shadow again.
He tripped over a stump, stubbing all of the rest of his toes. "Ow, ow!! Curses!!! Hey, that stump looks like the one me'n Ryou dueled on that one time… heh, that's weird. There's a light in the distance." Yugi limped off towards it. A short while later, he found that he could run, so he did. When he saw what the light was, he gasped, and the cloaked figure under the tiki torch looked up. "How did that get here?" Yugi asked. The cloaked figure stood up, and his hood fell back, revealing him as Malik.
"Beats me." He said. "All I know is that Hadria imprisoned me as one of the first, and he took my rod!"
"Yeah, I think he may've took my puzzle, too. He broke out of jail on the day I lost it, running from a gang with Ryou."
"I think that either Ryou or my sister, Isis, will be the next to show up," Malik said, flopping down gently. Yugi sat down as well.
"Why?"
"Because that Shadi character, even though he has, what, lets see," Malik started counting on his fingers. "Scales, key, and eye, now."
"What happened to Pegasus?"
"Didn't you hear? someone killed him. Just after that tournament that got you the soul of your grandfather back."
"Oh, that's what happened! We saw his manservant carry him off, but no one told us what happened. And then some crazy idiots in America wrote all these fanfics saying that Pegasus hadn't died, he just went crazy. But he was crazy anyway, so what does that matter? I gotta stop saying the word crazy, or I'll drive myself crazy- gah!!"
Malik smiled and shook his head at the sophomore's antics. "Anyway, even though Shadi has three millennium items, or two, rather, I don't think he's found the millennium eyeball. Whoever killed him took it, see, and Shadi was going to find it, but… and anyway, I keep getting distracted and talking in circles. Shadi is not one that can be caught easily, and even if Hadria has two millennium items, so does Shadi, if not three, and all luck has to be on Hadria's side if he runs into Shadi, who's now checking random people for the eye. Shadi will sense the millennium presence and check him, and guess who's luck will have run out."
Yugi nodded. "Okay, whatever you say."
Malik laughed.
0500 Tuesday, Sukayna's apartment Sariyah came in and yowled, causing Sukayna and Tamela to sit upright with a curse. Since Tamela was closest, she grabbed the alphabet cards and spread them out on the floor.
Sariyah attacked the 'Y' first, then the 'U' then the 'G' then the 'I' Sukayna was already logging onto her desktop and checking the news reels on the television, so Tamela grabbed her journal and her pen and wrote down Sariyah's message so far. Yugi.
Sariyah waited for that to be done, then attacked the 'I' again, and the 'S'. Is.
She furiously attacked the 'I' for the third time, and this time attacked the 'N'. In. 'T', 'H', and 'E' were next. The.
She picked out and dragged away six letters, spelling 'SHADOW' on the floor. When Tamela had that written down, Sariyah dragged around the letters L, E, M, R and A, spelling… "Oh… Sukie!!"
Sukayna looked at the word on the ground, and then at her little sister. "Lets go talk to Ryou, he'd be the next to get caught anyway, and then you and Bakura could go find Yugi. I just heard from Isis that Malik is missing as well, so he might be there. Bring him back if so."
Tamela stood up and nodded. She walked out the door, as the cat Sariyah put the alphabet cards in a pile then jumped onto the futon, where she curled up for sleep.
0530 Tuesday, in front of the Tiger's Den "You want who?" a sleepy boy asked. "I'm looking for Ryou. Hiroto, Katsuya and Anzu said he was with the Tigers, and Sukayna found the traces of e-mails coming from here."
The boy looked scared.
"Don't worry. Most of the stuff she used to find that out was illegal, and she built her machines herself, mostly."
"Okay," The boy said, with a sigh. "I'll go get him."
"Hey, what's your name?"
"Izzy." He said, looking over his shoulder. He typed something into a hidden keypad, and the elevator doors opened. He slid down the rope and the doors closed.
Tamela sat on the desk of the battered foyer, then flipped behind it and squeezed into a cupboard as a group of Fangs came in, in a nasty mood. They put graffiti all over the walls and began shooting at the elevator and the stairway door. Tamela was choking on the fumes from spray paint, and her ears hurt from all the pounding. Suddenly, there was answering gunfire, and the Fangs were driven away. Some other gang came inside- they wore T-shirts with wolves on them.
"D---, look at this crap." One of them said.
"Yo, Izzy, you okay?" One said, pounding at the door, which opened.
"Yeah, Izzy's fine." Said Ryou, looking around.
Tamela wriggled and then realized that the door to the cupboard was stuck.
"Where's that girl who wanted to see me?" Ryou asked.
"In the cupboard…" Tamela said. "Stuck."
All the Wolves jumped, and Ryou walked around to the cupboard, which burst open, and Tamela rolled out.
O
Ryou looked at her, then looked at the cupboard she had just come out of.
"Now, how did you fit in there?" Ryou asked as he helped her up.
She brushed off her tan button shirt and her 'desert camouflage' army pants before she answered.
"I took a class in yoga last year, so I'm very flexible."
"How old are you?"
"13." She sighed. "And I am a sophomore. So don't ask." She smiled. "Me and My sister have a favor to ask you," The Wolves had left, seeing a Fang to go fight. "Bakura."
Ryou raised his eyebrows.
"What does the favor entail?" He asked.
"You heard about the disappearance of Yugi, right?"
"Who hasn't?"
"Did you hear that earlier, Malik Ishtar had been kidnapped?"
"No, I hadn't."
"Okay, keep that in mind, and realize, on the day Yugi lost his Puzzle, and the day before Malik was kidnapped, Five days before Yugi was kidnapped, a cunning murderer and his sister escaped from jail. I don't know how he knew about the millennium items, but perhaps he stumbled across Yugi's puzzle, dropped and lying hidden somewhere.
"This gave him the power to steal the soul of the next person he met, which, luckily for him, happened to be another Millennium Item possessor. He took the Rod, stripped and dumped the body, and his sister made sure to get the body bruised and battered, so that it would look like Malik was beaten into unconsciousness, then stripped of all his gold and jewelry, so that Shadi wouldn't suspect that anything was wrong."
"Okay…" Ryou said, unsure what else to say. "Listen, me and my sister need your help. We need to get into the shadow realm and rescue Yugi's soul. Actually, my sister put me in charge of that, she's going to go find Yugi's unconscious body."
"How would I be able to help you?"
Tamela sighed. This was one oblivious kid.
Timeless Sanctuary of the Shadow Realm:
"Yugi!" Bakura called.
"Yugi!" Tamela said, examining the picture Sukayna had printed out.
The two walked on for a long while, calling Yugi intermittently.
"Hey, look, a light." Bakura said, glancing to the right.
Tamela lifted the binoculars off of her chest and peered through them at the light.
"It's a tiki torch, and there are two figures by it, a cloaked figure and Yugi."
"Who's the cloaked figure?" "Possibly Malik." Tamela said, "But we can't know for sure from here."
"Yugi!" Ryou called, breaking into a run. Tamela rolled her eyes and followed.
"Ryou? What are you doing here?" Yugi was standing by the tiki torch, focusing his eyes on Ryou and Tamela. "And who's she?"
"I am Akila Tamela from the United States."
Hmm... Malik thought, slumped by the base of the tiki torch. I wonder if she has an older sister?
"Hi, I'm Yugi. That was your sister that I dueled, I presume."
"Huh? Oh, yeah. At the tournament, that's right. I wasn't in Japan yet."
"So what did you come here for?" Yugi asked. Malik looked up, absence of jewelry noticeable.
"You."
1200 Tuesday, in front of a dilapidated apartment complex:
"Sukie!" Tamela called, and a head stuck out of a window.
"Be right down!" The head withdrew, and a few minutes later Sukayna opened the front door for Ryou and Tamela. Sukayna wore city fatigues (they're the ones with grey, black, and white splotches) under a grey T-shirt and a karate robe, tied with a karate black belt. "Success already?" Sukayna asked.
"Yeah. I found him."
"And he agreed?"
"Not exactly," Tamela muttered.
Bakura smirked and held up a card with a picture of a very angry, very frustrated looking Yugi on it. Sukayna smiled.
"Look who else we found!" Tamela lifted a card she was holding, showing a picture of a well cloaked, surprised Malik. Sukayna cracked up.
"Here's where he was, but they moved him two suns gone." The Neko-Child Moonlight lounged lazily on a large crate with a blanket on it. She pointed to where a broken pipe and useless handcuffs lay, then sat up and twitched her black tail thoughtfully. "I think I know where he went, but..." Moonlight looked up through her black hair, her ears twitching.
"Hey," Sukayna said. "You have blue eyes!"
"Aren't you trading info a little young?" Neko-Child Sariyah said. "You must be barely adopted!"
"Star is my only mother! She is only eight in human years."
"Star?" A tabby Neko-Girl looked up from where she sat, smelling the manacles. "That's an interesting name."
"An interesting name for an interesting girl - she can hack into computers like nobody's business!" Moonlight grinned in pride. "And all with barely touching a keyboard!"
"Really..." Sukayna said.
.'
0730 AM, Monday Morning, Domino High School Auditorium "EXCUSE ME!!" The principal at the microphone had to raise her voice over the sound of the teenagers talking. Then, a short, old lady walked up and blew her whistle into the mike. Everyone covered their ears and was silent.
"Thank you, Sensei." The principal said, into the microphone, as the Sensei walked away. "Students, I have called this assembly today to greet the new students today." Sukayna was sitting behind the principal, her briefcase by her chair. She was braiding the hair of the girl in front of her, who looked about twelve or thirteen. A girl sat across the stage from the two siblings and glared at the back of the principal's head.
"Psst… Kaiba's twin…" Sukayna said, talking to the other girl, who glared at Sukayna so fast, she nearly sprained her neck.
"Don't you dare…" The girl whispered. "I am Crystal Black, from Canada!"
"I'm from good old USA." Sukayna said, in a pacifying tone. "But I was just asking if you'd let me'n my sister go before you do."
"Yeah, of course. but ain't your name Akila? As in, you'd be before me anyway?"
Sukayna shrugged as Crystal was called.
Crystal glared at the principal, who had made the mistake of looking at her directly. "J- just state your n- name, h- how old you are and your f- favorite t- TV show…"
"They go first." Crystal jerked her head at Sukayna and the younger girl.
Sukayna stood up, briskly, done with her sister's hair. She walked to the microphone, reminding people of a cat.
"My name is Akila Sukayna. Call me Akila. My age is 17. I do NOT watch television shows."
Sukayna's sister walked up as Sukayna sat down.
"My name is Akila Tamela," She said, with an American accent, "My age is 13, and I am a sophomore. I take after my sister on the opinion of the television."
Crystal, up until now, had been hidden from the assembly of students, and as she walked up, a mutter whispered through the room, but at Crystal's murderous glare, fell silent.
"I am Crystal Black," She said, ignoring the tradition of saying family names first. "I refuse to be called by any name other than Crystal." She was busy glaring at people in the audience, who seemed to turn to stone. Then, she met Kaiba's eyes, and she involuntarily stiffened. A murmur went through the audience as they realized her as Kaiba's twin. As suddenly as it started, the murmur stopped, and there was a loud silence.
The Principal tried to take advantage of the situation, but crystal glared at her harder than before, and she cowered. "I'm NOT done."
"I strongly dislike any and every person that bears the name," Crystal's glare was roving the audience again and then it came to rest on Kaiba, tripling in intensity. Kaiba glared back as she continued. "Kaiba." No one moved, but amazement was felt everywhere. Slowly, as Crystal walked off of the platform, noise gradually filled the auditorium.
Jou leaned over and whispered to Anzu: "Now, that's what I like in a girl!"
"Why are you telling me?"
0030 AM Tuesday Morning That night, Tamela, a blonde (that looked like she had bleached her hair) with dark brown eyes was sitting on her makeshift bed in Sukayna's apartment, writing in her journal. Sukayna was watching world news, and e-mailing people in the US like crazy off of her laptop. Sukayna sat on the couch, and her black hair, usually penned up in a clip, hung down the sides of her face like rivulets of water from a waterfall. Her face was lit up eerily from her computer screen and the scowl, Tamela knew, was from her losing money in high tech gambling procedures.
The rest of this day has gone comparatively smoothly, although Yugi Motou has not been found.
Tamela sighed and looked at her watch, finding it stopped.
"Its 12:30, Tammie." Sukayna said, typing again. She was more cheerful now. "Do you want the TV off? Nothings gonna happen between now and 6:00 that I don't already know about."
Tamela grinned at her sister, someone who knew what her pauses and sighs meant, and made it possible for her to communicate without breathing. She nodded, and the TV flicked off.
Tamela lay down on the mattress and tried to fall asleep. Eventually, she did.
0040 Tuesday Morning, abandoned warehouse Yugi woke up with a splitting headache, almost a migraine as a cat meowed off to his left. He realized he was gagged and blindfolded, and his hands were cuffed to a pipe behind him.
Suddenly he heard footsteps, light and slow. they stopped three feet away, and Yugi tried to talk through whatever was in his mouth.
"Hello Yugi," said a smooth, even male voice that under normal circumstances Yugi would have trusted. "I trust you enjoyed your stay here?"
Yugi couldn't believe his ears, and he shook his head vigorously.
"No, I won't let you see me, but here, I'll release you from your bondage, just like Malik." Yugi felt rather than saw a flash of light- and was suddenly transported to the Shadow Realm, where he fell over and passed out.
Timeless Sanctuary of the Shadow Realm Yugi woke up, head still aching, and groaned to see that the past wasn't a dream. He really was in the Shadow Realm, which he remembered from some duels he had participated in.
"Well," He said aloud, to himself, "Nothing else to do. I wonder how big this Realm is?" Yugi picked a direction and walked straight ahead.
He walked for a long time, and had thought everything that there was to think about the Shadow Realm, he thought, and then he looked up and watched the shadows above swirl around.
As a result, he did not see the video tape until he had tripped over it and stubbed his right pinkie toe.
"Ouch! Hey, that's that video tape Pegasus gave me." He kept walking, and stupidly enough, started watching the swirls of shadow again.
He tripped over a stump, stubbing all of the rest of his toes. "Ow, ow!! Curses!!! Hey, that stump looks like the one me'n Ryou dueled on that one time… heh, that's weird. There's a light in the distance." Yugi limped off towards it. A short while later, he found that he could run, so he did. When he saw what the light was, he gasped, and the cloaked figure under the tiki torch looked up. "How did that get here?" Yugi asked. The cloaked figure stood up, and his hood fell back, revealing him as Malik.
"Beats me." He said. "All I know is that Hadria imprisoned me as one of the first, and he took my rod!"
"Yeah, I think he may've took my puzzle, too. He broke out of jail on the day I lost it, running from a gang with Ryou."
"I think that either Ryou or my sister, Isis, will be the next to show up," Malik said, flopping down gently. Yugi sat down as well.
"Why?"
"Because that Shadi character, even though he has, what, lets see," Malik started counting on his fingers. "Scales, key, and eye, now."
"What happened to Pegasus?"
"Didn't you hear? someone killed him. Just after that tournament that got you the soul of your grandfather back."
"Oh, that's what happened! We saw his manservant carry him off, but no one told us what happened. And then some crazy idiots in America wrote all these fanfics saying that Pegasus hadn't died, he just went crazy. But he was crazy anyway, so what does that matter? I gotta stop saying the word crazy, or I'll drive myself crazy- gah!!"
Malik smiled and shook his head at the sophomore's antics. "Anyway, even though Shadi has three millennium items, or two, rather, I don't think he's found the millennium eyeball. Whoever killed him took it, see, and Shadi was going to find it, but… and anyway, I keep getting distracted and talking in circles. Shadi is not one that can be caught easily, and even if Hadria has two millennium items, so does Shadi, if not three, and all luck has to be on Hadria's side if he runs into Shadi, who's now checking random people for the eye. Shadi will sense the millennium presence and check him, and guess who's luck will have run out."
Yugi nodded. "Okay, whatever you say."
Malik laughed.
0500 Tuesday, Sukayna's apartment Sariyah came in and yowled, causing Sukayna and Tamela to sit upright with a curse. Since Tamela was closest, she grabbed the alphabet cards and spread them out on the floor.
Sariyah attacked the 'Y' first, then the 'U' then the 'G' then the 'I' Sukayna was already logging onto her desktop and checking the news reels on the television, so Tamela grabbed her journal and her pen and wrote down Sariyah's message so far. Yugi.
Sariyah waited for that to be done, then attacked the 'I' again, and the 'S'. Is.
She furiously attacked the 'I' for the third time, and this time attacked the 'N'. In. 'T', 'H', and 'E' were next. The.
She picked out and dragged away six letters, spelling 'SHADOW' on the floor. When Tamela had that written down, Sariyah dragged around the letters L, E, M, R and A, spelling… "Oh… Sukie!!"
Sukayna looked at the word on the ground, and then at her little sister. "Lets go talk to Ryou, he'd be the next to get caught anyway, and then you and Bakura could go find Yugi. I just heard from Isis that Malik is missing as well, so he might be there. Bring him back if so."
Tamela stood up and nodded. She walked out the door, as the cat Sariyah put the alphabet cards in a pile then jumped onto the futon, where she curled up for sleep.
0530 Tuesday, in front of the Tiger's Den "You want who?" a sleepy boy asked. "I'm looking for Ryou. Hiroto, Katsuya and Anzu said he was with the Tigers, and Sukayna found the traces of e-mails coming from here."
The boy looked scared.
"Don't worry. Most of the stuff she used to find that out was illegal, and she built her machines herself, mostly."
"Okay," The boy said, with a sigh. "I'll go get him."
"Hey, what's your name?"
"Izzy." He said, looking over his shoulder. He typed something into a hidden keypad, and the elevator doors opened. He slid down the rope and the doors closed.
Tamela sat on the desk of the battered foyer, then flipped behind it and squeezed into a cupboard as a group of Fangs came in, in a nasty mood. They put graffiti all over the walls and began shooting at the elevator and the stairway door. Tamela was choking on the fumes from spray paint, and her ears hurt from all the pounding. Suddenly, there was answering gunfire, and the Fangs were driven away. Some other gang came inside- they wore T-shirts with wolves on them.
"D---, look at this crap." One of them said.
"Yo, Izzy, you okay?" One said, pounding at the door, which opened.
"Yeah, Izzy's fine." Said Ryou, looking around.
Tamela wriggled and then realized that the door to the cupboard was stuck.
"Where's that girl who wanted to see me?" Ryou asked.
"In the cupboard…" Tamela said. "Stuck."
All the Wolves jumped, and Ryou walked around to the cupboard, which burst open, and Tamela rolled out.
O
Ryou looked at her, then looked at the cupboard she had just come out of.
"Now, how did you fit in there?" Ryou asked as he helped her up.
She brushed off her tan button shirt and her 'desert camouflage' army pants before she answered.
"I took a class in yoga last year, so I'm very flexible."
"How old are you?"
"13." She sighed. "And I am a sophomore. So don't ask." She smiled. "Me and My sister have a favor to ask you," The Wolves had left, seeing a Fang to go fight. "Bakura."
Ryou raised his eyebrows.
"What does the favor entail?" He asked.
"You heard about the disappearance of Yugi, right?"
"Who hasn't?"
"Did you hear that earlier, Malik Ishtar had been kidnapped?"
"No, I hadn't."
"Okay, keep that in mind, and realize, on the day Yugi lost his Puzzle, and the day before Malik was kidnapped, Five days before Yugi was kidnapped, a cunning murderer and his sister escaped from jail. I don't know how he knew about the millennium items, but perhaps he stumbled across Yugi's puzzle, dropped and lying hidden somewhere.
"This gave him the power to steal the soul of the next person he met, which, luckily for him, happened to be another Millennium Item possessor. He took the Rod, stripped and dumped the body, and his sister made sure to get the body bruised and battered, so that it would look like Malik was beaten into unconsciousness, then stripped of all his gold and jewelry, so that Shadi wouldn't suspect that anything was wrong."
"Okay…" Ryou said, unsure what else to say. "Listen, me and my sister need your help. We need to get into the shadow realm and rescue Yugi's soul. Actually, my sister put me in charge of that, she's going to go find Yugi's unconscious body."
"How would I be able to help you?"
Tamela sighed. This was one oblivious kid.
Timeless Sanctuary of the Shadow Realm:
"Yugi!" Bakura called.
"Yugi!" Tamela said, examining the picture Sukayna had printed out.
The two walked on for a long while, calling Yugi intermittently.
"Hey, look, a light." Bakura said, glancing to the right.
Tamela lifted the binoculars off of her chest and peered through them at the light.
"It's a tiki torch, and there are two figures by it, a cloaked figure and Yugi."
"Who's the cloaked figure?" "Possibly Malik." Tamela said, "But we can't know for sure from here."
"Yugi!" Ryou called, breaking into a run. Tamela rolled her eyes and followed.
"Ryou? What are you doing here?" Yugi was standing by the tiki torch, focusing his eyes on Ryou and Tamela. "And who's she?"
"I am Akila Tamela from the United States."
Hmm... Malik thought, slumped by the base of the tiki torch. I wonder if she has an older sister?
"Hi, I'm Yugi. That was your sister that I dueled, I presume."
"Huh? Oh, yeah. At the tournament, that's right. I wasn't in Japan yet."
"So what did you come here for?" Yugi asked. Malik looked up, absence of jewelry noticeable.
"You."
1200 Tuesday, in front of a dilapidated apartment complex:
"Sukie!" Tamela called, and a head stuck out of a window.
"Be right down!" The head withdrew, and a few minutes later Sukayna opened the front door for Ryou and Tamela. Sukayna wore city fatigues (they're the ones with grey, black, and white splotches) under a grey T-shirt and a karate robe, tied with a karate black belt. "Success already?" Sukayna asked.
"Yeah. I found him."
"And he agreed?"
"Not exactly," Tamela muttered.
Bakura smirked and held up a card with a picture of a very angry, very frustrated looking Yugi on it. Sukayna smiled.
"Look who else we found!" Tamela lifted a card she was holding, showing a picture of a well cloaked, surprised Malik. Sukayna cracked up.
"Here's where he was, but they moved him two suns gone." The Neko-Child Moonlight lounged lazily on a large crate with a blanket on it. She pointed to where a broken pipe and useless handcuffs lay, then sat up and twitched her black tail thoughtfully. "I think I know where he went, but..." Moonlight looked up through her black hair, her ears twitching.
"Hey," Sukayna said. "You have blue eyes!"
"Aren't you trading info a little young?" Neko-Child Sariyah said. "You must be barely adopted!"
"Star is my only mother! She is only eight in human years."
"Star?" A tabby Neko-Girl looked up from where she sat, smelling the manacles. "That's an interesting name."
"An interesting name for an interesting girl - she can hack into computers like nobody's business!" Moonlight grinned in pride. "And all with barely touching a keyboard!"
"Really..." Sukayna said.
.'