Disclaimer - see chapter 1.

Here we go. Thanks to everyone reading this. Special thanks to Cha Oseye Tempest Thrain for the editing.

Flashbacks

Note: I am using Bakura to refer to Bakura Ryou and Yami Bakura to refer to the Spirit of the Millennium Ring. I know this flies in the face of tradition, but...shrugs

Chapter 4 - The Shadow Games Begin

Pharaoh Atem stalked between the ebon walls of the maze, violet-crimson eyes wary for any movement. The very air seemed dark here, like and unlike the Shadow Realm from which he drew his power. This darkness was hungrier, somehow. More demanding. The walls of stone were cold enough to take the skin from your hand in an instant. He could see his breath forming tiny puffs of white mist. A strange illumination emerged from outside the maze, giving Atem just enough light to see.

Mind perfectly clear and cold, he held his Magic and Wizards deck in one hand, ready. While in this place he could probably summon monsters without it, but using the cards took less concentration and power. Idly he stroked his necklace with the other; the top loop of the Millennium Puzzle on it's silver chain.

'Find the pieces, solve the puzzle, find my hikari…' Like a mantra, the phrases ran through his mind. As long as he had a purpose, he could ignore the emptiness in his heart.

A single flash of claws - that was all the warning he had. Pain ripped through his shoulder and into his arm as he leapt backwards a split-second too late. Warm blood flowed but the Pharaoh ignored it.

"Dark Magician, attack!" he cried. With no one to impress or intimidate, Atem didn't bother with fancy commands or long-winded speeches. In a swirl of purple light, Atem's guardian spirit appeared. The soul of Maahado brought his staff around and lashed at the shadows with his power. A creature of nightmare - not a Duelmonster, but some other organism - screamed and vanished before it could even be readily identified.

The Magician looked back at his master, who simply nodded once. Standing idly on thin air, the Duelmonster watched as Atem flipped through his deck, looking for a certain card…

Before he could find and cast Red Medicine to heal his wound, he felt a cold caress against his shoulder. He gasped as a tendril of deeper darkness snaked out from the wall and latched onto the claw marks.

Cold rushed through him, along with an urge to hurt the demon who had set up himself and his aibou. At the thought of Yugi cold fury filled him again.

Suddenly the darkness spawned more creatures; a round dozen, all of whom had bodies of white flesh and dark, metallic claws. Atem narrowed his eyes and smirked. They were nothing, less than nothing to the power he carried.

Maahado lashed out with his power again, destroying several, but not all of them. The rest attacked the Dark Magician. None were as strong as he, but they still did him damage - pain that Atem felt as though his own body was being rent. Torn beyond endurance, the Magician disappeared back to the strange world where Duelmonsters resided. The Pharaoh loosed a battle cry and pulled another card - "Dark Hole!"

A vortex opened up in the black sky, swallowing all of the creatures. Atem laughed as pure ecstasy rushed through his body.

When the hole in reality closed, Atem looked at his feet. There glittered another piece of the Millennium Puzzle. He picked it - and a small bag he found beside it - up and looked at it curiously. Then he flipped the irregular chunk of gold into the bag and tied it securely. One down.

He checked his wounded shoulder, but the pain had vanished, leaving only pale, thin silver scars.

The living room behind the Kame Game Shop was quiet; too quiet considering the number of people there. Yugi, still asleep, lay on the couch where Jonouchi and Honda had laid him after his bath. The cool water immersion seemed to have helped a bit - the teenager was no longer so flushed and his sleep was no longer so restless. Anzu sat on a chair beside him, changing the cloth on his forehead while the others - Jonouchi, Honda, Marik and Bakura - stood or sat.

Anzu looked up at the white-haired teen, who sat quietly in a corner, not even restless. He was the reason they had not taken Yugi to the doctor when his fever had reached a 110 degrees.

flashback

"You can't take him to the doctor." Bakura said with unusual firmness. "I don't know why his body is reacting like this, but if he has been separated from his yami, then we can't let him out of our sight. I know what that's like - something that none of you except maybe Marik can understand - and Yugi is much closer to Atem than I was to Yami Bakura."

end flashback.

The bath had been Jonouchi's idea, a way to take Yugi's temperature down quickly, but not so quickly that he would go into shock.

"How long is it before Grandpa gets back?" Anzu asked aloud to no one in particular.

"Should be a few more days." Jonouchi answered, fiddling with his Magic and Wizards deck and shaking his wild dark blond hair from his dark eyes. "Hopefully Yugi-kun will be better by then." Outside the shop, thunder crashed as a summer storm whipped up the coast. "Oi, Marik-kun. How about a game?"

"Iie, Jonouchi-kun." the tanned Egyptian teenager shook his blond head. "I don't have my deck with me." He gazed over at Yugi and Anzu with concern in his lavender eyes.

"We need something to take the tension out." Honda decided, turning on the TV. A news program appeared on the screen - before the dark-haired boy could change it, Bakura reached out and grasped his hand.

"Look at that." the quiet teen admonished.

"…mysterious black dome that has appeared over the central Tokyo area, obscuring everything underneath from any scrutiny." the news announcer proclaimed in a tense voice. The picture cut from his face to a wide shot of Tokyo, obviously taken from a helicopter. "No one knows the cause of the phenomenon: neither scientific not government sources have any comment…" Everyone in the room was staring at the dome. They knew what it was - they had been in such a dome more than once during the Battle City tournament.

Jonouchi stared at the swirling purplish-black vapours of the Shadow Realm and shivered. He remembered the horrors that Yami Marik had unleashed during the Battle City finals. He glanced over at Yugi, and was shocked to find his wide violet eyes open, and glittering almost like amethysts.

"Jou-kun." he said weakly. Anzu gasped, turning away from the television in time to see the teenager struggling to sit up. She tried to stop him, but Yugi managed nonetheless. "Anzu-chan, please. I have to…what's happening?"

"Oi, Yugi-kun, Anzu's right. You shouldn't sit up." Honda walked over to the couch. "You've been very sick for the last couple days."

"Let him up." Jonouchi pulled Honda back out of the way and helped Yugi to sit up, despite Anzu's continuing protests. "Yugi-kun. How are you feeling?"

"I…" Suddenly he broke down into tears again. "I can't do this!" he wailed. "I can't…I need…" Anzu gathered him into her arms and held him as he wept.

"Can't do what? Yugi-kun, snap out of it." Jonouchi admonished. "Do you really think that Atem-kun would want you to be wailing like a little baby instead of taking up a challenge? Is that any way for the King of Games to act?"

"Atem-koi is the King of Games, not me." Yugi sniffed, but he looked at little more alert. Anzu and Jonouchi looked at each other. They had known Yugi the longest; this didn't sound like him. The self-confidence he had gained in the last couple years seemed to have vanished like snow in spring.

"Did you find Atem-koi?" Yugi asked then.

"Iie, Yugi-kun." Honda shook his head in honest regret. "Kaiba said to tell you that he looked all over Domino City, but there is no trace of him."

"We have found him." Marik contradicted. Everyone looked at the Egyptian. "Who else could be the cause of that?" he pointed to the screen, where the news was still airing shots of the dome. "That much Shadow Magic - only the Pharaoh could be the cause."

Yugi seemed to notice the TV screen for the first time. He stared at the dome as though seeing a lost paradise and nodded.

"Hai, Marik-kun is right. I think that he's there - though I could be wrong."

"Which means we have to go to Tokyo." Honda said firmly.

"But not right now." Anzu looked at the rest of the teenagers firmly. "We'll figure out how to get there tomorrow. Meanwhile, we should all of us get some rest." With that, she helped Yugi to his feet. "Can you walk?" she asked him.

"Hai."

"I'll help you get up the stairs, ne?" Jonouchi got up as well - together they got Yugi up to his bed. The other boy left, but Anzu lingered behind as Yugi settled in his bed, carefully not looking at the second empty bed in the room.

"Do you need anything?" Anzu asked.

The look Yugi turned on her was still full of despair, though he had stopped crying. "I…don't want to be alone, Anzu-chan."

She walked over to the bed and sat down. "You won't be alone, Yugi-chan. You're never alone. You have us."

"Hai, I know. But…" Yugi shuddered. "I can't feel you anymore. It's like a part of my heart died."

"Yugi…" Anzu fought an urge to hug him. "I don't know what to do."

She gasped as he hurled himself into her arms. "Hold me." he whispered brokenly into her ear. "Anzu, I need…someone to hold onto me. I'm slipping away, I can feel it. Please…" She wrapped him tight in her embrace.

"It's okay, Yugi-chan." she whispered back. "I'm right here. I'll never leave you…"

When Anzu didn't come down the stairs after him, Jonouchi had a few ideas about what might be happening up there. Honda did too, but when he suggested that they might want to check it out, the blond teen shook his head.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Honda-kun. Remember, Anzu-chan's the oldest friend Yugi-kun has - even before we became his friends, if you remember. I think it might be better to leave them alone. Oi, it's getting late. You and Marik might want to head home before your families start to worry."

"Alright. Anzu's right - well need our rest, but I'll be back tomorrow morning bright and early. You gonna stay here?"

"Hai, just in case something happens during the night. I don't want to leave Yugi unprotected - he's tough, but right now I don't think he'd be able to take care of himself."

"Aa. Good idea." Slapping Jonouchi lightly on the back, Honda stepped back into the living room. Taking one last look over his shoulder back up the stairs, Jonouchi followed.

"…think I'll stay as well." Bakura was saying as he entered the room. "Its not like I have anyone to go home to."

"Sounds good, Bakura-kun." Joey smiled at the white-haired teen. "I don't suppose you brought your duelling deck?"

Dawn had barely broken when Yugi woke, wrapped in warmth and comfort. For a wild moment he thought that Atem was back, but them memory returned.

Anzu slept on; she must have been exhausted after taking care of him for the last couple days. She'd fallen asleep fully dressed.

He felt weak, but the burning sensation had died down -his fever must have broken. The emptiness remained in his heart, but the words Jonouchi had spoken last night returned some of his fleeting confidence. He wouldn't get his yami back by sitting around crying. He had to do something - even if it meant walking into the Shadow-Realm and getting Atem out.

Slipping out of Anzu's embrace, he padded across the carpet of his room to his work table. He closed his eyes and concentrated.

Atem had been teaching him magic in the last few months - something that Yugi was only slowly getting a handle on. But the protection spell he'd picked up easily, which was a good thing, considering what he had to protect.

He held his hands out, forming a box with his fingers. Slowly he opened the fingers, one by one. He felt the magical energies of the spell dissipating, and when they were gone he opened his eyes again.

Before him, under the desk, lay a large chest. He pulled it out and opened the complex puzzle lock easily. Inside lay five of the seven Millennium Items - Eye, Rod, Ring, Tauk and Scales.

He would need all the help he could get.

Okay, that's it for this chapter! Please R&R!